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MNSpeak: Talk

The Short Life of Flash Mob

Flash Mobs were our Woodstock, or our Pet Rock, or our Vietnam, or whatevva. If you remember back a couple summers ago, Minneapolis jumped on the bandwagon early by holding Flash Mobs in places like Calhoun Square and The Mall of America. (Self-indulgent transparency note: I was one of the organizers.) In an interview in Stay Free, the inventor of Flash Mobs says that Minneapolis was the first place to take Flash Mobs to a new level: "The sensibility of the participants seemed very much to be: we're here to show all you people here in the Mall of America that we're thinking on a different plane. So it was much less of a cynical in-joke on scenesterism and much more of a genuine self-expression." Actually, it was completely an in-joke on scenesterism, but that's okay.

2 Reader Comments

tom (not verified)10:53pm
May 20

You have to not be cool to be that cool, only so long as you don't care either way.

Rex (not verified)05:31pm
May 22

Meant to include this link earlier, to the some pics from the MOA Flash mob.

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