Flash Mob Robs hit Dallas, TX
#1
![Default](https://www.miataturbo.net/images/icons/icon1.gif)
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/cri...wfaa?hpt=hp_t2
http://www.the33tv.com/news/kdaf-fla...0,701823.story
I've been watching this trend closely over the last year or so. Big props to the clerk for actually trying to do something about it. This sucks...hope it stays in North Texas but all bets are its coming to Corpus too. To the Texas guys, this is why we carry.
http://www.the33tv.com/news/kdaf-fla...0,701823.story
I've been watching this trend closely over the last year or so. Big props to the clerk for actually trying to do something about it. This sucks...hope it stays in North Texas but all bets are its coming to Corpus too. To the Texas guys, this is why we carry.
#4
Boost Pope
![](/mt2011/images_td/ranks/supporter1.gif)
![](/mt2011/images_td/ranks/smod.png)
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,339
Total Cats: 6,793
![Default](https://www.miataturbo.net/images/icons/icon1.gif)
What I want to know is how the term "flash mob" started getting applied to this sort of violence.
Flash mobs are groups of people who do silly, harmless things such as boarding subway trains naked or all coming to a complete and synchronous halt in mid-step in the middle of Grand Central Terminal.
Flash mobs are groups of people who do silly, harmless things such as boarding subway trains naked or all coming to a complete and synchronous halt in mid-step in the middle of Grand Central Terminal.
#5
I'm a terrible person
![](/mt2011/images_td/ranks/supporter1.gif)
iTrader: (19)
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Arizona
Posts: 7,174
Total Cats: 180
![Default](https://www.miataturbo.net/images/icons/icon1.gif)
I'm not saying ALL black people do this ****. But it would be fair to say so far the majority of these, if not all, are black people.
How do you stop this? I mean really there is nothing you can do besides call the cops.
How do you stop this? I mean really there is nothing you can do besides call the cops.
#8
Boost Pope
![](/mt2011/images_td/ranks/supporter1.gif)
![](/mt2011/images_td/ranks/smod.png)
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,339
Total Cats: 6,793
![Default](https://www.miataturbo.net/images/icons/icon1.gif)
(That commercial was a parody of an actual Flash Mob which took place at the same location, but instead of dancing, everyone simply halted in mid-step and became a statue.)
#11
![Default](https://www.miataturbo.net/images/icons/icon1.gif)
Wait, isn't this already happening?
#16
Boost Pope
![](/mt2011/images_td/ranks/supporter1.gif)
![](/mt2011/images_td/ranks/smod.png)
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,339
Total Cats: 6,793
![Default](https://www.miataturbo.net/images/icons/icon1.gif)
Also Wiki:
Flash mobs began as a form of performance art.
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation.
The first documented use of the term flash mob as it is understood today was in 2003 in a blog entry posted in the aftermath of Wasik's event. The term was inspired by the earlier term smart mob.
A smart mob is a group that, contrary to the usual connotations of a mob, behaves intelligently or efficiently because of its exponentially increasing network links.
One of the first flash mobs was created in Manhattan in May 2003, by Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper's Magazine. (...)
More than 130 people converged upon the ninth floor rug department of the store, gathering around an expensive rug. Anyone approached by a sales assistant was advised to say that the gatherers lived together in a warehouse on the outskirts of New York, that they were shopping for a "love rug", and that they made all their purchase decisions as a group. Subsequently, 200 people flooded the lobby and mezzanine of the Hyatt hotel in synchronized applause for about 15 seconds, and a shoe boutique in SoHo was invaded by participants pretending to be tourists on a bus trip.
Wasik claimed that he created flash mobs as a social experiment designed to poke fun at hipsters and to highlight the cultural atmosphere of conformity and of wanting to be an insider or part of "the next big thing"
More than 130 people converged upon the ninth floor rug department of the store, gathering around an expensive rug. Anyone approached by a sales assistant was advised to say that the gatherers lived together in a warehouse on the outskirts of New York, that they were shopping for a "love rug", and that they made all their purchase decisions as a group. Subsequently, 200 people flooded the lobby and mezzanine of the Hyatt hotel in synchronized applause for about 15 seconds, and a shoe boutique in SoHo was invaded by participants pretending to be tourists on a bus trip.
Wasik claimed that he created flash mobs as a social experiment designed to poke fun at hipsters and to highlight the cultural atmosphere of conformity and of wanting to be an insider or part of "the next big thing"
So again, in the context of its use in the early 21st century in North America and Western Europe, how the hell did this phrase become appropriated to describe violent behavior? This reminds me of the transformation of the word "Hacker" from its original (c. 1960s) connotation of one who is a wizardly programmer to a pejorative term (c. 1980s onward) used to describe those who maliciously destroy or disrupt computing or telecommunications services.