Monday, August 08, 2011

Flash Gordon: Just say "No"!

Apparantly, since I have not been paying attention to the states they have been experiencing new problems - a new cultural development, to be honest, since I don't see it going away - that has festered over into Canada this past week. Flash thefts have been documented in the States since early March, but the phenemenon of Flash mobs has been around since early facebook years.

A flash mob consists of a group of people that all travel to one location and do... something. Some examples include; wearing pyjamas and laying down for a little nap, doing a choreographed dance routine, or stealing hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise. The trend is remeniscent of "wilding", or "swarming", where a group would surround a hapless victim and strip them of possessions, but this trend is likely to be extinguished. The hassle of organizing friends into some semblance of event is obnoxious and tends to dry out any further activities with the ultimate cock-block: sober second thought.

The motivation behind this new activity is several-fold. First, the teamwork and group feeling that comes from breaking rules together is so compelling that people have formed whole sports around it (see: Rugby) this, combined with the modest positive reinforcement garnered from the reward, the loot, and the mild adrenaline rush, create an activaty that is certain to be plagueing us for many more years.

Unfortunately, as the poopulation rises the number that reflects even the smallest proportion of society will rise, and obscure desires that we would not consider 'mainstream' or acceptable, will rise accordingly. Not to say this desire is unusual, the urge seems almost primal - like hunting packs of old tribes, but we must begin to accomadate for such, whatever they are.  

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of the column but I'd like more insight into it: You've got to have more to say about this!
Plus, you lost me somewhere between which one is "likely to be extinguished" and which one is "certain to be plaguing us for many more years."
Definitely agree with your take on more people means more people with off-the-wall ideas, but I think this has only become an issue in society because of internet. Without the internet, it doesn't matter how many people there are in the world or how many of them share your weird infatuation because chances are you're not going to run into them in your day-to-day life thus ensuring that you continue to believe that your infatuation is an unhealthy aberration. Because it probably is.
lol, mapa