Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
First off, if you do not know what a flashmob is…
Wikipedia defines it as a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via social media or viral emails. (link)
That being said, the first one I ever watched was exhibited inside the library at UVA. UNC did one during finals week as well inside the undergraduate library. The flashmobs can be all sorts of things. The UVA and UNC gigs (videos below) were flashmob raves. Basically they get hundreds to thousands of people to meet at a certain place and dance to loud music for a short period, then turn it off and leave quickly as if nothing happened. Other flashmobs have the participants freeze in place all at once for a set period of time and then unfreeze all at once. Non-participants walk around wondering what the hell is going on. Needless to say they are pretty cool to watch.
Flashmobs seem to be coordinated and orderly (as much as possible), however there are certain considerations for our line of work. I see the risk of too many people standing, jumping, or dancing in certain buildings all at once. Buildings which are rated for certain occupancies could see catastrophic failure if inundated with hundreds or thousands of people at once. Also, as seen in a couple of the videos, crowds running through the streets could pose an issue while responding. And of course there is the issue of people getting injured or trampled. I am sure there are other considerations that I haven’t thought of as well. Hopefully, organizers will take these into consideration.
The reason for this post is because today I was checking out some websites and watched a flashmob of a tribute to Michael Jackson. I thought they were pretty neat to watch. I have attached some of the videos below. For others, check out Flash Mob Videos or this link of 24 flashmob videos. Many of the videos are a part of Improv Everywhere, check out their site.
On July 8th, a flashmob was created twice in Stockholm as a tribute to Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson Flashmob Tribute in Stockholm – Watch more Funny Videos
UVA Flashmob Rave
UNC Flashmob Rave
And one more for good measure…a flashmob in a highschool
