I May Be Silly, But I Ain't Stupid

[captainsblog]

There's one surefire way to pinpoint the death of a sweeping-the-nation sensation: when it arrives in Buffalo, New York, it's already five minutes ago. Or more.

In the past three months, we've had two occasions here of internet-organized flash mobs.  Both were silly in concept, low in attendance and barely registering in reaction. Also, to prove our haute culture cred, both were scheduled for the food courts of local shopping malls.

The first took place in December. You can read a preserved copy of the local fishwrap's account of it here. It involved a handful of participants surrounding an animatronic bear. I swear I am not making this up.

Or this: the second "go" at this statement-making was scheduled to take place on February 29th- Leap Day, knowwhatImeanwinkwinknudgenudge- when the coterie of geeks set out the following plan for the Galleria Mall:

At 6:36 p.m., a man wearing a fedora and reading The New York Times was to start leading the group on a brief walk through the mall.

At a certain point, the man in the fedora was supposed to get into a leapfrog position. That was the signal for the entire group to leap frog each other — it was Leap Day, after all.

Alas, the terrorists did not win. Mall management had been tipped to the event, and twenty alert rent-a-cops seized the leapfroggers and wrestled them to the ground.

The mall stepped in and stopped the prank because it would have been a disruption, said Jim Soos, the Galleria’s general manager.

Now THAT's the difference between silly and stupid. Especially when you consider that this chain of malls has a long history in the northeast for oppressive policies- banning buses from inner-city neighborhoods from dropping off on mall property, arresting a shopper for wearing a "Give Peace a Chance" t-shirt, and buying its way into Not In My Back Yard neighborhoods by, essentially, buying the elected representatives of the back yards.

So busting a bunch of geeks in front of the Auntie Anne pretzel shack is, really, a good day for these guys.

If I were ever to contemplate such an act, incidentally, (1) I wouldn't place it within a mile of a shopping mall, (2) I would studiously avoid any tacky connection to things like Leap Day, Pi Day or the like, and (3) it would definitely involve the carrying, if not the actual throwing, of cream pies.

Comments

[headbanger118.livejournal.com]

Heh...

BTW, have you seen the video of the 200 hundred or so people that went to Grand Central Station, walked about, and then at an appointed time simply froze in place for about five minutes? THAT was a cool stunt.