We didn't know about them until a week ago, but it seems like smart mobs could be related to just about anything we do where technology is used to communicate. When I want to play frisbee I text five or six people and tell them to text some other people. If everything goes right an hour later 10 to 15 people come out to play frisbee. This doesn't make me a leader and the first people i text aren't leaders either, but still we ended up getting enough people to come play a full sized game (maybe even an over sized game). We didn't need a leader to be organized just a few people who took initiative. This is basically what we talked about in class today. One of the students (I don't know who because i didn't turn around to look at him) said leaders are naturally put in place (his term for it was "implied leader") and his example was if there was a fire and he were the first person out of the room everyone following him would consider him the "implied leader". I thought this was a very interesting point relating to smart mobs and group mentality in general and led me to think of some unnerving consequences. I think people who are in a group want a leader. They want some one who will tell them what needs to be done and when to do it, some one who can organize and that people can rally around. With a smart mob, the group forms in a quasi-spontaneous way that causes it to be born without leaders, but in a group with a common cause i believe a leader will usually come forth and take responsibility. This scared me a little and maybe you can already see why. It seems that it would be easy to take all of the energy behind such a group of people and turn it in a different direction. If people are eager to accept a leader in a situation with little organization, what is to stop a corrupt individual from manipulating all of these people into following his or her agenda? I came up with a hypothetical, bear with me here, based on the Battle for Seattle situation. What if say after this "whack-a-mole" protest had been going on for a while and someone sent out a text to 2 or 3 hundred people saying "Police are beating protestors!!! RIOT!!!"??? maybe it would work and maybe it wouldn't but with an unorganized mob who really knows? If anyone knows of an example of a smart mob getting out of control or just a personal story that relates leave a comment for me. :]
Dance + Mountain = Fail? Clip from the film "Hot Rod" the dance is good on it's own but the pay off is the last thirty seconds. There is a really funny part where they start a riot which would be a little more relevant but I couldn't find it :P
Much of my post this week has to do with "smart" mobs known as flash mobs getting out of hand. Check it out at
ReplyDeletehttp://thenitisyoung.blogspot.com/2010/09/flash-mob.html
I definitely think these mobs can be used for good, or neutral (see Flash Freeze) but large groups of people can have the tendency to do bad things. Ya just never know.
You should check out Marlee's blog - it has a link to New Yorkers riding on the subway without pants haha
ReplyDeleteAlso, Toms, a shoe company, holds an event called One Day Without Shoes to show the importance of shoes in a child's life (read the site to get the full story).
http://www.onedaywithoutshoes.com/splash.php
I agree, the fact that anyone could just step up and attempt to turn the direction of a mob like that is kind of scary. And the part about implied leader I agree with as well. I'm in a fairly small major, and I know most of the people in it. When we do group projects, whether we choose our own groups or are assigned to them, there are certain people in my major whom everyone knows are natural leaders, and we naturally look to those people (if they are in our groups) to be our group leaders.
ReplyDeleteI think it's very interesting that you pointed out the corruption capabilities of a smart mob. It seems that people are always willing to do more drastic things when in a group. Somewhat of the "they can't catch all of us" mentality. I have a feeling it'd be very easy to take over a smart mob or turn them in the wrong direction.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything said here, and in the comments. I can think of many times I have texted people to come over, and then they text other people, and before you know it there is an unorganized group of people together. I also agree with Pieter, when he says that people are more willing to do drastic things when in a group. Most people would not do something unconvential by themselves, but when in a group it is a different story.
ReplyDeleteLike you said, smart mobs really don't have leaders, but they do have instigators who get the mob started. I don't know of any smart mobs that have been hijacked, probably because the people who are a part of one don't blindly follow what the text messages they get tell them to do. The people in a smart mob are united by a common cause, and already have their opinions. The same technology that makes it possible to form smart mobs also allows false ideas to be corrected quickly.
ReplyDeleteI understand your frisbee analogy. Just because someone throughs out an idea does not necessarily meet that they are the leader. I think that as a whole, people are looking for a leader. Someone to define a direction, a purpose. With that said, I think that the idea that smart mobs are self-formed is a hard concept for many to grasp, myself included. As with anything, this concept of smart mobs can be used to accomplish good as well as the bad depending on the leader.
ReplyDeleteSmarts mobs can be incredibly unpredictable and unstable. Its members follow 'orders' from a seemingly unknown source, even though the source is from within. Once a smart mob is formed, information passes unfiltered throughout, and anything can happen.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kyle. These smart mobs do seem incredibly unpredictable and unstable. After all one of the first examples given of smart mob was of a government overthrow that was spawned by a series of text messages sent throughout the country. If my memory serves me well it seems as though there was no real plan for how the people would re-organize after overthrowing the government, they simply showed up and the government was overthrown leaving the country with a mob and no sense of order. Since the message is spread by a collective of people there is no distinct leader to support.
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