What are smart mobs?

staff writers for How Stuff Works dot Com. What's up, Chuck, the dynamic duo. That's exactly right, yuch right, that's us, Chuck. I was reading the other day, as I do once in a while, I try to keep the brain going. UM, and I came across a really sad article. It turns out, Um, July one will forever live as a day of infamy. Well, I mean your birthday, July July fifteenth. This is my birthday,

July first, two thousand and eight. Um was ay when two great underground pop culture icons were killed and one fell swoop. Have you ever heard of a guy named Ron English? No, I don't know Ron. Now I think there's a coach out there, college football coach defensive coordinator named Ron English. This is not the one I'm talking about, Okay. This guy, um is this dude who is considered the father of agit pop art. It's like pop art, like think Warhol, but with like a social or political message

behind it. This guy created like EMC supersized with his this gangster parody of Ronald McDonald. I think he did. Did you see the one where he merged Obama's face with um with Abraham Lincoln's beard and had that kind of creepy but cool. So that's Ron English Okay. And he's he's this real Uh, he's underground, he's really um. He kind of hijacks uh the sides of buildings. He's putting these billboards, he's works of art up when he's not supposed to, and he's just kind of creating controversy,

public protests, slash pop art. Yes. Uh, he actually accepted money from the Ray Band company to create a building rap of this work of art, and then Ray Band proceeded to pay a smart mob. A group of people just show up wearing Ray bands and all stare at this building rap for like fifteen minutes on that day.

So in the in one fell swoop RayBan basically killed or at the very least totally co opted ron English and smart mobs, which is is really sad because you know, the first, the first smart mob on record had to be dispersed by the Delta Force at the Battle of Seattle. So I love marketing people. I love them because you know, they're They're definitely not the uh the apocalyptic horse people of the end of an underground trend, ever are there?

And no, and and far be it from them to turn a really cool underground thing into commercial advertisement that they keep it going. So yeah, money, root of all evil and end of all underground culture. But um, that Battle of Seattle I mentioned, you know what I'm talking about, Yeah, the the protest at the World Trade Organization summit and I think ninety nine in Seattle. We should probably tell

people what exactly we're talking about when we mentioned smart mobs. Yeah, it's not something that most people don't know about these Well, basically what it is is just a group of people, uh usually protesters or originally they were protesters who um are also called flash mobs based on their ability to um assemble and disperse really quickly. It's really kind of cool. It's very cool. Um, there's this guy named Alex Stepson,

I think is his name. He edited the User's Guide to the twenty one Century, and he wrote a smart mobs that, Um, basically any city in the world can be shut down by ten thousands warming protesters right block off streets police from taking action. And the reason that these mobs are so successful is because they are all linked using you know, readily available technology, text messages, cell phones,

that kind of thing. So they're getting, um, they're getting directions from like some central mastermind, puppet master you know, somebody his black turtleneck in the dark. Yes, yeah, that guy. Um, and he is aware. He's sending the messages saying like cops are coming, disperse, reassemble, you know at this park, and um, so they're always one step ahead of the cops. Yeah,

and imagine this looks really neat. I mean, I don't think we've ever seen like a big wide shot of a smart mob, but I think it just goes from like what looks like a crowd of people and all of a sudden, instantly they're just they're just been along, like they're just minding their own business. But they've they've lost the the one common thread, and that was that protest.

At that moment, they're no longer protesting. They're just people on the street now and they have nothing in common and as such can't be beaten, you know, with riot shields and batons because wind. But that's that's one of the problems with a quote unquote peaceful protest of the past is everyone is shows up in this one place.

Cops usually even though about it beforehand. There's gonna be a rally there, and they're all just parked there in some like city park or street corner, and you know, the cops can effectively just surround them and do whatever they want tear gas, mace, you name it. Yeah, yeah, they do a lot of that stuff. But with the smart mobs, isn't because they just break up and all of a sudden the cops are like, hey, where what where? Where they go? And then there are two blocks away exactly.

And the way that they're the mastermind Mr Black Turtleneck is keeping tabs on the the the cops is through a method called surveillance. Right, it's the it's the opposite of surveillance it's basically I think it means looking uh, looking above from below, something to that effect. And it's basically the public sector keeping an eye on the government sector or the security sector. UM. It's like UH Rodney

King beating being videotaped, perfect example of surveillance UM. And another example is UH this group called the European Information Society Group. Basically they run around They're just a loose assemblage of people who have camera phones, video phones, and they they like, if there's a state run hospital in Britain or something that is UH that has really unacceptably unsanitary conditions, they'll they'll film this and put it on YouTube.

And it's with this, you know, quick dissemination of of information. All of a sudden, the British government is acting to clean this hospital clean. It's act up depending on what they were just taking a task for. Yeah, it's really kind of cool. A lot of good can come out of these and and there. I don't think they've had a violent flash mob they have. Actually, the guy who came up with this term, his names Howard Ryan Gold,

and he's this futurist he UM. He's one to definitely keep an eye on whatever he's talking about is usually going to come about in the next five fifteen years. So he coined the term smart mob, and he said in an interview later on that he deliberately chose the word mob I think, uh and I quote because of its dark resonances. And there have been instances where where flash mobs have broken out, um for the purpose of violence, like uh, I think the uh what year was that

there was uh the Miss World pageant? Uh? In two thousand two in Nigeria there was I guess a local newspaper wrote an article praising the pageant and it was sent around among the Muslim community and through text messaging, violence basically broke out. Two people died because of it. It's kind of a that's a loose association with with a flashmob. It it can happen, and even if it

hasn't fully happened, you know, uh. The NILA is well sure, anytime you get a bunch of people together in protests, they're probably worked up over something, and even if they have peaceful intentions, cops come around and one thing leads to in another, and you know, before you know, violence

could be breaking out. You know. Ryan Gold actually he went around the world and started noticing these, uh, these smart mobs and flash mobs were already in existence before he coined the term, and he realized that UM, for protests or civil disobedience to be able to survive, UM, it was vital that smart mobs exist, or else it would just be all surveillance, no sue veillance, and we would all just be using cell phones just to call our friends or Mama Mother's Day or that kind of thing.

The way that they were intended to, and out of this kind of inspiration, this hacker mentality of like, Okay, I've got this device, let's see if I can make it do this. Uh. That will keep governments in check essentially for the next for as long as we have this technology readily available, and as long as we're can humor driven capitalistic culture in the West, these this technology you always will be available. It's great. It's not going anywhere.

It's like in our burros, a snake eating its own tail, but in a really cool way. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So do you know about some of the fun smart mobs. Yeah, the funds smart moms. Way, give me an example there, Uh, well, I know in New York. Well, it's it's sort of using the same technology, but they're not in protest of anything. It's just groups of people gathering to do kind of crazy things in front of people. So it's sort of

a performance art, uh, much more than protest. But I know in New York City a group of people went to a toy store, um maybe f Ao Shorts. That's where I would go if I was in New York and they all they all jumped on the floor and started trembling at this big giant They were like dinosaur bowing bowing before it. Yeah it was. And then they disassemble and they're gone, and New Yorkers are probably left standing there or the tourists probably New Yorkers aren't even watching.

Yeah yeah, I left the I Heart New York t shirts just looking around like what was that. So that was a cool one. And uh, I think in London, uh they did one where all these people showed up at a furniture store and started laying around on all the couches and things, which I don't know, that's that's a bit lame if you ask me. It was. It was definitely the one of the lambor ones I've run across. But it was cool that One of my favorites was one that took place in Rome where the people were

instructed to go to this bookstore. UM, and all these people converged on it and we're told to um insist that the people who worked at the bookstore helped them find books that didn't exist, and god knows how much time they wasted doing that, right, and probably didn't sell a single book. I wouldn't think so, because smart mobs are notoriously poor. You know Steve Martin, Actually, technically you could make a case that he started the first smart mobs. Uh.

Do you know about his early stand up? Uh? Actor comedian Steve Martin. Yeah, that's Steve Martin. Yeah, I know about his early stand up. I didn't King Todd and the Air to the Head. Oh this is even earlier than that. I mean, this is like undiscovered Steve Martin. Day's basically, Um, he used to He'd be at like a comedy club or whatever, doing his his bit, and um, all of a sudden he just stopped and be like,

who who wants fries? I'd love some McDonald's. He get everybody down to McDonald's, right, Everyone in the club would follow him down he's doing his bit, you know, the whole time. Then he gets to the counter and he's ordering for everybody, you know, ends up with like in order of like sixty cheeseburgers and like eighty yards of fries, and he keeps changing it, you know, and asking what God what they want, and then finally ends up just buying um an order of small fries and they leaves

everybody back to the club. Yeah. So it sounds like the people that suffer. It sounds like people that suffer from this, or the business owners exactly. And I think that's part of it. It's it's kind of nice to say, like, you know, we we are the consumers, but we also are more powerful than than you'd like to let us believe you are kind of commanding or demanding a little respect, perhaps, yeah, very much. So, well, I miss that Steve Martin. How could you not instead of the one who does the

uh father, I'm with you. Well, as it turns out, Steve Martin is in the same echelon these days as Ron English and smart Mobs. Now they've all maybe you could make a case of sold out. So sad to see all three started out great, but it kind of makes you, makes you wonder what's next. We'll be keeping

an eye out for it. Right, maybe we should go start one up right now, I think we should as well and stick around while Chuck and I are assembling our own smart mob to find out what article on how stuff works dot Com reminds him of his childhood? After this stuff you should know is brought to you by Visa, we all have things to think about, like say, what's the best site to buy a new leather jacket or whether to buy the three or six megapixel camera?

But thankfully we don't need to think about online fraud because for every purchase you make, Visa keeps an eye out for fraud with real time fraud monitoring and by making sure you're not liable for any authorized purchases. How's that for peace of mind? Safe secure Visa? Okay, so Chuck tell us what is it? What? What article on the site reminds you of your childhood? Right? You don't even know this? I don't. Actually this is a surprise

of me too. It's actually an article that was featured today written by freelance writer Ed Grabbynowski who's been with us for a while. Is that how you say Ed's last name. I threw it out there, that's how it spelled. It sounds sounds right, Yeah, I call him the grabster um. How jet packs work? Yeah, and I saw that. Yeah, that takes me right back to my childhood and the G I Joe jet pack that I had. Do you have a jet pack of your own? Well, it was.

It was for the doll the old I'm a little older than you, but the old G I Joe's were tall, twelve man. I came in right after those. I'm I'm a big fan of the shorter what four and a half inches? Yeah, I don't even those don't exist to me. Yeah, So I had the little jet pack. I had the submarine and you can attached the jet pack on the string, and you know it's fun for a five year old. That's great. Well, so Chuck revealed what article reminds me of the childhood, and that he was apparently born in

nineteen sixty two. You can learn all about jet packs and all sorts of other wacky, childhood adventurous stuff on how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, Are you