Flash Mob Rage

Okay, so maybe that really was a bad hotel.

But that was also FIVE MINUTES I’LL NEVER GET BACK.

“Gah, Lindsay, you’re so cranky today,” I can just imagine you thinking to yourself as you scroll through this post. “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.”

Well, I had that attitude, too, once. Live and let flash mob, I told myself grimly whenever I was tricked into watching a bad one. I have too much on my plate to worry about whether those prisoners stayed true to the spirit of Beyonce’s Single Ladies.

Unfortunately, though, I can’t keep my angst confined to the Internet. Because as the flash mob mentality infiltrates mainstream America, I’m starting to see flash mobs in real life. A lot. That would be great if they were all wearing gold Hammer pants. But mainstream flash mobbers are too busy for costumes or choreography. They simply want to get their flash mob on as quickly and easily as possible. And where’s the fun in that?

I mean, seriously. Do ten people standing frozen in my Kroger for five minutes really constitute a flash mob, or are they simply preventing me from getting to the organic romaine? I’m gonna go with the latter.

This all came to a head at the downtown library a few weeks ago. I was in the library’s courtyard during a puppet festival when I heard a loud throat-clearing from a nearby bench. I looked down and saw two hipsterish twenty-somethings, sitting as if they had been turned to stone mid-conversation. The girl hipster’s eyes darted to me to make sure I was watching, then returned to the frozen boy across from her.

“Oh, I get it,” I said. “A flash mob.” I looked around, but there were no more frozen figures dotting the courtyard. Everyone else was moving about normally.

“Wait,” I said. “There are only two of you? Really? No one else showed up?” The hipster boy’s hands, spread as though he had been about to make a point to his partner, began shaking.

“This isn’t even a mob,” I told them. “It’s just a flash duet. And that’s… lame.” Sweat beads began to appear on the girl’s forehead. Clearly, they were committed to seeing it through, which was sort of impressive. But that meant that I, in my role as flash mob heckler, had to stay committed to my role as well. So I sighed loudly. “Well, this was certainly worth the price of admission,” I said. “Bravo.” And I walked away.

But not really. At the end of my diatribe, I was still standing there, silently staring at a supremely lame flash duet on a library bench. If the truth be known, I hadn’t actually said anything to them.

I’d just thought it. Because that is how I roll.

“Heh,” I said instead. I chuckled weakly and walked away from them, fists clenched. I had been forced, forced to view what was very possibly the worst flash mob of all time. And I wasn’t one bit happy about it.

Flash mob rage. It’s real and it’s ugly.

And so now, I am appealing to you, America. We already have to deal with bad drivers. Rude convenience store cashiers. Parents who let their kids run wild. Double parkers. Loud gum chewers. Sufferers of simple chronic halitosis. Out of shape streakers.

What I’m trying to say is that the market on annoying people is already saturated.

So please. Keep your bad flash mobs to yourselves.

Photo credit: Michael Dolan/Flickr

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