Back in February, I wrote a couple of posts comparing the potential effects of social networking technologies. One referred to a talk by Clay Shirky which was positively ebullient about the potential of networking tools that can “aggregtate non-financial motivations … get people together outside of managerial culture and for reasons other than the profit motive” – how, in other words, they can produce coherence and order.
The other quoted a New Yorker article by George Packer which criticised the role of the blogosphere, both left and right, in framing perceptions of Iraq, which (I argued) illustrated the opposite – in other words, how participatory media can produce incoherence: chaos, disorder, cacophony, where the very idea of anyobjective truth is lost amidst the blizzard of commentary, opinion and white noise.
Against that backdrop, consider another phenomenon made possible by new networking technologies: flash mobs. By and large, flash mobs are fun, light-hearted and harmless, as when there was a pillow fight in London’s Trafalgar Square a year or two back.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ST2c2nuJP4]
But if that’s an example of the ‘Shirky side’ of flash mobs, note the news this morning of how they can have a ‘Packer side’ too. As of midnight last night, drinking was banned on London’s Underground system – so in advance of the ban, three Facebook groups organised a final cocktail party on the tube. Fun, light-hearted and spontaneous, right? Not entirely, as this report makes clear:
A night that started in a celebratory mood soon turned sour as thousands of revellers poured into London’s Tube stations. Four train drivers and three other London Underground staff were assaulted, one police vehicle was damaged and two officers assaulted and another injured. A spokesman for British Transport Police said 17 people were arrested for offences such as assault, drunk and disorderly, assault on police, public order-related offences and drug offences.
The Tube stations closed by police were Liverpool Street [see YouTube below], Euston, Euston Square, Aldgate, Gloucester Road and Baker Street. Eyewitnesses said there were nightmarish scenes on trains and in stations as thousands of drunken partygoers began fighting and vomiting as the night drew to a conclusion … The spokesman said there was a “large amount” of disorder reported to police and “multiple instances” of trains being damaged leading to them being withdrawn from service.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX_f8L-pgvA]
Here’s betting that won’t be the last time we hear about the dark side of flash mobs…