FLASHMOB MAKES IT TO DICTIONARY!
Looking to make a point? Do it flashmob-style seems to be the new-age mantra. For impromptu street acts, people suddenly breaking out into a song or jig, and spontaneous huge group demonstrations are fast catching on as the new craze! Not just this, the ‘flashmob’ gets official now, as it has become part of the Oxford dictionary! It finds its way there along with ‘tweet’, ‘geekery’ and 1,200 new or revised words. Considered ‘cool’, this is the new-age way to say what you feel, along with a lot of people. So what’s the whole brouhaha really about?
WHAT IT IS
Flashmob is a large group of people organised by means of the internet, or mobile phones or other wireless devices, who assemble in public to perform a prearranged action together and then quickly disperse. Advantages? The biggest platform (it’s out in the open), free publicity, and supported by freedom of action (you can yell as loud as you like on the roads)! While it’s still finding its feet back home, the flashmob is extremely popular abroad. This February, 200 people in New York City staged a flashmob at Times Square to protest gun violence. Movies have shown the trend too.
FLASH PROPOSALS
Apart from campus and street-style flashmobs for social causes, there’s another reason to have a flashmob — that is to ask someone to say, ‘I do’, creatively! Flash proposals with Bruno Mars’ Marry You and Jay Sean’s I’m All Yours add to the over-the-top displays of affection to tell your better half what you feel. Of course, this one can cost a bundle with choreograpghers, DJs, flowers, costumes and more. The guy usually stages the whole affair, brings along his gal to the place where it’s to happen and as the flashmob takes off, he proposes. In such a flashmob in Boston last year, a man even arranged to do it in a military style, where hundreds of people approached the lady after work. They just surrounded her and suddenly the guy slipped off, got into his tuxe, grabbed a mike and asked for her hand in marriage. She loved it!
MUMBAI’S FLASHMOBS
In 2011, Shonan Kothari, a 23-year-old girl, started dancing in the middle of the bustling Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station to the title track of Rang De Basanti. Soon, she was joined by 200 others. Videos of the performance went crazy on social networking sites and introduced folks to the flashmob phenomenon. And in March 2012, Mumbai 143, said to be India’s biggest flashmob, got over 1,200 people foot-tapping to the spirit of Mumbai at the Gateway of India. Then, this June, over 400 children participated in a flashmob in Delhi to create awareness about malnutrition. Sometimes, having a ‘herd mentality’ is a good thing.
ismat.tahseen@timesgroup.com
Flashmob at Chhatrap ati Shivaji Terminus
Going Gangnam-style in Russia
A ‘Zombie Flashmob’ in central London
Flashmob meditation session in Trafalgar Square, London
People take part in a flashmob pillow fight in Shanghai, to release pressure and have fun
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