“Just like Pier Piper, led rats through the street” – Dave Mustaine
Sunday, October 10, 2010. The day was considered as a historical event by some people as Indonesia’s biggest flashmob was “held” in Sudirman Road, Jakarta. On the bright Sunday morning, approximately at 8 AM, 1,000 people came from out of nowhere to do an impromptu dance routine for four minutes before dispersing. My question is, what’s so good about it?
Days before the eventful day begun, the air was thick as your favorite social media gurus slipped words into our head space: “Flashmob is the shit.”, “The meme of 2010”, “It’s on Oprah, and it can’t be wrong.”, “You are wrong, I am right, I am the visionary for the future so shut the fuck up, listen and obey what I have said.”. And people took the words, the baits that were sprouting from their Blackberrys, iPhones, netbooks, and ten dollar internet phones And like that classic Nike ad, the holy internet messiah jabbed the holy mantra into their heads. “ Do it. Just do it”
So, they did. They came, they danced, they dispersed.
The next thing is, it’s on YouTube. People cheered like Indonesia just won the World Cup. Sheeps starting to compare it to a revolution, like when Suharto stepped down in ’98. And words began spiraling again. “By the way, here’s some words from our sponsor: go buy more Mizone, because without that sour, sweat-tasting third-rate energy drink, this thing will never happen and nothing will ever get done”. The hype was well taken, consumed, swallowed, and overly celebrated to deny our everyday frustration. The well-soaked city, endless gridlocks, thug-controlled country, and more. And when the hype dried and gone as bottles of Mizone sold, what left for us? None. In the end, it is just nothing more than a comforting state of euphoria that came and went within a blink of an eye. Then you realized what it really is: A simple diversion to your problem, a sorry-ass excuse for a celebration, a short-lived hype to sell a few bottle of drinks that you were tricked to participate and support…
Come on, it’s already a week since the event, reality has kicked in, and you know that I am right. Just admit it.
However, back when flashmob was pioneered by Harper’s Magazine Senior Editor Bill Wasik in 2003, it was never meant to be a vehicle to fool self or sell drinks, cars, or whatever. It was meant to piss certain people off and to protest. So, when the hype is still in the air and I bet people are planning new, bigger flashmobs, why don’t we use it for a bigger purpose to solve some of our problems. If they can gather 1,000 to sell drinks, there should be no problem to gather similar numbers of people to taunt FPI mobs every time they are about to wreck havoc on churches and art shows. These lunatics are roaming free spreading hate and terror, and all we are doing now is talking among ourselves. Isn’t it the time to do something else? For you, the people you love, not some company that makes shitty drinks?
So, here’s an idea. Gather 1,000 people. Mob the hardliner nutjobs when they are trying to do anything funny . Do the coordinated swinging movement toward them and put all your feeling inside rotten tomatoes, eggs, and other various objects that you launched from your hands. Watch sweats coming from the threatened foreheads of men belittled to the size of a mice as they are now facing 1,000 angry members of the society finally expressing their true feelings. Then disperse, leave them shaken, shocked, and hopefully scared. Isn’t that a sight or what? Maybe someone can ever sponsor the thing, like a bug spray company, for example. I can imagine the tagline in my head right now: RAID. KILL BUGS. DEAD.
