Mob Projects

Michelle Delio writes in wired.com about something new on the internet: Mob Projects, where a group of people agree by e-mail to suddenly turn up together to play a practical joke. Recently, 200 people went to Macy’s department store in Manhattan to buy a “Love Rug” for their “commune,” and gangs of drunken Santas have been seen in San Francisco around Christmas time.

Mob Projects are as exclusive as a fashionable club?you can’t just join, you have to be invited. “Everyone loves a mindless mob!” said Merilyn Synder. “I was so stoked when I got my invitation?no action, no protest, no needing to review my political stance on a particular issue. Just be there or be square.”

Secrecy is too tight for plans to be revealed over the internet. For the Macy’s “Mob Scene,” people were told to wait in a particular place in one of four bars at 7 p.m. Then mob representatives appeared and passed out slips of paper telling where the mob was to go and what they were supposed to do once they got there. “We were told to say we all lived together in a big old warehouse in the suburbs,” says Jenni Valton. “We all explained to the salesman that we were looking for a love rug to play on, and that we only make purchases as a group.”

The Mob Project was started by someone known only as “Bill,” who says he works in the “culture industry.” People in cities all over the U.S. are planning to start their own Mob Projects. Bill says, “I hope they do it. One of them asked if they could ‘steal’ the idea, but it’s not stealing at all. It’s hardly even an idea at all: a mob, for no reason. That’s it.”

Valton says, “I’ve always wanted to be able to say ‘I’m a member of the mob’ and now I can. In this city, where people seem to need a logical reason for doing anything, it’s great to just have some stupid fun.”

If you want to really have some wild fun, listen to Hypnotica. This CD will take you to incredible places!

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