Capitalism eats Flashmobs; Web is Doomed
T-Mobile has a new ad, filmed just a few days ago in Liverpool Street Station, London. Surprise! It’s a version of the uber-popular viral phenomenon: the flashmob. And it’s designed to let you know that T-Mobile is hip enough for you - and that advertisers are here to take over the Internet.
Not only was T-Mobile smart to catch a trend, they have also latched on to the primary way that people share media. Flashmobs in particular are spectacles that are made specifically for the Youtube era. Instead of waiting for a planes to belly-down into the Hudson, regular folks can gather to upset the status quo on their own, then get bunchloads of attention for it. Before Youtube, an event like this would make for a pretty placid one-liner retelling, prone to dribbling off with “well, I guess you just had to be there to see it…” No longer, sad storyteller. The small blip on your ‘things-to-know’ radar can become a rupture by benefit of online videos. Impressing your friends with your pantsless subway danceathon or whatever becomes a lot easier when you can show them exactly the awkward astonishment reaction you faced. Youtube not only made flashmobs popular - Youtube made them possible.
The flashmob’s appeal comes from its power to surprise, by briefly disrupting the normal operation of boring public institutions, like subway stations or libraries. Some flashmobs, like this Japanese one, are just for funsies. In every case, as public art or more overt protest, their appeal comes from the threat they pose to the rote normalcy of everyday life.
But now T-Mobile has gone and made a flashmob into an advertisement. It has taken the anti-stasis art-action-fun and turned it to facilitate its own institution. This is a perfect example of how capitalism co-opts everything spontaneous and installs into a rationalized system, transforming the surprising into the planned and commercialized.
On the other hand, some of our favorite art comes from advertising schemes, and has for several decades. Is it perhaps not such a bad thing for the workaday life to become more fun, embellished with touches of revelry? For work itself to become exciting and full of spectacle?
And by extension, ads like this acknowledge that people want more from their world. They would like more creativity and perhaps even more (relatively safe) suprises. If creative people fit into the world and make the world their own, does this mean that they will become part of a system that will ultimately make people into happy drones who generally accept weirdness and art? Is it bad to be a drone, if you’re happy?
