On this page you will learn how to use a flash mob to draw attention to your cause. This page is part of a series on activist tactics.

A flash mob is an unrehearsed, spontaneous, contagious, and dispersed mass action. Flash mobs first emerged in 2003 as a form of participatory performance art, with groups of people using email, blogs, text messages, and Twitter to arrange to meet and perform some kind of playful activity in a public location. More recently, activists have begun to harness the political potential of flash mobs for organizing spontaneous mass actions on short notice. (The term “flash mob” has also been erroneously used to describe highly-choreographed street dance routines, often used as a tool of corproate guerrilla marketing but do not be fooled).

Whether it’s a mass pillow fight (bring a pillow, hit anyone else carrying a pillow), or a bank shut-down (get in line, ask the teller for your entire account balance in pennies, and be disarmingly polite), the invitation to participate in a flash mob can be very simple and easy to share, but when multiplied by tens or hundreds of people, can lead to robust and powerfully effective actions.

Examples #

Flash mobs have become a powerful tactic for political protest, particularly under repressive conditions. In the midst of a harsh crackdown on protests in Belarus in 2011, for instance, dissidents calling themselves “Revolution through the Social Network” began organizing impromptu demonstrations where protesters would simply gather in public spaces and clap their hands in unison. The result was the bewildering sight of secret police brutally arresting people for the simple act of clapping their hands — a powerful challenge to the legitimacy of an increasingly irrational regime.

In 2013, there was another spike in defiant flash mobs in Belarus: on one occasion, 100 people, responding to internet postings, gathered outside the KGB building to read from the Belarusian constitution; on another 200 people gathered in a central square and simultaneously opened copies of an independent newspaper, which they silently read as they walked forward.

The overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt also involved flash-mob-like tactics, with organizers calling for protesters to gather initially in alleys and other protected spaces for safety before moving into the streets in larger and larger numbers. Blogger Patrick Meier explains the thinking behind this approach:

“Starting small and away from the main protests is a safe way to pool protesters together. It’s also about creating an iterative approach to a ‘strength in numbers’ dynamic. As more people crowd the smaller streets, this gives a sense of momentum and confidence. Starting in alleyways localizes the initiative. People are likely neighbors and join because they see their friend or sister out in the street.”

Another example of effective use of the flash mob tactic is UK Uncut. In October 2010, one week after the British government announced massive cuts to public services, seventy people occupied a Vodaphone store in London to draw attention to the company’s record of unpaid taxes. The idea quickly went viral: Within three days, over thirty Vodaphone stores had been shut down around the country by flash mobs organizing over Twitter using the hashtag #ukuncut (see: TACTIC: Hashtag campaign).

The revolutionary potential for dispersed, coordinated action using flash mob tactics has only begun to be realized. As Micah White wrote in Adbusters:

“Fun, easy to organize, and resistant to both infiltration and preemption because of their friend-to-friend network topology, flash mobs are positioned to be the next popular tactic with revolutionary potential . . . . With flash mobs, activists have the potential to swarm capitalism globally.”

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External resources #

• Flash Mob by Know Your Meme

• Tool: Flash Mob by Global Change Lab, 2014

• Dance Flash Mob Step-by-Step How-To Kit by Backbone Campaign

• BDS Song and/or Dance Flash Mob Step-by-Step How-To Kit by End the Occupation

• Mondo Award Winner, First Runner-Up: Rae Abileah and Colleen Kelly for Flash Mob by Mondoweiss, 2011

Attribution #

This page is an adaptation of an article by Andrew Boyd and Dave Oswald Mitchell, which was published on Beautiful Rising under a Creative Commons licence. Feel free to edit and add content!