I think the sport of streaking first started in the 1970s. This was the completely harmless yet completely pointless activity of taking all one’s clothes off and running stark naked through a highly televised event such as a cricket match. In fact, one large breasted lady became famous for so doing. I remember the breasts but forget her name.
Sadly, random acts of pointlessness seemed to disappear from life and people equally seemed to lose their sense of fun.
So, it was with considerable glee that I watched the rise of ‘Flash Mobbing’. This was the delightfully pointless activity started via mass mailing via the internet, where very specific instructions would be complied with by several hundred random people who’d never met before. At very precise times they would come together, perform whatever mad instructions had been given, and then disperse as quickly as they had appeared. This brought us the hilarity of hundreds of people all shouting on their mobiles in a sofa shop, or all bowing down to worship dinosaurs. Again, all totally pointless and supremely wonderful.
Flash mobbing mutated into a number of different branches. My favourites included co-ordinated silent public/private dancing. This is where people all wearing personal stereos, walkmans, iPods, or whatever, would all turn up at (for example) a railway station and start dancing to whatever they were listening to via their ear pieces. Hundreds of people dancing different dances and no music to be heard. Priceless.
Probably my all time favourite was the random pillow fighting. Turning up somewhere with a pillow to have a fun tussle with someone you’ve never met before just seems wonderful.
For various reasons, including issues of safety, but more likely the been-there-done-that factor, flash mobbing has disappeared and we are back to being boring. This summer we need something similar to start happening so that we get a new Mexican wave style activity cheering us all up.
When I’ve enthused to friends about flash mobbing and they’ve stared at me blankly and said, “Why? What’s the point?” I have been forced to ask in return what the point of anything is. There doesn’t have to be a point. And that’s the point.
England's England 