Flash Mobs and Bandwagons

If you can’t beat em join em?

We have always joined the bandwagon, but in the age of contagious media the bandwagon is out of control. In the past in any of our endeavors we aimed for slow and steady continual growth. Imagine a graph with a plateau inching upwards as a function of time behind solid strategies aimed at long-term planning and sustainability. The rules have changed in our businesses and our culture. Innovation and adaptability necessities have changed the goal of our graph. Instead of slow and steady, we aim for a series of spikes. The internet calls it a viral culture. Business calls it a game changer.

Both have the same goals. First increase the attention, increase the speed of attention, increase the length of the attention, and finally foster participation. Since the turn of the century what we have learned is that at any given moment lies the ability to become a celebrity, or at least the ability for our ideas to spread. We have become quite educated on the process of building a viral culture because we as individuals are the ones that are responsible for it. So much so that it has become the business model for the 21st century.

We may believe that every split second decision and every thoughtful consideration we make throughout the day has nothing to do with our social surroundings. In psychological terms that would be the Fundamental Attribution Error. Social psychologist Samuel Asch proved that we will agree with a statement that is obviously incorrect if a unanimous section of our peers said the opposite. Later research by Dr. Gregory Berns found an even scarier conclusion to this effect. By monitoring brain scans he concluded that it was an unconscious error.

We are also influenced by our role set. These would be the few very key people in our lives that help us define who we are. From this core group we set our daily expectations, depending on the scenario. You are not going to behave exactly the same way with your mentor as with your children, nor with your wife as with your best friend. We are social and political animals, and our relationships and our environment define us. We are, however, missing one more key component.

When we think about Germany in the late 1930's it is difficult to imagine the permissive attitudes of the atrocities that were taking place. There were many psychological phenomena brewing in Germany in the 1930's, but the most astute observation was one studied in the 1960's by Stanley Milgram. Milgram studied the power and influence that authority has in our lives. Dressed in a white lab coat to presume his authority, he instructed the innocent participant to shock the planned confederate in another room, should a wrong answer be given. Of course no shocks were actually administered, but the results found that, even at extreme high voltage, participants were willing, and possibly eager to carry out the commands of the authority figure du jour.

Is it possible that media has the same authority capabilities in the minds of many? Are we simply a conduit for the viral issues of the day? Milgram knew about authority, but he also knew about the herding instincts of the human species. Milgram would plant a group on a Manhattan street looking up generally at nothing. Using his group of confederates at varying numbers he found that more than 80% looked up after a group of four people were present, and by the time fifteen people stood idly by watching nearly 40% also stopped to watch. These people were part of the “bandwagon effect”.

The viral culture of the internet is an extension of the bandwagon effect. In 2003, out of a mixture of boredom, humor, and social commentary, a young New Yorker decided to explore the human manifestation of the bandwagon effect. Bill Wasik anonymously organized a series of seven events aimed solely at gathering a crowd. The idea was to choose a location and a time to quickly create and disassemble a crowd. It was called the Mob Project, and it spurred the term “flash mob”.

Seven location were targeted in New York City. By the halfway point of the project the idea of a flash mob had caught on in other major cities. It had fulfilled its core intention. The irony of the pure act of virality causing virality was not lost on Wasik. With each of the appointments, the project accrued more absurdity. In one such event 500 participants simultaneously fell to their knees at the Times Square Toys “R” Us store in worship of their giant Tyrannosaurus Rex replica. Wasik was holding a mirror to the new and strange culture formed by virtual connections.

Wasik was an early immigrant to the power of social media. He remained anonymous for years after the event. When he finally unveiled his identity he claimed that by the seventh event the Mob Project had run its course. The same boredom that created the project eventually destroyed it. The short spike in flash mobs faded like the cycle they represented. The flash mobs still exist today in the form of public events, organizations, TV shows, and businesses. They are far from the secret and metaphoric origins that Wasik had envisioned. Now these new flash mob organizations have just joined the bandwagon.