Thursday, September 24th 2009

By Grace Evans

On Monday, September 22, 2009, over 2300 rallies were staged in over 88 different countries worldwide as a part of the global wake-up call to climate change. Organizers in Hamilton decided to stage their protest in the form of a flashmob. These are events wherein participants descend upon a public space to spontaneously perform an action for a brief period of time, before quickly dispersing into the crowd. Participants are notified about upcoming flashmobs by e-mail, social networking sites, text messages and word-of-mouth. Often organizers will keep the location hidden even from participants until the day of the event to ensure that passer-bys are taken by surprise.

The first recorded flashmob happened in 2003 in New York City. However, flashmobs have only recently gained intense popularity thanks to some extremely publicised events. Last winter, for example, T-mobile filmed a flashmob in Liverpool Street Station as a part of their Life’s for Sharing advertising campaign. Over 350 people spontaneously broke out into a choreographed dance in the middle of the station, with cameras rolling to catch spectator’s reactions. The result was a fantastic commercial, which I have watched more than I’d like to admit on YouTube.

Earlier this month, the biggest recorded flashmob to date occurred in Chicago. Leave it to Oprah Winfrey to inspire such an impressive event. With the help of the Black Eyed Peas, the massive crowd slowly broke out into a dance during a performance of “I Gotta Feeling” on the premiere of Oprah’s 24th season. One girl began a solo dance at the start of the song, and gradually more and more people joined in until all 21,000 people were performing an impressively choreographed dance. Oprah was dancing along too, her dancing however, was not quite as impressive. With the help of Oprah’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, and 20 professional dancers, producers were able to rally up 800 fans to teach the dance to before the actual performance. Those 800 people then dispersed themselves throughout the crowd to teach the remaining 20,000 the dance just before the taping. The performance was truly remarkable, and an exceptional example of how thousands of strangers can collectively produce something beautiful.

Flashmobs are not limited to dancing in public spaces however. Some well-known flashmobs have included massive public pillow fights and no-pants subway rides. It’s no surprise that what once started as a form of performance art, has quickly become a form of protest. The degree of collective action that is required to form a flashmob easily lends itself to political causes, which is why Lisbie Rae, the co-ordinator of Hamilton’s contribution to the global wake-up call to climate change decided to stage her rally in this way. She stated: “Personally, I think Flashmobs are a perfect method of raising society’s awareness of an issue because they happen in very public spaces, suddenly and surprisingly, so they attract lots of attention, and they’re over almost as soon as they begin, leaving people wondering what the heck happened.  The key for me is that they give the impression that individuals spontaneously come together, make their point and disappear”.

Participants were all asked to set the alarms on their phones to 12:18 P.M, to signify December 18th, the date of COP 15 – the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. When the alarms went off, participants walked to the staircase in front of Jackson Square and assembled on the stairs while moving their arms clockwise, and making a ticking noise to symbolize how time is running out. Participants then phoned local politicians and left messages for them. Rae continues: “Too often people are cynical about politicians and the political process.  When something as important and as potentially catastrophic as climate change is not receiving the attention needed, then it’s time for us to give our politicians a ‘wake up call.’ We want them to make plans now so that by December 18 (12:18) when the climate change meeting wraps up in Copenhagen, we will have a FABulous agreement – Fair, Ambitious and Binding.”

The coordinators of the global wake-up call to climate change used the website www.avaaz.org to co-ordinate the rallies; I would advise checking it out to find out about a host of other events aimed at raising awareness about many major social, political, and environmental issues. On that note, I would also highly recommend watching some flashmobs on YouTube, especially the Oprah one – if only for the sheer entertainment watching Oprah’s facial expressions will provide.