9 May 2010

Flashmobbing Pillow Fight in the middle of a biker rally

| johnboy
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[First filed: May 08, 2010 @ 12:30]

flashmob pillow fight in Garema Place

Turning up to today’s flashmob in Garema Place we were a little surprised to discover a large motorbike rally was taking place.

So were the organisers, standing around with their video cameras we asked when they were kicking off?

“Er… We’ll wait until this other thing has finished”

“No dudes, you can’t change the plan, you’ve gotta go for it!”

They started… and then…

People with pillows streamed out from everywhere and started belting each other with pillows in a good natured way.

As the two minutes of mayhem progressed the Rat Patrol contribution to the project discovered that when you’ve got three people on a tandem tallbike chariot, and one person is taking photos, two are pedaling, two are beating people from above with pillows…

Well it really helps if at least one is steering the damn thing. Still, only superficial damage and a fun time had by all even if flashmobbing is a little bit 2006.

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Woody Mann-Caruso said :

‘you and the pathetic losers you think are your friends because you exchange ones and zeros are stupid’.

You do realise you’re currently taking part in a forum on the internet, right?

I think someone’s just jealous he forgot it was on.

Woody Mann-Caruso10:59 am 11 May 10

Everyone is stupid but me.

Everybody is stupid but Mr Evil and me. Fixed that for you.

But wait! I see what you did there. You equated ‘social retards who hitch their self-esteem to social media trends’ with ‘everybody’! And to think I almost didn’t notice. Why, that would mean I think literally every other person was stupid, when what I very clearly said and meant was ‘you and the pathetic losers you think are your friends because you exchange ones and zeros are stupid’.

Oh won’t you come down from your high tower of sophistication and spare us the arrows of your derision?

Why would I lower myself to your level? I have a much clearer shot from up here anyway – not that I need it, as it’s already like shooting especially fat, stupid and slow fish in a very small barrel.

It just shows the [limited] effectiveness of facebook groups for organising charities/events

Would have been fun if the pillows were all feathered stuffed!

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

things

Oh won’t you come down from your high tower of sophistication and spare us the arrows of your derision?

So what? So what if these people do happen to live up to your wildly critical assumptions
(unlikely)? Why do you have to give a damn? Why can’t these people have some (legal) fun in their own way? If flash mobs, flikr and sci-fi related pets and lowbrow ‘sophistication’ are what makes these people happy there is not a bloody damn thing you can do about it. It is you and only you who carries the burden of your contempt of random strangers based on the pre conceived notions you have formed about people you don’t know from goodness know where. That is pretty sad. Bitter too.

@Woody Mann-Caruso:

Sorry about missing a spelling error. Bigggots tend to have big and mindless opinions so at least you are consistent. Nice going, stay right where you are, don’t go changing.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

Everyone is stupid but me.

Woody Mann-Caruso10:51 am 10 May 10

There were all types of people at the fight.

No, there was one kind of people at the fight: the kind who is so desperate to belong to something, anything, that they’ll gladly go out of their way to behave like a child in a mob of like-minded, desperately lonely infants. The kind who had nothing better to do on the weekend than carry a Pokemon pillow on the bus in a (deeply ironic) Captain America backpack so they could run around outside Impact Comics with ‘tehrealneo1993’ and ‘bella4eva666’ before updating their Facebook profile about their new pillow posse. ‘LOL lookz I haz a trenchcoat. Let’s make a podcast!’

Before the advent of social media these people were shut-ins, and deservedly so. Thanks to technology, though, they’re able to find other shut-ins and convince themselves that they’re not just random, socially isolated losers – they’re a sophisticated and worthwhile culture (where ‘sophistication’ is having an Atari logo on your t-shirt, ‘worthwhile’ is getting comments on your Flickr account and ‘culture’ is having a blog where you post pictures of your cat Mulder *snort*).

As for having nothing better to occupy my mind – yes, it’s a desperately lonely existence having real pillow fights with your wife and kids before heading off to lunch with grown-up friends who can all spell ‘bigot’.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :
Hipster trash. “Let’s use technology to pretend we’re eight years old for the rest of our lives! Look at me, I’m a steampunk! My pillow is papercraft folded from a Creative Commons template! I got the recycled 50s nostalgia fabric on Etsy! Watch me Twitter about it!”

Mr Evil said:
I can’t believe it – but I actually agree with WMC about something!

There were all types of people at the fight. You guys are righteous biggots… let’s all senselessly diss a bunch of people doing something fun just because we are bitter small-minded people who can only attack others to make themselves feel better‚ oh yeah. Pretty lame.

Attack is the best form of lameness, especially if you have nothing better to occupy your mind.

CanberraCreative10:09 pm 09 May 10

NickD said :

Is it normal for a flash mob to be organised and advertised publicly weeks in advance? It all seems a bit lame now…

It’s meant to be organised via small underground groups, therefore causing a true surprise known in advance only to a select few.
This events was actually part of a National Competition where videos of the flashmobs are submitted and the winning video earns $500 for a selected charity. It was widely publicised and the organisers had hopes for a media scrum to be there waiting… it wasn’t. In fact, of the 1300 people who signed up, only 50 or so turned up.

It occurs to me that if all 1300 who signed up had just given $1 to charity, it would hev been better than some dumb flash mob hopeing to win $500 for charity.

Is it normal for a flash mob to be organised and advertised publicly weeks in advance? It all seems a bit lame now…

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

Hipster trash. “Let’s use technology to pretend we’re eight years old for the rest of our lives! Look at me, I’m a steampunk! My pillow is papercraft folded from a Creative Commons template! I got the recycled 50s nostalgia fabric on Etsy! Watch me Twitter about it!”

I can’t believe it – but I actually agree with WMC about something! 🙂

CanberraCreative1:44 pm 09 May 10

Oh damn, video on YouTube doesn’t show anyone getting pepper sprayed or tasered, as has being the case at several US flash-mobs.

A bit late to the game though Canberra flashmobbers, World Pillow Fight Day (which involved several flash-mobs all over the world) was mid 2008.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

Hipster trash. “Let’s use technology to pretend we’re eight years old for the rest of our lives! Look at me, I’m a steampunk! My pillow is papercraft folded from a Creative Commons template! I got the recycled 50s nostalgia fabric on Etsy! Watch me Twitter about it!”

“Look at me I’m a wanker who looks down on people for having fun!”

Kind of sorry I mist it. I was in the Floriade pillowfight – in my cabbie uniform. That was fun. and made the paper.

It was the Blanket run

Hang on, I just realised I knew about both these events, yet didn’t notice that the times and places coincided.

Woody Mann-Caruso2:32 pm 08 May 10

Hipster trash. “Let’s use technology to pretend we’re eight years old for the rest of our lives! Look at me, I’m a steampunk! My pillow is papercraft folded from a Creative Commons template! I got the recycled 50s nostalgia fabric on Etsy! Watch me Twitter about it!”

actually a blanket run Doe fit with the pillows…

It was the Blanket run

Hackett Heckler1:04 pm 08 May 10

Walking around with pillows shoved in their coats….then “pillow fight” ….

smiling, laughing…..whats not to like…Lovely 🙂

Can’t wait to see this on YouTube! Such a bummer I missed it. And what was the biker rally about?

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