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to promote civic engagement in the Philadelphia region.Philadelphia hit by major "smart mob" attack
Monday, June 1st, 2009 at 5:57 pm - by Alan Tu. Filed under: Crime.
More than a hundred cellphone-packing vandals swarmed parts of South Philadelphia over the weekend in what can only be described as a major smart mob attack. The term “smart mob” was coined by futurist Howard Rheingold who uses it to describe how a geographically dispersed people can be drawn together at any moment to perform a collective action.
On Saturday in Philadelphia, the purpose was destruction. Police say more than 100 youths swarmed to various locations in South Philadelphia to create havoc. On South Street, the mob carjacked a taxicab and attacked the passenger and the driver. On Broad Street, police say the same mob ransacked an A-Plus mini mart.
The most interesting thing here, is witness told police that the youths were running around all with cell phones. Often times seen listening to the phone or texting. Police are now looking at various social networking sites like Twitter to see if they can track down who was involved.
As for motivation for Saturday night’s vandalism? I wouldn’t spend too much time trying to come up with some deep message. I suspect it was just boredom mixed with the thrill of using texting to deliver some level of chaos and destruction. Boys are always prepared to destroy things, it’s not until they get a little more mature before the thought of creating something begins to occur to them.
If you have a theory on what might have motivate Saturday’s smart mob, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
June 1st, 2009 at 6:38 pm
A crowd of teens all talking or texting on cell phones? I dunno, it all sounds a little bit…. normal.
The term “smart mob” is a lot of fun to throw around, but how is this mob any different from another mob of teens that turns violent? Because they have cell phones. All teenagers have cell phones; all teenagers are using facebook or myspace or twitter; all teenagers are tech savvy.
To frame this as some Internet-driven phenomenon is uninformed and unfair. (Not blaming you guys here, addressing the media coverage of this in general…) Crowds of teenagers are going to act like fools and wreck things some of the time. And they are going to use cell phones to communicate with each other, because that’s how they always communicate with each other.
There was a good article in City Paper two weeks ago talking about the crowds of teens that descend on 40th St by Penn’s campus every weekend. (http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2009/05/21/upenn-campus-40th-and-walnut) The author interviewed some of the teens and found out that–shocker here!–word spreads about the crowds by text and myspace. When something exciting is happening, they let their friends know and more people show up. And so on, until you have a “smart mob.”
Now, the Penn police have come out in force a few times when the crowds get rowdy, but this doesn’t happen every weekend, even though there are lots of teens out there every weekend. Are there coordinated “smart mobs” on some weekends, hiding themselves in the unwitting mass of teens? Or are teenagers just hanging out every weekend, texting each other about what’s going on, and occasionally getting out of hand?
Painting this as something it’s not (evil technology running wild!) only serves to convince people that technology is something with a mind and a purpose all it’s own, rather than a tool to make all the usual purposes (shopping, studying, and yes, hanging out in crowds on the weekend) a little bit easier.
June 1st, 2009 at 9:18 pm
I knew this whole web 2.0 thing would come back to bite us in the butt. So can the forces of good use this to combat the mobs?
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:08 am
Throw their sorry @$$es in jail.
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:53 am
@TLP. I think the real story here is how technology is enabling any group, whether it be criminals or anti-trade activists, to become more sophisticated during an event. I think we’ll see community activists began to use mobile technology in really creative ways. i.e. gps, video, and even night vision to their advantage. But you can also see the future challenges for local law enforcement.
June 7th, 2009 at 6:45 am
Why is it that the media never says that the so-called “tech savvy” youths are BLACK? You know if it had been White youths they would have said a group of White youths. I’m tired of the news not reporting the story’s facts just as they did with OJ. It’s time to stop the reverse Racism in America.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
most of the people today are so selfish…that’s why they are making some ways to put you down secretly…. they are not contented for what they have…tsk…tsk..but sometimes they have valid reasons to do that things…