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Dans une nouvelle interview réalisée par Jonah Peretti, Bill, l’initiateur des flash mobs, revient en détail sur le mode d’organisation de l’évènement, les raisons de son premier échec en mai 2003 [1], et les raisons aussi du succès de l’opération pendant les mois qui ont suivi cette première tentative.
Dans la deuxième partie de cette interview, il analyse rétrospectivement la question de son semi-anonymat qui aurait été une des clés de ce succès. Un mélange d’intuition et de circonstances fortuites l’ont amené à ne divulguer que son prénom. Ceci l’identifiait comme un individu banal, ni personnalité singulière, ni force organisationnelle occulte. Le mystère de ce semi-anonymat serait donc assez familier pour ne pas pousser les participants à la défiance, assez excitant aussi, pour les motiver à la participation. Par ailleurs, cette identité serait assez neutre pour que chacun puisse s’approprier l’aventure collective du flash mob. Voilà qui résoud le problème de signature que je soulignais il y a quelques mois dans le forum-info de ce site.
« I felt that if the "Mob Project," rather than being this anonymous Internet thing, became known as "So-and-so’s Mob" — where there’s a controlling presence who’s out in the open — then people would pay too much attention to the man behind the curtain. »
« On the other hand, I think if I had been completely anonymous and hadn’t given any interviews at all, I might have had the problem where people thought, "This is a corporation, right ?" People would have thought it was some sort of immersive marketing thing where eventually, at the end, we would have all shown up to christen a new Applebee’s somewhere. »
« Instead, the mob was made by people who decided to take the project on as their own — people who got an e-mail and said to themselves, "You know what ? Not only might I want to go to this, but I’m going to forward this to ten of my friends, because this Mob thing is something that I want to help grow." In doing that, they were taking the project on as their own project. »
Ce savant dosage d’anonymat et d’identité singulière, résultat de l’évolution de l’individu dans un monde hybride, à la fois virtuel et actuel, interconnecté et localisé, donne donc naissance à un nouvel être, une sorte de mythe de l’homme ordinaire.
C’est ce que relève Jonah Peretti par : « that was fun to do partly because Bill was like a mythic figure. I mean, it wasn’t you... »
Ce mythe de l’homme ordinaire dans lequel peuvent se reconnaître les mobbeurs, serait-il l’élément fédérateur qui donnerait corps à un nouveau sujet collectif ?
Et pour porter quel projet ?
« just for the bare political statement that the people have a right to peaceably assemble when and where they choose, that we shouldn’t be afraid of disrupting the space that we live in, and that we shouldn’t be afraid of disrupting our routines and the routines of others. We shouldn’t be afraid to express ourselves in public, and to express ourselves collectively. These are very simple political principles and they were the inherent politics of flash mobs. And, these principles could be brought to bear on more projects. »
[1] "Bill has become more secretive about Mob Project plans since the first mob event was held in May.
That event drew six police officers and one paddy wagon, after one of the e-mail recipients (now officially known to the mob as "Squealy") alerted authorities to the impending arrival of the mob." (Wired.com, 19 juin 2003)
Tiens ! les flashmobs intéressent encore ?
Chryde (qui illustre son article avec une photo de Spencer Tunick) a repéréun nouvel entretien de « Bill », l’inventeur des flashmobs, paru dans le dernier numéro (24) de Stay Free magazine.
Bill donne encore des détails sur la façon dont il a organisé le premier flashmob en utilisant une adresse e-mail anonyme pour produire un effet de rumeur, et sur le caractère cyniquement consumériste de la chose :
« There was something purposely cynical even about the five-to-ten minute constraint, in that I wanted the thing to be readily consumable. "Oh, I can do that, it’s only ten minutes, it’s right after work, and it’s near a major subway line . . . . " »
Bien que les flashmobs aient connu un succès important dans toutes les grandes villes du monde, Bill tient à souligner le caractère spécifiquement NewYorkais du phénomène :
« but there’s such a big creative group in New York that you can make a living just making fun of the group around you—whether you’re a writer or comedian or artist. In the art world, for example, there are all of these art projects that make fun of the art world. In New York, you can sort of do that. »
L’aspect le plus intéressant de cet entretien réside dans l’analyse de l’évolution du sens que les différents publics ont voulu attribuer aux flashmobs à mesure que le phénomène se répandait. Avec le recul, Bill tente de distinguer les intentions qui étaient les siennes au moment où il organisait les premiers flashmobs et la façon dont il peut assumer les usages et interprétations politiques qui en ont été faites :
« The New York mob was, in a certain way, about anti-expression. It was kind of like, we’re all just going to show up and we’re going to chant and be a big physical presence for no reason other than we think that it’s funny. Whereas in other places it took on almost a "happening" kind of vibe, to express a certain kind of commonality, and to express, say, a certain opposition to corporate space. It was taken up almost entirely in a politically tinged way, even though it was never explicitly political. When it spread to other cities, there always seemed to be a sense of ,"This is a movement." Like, we know this is absurd, but by taking part we’re making a statement about the right of the people to peaceably assemble wherever they want.
As it started to spread and as I saw how people were responding to it, it became clear that it meant something different to them. I might have been the only cynical guy from the beginning ! I sort of became persuaded about the political relevance of the idea. »
« The net made flesh »
« People have been spending a lot of time in virtual communities since the internet took off, and I think people liked the flash mobs because they had an internet component, yet allowed you to see this virtual community made literal and physical. »
« The movement was a creation of the media. »
« The media spread the mob. The media said, "This is the next big thing," and then the New York Times ran the first mob backlash story less than two months after the first mob, which I thought was awesome. I knew that there was going to be a backlash story, but I couldn’t have dreamed it would happen that fast. »
Meme
« I was prepared to purchase suits for the children. But, yeah, the whole meme-making thing is weird. I have friends who basically make memes for a living—for art projects that involve spreading ideas through the internet. But things spread for reasons that are unknown to all of us. »