Have you ever seen a flash mob? Color me clueless, but until a day ago I had never heard of the concept.

I was watching a television series called Weeds about a widowed suburban mother up to her eyeballs in illegal activity.

Anyway, near the end of an episode she is sitting in a plaza somewhere in Southern California befuddled by all the crap that has just rained down on her, when all of the sudden the hip sounds of Michael Franti’s song “Say Hey” filled the air. One by one and then a few at a time people start a choreographed dance routine to the music.

Now I once saw a YouTube video of a group performance in Grand Central Station where about 100 people simple froze in their tracks for about a minute that was designed to appear spontaneous but was obviously well orchestrated, however I never knew that there was an actual name for these performances or that they have been going on for years.

Before I go on, have a look at the clip I am referring to from the TV series…

Ok, now that you have seen the clip, you may recall that a guy referred to them as a flash mob.

I had to look this up to see what this was all about. As it turns out this is a growing phenomenon that goes back a few years.

The titled of this blog post is The Flash Mob Pattern Interrupt because that is exactly what these events do. We are so caught up in our daily routine that experiencing something so absurd totally and completely interrupts our pattern even if only for few minutes.

Here are a few more flash mob videos that I have found. Enjoy! And while your watching… watch the faces of some of the people in the crowd.

Here is another good one.