SF Chronicle Article On The Urban Playground Movement

by Scott Beale on November 10, 2007 · 7 comments

Pillow Fight

Last week I was having a conversation with Justin Berton, a staff writer at the San Francisco Chronicle. We were talking about all of the unique events that take place in San Francisco and I was explaining that what was once considered underground, is now much more accessible due to the internet. This discussion lead to a great, well researched article that Justin wrote for today’s paper about these events:

“Flash mob 2.0: Urban playground movement invites participation”

In the article, Justin makes reference to many of the events that we’ve been involved with promoting, including Flash Mobs, Santacon, Pillow Fight, Zombie Mobs, Mob of Waldos, the recent pie fight and groups like the Cacophony Society and SF0.

photo by Scott Beale

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filed under Events, San Francisco

{ 1 trackback }

rebel:art » Blog Archive » Urban Playground: Flash Mob 2.0
November 11, 2007 at 4:16 am

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 allaina November 10, 2007 at 10:14 am

it actually makes me jealous daily to read this page; i don’t live in SF, or even NYC or toronto, or any of the cities that anything like this takes place. (i’m in cincinnati)

but, it gives me something to look forward to, seeing as i’m planning on moving to one of those three cities eventaully. :P

Reply

2 Ryan November 10, 2007 at 1:24 pm

This stuff is mainstream enough to be the centerpiece of a recent T-Mobile television commercial, showing its products used to organize a spotaneous silly string shootout on the escalators of a business plaza.

Reply

3 Kevin Bracken November 12, 2007 at 12:44 am

Nice! This article came out really well. Hooray for Justin and the Chron!

I am also glad to see the phrase “urban playground movement” getting some usage in print. I think there’s a lot of different stuff we (the global groups) all do, but the movement does have this overarching theme of play.

One more thought, Bill Wasik believed the cycle came full circle when flashmobs were co-opted by corporation. I think it actually came full cycle when he outed himself.

Hopefully the word “flashmob” will fade into oblivion as fast as it came.

Reply

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