The little phenomenon of 'Flash Mobbing' has now struck the iPod community. I first heard about this idea a couple of years ago when roughly 100 people gathered in downtown Peoria one night at some random street corner, yelled something like "Blue Raccoon" at 7:36, and then all went their separate ways. My initial impression was, "That's awesome." Kind of like when I saw Fight Club for the first time. For a large part of my life, I have held the position that if someone does something that I have not yet thought of, it's genius. The idea of being clever...it was everything. What's better than being more clever than everyone? But, now I'm tired of being so amused by cleverness. The 'Blue Racoon' mob did nothing. But, they all went home thinking they were clever, a part of something maybe, a rebellion against the system, who knows. But, whatever they went home thinking, they were wrong. They did nothing. The iPod article above refers to a group of people who advertised a flash mob online, and ended up with a couple hundred of people in a subway station who started dancing (silently) to their iPods (with headphones) all at the same time. Why do I still think this is clever? What is this thing deceiving me into wanting me to waste my time thinking of ways to be clever? Why can't we be clever AND useful?