By Meg De Jong
Saturday shoppers at the V&A Waterfront were gob-smacked when about 150 people arrived at the area near the amphitheatre and staged a lively mass pillow-fight.
At precisely 12.07pm on Saturday the area was invaded by a horde of pillow-wielding young people who spent about a minute energetically beating each other about the head and face before collapsing briefly, then scattering.
The incident, organised by Brandon Matley, 20, and Andrew Kerr, 20, was described by Matley as a flash mob event following a global trend of similar occurrences. During these events a group convenes in a public space, briefly does something unexpected or random then swiftly disappears.
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Flash mobs were first seen in New York in 2003 when Harper's magazine senior editor Bill Wasik created the first event of its kind as a social experiment to highlight people's need to conform and be a part of the "next big thing".
Since then, similar events have been reported as far afield as Budapest and Melbourne.
Many of these events are done as a form of social commentary or performance art, but Matley and Kerr said that was not their aim. "I don't want to achieve anything more than random chaos," said Matley.
Kerr agreed. "The point of a flash mob is to confuse people and then leave."
Matley said the organisation of Saturday's event was facilitated through the web-based social networking community, Facebook. Matley formed the group less than a month ago and said it was already 820 members strong.
"It's a worldwide phenomenon that I've always been interested in, but never had a medium to do it until Facebook," said Matley.
- This article was originally published on page 4 of Cape Argus on March 04, 2007
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