![Love Mob Your humble correspondent dances disco-style at the beginning of the Love Mob](http://blog.fagstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/lovemob.jpg)
Your humble correspondent dances disco-style at the beginning of the Love Mob (photo from the Facebook group)
I do like fun. And as long as an event has that as its primary goal, I’m all for it. Even if it’s a tired formula like a choreographed dance or a lip dub.
On Sunday, I played hookey from PodCamp to participate in an event called “Love Mob Montreal“. Not crazy about the name, but maybe that’s just because I’m not in touch with my emotional side. As I mentioned in the previous post, it was an MP3 experiment that made sense to everyone with headphones but no sense to all the bystanders without.
![anthro An anthropology student interviews Laurent Maisonnave, one of the organizers](http://blog.fagstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/anthro.jpg)
An anthropology student interviews Laurent Maisonnave, one of the organizers
The organization was relatively low-key (about as low-key as one can get while still getting more than 100 people to show up), and attracted fairly little mainstream media attention (are they finally getting tired of the flash mob scene?). An article in Le Devoir and a writeup at Midnight Poutine were all I found.
Of course, there was also a bit of an ulterior motive here. The event was organized with Tourism Montreal, who are using it to promote the city and its new Quartier des Spectacles (pictures of the event have been uploaded to the QdS’s Flickr account).
But they didn’t interfere with the spirit of the event by asking us to scream “I love Montreal” or anything silly like that. They simply offered the organizers a studio to record the two MP3s (one English, one French).
![balloons Follow the balloons](http://blog.fagstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/balloons.jpg)
Follow the balloons
The MP3 files were of very good quality, and the crowd was fairly evenly divided between red and white shirts. The live organization wasn’t perfect, though. The crowd was asked to point to “John and Yoko” on the Hyatt Hotel terrace, but the doppelgangers didn’t show up until a few minutes later.
But for its faults, the event was original, and it was fun. I got pushed into dancing disco-style to “Staying Alive”, danced a waltz with a complete stranger, participated in a giant circle of hand-holding (I hope I don’t get swine flu from all that holding hands with strangers), and did other things that would have been embarrassing had everyone else not been doing them as well.
![Red and white shirts Red and white shirts mingle after the event](http://blog.fagstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/love-after.jpg)
Red and white shirts mingle after the event
An experiment worth repeating next year. Though perhaps with some music from this millennium.
Acting like everyone else, like a robot… Not my idea of fun.
Somehow, I find that degrading…
It certainly didn’t feel like acting like a robot.
I’m so sorry I missed you dancing.Nice picture of you, you look like your having fun.
Why do fat people insist on wearing stripes?
That dude you waltzed with, well it was me. Interestingly enoguh my girlfriend who was also in white danced with a girl in red.
I had no idea you were the famous Fagstein though.
I’m not the famous Fagstein. I’m just some guy on the Internet.