On 26th June we woke up to the news that Michael Jackson was dead. By 6pm I was standing in a crowd of nearly 2,000 people at Liverpool Street Station. One tweet made that happen. I wrote it for a laugh and the result was what the media have described as “London’s biggest ever flashmob”. Let me start at the beginning.
Jacko is dead. Blimey, this is news. Proper news. News on the scale of Die-Di-day and 9/11. My 4 year old son changes the TV channel, he’s not interested in the looped footage of an ambulance leaving Jackson’s home, but wants CBeebies. Tough. He can watch that upstairs – we want to know what happened to Jacko.
We deposit son at school and go to the local Co-op to buy supplies for lunch, and I as I do every day, walk to the newspaper stand to do a headline check. Nine headlines, one story, and again I’m reminded of Diana, I remember seeing a similar slew of headlines on that day and suddenly I regret not having a camera in 1997, and what an interesting little photo I’d missed. So, using all the power of the 21st century, I get out my phone and snap.
In the local cafe they are playing tributes to Jackson, not his songs but My Way by Frank Sinatra. It’s a fantastic and moving performance and again I’m reminded of Di-Die Day. Radio 1, if I remember rightly, appeared to spend a day playing sombre ambient house. Nothing too upbeat.
I say to my wife, “You know there’s going to be one of those internet flash mobs over this. People are going to group up and moonwalk or something.” “You should organise it”, she says. “Yeah, but I don’t really want to. I’m just saying it’s probably going to happen.”
Checking Facebook I have a message from an old school friend Joseph Lenham: “I’m disappointed at the lack of comment on tonight’s news, oh Gingermeister. I came straight to your page to hear the truth.” I’m struck that there is a weight of expectation on me – this is the kind of day people want B3ta – the site I co-founded to be doing something – and I’ve done bugger all.
I get on B3ta and check, yep people are photoshopping bad taste Jackson images, of course they are, so I quickly whip it up into a challenge and mutter that it’s my “historic duty” to collect this stuff up.
My other bastard child, Sickpedia, is where people who like sick jokes go when there’s a big news event. It crashed when Jade Goody died and it’s crashing today. I hammer F5 and eventually get a few jokes out of the smoking server. “Day 96 in Jade Goody’s Coffin. Jade has a new house-mate.”, “Gary Glitter has won the auction for Michael Jackson’s PC.” and “An English man, an Irish man and a Scottish man walk into a bar. The English man turns to the Scot and says, ‘Do you think the person reading this will really think this jokes not going to be about Michael Jackson?’”
I check Twitter – really the world is melting down with Jackson overload. One friend is writing, “remember, the dead can’t sue for libel” and I’m reminded how I once wrote something that casually referenced Jackson as a “notorious paedophile” and my boss brilliantly subbed it to “child enthusiast.” That’s not going to happen today.
My thoughts return to the flash mob idea. I’m theorise that maybe if I put the idea out there it might snowball and I won’t have to personally run around saying, “roll up! roll up! Rob is having a big naff Jackson party and you’re all invited.” Because, well, that would be completely horrific and I’d rather cut off my cock and stick it in a breville.
So I post, tentatively, “If I claimed there was a mass moonwalk being organised for 6pm at Liverpool Street Station would anyone believe me?” and sit back to see what happens next.
I’ve got about 2000 followers on Twitter, not exactly Ashton Kutcher levels, but enough people to cause trouble and the retweeting starts.
Points to note here are firstly that I’m being retweeted by a fictional character from Peep Show, he follows me, regularly retweeting my posts. I’ve found this alarming for quite a while, I like the show but err really, I can’t ever reply to you. You’re not real.
Secondly is Milo Yiannopoulos. This is a name I recogmise, he emailed me a couple of months ago to say he worked for “special projects” at The Telegraph and wanted “to discuss a potential b3ta/Telegraph blogs tie up.” This struck me as extremely unlikely to happen, as experience tells me that B3ta is far too wayward to get into bed with big business.
(Another time I’ll tell you about Disney wanting to give us a small fortune to run an image challenge to promote kids film, Chicken Little. If only that had gone ahead, it would have been LEGENDARY. Imagine, thousands of Disney’s characters, covered in photoshop cocks and Disney having to pay for the pleasure. Brilliant.)
Presumably Milo has similar thoughts and I assume I will never hear from him again, until he twitters me that is. And over the day the message is retweeted numerous times, quickly losing the “If I claimed” caveat and being presented as truth. I sit back, nervous, and watch the messages pile up. Oh my god, something really is going to happen and I’ve started it. How exciting.
At this point Milo sees an opportunity and decides to take over. He puts up a blog post with more details and a phone number and emails me to ask if I’m going to come. I’ve got no choice really.
I have stuff to do, I have a newsletter to write and a meal to cook for my wife. She’d demanded Spaghetti Bolognese and tells me, “you cook the best spag bog in North London.” She delights in calling it “bog”, it’s her reference to my Midlands origins, and she never misses an opportunity to mention it. Hence we then spend the next 30 minutes imagining a soap opera set in Birmingham called “Brummies” featuring a 38 year old bloke called Dave, who’d obsessed with Neds Atomic Dustbin and lives with his keeping-up-appearances mother. Dave has dreads, wears long shorts, and tries to be down with the kids by handing up C90s of mash-ups based upon early 90s greebo culture. You see, we were busy.
At five I get the tube to Liverpool Street Station. I read iWoz whilst traveling and think about Steve Wosniak’s almost sociopathic pranks where he spent a year interfering with the reception on a communal college TV set, making people madly bang it whenever he pressed a concealed gadget. I wonder if there’s a connection – a delight in making people dance to your own tune when in real life you feel a bit ignored.
Liverpool Street is rammed with police. Everywhere I turn there are yellow jacketed coppers talking on walkie-talkies. Suddenly I feel deeply paranoid and I do a circuit of the station and worry that I’m going to be arrested on terrorism charges. I panic and get the first train out of there – I even take the wrong line.
One stop in the wrong direction later and I feel a bit calmer. There’s no way I’m about to moonwalk in public – the horror of that literally makes sweat drip from my armpits, but maybe I can lurk to the side and noone will arrest me. Also I’m making a conscious effort to write at the moment, and if I duck out at the climax of the story, well there’s no story is there?
Back in the station I make my way to the meeting point Milo mentioned, by McDonalds, and gosh, what a huge crowd. There must be one or two thousand people here, all crushed up, all holding camera phones, all straining to see the centre of the action. I’m reminded of the passages about herd instinct in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point where if one animal looks like it’s engaged in killing something then others crowd round for scraps, as this is more efficient than hunting for food themselves. There is literally nothing to see, other than the spectacle of the crowd.
A sharp poke in my ribs and a middle aged business man shouts, “Excuse me, this is a public walkway you know.”
I drift amongst the people overhearing snippets of conversation, “Flashmob” “Michael Jackson” “Twitter” and most of all, “Do you know what’s going on?” which mostly the answer appears to be, “no.”
Media are out in force, I spy two outside broadcasting trucks and numerous self-shooters with lenses too large to be consumer equipment. I blink, all this happened, because I thought it would happen and mentioned it, and yet nobody knows who I am or (quite rightly) cares. I briefly entertain fantastical notions of grabbing one of the news crews and telling them my story, but assume they’ll just think I’m a nutter trying to claim credit, as it’s quite obvious who’s in charge – that would be the bloke in the centre holding a microphone.
Milo has organised a P.A system and occasionally says things over it, which I can’t actually make out, but people cheer. Someone mentions something about “there’s a look-a-like!” another “Michael’s in a limousine” but I can see nothing and I’m reminded of those rumours that sweep crowds at music festivals. “Shaun Ryder is dead!” or “The Beatles are playing.”
Eventually some music starts up – it’s the one Jackson tune I unequivocally love, Billie Jean. It’s the bass-line that works for me, once described by the KLF’s Bill Drummond as like a “lynx on the prowl”. It’s perfect, not a note wasted, and unlike much of Jacko’s later work it tells an engaging story, a deranged fan claiming Jackson is the father of her child.
I can’t tell if people are moonwalking or not. All I see are people holding cameras in the air and trying to photograph the middle of the crowd. This must be the real story, and I turn around and attempt to take photos of the crowd instead of the back of people’s heads. Then I feel dreadfully self conscious and worry about someone thumping me and I stop.
Getting bored now so I check twitter on my phone, hopefully someone I know is around. There’s a message saying I’ve been spotted on CNN. Ha. There’s something for the TV researchers to dig out if I ever become a serial killer or something – a fleeting glimpse in a crowd. Like that photo of Hitler standing among the crowd in Munich as war is declared in 1914.
We have four songs, and then Milo tells the crowd that the police want to all to end and everyone should go home. It’s not quite as dramatic as when the police stopped the Beatles playing on the Savile Row roof in 1969, nobody arrests Ringo or anything.
I spy Paul Carr, the only man I know to ever be sacked from a company he started himself, and he ushers me into the inner circle amongst the cops. “This would never happen in San Francisco. I mean the media wouldn’t bother turning up, we do stuff like this almost every Thursday and nobody cares”, he claims.
“You live in San Francisco?” I ask. “Yeah, but I’m back for Glastonbury.” I wonder about the great mystery of how Paul Carr funds his life, he never appears to do any real work. Maybe we can drum up a Guardian expenses scandal?
Milo is on the phone, I wave at him and I’m shushed by someone telling me, “he’s talking to the BBC”. Milo is beanpole thin, extremely tall and looks like he should be running for headboy at Hogwarts. He’s glorying in the attention, being pulled from one camera crew to another and eventually he finds time for me.
“I mentioned you three times”, he says. “I bet they cut it” I reply. “No I managed to get you mid sentence so you can’t be cut.”
I spot Alex Tew of milliondollarhomepage fame. He’s grown a beard and I ask him about his current project Popjam. “Yep it’s going great, but it’s tricky trying to compete with Facebook.” Alex asks about Sickipedia and I tell him that it’s spent most of the day crashed due to the increased traffic caused by Jackson’s death, and it’s a pig of a site because although there’s apparently limitless demand for sick jokes, it’s impossible to grow it as no advertiser will place their clients near it.
Alex suggests I get B3ta to buy advertising on it, which I suspect is the crazy accounting methods that probably caused current global economic breakdown.
I hang around a bit, realise nothing more is going to happen and decide it’s time that I get home so I can take the Spag Bog out of the oven, share a bottle of wine with my wife and tell her all about my rather odd little world.
* * *
The next day during my headline watch I notice that The Guardian is running one of the most confusingly worded headlines I’ve seen for a while. How can anyone read this and not think of Timelords?
utterly brilliant – when i read about this in your original tweet – i wanted to do i :) shame i’m too far and too broke to go to London :D
yep i read that title as Dr who the time lord :D
heh, i’ve always thought it must be a bit weird to be retweeted so much by a fictitious character… but then again i kind of think of you as fictitious as well :)
ah the power of the interweb to get a load of people to turn up and shuffle around feeling vaguely self conscious. well done. more of this please.
Ace bit of reportage Rob, I love that you were inadvertantly behind all this, and Sickipedia too (I did not know theis until today.)
And I concur with your lovely wife, you do make the BEST Spag Bog in London, probably the best I’ve ever eaten actually.
I enjoyed that, excellent read. I watched this from just after you first mentioned it and then the videos after, shame I’m from the midlands, too far away. We do call it spag bog though ;)
I told my son that Doctor Who was on the front page of the Guardian then left it to him to figure it out. It’s a good story though – what was the Doctor doing with MJ when he died.
It was a great idea, made me laugh reading about you jumping on the train for fear of anti terrorism arrest, haha.
I only caught on to what was happening by looking at b3ta (long time unregged lurker) and seeing the twitter link, I kind of hung on to the link through allot of the day while working and watching the links of pics and vids turn up. I tried to see if I could spot you through the crowd but didn’t have much luck, I spotted Gail Porter though.
Some guardian blogger or hack wasn’t too impressed by it all, calling it a failure. Not sure what they was expecting, perhaps something like that advert with dancing in the station for that mobile phone service? Either way, it was a bit unfair.
P.S. b3ta competition to promote Disney films? Yes please! que Glitter posts.
Great writeup :) Nice one on stirring this one up, especially considering it was all from a single 140 character tweet :P
Please keep up the good work – you help make the Internet worthwhile :)
It’s amazing what followers can do, and how selffulfilling prophecies really work. :)
This was a great post, and I think reading it almost makes up for me not being there. It’s just too bad there didn’t seem to be any real moonwalking.
Also, now that you know it works, what crazy schemes will you cook up for next time? ;)
Right, I’m waiting for T-Cunting-Mobile to repackage it as a shitty ‘look how funky we are’ advert
Top notch sir, alas with great power comes great responsibility but here is an excellent example of why you should be weary following other peoples word as fact.
I love the fact that so many people were taking photo and videos of….so many other people taking photo’s and videos.
I woke up on Saturday Morning and watched it on the BBC International Service. Pissed myself laughing and then later on b3ta caught how it started. Pissed myself laughing again. Keep up the great work, this kind of thing brightens my days in Indonesia. :)
So this Yiannodopolopodous character didn’t think of the idea? Why is he taking all the credit and being mentioned everywhere? I see in his Twitter bio he says he’s the one who did the moonwalk. I’d have expected a bit more scatching from the Manuel as to how someone ripped off your idea and ran with it. Fair play though like, seemed to catch on and spiral in no time.
Well done! Wish I could have gone.
Obviously, the Doctor was with Jackson to make sure the regeneration went smoothly.
Two companies that I founded, actually.
P
Quite fantastic – I was going to head along to this but went to watch AC/DC instead, they didn’t mention Michael Jackson at all! Harumph.
Incidentally only about half an hour after reading your post on b3ta about it, it was already doing the rounds on Facebook! Amazing.
I call it Spag Bog too, but why the hell do you put it in the oven?
Congratulations on creating one of the kindest, gentlest forms of mass hysteria. (If onlyyou’d been at Nuremberg, so much unpleasantness could have been avoided.) There were flashmob moonwalks in Berlin and Toronto, too.
I predict a year from now, professors will be being teaching this to university undergraduates
A nice setup which has strange echoes of the good old days of the Soviet Union. People would join queues because if there was a queue there had to be be something worth queueing for at the end of it!
How could I have ever underestimated the wonderful Rob!
You really are class mate :)
You certainly do live in an odd little world if you make spag bol in the oven!
Love the photo of camera phones held aloft taking pics of camera phones being held aloft
what i don’t understand is that the guys that have climbed on the street furniture for a better view aren’t telling the rest of the crowd that there is bog all happening.
If every turned up to watch spontaneous mass ’60s dancing, would that be
Waiting for Gogot?
A good write up, though I have no idea who Paul Carr is.
Disney compo? Bring it on!
I like this!
Michael Jackson is my favorite pop artist ever since i was a child. He is truly the King of Pop and i am saddened by this news.
Excellent work!
Even my old dad wanted to put the news on at 6pm because of the Moonwalk at Liverpool St. Station – this was Important World News!
Not exactly a Jackson fan but that was a great read nevertheless. Good to see a bit of spontaniety and technology get the public rocking like that without any kind of disturbance whatsoever.
Canada salutes the Ginger Fuhrer!
There was one here yesterday in the heart of downtown Toronto, attended by about 500 people according to the local news. You started something international, sir!
The Spag Bog SAUCE was in the oven. Not the pasta. I prepared it in a pan in the afternoon then stuck it in the oven at a low heat. Is this controversial?
Brilliant. I love this story.
Awesomeness! When I saw the tweet, I was so hoping it would happen! Damn shame I’m 6,000 miles away :(
Brilliant, that’s exactly what I think about “Billie Jean”.
Well yes the oven addition to the conventional stove preparation of spag bol is highly controversial – but I propose this could be your secret to making a fine dish. Oh and in all my 31 years in bermingum I have never heard spag bog referred to.
Freaking brilliant, I love how the internet can snowball in this fashion, I did enjoy watching the various MJ flashmob videos on YouTube (the Germans don’t dance!).
Next time you have a fleeting thought like this, go talk to the guys at http://www.improveverywhere.com – a properly organised mass moonwalk (with people who can actually moonwalk) would be a sight to see :)
This scores 16 out of excellent, although the media completely ignored my Charlies Angels Memorial Flashmob on the same day.
I’ve never been here before, excellent post my man.
Excelllent.
:)
Nice work. Can you send me your recipe for ‘spag bog’, I’m scouring the globe for the ultimate voodoo, at the moment it’s a toss up between me, Nigella Lawson and Simon Schama and some Italian place on Lake Como.
Thats sounds great and makes me marvel and laugh at the speed of modern culture and the slip stream of cultural events. Off to read sickopedia now.
I don’t normally read blogs, but this one has made me piss my pants laughingso much. Well done!
You should have a column in a newspaper…
Dave the dread haired Neds Atomic Dustbin obsessed fan exists.. FACT! I know him. I met him at a Neds Atomic Dustbin concert a couple of years ago and hangs around with another Dready man called Chris. He is from Dudley and have seen him at Vile Evils (ex PWEI) gigs as well.
Yes, Rob Manuel for a column in The Guardian? G2 page a la Charlie Brooker? Rob, please sort out a script for “Brummies”. It’ll be great. Better than some of the shite on telly that passes for entertainment these days…
Paul was right that things like that happen all the time in San Francisco, but wrong about the media coverage. This was about Michael Jackson after all, so there were lots of news trucks at the San Francisco event
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/sets/72157620438174093/
‘Nuff respec’ my man!
Haha, I heard about the flashmob near the stone circle at Glasto, so job done. Brummies sounds like it might be the best TV ever made.
I see a bright future for essentially pointless mass gatherings that generally just annoy the police and leave the media hacks standing around taking pictures of each other.Stuff like this really brightens up my day, many thanks.
I unsuccessfully tried to start a flashmob on Pancake Day. We gave away 500,000 pancakes and I wanted other people to come and give a stranger a present they’d brought with them at a specific time and place. I tried facebook groups but their was a distinctly hierarchical vetting procedure rather than just suggestions from anyone that anyone could respond to. So Twitter’s the thing then.
Now all I have to do is start a website, build up a cult following, get internet stalked by a comic creation and Bob’s my Uncle.
Thanks for showing the way.
Utterly brilliant…haven’t laughed so much in ages.I work 2 mins from Liverpool Street but had a half day…Would have been coming right through at the time it was going on…Next time maybe ?
I will surely miss Michael Jackson, he is really worthy of the name King of Pop and he is certainly one of the greatest musicians of all time…
to those asking about the spag bog – we’ve got guests coming Friday and they’ve requested it, so I’m planning to make a little guide – take photos of the preparation etc.
Hi ya,
We workd with Milo on this to provide the PA. I originally heard it as a Twitter repost and then decided to give him a mail. Milo called back and within a 5 minute conversation everything was sorted.
There was a bit of a panic when the police said we couldn’t do it…. well the City of London Police said it was ok to do in the station but the British Transport Police told us in no uncertain terms it wasn’t going to happen.
By this point all the media outlets had turned up and Gail Porter was with us so i think the pressure of the press and not wanting to look bad persuaded them to let us do it outside.
Brilliant idea and great turn out. Really glad we got involved as it was different to the normal stuff we do like house parties and festivals.
Good on ya!
now all we need is a mass flash mob ‘coloured wig gathering’, in tribute to Molly Sugden.
They always come in three’s!! Farrah, Jacko and Molly.
A sad sad week in entertainment, on the other hand a cracking week for texting jokes!