According to Wikipedia - A flash mob (or flashmob) is a term coined in 2003 to denote a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire.
Flash mobs are organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.
The term is generally not applied to events and performances organized for the purposes of politics (such as protests), commercial advertisement, publicity stunts, that involve public relation firms, or paid professionals.
So was the performance piece staged at the AIME welcome function really a flashmob or was it a publicity stunt and were the performers paid performers - I suspect the latter and have coined a new term to describe them - cashmob.
And my definition of a cashmob goes like this…
A group of people who gather in a public place to perform a scripted or choreographed piece of entertainment for promotional or commercial purposes. The participants are usually paid professionals (or amateurs) who have rehearsed the piece in advance.
The AIME cashmob video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5sTr0sQY2Y
This is a classic example of cashmob
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB3NPNM4xgo
Here are a couple of the most popular examples of a true flashmob on Youtube -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPypWdiC06c
and make your own mind up about these, while maybe not done for cash they certainly aren’t random …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkYZ6rbPU2M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGoNbrODq8U
