“The Mob Project was an invitation-only thing. A guy called Bill sent out email invitations, which in turn were forwarded on to others. This was no protest, no expression of social angst, not even an inaugural meeting of a carpet fetish society. Instead, these people were all happy just to be there. As one of them put it, ‘I always wanted to say ‘I’m a member of the mob’ and now I can’ .

This kind of thing is being taken seriously. The technology commentator and social software advocate Joi Ito described the Mob Project as a ‘very cool social hack’, and bloggers throughout the blogosphere are making similar comments ” — Martyn Perks, sp!ked

Because the Mob Project’s much-heralded gathering in front of a carpet salesman in a New York department store had little social purpose (“Here technology is no longer just a tool – it becomes the means and the end”), the commentator extrapolates that ‘smart mobs’ (à la Howard Rheingold) are pointless and scoffs at the current anti-war and anti-globalization movements for using mobile technology, claiming that this proves they have no central organizing principles. His argument is as misguided as the caricature of the smart mob theory he lampoons. Apart from the logical fallacy behind his unwarranted generalization, he understands nothing about performance art and the relationship between culture hacks and subversion. Organizers themselves fear that the mob events are not sustainable without an underlying purpose, given the potential for either boredom or, well, mob rule.