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October 13, 2003
Victorian smartmobs
One of the books I'm reading at the moment is Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay. It's a riproaring rollercoaster through many strange human afflictions, including the South Sea bubble (analagous to the .com bubble), tulipomania, prophecies, magnetisers, the crusades, 'influence of politics and religion on the hair and beard', haunted houses, and slow poisoners.
My favourite chapter is 'popular follies of great cities'.
"The popular humours of a great city are a never-failing source of amusement to the man whose sympathies are hospitable enough to embrace all his kind, and who, refined though he may be himself, will not sneer at the humble wit or grotesque peculiarities of the boozing mechanic, the squalid beggar, the vicious urchin, and all the motley group of the idle, the reckless, and the imitative that swarm in the alleys and broadways of a metropolis."
The particular folly mentioned is that of popular slang; phrases that "spring up suddenly, no one knows exactly in what spot, and pervade the whole population in a few hours, no one knows how". I've never really thought of the origins of such phrases that catch. The first examined is the monosyllable Quoz, "but, like all other earthly things, Quoz had its season, and passed away as suddenly as it arose, never again to be the pet and the idol of the populace".
So memes have always been around, in physicality, cutting through class and kin. I posit that smartmobs are the Quoz of the Internet, after other popular catchmemes of hamsters dancing and moustahioed Russian gentlemen. Their time is past, the phrase used more in jest than in reality. The Internet is just another city, in another time.
To continue the purility, my favourites are "What a shocking bad hat!" and "Does your mother know you're out?". Feel free to use at every opportunity today.
Being written in 1841, Extraordinary Popular Delusions is available from Project Gutenberg in three volumes. However, for a measly three English pounds, you can get (most of) the three bound in finest paperback for your perusal from ye olde Internete Bookmerchant.
"Such are a few of the peculiarities of the London multitude, when no riot, no execution, no murder, no balloon, disturbs the even current of their thoughts. These are the whimseys of the mass - the harmless follies by which they unconsciously endeavour to lighten the load of care which presses upon their existence."
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