Facebook Flashmob Draws 14,000+ to Train Station in England

Charlie Todd, eat your heart out: after watching this amazing T-Mobile ad, in which a bunch of “random” commuters start dancing together at exactly the same time at Liverpool Street Station in London, Facebook user Crazzy Eve posted an event inviting friends to recreate the scene. Last Friday, that’s exactly what happened. Thousands upon thousands descended on the same station featured in the ad, and at precisely 7:00 p.m., they started dancing.

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While less artful than its inspiration, there are a number of remarkable things about this event (not least of which is that T-Mobile is getting a hefty return on its advertising dollar). The number of people who showed up—on short notice, with little prompting—is simply staggering, but perhaps more noteworthy is that, as CNN reported, no arrests were made, no one was hurt, and no one seems to have complained about the inevitable missing of trains. Have this many people ever gotten together in such a small space with less of a negative impact?

The success of this outing has prompted organizers to schedule others like it in various locations around London, results TBD. While I don’t advocate turning these events into some sort of impromptu dance-a-thon for peace, I hope that in the future this many people might be inspired to gather for some purpose beyond recreating a mobile phone ad.