The beauty of flash mobs is when people come together in public places to entertain others. It’s usually the creative juices of theater company and dance studio executives to galvanize their troops and put on a 5-minute show set to music.
Train stations and outdoor plazas are typical locales of flash mobs due to their vast performance spaces and pedestrian-friendly hubs. Participants tell their friends to join expected tourists, and everyone has a good time.
It’s rare thousands of residents participate and rarer a city’s downtown on a Sunday afternoon is the backdrop. But what happened in Grand Rapids, Michigan in January 2011 was the exception.
Photo by OzInOh.
See, the city of 188,000 was ranked by MainStreet, an internet publication, as one of 10 cities nationwide with a declining population between 2000 and 2010 and a further shrinking of residents under age 18. Based on those two data points alone, Grand Rapids made MainStreet’s list and the article was picked up by Newsweek.
The city reacted in the form of a lip dub to the tune of Don McLean’s “American Pie” and Roger Ebert joined 3.9 million YouTube viewers to praise the greatest music video ever made.
Can’t see it? Click here.
The video reeks of awesomeness.
Profiled by ABC News, the mayor is one of the featured singing guitar players. Nearly 5,000 volunteers fill the 9-minute video, ranging from police officers and firefighters to marching bands, motorcades, pillow-fighting kids, wedding guests, and a helicopter.
It’s impressive $40,000 were raised by donations — inspired by the MainStreet/Newsweek list. The city didn’t spend a dime and nobody advertised the event; after all, the media were among those donating.
MainStreet later explained its methodology and Newsweek apologized; but nobody cared at that point.
The video went viral and we recognized the city was not dead.
Hat tip to Jamie Bradley of Sophwell for the find.
About Ari Herzog
Nice find indeed Ari and a great example of teamwork and ordinary people at their best
Video and Photography had breathed life to most of us. I believe life has became more interesting because of video and photos this is why social media sites has conquered a quarter of the world.
I recently got involved with a company that provides video email and video conferencing and your article really brings home the reasons why. On the internet video just has such incredible power that it is really hard to quantify the reach you have with it. I think i read a statistic recently that suggested that with in the next 5 years video would account for up to 90% of what we experience on the web, Wow!
@GlennHoepfl Five years? It’s nearly here, considering YouTube is the second most popular search engine (with Google in first place). Considering Google owns YouTube, you do the math.