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85 DOI: 10.7330/9780874218909.c04 4 Real Virtuality Enhancing Locality by Enacting the Small World Theory Lynne S. McNeill The text message arrives on Monday: “Pillow fight mob, Saturday, 11:45 a.m., Union Square.” The message is forwarded to friends, posted to Facebook, picked up by a popular blog, and forwarded again. By the time Saturday morning rolls around, close to 5,000 people are casually converging on Union Square in New York City, pillows hidden under jackets or in tote bags. At 11:45 exactly, a whistle blows, and thousands of people seemingly spontaneously begin to whack each other with pillows—much to the shock and bewilderment of those present who were not in on the plan. Feathers fly, fabric tears, bystanders pull out their smartphones and film the chaos. By Sunday morning, twenty new videos of the pillow fight are posted to YouTube. People across the country and across the world watch the videos , laugh (or scoff) at the fun and the vicarious sense of surprise, and set off to organize their own pillow fight mobs. The above scenario, strange or silly as it might sound, is an increasingly common one, and it is an excellent example of the kind of web-based local events that this chapter addresses. The idea that technologically mediated communication affects cultural expression is not a revolutionary one—social scientists have been considering the cultural impact of distanced communication since the telegraph and landline telephone became common—but in recent years, with the rapid growth in Internet and wireless communications technologies, we are seeing the changes in cultural expression develop more and more rapidly. We are also being called to account for an increase in interplay between mediated and unmediated communication; folklorists 86 Lynne S. Mcneill can no longer treat the virtual world as one wholly separate from the physical world. Everyday people are developing traditions that reflect the reality of their lived experience, which increasingly encompasses both digital and analog modes simultaneously. The type of cultural expression exemplified by a pillow fight mob, which would be impossible on any sizable scale without the use of communications technologies, is an excellent example of a vernacular practice that defies the strict separation of the real from the virtual. A pillow fight mob is planned via digital networks, enacted in a physical place, and before the event is even over it is recorded, promoted, observed, and then revived in virtual space. Through the use of communications technologies, standard expectations of place and locality are thrown into disarray. Communications scholar Nancy Baym (2010, 24) notes that there are four general perspectives on the ways that technology and society interact and influence each other: technological determinism (the belief that technology controls us), the social construction of technology (the belief that we control technology), social shaping (the belief that control goes in both directions), and domestication (the eventual assimilation of technology into everyday life so that it is no longer seen as an agent of change). This chapter examines three different examples of web-based collaborative events that support the social shaping perspective: flash mobs, alternate reality games, and small world activities. While technology may affect how, when, and where we communicate, I argue that we in fact adapt technology to our unique social and cultural expressive needs. A close consideration of these case studies reveals that everyday people are using the new social realities of multilocality and translocality to enact a small world model and enhance their experience and perception of place. Web-Based Collaborative Events Flash Mobs As Howard Rheingold (2002) notes, one result of digitally enhanced networking ability is the development of smart mobs: large groups of people who can work together and unite their efforts without ever having to meet each other in person. Flash mobs are a subset of smart mobs; according to Wikipedia—a good source for emic definitions of informal digital culture —flash mobs are a form of performance art in which a group of people Real Virtuality 87 arrange to meet at a central location and put on some kind of unified performance , usually to the bewilderment of other bystanders.1 Invariably, these events are coordinated via some online communication medium, usually through a blog, website, Twitter, or mass text message. Flash mobs can be highly planned and coordinated, such as the Swedish dance group Bounce’s tribute to Michael Jackson that took place in Stockholm (“Michael Jackson Dance Tribute” 2009). The event seemingly begins spontaneously with just...

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