I love you, Bill. But only for about five more minutes, because then you won't be cool anymore.

This article in Harper's is a beautiful thing. Written by the man who claims to have invented flash mobs. As a way to fuck with Hipsters. SO FUN. (via Gawker)

Especially designed for the guys in dresses playing softball in the dirt this summer.

Consider the generational cohort that has come to be called the hipsters—i.e., those hundreds of thousands of educated young urbanites with strikingly similar tastes.

Such a beautiful academic deconstruction of the ludicrious collection of reverse-mullet haircuts and vintage church softball league t-shirts. Yes, yes, your neon legwarmers make you totally individual. They totally make you fit in with the cool crowd. Oh, Bill -- as you say, 'Have so many self-alleged aesthetes ever been more (in the formulation of Festinger et al.) “submerged in the group”?'

What a perfect time to start fucking with people!

The basic hypothesis behind the Mob Project was as follows: seeing how all culture in New York was demonstrably commingled with scenesterism, the appeal of concerts and plays and readings and gallery shows deriving less from the work itself than from the social opportunities the work might engender, it should theoretically be possible to create an art project consisting of pure scene—meaning the scene would be the entire point of the work, and indeed would itself constitute the work.

PURE SCENE, MAN!

At this point, I will give you exactly fifteen seconds of applause, for YOU! And then I will abandon this blog altogether.