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Picture a muggy summer day in New York City. A man known only as “Bill” sends emails and cellular phone text-messages to around a hundred people. State-of-the-art technology is utilized as his message races through fiber optics wires and invisibly through the air, allowing all of the contacts to receive his message mere seconds after he has sent it.

The message? Synchronized instructions to meet at a highly populated public place in order to commit a major act.

Starting to sound like the next big terrorist attack? Maybe. But it’s definitely not what it seems. That day two months ago was the first recorded occurrence of a social phenomenon known as flash mobbing. Their public act? To gather in Macy’s, admire a $10,000 Oriental rug, and explain to the baffled salesman that they belonged to a commune and were seeking a “Love Rug.”

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