You know, we missed out on that whole "flash mob" phenomenon; heck, if it hadn't been featured in Doonesbury as a Dean campaign tactic and used as a plot device on CSI: Miami, we might have remained blissfully ignorant straight to the grave. Not that we actually would participate in anything vaguely sociable, mind you, especially if it meant we'd have to leave the AtAT compound and our radiation-shielded stockpile of canned beets and creamed corn. Still, part of us regrets never having participated in the faux-random chaos of assembling in a grocery store with a couple hundred total strangers and throwing sugar packets at the deli guy.

But if there was no chance we'd ever go in for the flash mob thing, you can totally forget about ever getting us near a gaggle of Mobile Clubbers. Faithful viewer Ephraim forwarded us an article at The Register whose only real relevance to Apple is its title: "iPod-crazed youths invade London station." In reality, though this practice might loosely be classified as another iPod-related social aberration like the previously reported swapping of iPod headphone jacks, in this case the iPods themselves are incidental; apparently the hip thing in London is for people to show up at some prearranged location flash mob-style and just start dancing to whatever's pumping through their headphones, whether it be iPod-generated or not.

In other words, you wind up with a bunch of people turning a subway platform into a mass of gyrating flesh straight out of the city's hottest nightclub, only everyone's listening to his or her own music and confused bystanders don't hear anything at all. Think "iPod silhouette ad" times ten with the sound turned off, the contrast turned down, and the background filled in with an incongruous scene like the waiting room at your doctor's office. The fact that each participant is isolated from the rest by dancing to a different song sounds like it should be some sort of metaphor for the breakdown of interpersonal communication and shared experience in modern society, but we're way too long out of college to think about it. If anyone uses it for a thesis, though, we want credit.

There's no indication that this fad has made its way across the pond yet, but somehow we suspect it's only a matter of time. So if those of you in larger metropolitan areas suddenly happen upon a couple of dozen people all writhing to different rhythms in a conspicuous public place, don't panic; if you can spot white earbuds on at least six or eight of them, it's probably just a Mobile Club and you can go merrily on your way. If none of them seems to be listening to music, though, you might want to call in the Centers for Disease Control so they can send a couple of operatives in biohazard suits to determine what's causing the mass seizures. And don't forget to cover your mouth.