Activists get message across in song, dance

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

She has sung, danced and even led a small marching band amid unsuspecting shoppers in a grocery store — all in the name of activism.

Her tactics depart from those of traditional protests.

“You’ve got to keep it fresh and do something innovative that’s going to entertain people if they’re going to listen to your message,” said Keri Rodrigues, 32, a former Massachusetts radio-journalist who is affiliated now with the liberal policy group Progress-Ohio.

Rodrigues recently coordinated two area demonstrations — including a song-and-dance performance last week inside a Bob Evans restaurant, where dissenters used a modified Britney Spears song to chide the Columbus chain’s decision to move its headquarters to New Albany.

Last Monday, she and about 50 others entered the downtown headquarters of Huntington Bank while singing a politically charged rendition of “Hang On Sloopy” — a protest, members said, of donations by the bank’s political action committee to state senators who supported legislation limiting the collective-bargaining rights of public employees.

Conceived as an all-in-fun Internet movement of mass pillow fights and freeze-frame antics, the “flash mob” concept has inspired a new breed of activism.

“It feels so tired when you’re chanting three words and walking in circles,” said Skye Bender-deMoll, a software developer from Oakland, Calif., who has assisted in the flash-mob protests.

In 2009, Bender-deMoll joined a group singing “Mickey” inside a Whole Foods store (to oppose the health-care views of CEO John Mackey) and last year took part in a lively number at a Westin hotel to highlight unfair employee contracts.

Like their counterparts in Ohio, the protest organizers purposely notified media outlets in advance.

“There are two audiences,” Bender-deMoll said, “the one in the room and this weird, faceless, viral Web.”

The Westin video has been viewed more than 330,000 times online.

Examples abound online, from a musical throng protesting Target’s financial support of anti-gay politicians (it’s since received 1.3 million YouTube hits) to a brass ensemble that performed the rousing tune “Do You Hear the People Sing?” inside the Wisconsin Capitol.

The tactics aren’t what flash-mob creator Bill Wasik intended, nor do they mimic his original methods — where participants have no knowledge of their task until right before “mob” gatherings, which were typically agenda-free.

Still, he supports the change.

“Protesting today is about trying to get attention,” said Wasik, a senior editor for Wired magazine. “If you can make a video and make it entertaining and get people to click, that’s going to be a good protest.”

Many demonstrators are promptly removed from private property, as they were at Huntington Bank.

The lifespan, though, is digitally sustained.

“You have a chance to amplify the message to an audience that may not tune in to CNN,” said Michael McCluskey, an Ohio State University communication professor who has studied the evolution of social protest.

Younger, tech-savvy crowds are “more likely to watch these particular videos,” said McCluskey, “and really get ideas about the importance.”

The appeal isn’t universal. Max Snyderman, president of the Ohio State Flash Mob and Social Improvisation Club, said the 1,400-member group wouldn’t protest during its monthly performances.

“I honestly think it’s a good way ... rather than picketing,” said Snyderman, 20. “But, at the same time, I wouldn’t do it.”

For Lyndsey Leffler of Hilliard, the atypical means are what attracted her.

“I was like ‘Are you serious? We’re going to sing?’” said the 25-year-old nurse’s aide, who joined the two Columbus protests. “But it makes sense.

“Some people say it’s weird; but when you explain, they see it’s a better way.”