I think this whole thing is crazy. Look at the picture. Those people received his email, and did exactly what he said. They were prompt about, taking their new formation in just 2 minutes. They risked getting in trouble with the police, and listened to someone whom they did not know, simply because they wanted attention. What is wrong with these people? Also, I think it is insane that other people tried to imitate this experiment, and even asked Wasik for help. I think that it says a lot about our society that this many people would get involved in a “meme” that has no purpose. It seems as though the people who received his email became his puppets, and simply for attention. They themselves said that the Mob was “silly” but did it anyway because they wanted to be part of the publicity. I think it is ridiculous that people are this desperate for notoriety, and the lack of independence that technology is creating is absurd.

The most obvious extension that the internet allows for Wasik, is the ability to connect with tremendous amounts of people. He simply sent out one email to connect with enough people to start a meme. Without technology, he would not have been able to connect with people, other than walking down the street and yelling. Beyond this, technology allowed his experiment to grow publicity. Without technology, news of the mobs would not have spread. With social media, and media, the mob was able to gain notoriety, and the meme was able to grow. This, is most likely the reason that his experiment even worked. People would not have gathered to do nothing if they were not going to get anything out of it. The draw of potential publicity is what made people show up to his pointless mob events. Without technology, the mob experiments really would not have existed, so more than an extension to aid his project, technology allowed his entire project to happen.

I was trying to think of how I was going to relate this essay to technology, and how the way we abuse it is bad for our society. In my essay, I want to describe how people use the internet for stupid things to gain popularity. I could not think of how I was going to connect this piece until page 478-479. It is amazing how Wasik uses the internet to email all of these people to do exactly what he says, when he says, without any reason for doing so. Look at the image on page 478, those people all got into form exactly like he said, in a timely manner. Why did they do this? People who partook even said that they thought it was silly. They are doing this with no purpose in mind. As he says throughout, the purpose is to have no purpose, and to see how many people will do it anyway. It hit me when he says, “The meme idea, that is, sees cultural entities as being similar to genes, or better; to viruses, and in fact the term “viral” is so often used. These people, because of the power of the internet are doing these dumb things simply because they want attention. It’s like King said, “some of us are looking for 10,000 instagram followers.” Because of technology, social media in particular, we are becoming a society dependent on attention. This is evident throughout Wasik’s experiment; how people do whatever he says for the chance of being part of a popular meme. I also want to use the beginning of his essay, when he talks about how the internet is being used to fight the boredom epidemic as another paragraph. I want to describe that rather than using the internet to find purpose, many people are using it for mind-numbing “entertainment”, that is taking away from activity.