On the weekend of July 4, 2026, the City of Raleigh found it was not immune from a new type of “flash mob” on steroids — so-called “teen street takeovers.”
According to Rebecca Walker of the National Communication Association, “Flash mobs started in the United States in the summer of 2003. A magazine editor named Bill Wasik organized the very first ones in Manhattan, New York City. Hundreds of strangers used chain emails to meet up at stores like Macy’s, do a quick, silly thing and run away fast.”
The first flash mob of approximately 100 people descended upon a Macy’s department store in New York City just to look at an expensive rug and then left. In the late 2000s, the “flash mobs” grew to where a large group of people would show up and perform a choreographed dance routine and leave…