Origins of the coining flash mob are thought to relate to the term flash crowd, which was the title of a 1973 science fiction short story by author Larry Niven. The story talked about the idea of instantaneous transportation to any location on earth, with the consequence that tens of thousands of people worldwide could flock to the scene of any interesting or newsworthy event. The term flash crowd is also used in Internet contexts to describe the situation where a website suddenly and unexpectedly attracts a surge of interest from large numbers of people.

Origins of the coining flash mob are thought to relate to the term flash crowd, which was the title of a 1973 science fiction short story by author Larry Niven. The story talked about the idea of instantaneous transportation to any location on earth, with the consequence that tens of thousands of people worldwide could flock to the scene of any interesting or newsworthy event. The term flash crowd is also used in Internet contexts to describe the situation where a website suddenly and unexpectedly attracts a surge of interest from large numbers of people.