This phrase was coined back in 1971 in a novella called "
Flash Crowd" by science fiction writer Larry Niven. (If you want to find it, either look for the story collection called
The Flight of the Horse, or the collection called
Three Trips in Time and Space.) In the story,
flash crowds occur when thousands of people teleport to the same place to witness a current social or political event:
The mall riot was the first successful riot in twenty years. "The police can get to a riot before it's a riot," said McCord. "We call them flash crowds, and we watch for them."
—Larry Niven, "Flash Crowd," 1971
