Zoom meetings and book clubs and coffee dates are fine. But unstructured Zoom parties are still so painfully awkward.

Surely we can do better?

I wrote for @WIRED about how to make virtual parties feel real, just in time for the holidays https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-parties-proximity-chat/
A Mission to Make Virtual Parties Actually Fun

Let's be honest, Zoom birthdays and happy hours are bad. But an emerging type of platform known as “proximity chat” could offer a better option.

https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-parties-proximity-chat/
With special thanks to @starsandrobots for introducing me to the concept of proximity chat and @devonzuegel for taking me on tours of various platforms!

And of course a massive thanks to everyone who joined me in the virtual hallway chat and @gather_town experiments!
In a Zoom birthday party, the birthday person turns into an ungainly hybrid of game show host and middle manager, calling on each guest in turn

It's nice to see everyone's faces! But this is not how an actual party works.
Thank you to my friends who have invited me to their Zoom parties over the past few months and I'm sorry that I was also sitting there analyzing the social interactions, but really, you invited a linguist, what were you expecting? xkcd_linguists.png
An instagram version for all your "hey let's try this" friend-tagging needs
https://www.instagram.com/p/CIOTcMiHHwX/  https://twitter.com/lunarthot666/status/1333462023276023809?s=19
There's some fascinating research from Robin Dunbar and colleagues (yes, the same Dunbar as in Dunbar's Number)

Turns out Dunbar also has other numbers, and one of them is four, the maximum number of people in a conversation before it starts splitting
https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-parties-proximity-chat/
The three to five person Zoom call is Actually Convivial and should not be underrated

But, internet help me, I was still determined to have an actual virtual party
https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-parties-proximity-chat/
About as difficult as a Zoom call, on both counts (including a bit more complex for the host, and higher levels of complexity for more involved events, but the basic mode is pretty easy, people can join by just clicking a link) https://twitter.com/ClaudiaCopquin/status/1333469635035992073?s=19
Did I get Robin Dunbar, who is 73, to join me in Gather for an interview for this article so that I could nerd-snipe him into researching social interactions in virtual space?

WE'LL FIND OUT IN 2-5 YEARS, WON'T WE

(based on my estimate of the academic publishing timeline)
I have a list of 43 similar platforms and this might be a 44th, I confess I have not memorized the entire list, but I hope the different variations can learn from each other

It definitely seems to be a concept that's in the air at the moment! https://twitter.com/robinperlah/status/1333484325845798922?s=19
It's really interesting to be in a space that's still not yet dominated by a few major players/big tech companies

If you're an experimental type and want to spend an evening with friends hopping between platforms, here's a list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FgynDnnrrllZZUa42XcKSfD68G5VAMZsLkARXHtgHOM/edit?usp=drivesdk https://twitter.com/superlinguo/status/1333529770521346051?s=19
One thing I've noticed, having spent several months experimenting with virtual social interactions in any format I could try, is that virtual socials are lower "density" than irl ones, so I need more of them to get my baseline social needs met
I used to be able to go to a conference for a weekend, socialize very intensely, and then come home and not see anyone for a week! I can't do that now!

Virtual socialization is like breathing low-oxygen air -- you need to take more breaths to get to the same baseline
I REALLY want organizers of conferences and other online events to pay more attention to the social side of things

Even if I'm just like, going to a reading at my local bookstore, I'm also chatting with fellow attendees before and after, it's important https://twitter.com/TLaz99/status/1333535398929154050
It's a really good question and I'm still working on it tbh

What I have so far is: spend a few minutes not talking in the conversation, inch your avatar away by a unit or two, hold for a little bit still not talking, then walk off https://twitter.com/lizbizfizz/status/1333539998033801216
For "figuring out whether to join an existing convo group already in Gather" I have:

Approach group with your video turned off, listen in on a few turns, then if it sounds interesting or they greet you, join in, if not you can wander away and it's like you weren't "really" there
I have and it sounds very cool!

However it felt intimidating to replicate for me, and for this article I've been specifically looking for things that would be easy for others to replicate https://twitter.com/rachelginsberg/status/1333549955756208130?s=19
I tell people repeatedly "hey, I'm hanging out at the spawn point to help new people with the tech, but if your tech is working, please go wander around away from the spawn point so I know who still needs help!" https://twitter.com/e3neenan/status/1333574195419238401?s=19
Some people have been asking what social events are like in Gather, and other people have been saying they enjoyed the previous experiments I was running, so let's do it again!

Two events for this weekend, on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon: https://forms.gle/N57nwE4c5vU8ve4Y6
Proximity chat events about online socializing and linguistics

I wrote an article about the results of my previous virtual hallway/pub night experiments https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-parties-proximity-chat/ so let's do some more event! Feel free to join if...

https://forms.gle/N57nwE4c5vU8ve4Y6
also i love everyone tagging me and saying they are trying out doing events in proximity chat, gather or elsewhere, please continue doing this i feel like your all's virtual social event fairy godmother https://twitter.com/JanelleCShane/status/1333891111719493635
Some people are doing Gather theatre events and I haven't been yet but it sounds cool! https://twitter.com/kathrynyu/status/1333900825807110145?s=19
I'm gonna put this in the events this weekend, if anyone needs another incentive! https://twitter.com/an_stevens/status/1333898587176988672?s=19
For an offline conference, it's polite to condense the schedule because of the difficulty/expense of being away from home

For an online conference, it's polite to spread out the schedule because of timezones and people retaining other responsibilities https://twitter.com/drjulie_b/status/1334242747839111170?s=19
What do I mean by condense/spread out a conference schedule?

A single one-day conference offline needs to become 3 four-hour days online, or similar

People often have other work/caregiving responsibilities, they're willing to get up early or stay up late but need to nap, etc
Not packing a conference schedule too tightly lets people organize meetups "around" the conference as a pretext

Tbh, this is also true offline, the best conference I ever went to had half hour coffeebreaks and a 2 hour onsite lunch and I had SO MANY GOOD CONVERSATIONS
Spread! Things! Out!

You cannot make a full-day schedule even slightly timezone-friendly, a 14 day conference sounds like a marathon to me but it's better than the alternative https://twitter.com/mikamckinnon/status/1334258521496424448?s=19
I like the idea of parallel conference Discords in theory but so far (at least for large conferences) I've found that the lobby channels are too big to have the golden target of 3-5 person conversations, idk maybe other people have found it works better https://twitter.com/kathrynyu/status/1334259076985851904?s=19
I mean I'm not sure that conventional offline conference structure is especially friendly for neuroatypical folks either, but it's still a point worth making https://twitter.com/jma_words/status/1334259762108751878?s=19
It has! I tried out Gather Town back when it was still Online Town and was intrigued but kinda meh, it's gotten a lot smoother and more fully-featured since then! https://twitter.com/mayhewsw/status/1334136454293966852?s=19
I think that the embedded games help but they're more like having board games at a party (still good!!) than lightweight stuff like cheese

A virtual whiteboard that's designated as a guestbook might be a good start? Needs to work with or without other ppl https://twitter.com/sharonw/status/1334251430153109504?s=19
You can follow @GretchenAMcC.
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