Lockdown could have seen us wallowing in some pretty unusual hermetic behaviour. Obsessively rearranging your groceries by best-before date. Binge-watching old episodes of Terry and June. Blankly staring at the forks in your cutlery drawer wondering why they have four prongs and not three.
Instead, the past few weeks have shown that being shut away could be making us more connected with each other. Thanks to strong internet networks and an array of digital apps and video communication software, we’re spending more quality time with loved ones, rehabilitating old relationships and forging new ones. Indeed, a recent study by Channel Mum found a quarter of British people now talk with neighbours they previously ignored. In short? Being confined to quarters is helping us rediscover a new sense of community.
Every day brings more inspiring and creative digital gatherings, whether it’s quarantine quizzes, online aperitivo or friends slogging up their staircases thousands of times in a bid to conquer a virtual Everest. While we’re all busy rearranging our lives to adjust to the new norm, internet providers are doing their bit too. Taking capacity from commuter hotspots such as Waterloo to expand capacity in the suburbs is one way networks such as Vodafone are adjusting their behaviour. With internet connectivity remaining robust, here’s some inventive ways to escape the lockdown funk and embrace webcameraderie.
Have cyber happy hour with your friends
The shutters might be closed on the nation’s pubs, but that hasn’t stopped people excitedly cheersing each other in brilliantly-named virtual pubs such as The Stay Inn and The Quarant Inn. Sequestered merrymakers have also been improvising cocktails from dusty bottles of crème de menthe and kumquat-flavoured vodka found lurking in their drinks cupboards (see the #quarantini hashtag on Instagram). For many, these sofa-based happy hours are preferable to the real thing: after all, there’s no five-deep bar queues, plus you can do a covert French exit by pretending to have accidentally snagged your socks on some cables.
Online rendezvous: The Red (On)Lion: a cyber pub from real ale aficionados Camra. Mimicking the ambience of a traditional pub, remote revellers participate in games and quizzes, plus attend talks on subjects ranging from homebrewing to Belgian beer.
Make new connections
Even Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall is a fan of Houseparty, the chat app where groups have been throwing virtual dinner parties, staging karaoke singalongs and playing board games. Quarantine quizzes have flourished, too (check out Edinburgh-based Goose’s Quizzes on Twitch), along with online book clubs: Yiyun Li’s #TolstoyTogether sees the author lead fellow bibliophiles in a daily War and Peace reading. Feeling cheeky? Try gatecrashing one of the growing number of nuptials and other parties held online. Hundreds of people tuned in to watch 13-year-old London schoolboy Jude Cannon’s bar mitzvah in his parents’ living room after his original one was cancelled, while in China one wedding was livestreamed to 3 million people. Just don’t expect any free drinks.
Online rendezvous: Salon London livestreamed a book club where online audiences engage in Q&As with authors such as Emma Jane Unsworth.
Let the gym come to you
Personal trainer Joe Wicks has done a sterling job marshalling the nation’s cooped-up urchins into doing kangaroo hops at 9am. To help the 1.2 million subscribers doing PE with Wicks each morning, internet providers such as Vodafone are flexing to provide the powerful network we rely on to keep our kids active. Domestic dancing has also taken off: see Fame legend Debbie Allen’s Instagram Live lessons (one recent light-the-sky-up-like-a-flame workout attracted 34,000 people), or the English National Ballet’s Tamara Rojo’s Facebook classes.
Online rendezvous: Fitness app Urban offers private, livestreamed classes (in yoga, physiotherapy, mindfulness and personal training), pairing you with a self-employed professional whose livelihood may have been affected by the pandemic.
Co-watch cinema
In recent weeks, Netflix Party, the Chrome extension that allows groups of friends to watch and comment on series and movies together, at the same time, has turned television into a communal activity again: something that only happens at Christmas or during the World Cup. Its live chat room might be the digi-equivalent of the crisp-packet-rustler down your local multiplex, but there’s no better way to laugh, comment and discuss the intricacies of Joe Exotic’s mullet en masse.
Online rendezvous: With many Hollywood films getting early digital releases, a number of stars are hosting interactive events. When sci-fi thriller The Invisible Man hit streaming platforms, director Leigh Whannell held a Twitter live group-watch answering viewers’ questions in a virtual Q&A afterwards.
Learn something new
Ever wanted to learn how to spoon carve? Master the oboe? Speak the Cyrillic alphabet from A to Я? There’s never been a better time to pick up new skills as specialists everywhere dispense their wisdom via one-on-one video tuition. A quick online search should throw up a willing tutor for whatever whimsy you have, whether it’s cake decorating, choir practice or Colombian cookery. Meanwhile, InterPals, My Language Exchange and Italki pairs anybody eager to learn a language with a native speaker on Skype or FaceTime.
Online rendezvous: Over on Zoom, Cocktails After Dark features out-of-work bartenders teaching viewers how to make drinks (plus earning much-needed tips in the process). And MasterClass features video classes from the likes of Martin Scorsese, Serena Williams, Werner Herzog, Annie Leibovitz, Aaron Sorkin, Herbie Hancock and Neil Gaiman.
Feed your wanderlust
Travel might be on pause at the moment, but people are still globetrotting vicariously. An expedition team of 30 climbing friends in the UK recently clambered up a virtual Mount Everest – all 8,848m of it – by trudging up stairs, steps and ladders within their own homes (often kitted up in full mountaineering gear). Elsewhere, tourist attractions such as the Louvre, British Museum and New York’s Guggenheim now offer 360-degree videos and livestreaming on their websites. Wildlife fans can ogle webcams showing brown bears emerging from hibernation in Alaska’s Katmai National Park, majestic pachyderms and other charismatic megafauna at South Africa’s Tembe Elephant Park, or sea otters sploshing around at Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Online rendezvous: The Scandi trend for slow TV is seemingly tailor-made for these trapped-inside times. Fire up the three-hour-long Sailing to Tobago YouTube video on your laptop, fix quarantini-inspired rum cocktails and stream a destination-appropriate calypso/yacht rock playlist and you’ll be gliding (imaginary) crystalline Caribbean waters in no time.
Turn your living room into a live gig venue
“I’ll find a way to deal with the ennui,” declared Christine and the Queens recently. Her method was throwing herself into near-daily live performances from a Paris studio on Instagram. Other musicians have been livestreaming shows, too, such as Neil Young, Erykah Badu, Alicia Keys, Charli XCX and more. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization’s #TogetherAtHome concert series has featured John Legend and Chris Martin. A virtual Live Aid-style charity concert is surely in the offing.
Online rendezvous: New York’s Metropolitan Opera House has been livestreaming an opera every night on its website.
Vodafone #KeepingtheUKConnected
While we’re stuck indoors, it’s never been more important to keep connected with your friends and family. That’s why every day, we at Vodafone are working hard to maintain our network. So even when we’re apart, nothing can stop us being together.
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