Friday open thread: fun online interactive events

[dolorosa_12]

Today's prompt is brought to you by the news that Katherine Arden is hosting a Winternight trilogy reread on Instagram. She posts scattered thoughts in her Stories, posts to her grid if she has something more substantial to say, and does Live events roughly once a week. You can follow the whole thing on her Instagram account, arden_katherine.

One of the changes that the pandemic accelerated — and which I feel is a change for the better — was the massive increase in online events like this: livestreams on Instagram, Q&As or panel discussions on Zoom, online book launches, and more. It's not just that it opens these events up to more people who might not have been able to travel to in-person events, it also seems to have opened up more opportunities for creators, journalists, commentators, and other experts who were limited for whatever reason in terms of travelling to in-person events. I used to travel to London for book launches and author events at big book shops, and to be honest I don't really miss it — it was always really awkward to go on my own, whereas watching a similar discussion online on my own doesn't feel that way. Plus the cost and hassle of trying to get to central London by 6 or 7pm on a work night was usually prohibitive.

So my question today is this: what is a cool online interactive event that's caught your eye recently? This doesn't just have to mean things involving live video or audio — it could be things like text-based chat as well.

I've already answered this question above, but I'm interested to hear what other people have discovered and enjoyed (or are looking forward to) recently.

Comments

[lirazel]

I super enjoyed getting to "see" Vienna Teng live for the first time a couple of months ago. And for cheap! It was like $5!

[goodbyebird]

lol literally what I was going to mention, was her concert during the first half of the pandemic. Such a lovely moment (I even spotted a familiar name in the chat and got to have a "hiiiii, we’re both here :DDD” moment).

[lirazel]

I love it!!!

[dolorosa_12]

I'm so happy that livestreamed concerts are a thing now — they definitely seem to have enabled a lot of people to see their favourite acts perform who might not have had the means to do so in person.

[chestnut_pod]

Livestreamed music, for sure! The ability to attend concerts for all different genres is so amazing; I hope artists keep doing it forever!

[dolorosa_12]

I'm so happy that livestreamed concerts are a thing now — they definitely seem to have enabled a lot of people to see their favourite acts perform who might not have had the means to do so in person.

[yarnofariadne]

Livestreamed concerts are something I'd love to see more artists embrace; we attended two virtual Decemberists concerts that really filled my soul with such joy I'd been missing.

I've also been a regular at Romancing the Gothic since it started in April 2020. I've learned so much about so many different topics; the gothic is a much wider umbrella than you'd expect! And I've made some wonderful friends through it, too.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm so happy that livestreamed concerts are a thing now — they definitely seem to have enabled a lot of people to see their favourite acts perform who might not have had the means to do so in person.

Romancing the Gothic sounds so cool — I really love that people are organising things like this, especially outside of regular university institutions.

[raven]

I'm one of those off-brand people who is really not happy about the move towards online events, but one thing I love is fannish watchalongs where everyone watches the same thing at the same time and livetweets or posts to discord - it's one of the few instances where it's almost better than doing it in-person, because no one is shouting over the tv dialogue.

[dolorosa_12]

I think it's fair enough to prefer face-to-face events — there are a lot of things I prefer about them as well. The virtual stuff suits me because I can attend things that are in other cities or countries that I otherwise wouldn't have seen (I mean, I'm never going to be in a position to attend live author events in the US or Canada, for example), and because it always made me feel uncomfortable attending them on my own, but there is an energy and immediacy about in-person stuff that's very hard to replicate.

Online watchalongs are so much fun! I don't really have the time to do it now, but there was a period of about five or six years or so when a handful of friends and I would watch streams simultaneously of various shows as they released (so we'd be gathering to watch things weekly based on the airing schedule; this was pre-Netflix or other big streaming services) and chat in our IRC chatroom (you can tell how long ago this was by the fact we used IRC). It was so much fun!