Friends gather to watch a movie on Netflix Party; classmates trade study notes in a Discord channel; millions of viewers attend a live concert on Fortnite. Over on Animal Crossing, island-dwellers decorate their homes and visit each other.

These are the contours of our social life, defined by virtual hangouts in an age of physical distancing.

Plugged in

As social lives migrate online, communication apps and social games have been indispensable in keeping us connected.

These digital platforms attempt to recreate the feeling of in-person gatherings. Perhaps no other app has come as close to offering that experience as Discord, which allows users to connect over text, audio and video.

Originally designed for online gamers to play together in real-time, Discord gained traction with the mainstream with its customisable, collaborative platform.

Their servers are highly flexible; they can be private or public, remain exclusive to a small group of friends or host millions. People can come together to work and play, conversing freely about any number of topics across multiple mediums.

The third place

Virtual hangouts help us find like-minded individuals and bond over shared interests in various groups, from anime fandoms to crochet circles, gaming guilds to sneakerhead crews.

With such diverse possibilities for social interaction, the Internet has emerged as a third place — a public and civic space where communities are built.

These online spaces facilitate open discourse and the mobilisation of communities. Last year, local neighbourhoods in the United States organised Black Lives Matter protests on Discord, while a Hong Kong democracy rally was hosted on Animal Crossing.

In February 2021, Chinese netizens used a new audio-chat app, Clubhouse, to discuss Xinjiang’s internment camps for Muslim Uighurs — a topic that cannot be raised in real life without risking arrest. A Uighur woman shared her relatives’ internment to thousands of listeners, giving a first-hand account of the human rights violations in Xinjiang.

These digital hangouts accommodate a wide spectrum of views and elevate marginalised voices, encouraging the robust debate vital to any democracy.