How to Stay In is a series about redefining "normal" life in order to take care of ourselves and one another during the COVID-19 pandemic.
By the way, if any of these hangouts go well, consider making them recurring events. Not only is it logistically easier, but it’s also a great way to combat loneliness and general COVID despair. When you’re feeling lonely and sad, having social engagements to look forward to helps a lot, and interacting with people regularly is a really good way to make friends (or deepen existing relationships).
- Set an alarm to remind you to do a daily vibe check in your group chats. (Bonus points if everyone shares a photo.)
- Get creative with your regular friend group check-ins. The Life team at VICE has been doing a daily laugh check (where everyone shares what’s funny to them right now) and a roommate check (everyone just shares what’s new with their roommates, whether it’s good or bad).
- Invite your friend group to start creating lo-fi vlogs for each other. (Think: skincare routine, “get ready with me,” house tour, etc.)
- Do a morning WFHOOTD (work from home outfit of the day) photo call-out in your group chat.
- Try Marco Polo, a surprisingly charming asynchronous video chat app that is far better than Facebook or Instagram for video DMs. (It’s a particularly good one for families!)
- Use Netflixparty to watch movies or shows together.
- Chat and play simple party games remotely using Houseparty.
- Try Instagram’s new ‘co-watching’ feature or try Squad, an app that lets you screenshare whatever is on your phone.
- Make a TikTok account if you haven’t already (you can keep it private!), and ask your friends to do so as well—it’s a really fun and easy way to make and share weird shit.
- Get your friend group to start sending weekly email “newsletters” to each other. (Keep it simple/doable with a format like “Things I read, watched, listened to, ate, laughed about, photographed, and loved” and bulleted lists.)
- Expand your network in some way; find a Facebook group or Reddit community for people in your profession, from your hometown, who share a common interest of yours, etc.
- Video chat with a friend while you both meal prep for the week ahead.
- Start a Slack or email listserv with your neighbors.
- Join choreographer Ryan Heffington’s Instagram Live dance parties.
- Or host your own dance party with friends by video chat.
- Challenge a friend or family member to a dance contest; record a video of yourself doing a dance, then send it to them to replicate and send video back to you.
- Or just learn the same TikTok dances and show them off to each other.
- Send dumb Cameos from your favorite microlebrities to each other; the custom videos run as low as $25, and are nice for a special occasion (think: sending a birthday message from their favorite reality show castmember).
- Take inspiration from this woman and create ridiculous mini set pieces for your video calls or to otherwise entertain your friends.
- Start a chill group blog that everyone can contribute to, à la Indoor Voices.
- Get it on an existing virtual trivia league (like this one or this one).
- Or host your own trivia night for like-minded nerdy pals.
- Organize a remote game night; this spreadsheet has a bunch of good games for multiple players.
- Put together outfits in Photoshop for hypothetical future social scenarios and show them off to each other. It's like digital paper dolls.
- Arrange a knitting circle.
- Do a weekly DIY challenge with other creative folks where you choose a theme and then make a project or craft using only the supplies you have on hand.
- Or do an art challenge where everyone creates a drawing or painting inspired by the same topic and then shows it off. (The topic can be silly and the art definitely does not need to be good.)
- Start a recipe club where everyone utilizes the same ingredient (probably beans) or cooks the same recipe and then shares photos and/or eats together.
- Set up a remote lunch hangout with coworkers, aka eat your WFH lunch together and chat like you would have in the office.
- Host a long-distance dinner party; each participant should cook their fanciest quarantine meal, set the table (with a laptop across from their spot), dress up, light candles, pour a glass of wine, etc.
- Host a drink, talk, and learn party, where everyone comes with a three minute PowerPoint presentation about a random topic.
- Make theme days a part of your group chat/hangouts. Now is a great time to start participating in Wig Wednesdays.
- Start a good old-fashioned book club.
- Or do an article club, podcast club, or documentary club.
- Get everyone in the group chat to create Memojis—which are, frankly, hilariously terrible—of each other.
- “Tour” a museum (like MoMa, Tate Britain, or the Musée d’Orsay) together from home while sharing your screen.
- Invite folks to join you in a daily photo challenge for the next two weeks. (There are tons of super simple prompts–like this—on Pinterest.)
- FaceTime with a friend while you do an at-home yoga or workout session together.
- Start “planning” the big group trip you’ve been meaning to take for years. (Obviously this can’t be pegged to a date, but you can still make a doc of specific places you want to go and stay, as well as general times of year you can agree upon.)
- Prepare lip syncs of iconic scenes in the style of Bowen Yang for each other.
- Plan an activity/hangout inspired by your favorite reality competition shows (think: Bake-Off, Project Runway, Chopped).
- Utilize software like iCloud, Dropbox, or Google Drive to share photos and videos within a friend group. This might look like a photo stream for pets, breakfast, outfits, etc. where people can easily view and comment, or creating a photo album of you and your friends, or uploading photos of a time in your life they weren’t a part of—so they can see your sibling’s new baby or your best college or childhood pics.
- Set up a standing 20 minute coffee break with a friend every morning at 11 or every afternoon at 3. (Time-boxing will keep it from feeling overwhelming or cutting into your workday.)
- Give any of the above hangouts a theme and invite everyone to come in dressed and/or with props. (Some ideas: Margaritaville, black tie, YouTube makeup, Animal Crossing.)
- Attend Digital Drag Fest events “together.”
- Or create your own quarantine drag fest and invite everyone to go all out with whatever they have at home.
- Do Self-Care Sundays with a close friend—put on a mask and talk while you soak in the tub.
- Write real physical letters to folks who just aren’t into texting. (FYI, even if you had an outside risk of having been exposed to COVID-19, it only survives for 24 hours on porous surfaces like paper; if the recipient is really worried, they can “quarantine” the letter for 24 hours after the mail carrier would have touched it before opening.)
- Or get a pen pal. (Check out Worldwide Snail Mail Pen Pals, PenPal World, Letters to Elders, and Write a Prisoner to find someone to connect with.)
- Set aside time each day to make a couple 20-minute phone calls.
- And block out an hour each week for sending/responding to emails with friends.
- Start sending people voice memos, a wildly underrated communication tool.
- Play video games together while talking on the phone.
- If staying in touch with family is feeling overwhelming, start sending a weekly email—sort of like those end-of-year Christmas card letters—instead.
- Or “assign” yourself one thing (your dinner, something you read, a funny meme, etc.) that you’ll share with your parents and siblings each day as a low-level check-in.
- Send people whatever postcards or greeting cards you have lying around. (It doesn’t matter if they are seasonally inappropriate!!!)
- And if you’re feeling sentimental, do the 36 questions that lead to love with someone you care about.