Reinventing myself as an Online Party Queen in 2020 — where it all began
Back in March 2020, when the world was watching the news and getting incredibly worried about this unknown deadly virus, and supermarkets shelves were being cleared by people preparing for the worst, my reaction was to fight back the fear with a big fat dose of SILLINESS.
So on a whim I threw a Madonna party on zoom.
I must have been the first person to do zoom party, so I just claiming it right here, I am surely the inventor of the zoom party?! Should have trademarked it. Ha.
I had no idea who would turn up, first there were just 4 of us, but as I was live streaming it to facebook at the time, people were temporarily distracted from impending doom and jumped on the zoom call. We were lip syncing to ‘Like a Virgin’, dancing like we were in a Madonna music video, grabbing props around the house, got hula hooping and one girl even stripped off. Girl Gone Wild indeed. Like any party, it takes a while to warm up, but once we were in the zone, we were in FULL FLOW, expressing ourselves to the screen. We shook off all that fear, we became unstuck, we dived into the fun and we felt an incredible connection to each other.
Madonna’s lyrics were speaking to me:
“Everybody come on, dance and sing
Everybody get up and do your thing
Gonna have to change your mind
Gonna leave your troubles behind
Your body gets the notion
When your feet can make the motion”
Madonna, Queen of reinvention, has just now caused a reinvention in myself. I felt an incredible shift after the party. My housemate, Sarah Weiler, at the start of the party was doing a jigsaw, and within ten mins she caved into the music and we were creating the best disco in our kitchen. I did not expect people to be sharing the live video many times… I did not expect all the comments from strangers “I am watching this Madonna video on repeat, it is making me so happy!”.
People needed this!
I felt like this was my mission, I had to keep everyone in a high vibrational state, to keep them away from fear, as we can get through this together. We can still feel connected and happy. Of course we knew a difficult situation was ahead of us, but that is exactly why we still need to party, to fill our wells up to keep us strong.
Sarah and I threw parties every night that week — 90s party, George Michael, Queen, ABBA… we had such incredible amounts of fun.
A journalist was interested in the story and 2 days after the Madonna party I ended up on BBC news. “And here’s some positive news…” and there I was, being interviewed about playing some Madonna tunes on zoom. LOL.
I had entered a vortex, an alternative reality. I hadn’t really had this much attention on me before. It isn’t like I’ve worked on something for years, I mean… so ridiculous… A facebook group where we posted these events “I’m stuck at home but still wanna have fun” was meant for a few friends, but soon enough people were joining in their thousands, wanting in on the action. It became the facebook within facebook.
Sarah and I posted on facebook a comedy song “Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, I want you in my room” to the Vengaboys “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom” tune, as we could see that we have to give in to the fact our lives are going to become much more online now. We were giving humour to people in these dark times and people were commenting, sharing, liking… it was fuel for us to keep the vibes high.
Every Friday night for 9 weeks we put on online parties with DJs and break out rooms with comedians, performers, interactions, it was a whirlwind of creativity, and we were playing with an entirely new medium — an event on zoom. It was super fun to book all the creatives I knew and showcase their talents. We gathered, we laughed, we danced, we had the most beautiful closing ceremonies with classical pianists, bedtime story time and meditations. They were so popular we even had zoom bombers come in and try to cause havoc with their swearing and showing pornography — we needed bouncers like at a real party!
Then my friend Ed Cooke called me, he had a grand vision of creating a collective of artists to create a virtual world full of connection, incredible experiences and the world’s best party. Curious and passionate creatives were gathered and Co Reality Collective was born. We produced parties every 2–3 weeks and invited everyone to come into our world for everything from entertainment to deep sharing, from whimsical nonsense to intimacy. We then were the chosen group to produce online Burning Man 2020.
I have experienced so many highs in my bedroom, dressed in festival clothes, connecting to people from round the world, letting our imaginations run wild… using zoom! I have laughed til my belly hurts, I have felt a real sense of belonging and had the chance to reinvent myself as a facilitator, performer, and party producer.
What a year… it just shows you, your whole world can change so dramatically in such a short space of time.
