How Zoom became my "third place"

"And if it's crowded, all the better / Because we know we're gonna be up late" - All My Friends, LCD Soundsystem

It used to be so simple. Your first place was your home. Your second place was your work. Your third place was an escape from the first two places – somewhere you’d go to relax with old friends and make new ones – like coffee shops, bars, or parks.

Well, that was before the COVID pandemic showed up. My first and second places are now 10 feet apart. Most of my favorite third places are either closed or require social distancing. If you had told me a year ago that Zoom would become my new third place, I wouldn’t have believed you. But it has, and here we are.

When COVID struck, Zoom’s free, easy-to-use app that could comfortably handle up to 50 simultaneous video participants became the natural place for previously offline communities to congregate. In doing so, Zoom became the platform for transporting offline “third places” into the online world, arguably the first major platform to do so since Facebook and then WhatsApp.

I’m part of one such meetup, the weekly “Couchsurfing Virtual Trivia” event run by my friend Amy whom I met during my college years in Minnesota. Although I don’t live there anymore, the Friday evening trivia games have been a great way to virtually keep in touch with old friends from the area and meet new ones from around the world.

The structure of the meetup is simple – 1 hour of introductions, 90 minutes of trivia, 15 minutes of results, and a free-from chat until people call it a night. Most sections take place in a large group (pictured above); the trivia section takes place in a breakout room where 3-5 people try to get through 7 rounds of trivia before the time is up. It’s a lot of fun and one of the highlights of my week.

One of my favorite parts is having discussions in both large groups (to get to know the group) and small groups (to get to know the individuals in the group) with people from around the world. After almost three months in quarantine, I’m itching to attend an in-person meetup; but sooner or later, I know I’ll come back to Zoom.