Ideas for Online Lolita Meetups & Activities

I've been laid off for nearly 2 months, and I've left my immediate neighbourhood maybe...5 times, at most? It's been hard not being able to see my friends or go out, but I'm managing. Video/voice chatting while painting or crafting, or just to shoot the breeze, has been a godsend. I'm also very thankful that my lolita community has been actively hosting meetups and activities so that we don't all die of boredom. Here's a list of things I've been doing with my comm and my lolita friends - maybe you'll get some ideas!

Host a watch party. I We also watched a bunch of terrible low-budget "documentaries" about lolita and roasted them. My comm held watch parties and streamed lolita-approved movies like Emma, Kamikaze Girls, and Bara no Konrei. In some ways it's more fun that going to a theatre since you can't talk in the theatre, but during a watch party you can chat all you want! It was tons of fun discussing and riffing on the movies, especially Bara no Konrei.

Bara no Konrei doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's aesthetically pleasing.

Watch2gether has been great for this since you don't need to sign up for an account or anything - just plug videos into the playlist and send people the link to your chatroom. You can also use platforms like Kast, Discord, and Twitch.

Attend a virtual visual kei concert. In the same vein, I recently hosted a Malice Mizer live concert watch party with my friends where we all wore Moitié and watched the concerts in chronological order. I have a few Malice Mizer DVDs kicking around. Youtuber Cantavanda has uploaded a ton of Malice Mizer concerts and music videos in HD so you can view them if you don't have the DVDs. If Malice Mizer isn't your bag, Youtube has lots of full lives uploaded for bands like Versailles, Hollow Mellow, and Lareine. if your group of friends is anything like mine, you'll have a fun evening of nostalgia and fangirl tears.

Now you can go to the concerts you couldn't go to when you were 14!

Take a virtual tour. Many museums and tourist attractions have online tours or walkthrough videos available - there's a great listing here. I'm partial to this tour of the Louvre and this tour of St. Vitus Cathedral. I also found an unusual but interesting tour of the Tim Burton exhibit at the Neon Museum in Las Vegas! Ghibli Museum's Youtube channel is uploading tours on a weekly basis. It's no replacement for travelling, but at least there's no crowds or crying babies. Plus, the tour guides can get up close and personal with the artwork without being swatted away by a security guard.

The Vatican even has a 3D reproduction of the Sistine Chapel. Admittedly, this one isn't that exciting, but I thought it was sort of cool.

Take an online class. It's always more fun to study together, so why not take an online class in a light subject? It's important to keep your mind active, and lots of websites are offering free trials or even entirely free courses that are entirely self-paced. Many public libraries offer free subscriptions to many of these websites.

The Museum of Modern Art offers this course on fashion as design via Coursera.EdX is also another good resource, and even offers instruction in languages other than English. Want to fulfill your weeb aspirations of learning Japanese, but you only speak Chinese? Say no more. Or you can learn French so that you can finally figure out how to pronounce Metamorphose Temps de Fille correctly. That's right, I'm calling you out.

It's ok, people were confused in 2004 too.

I hope that some of these ideas were helpful! What have you and your comm been doing to stay connected?

[Current Music: My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow]