Coronavirus: The social media events keeping spirits up

Not about the life – and livelihood – threatening situation we find ourselves in, nor about the knowledge of how unevenly its worst impacts will be felt.

But in the various, creative and generous ways that people are responding to this emergency, I find some hope.

Hope that through the invisible walls that were built up before the words Covid-19 entered our vocabulary, a light can find its way through the cracks and remind us of the enduring goodness of humanity and the strength of collectivism.

Hope that some people, at least, will come out of this with a new-found appreciation of the quiet power of reaching out and holding each other up (figuratively, of course). And that’s no small thing.

One of the most reassuring and even uplifting developments to arise from the pandemic and social distancing guidance has been the way in which individuals and communities have jumped at the chance to share ideas and inspiration to help get people through a stressful and isolating time. For some, financial and practical support is an urgent need, but for all of us, the ability to connect to others and enjoy moments of happiness amid the chaos is a lifeline in its own right.

The universal effect of this crisis seems to be one of making the obvious more obvious still, and one positive example of this is its demonstration of the life-changing and even life-saving potential of the arts.

This is something that people instinctively understand – with no need for prompting, no co-ordination, no forward planning for this dramatic change in our way of life. People have flooded social media platforms with their own creativity in an attempt to lift people’s moods and generate a sense of community.

Faced with an overwhelming reality and the accompanying heightened anxiety and even despair, for most people the immediate solution was clear: let’s make each other smile and escape for a while.

From professional musicians broadcasting live acoustic sets online from their homes, to families choreographing their own dance routines and uploading them for the world to (mostly) laugh at; from the organisation of “club nights” via video link with DJs sharing their playlists, to actors at all levels live-streaming performances or “table reads”; from the publication of countless resources to help kids use their imaginations and understand the world’s events, to the simple act of painting rainbows and sunshine on our windows.

Even across borders and oceans, people took comfort in watching videos of Italians in lockdown singing from their windows (and in some cases dubbed over with songs that nobody actually sang). There are endless examples and quite simply too many to keep up with, as just about everyone, from the experts to the amateurs, is taking the opportunity to use the world’s universal languages (movement, sound, colour, laughter, and even tears) to make others feel a little bit less alone.

One of the unexpected aspects of the current situation is that, regardless of the widely unequal budgets people would normally have at their disposal to produce art or entertainment of any kind, this is one area where the playing field has genuinely been levelled out – at least to some extent.

There is something uniquely humanising, in a world where everything can feel so huge, so far away and removed from our own existence, about the realisation that, sitting behind a laptop screen with nowhere to go and nothing but our own devices to occupy ourselves and others, we are all the same. And we are all equally capable of making a difference to someone else’s life by spreading some joy.

On a bigger scale, Lady Gaga helped organise the Global Citizen: Together At Home event which streamed on various platforms yesterday and will be aired on BBC One tonight. Featuring high-profile musicians, actors and comedians, the event’s purpose was to support healthcare workers and the Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organisation (WHO). However, the BBC’s publicity around its broadcast has emphasised that it is not asking for donations but for people to “sit back and enjoy the show”. As BBC Radio One presenter Clara Amfo said: “Music holds the power to be uniquely restorative and unifying.”

I would suggest this is true not only of music but of many forms of creativity. Art and entertainment (which typically go hand in hand) have, throughout history, been among the most powerful modes of sharing our experiences and emotions and learning to understand and relate to other people. Our ability to create beautiful, moving and amusing stories in various mediums is what sets us apart from the other animals – that and the opposable thumbs – and unites us across all other boundaries and barriers. This has never been clearer than now, nor has the invaluable benefit of art and culture to our collective and individual wellbeing.

When we look back on all this and think about what we mean by “essential”, and about the kind of economy and society we want to build, I hope we won’t forget this part of the picture. Many people have suggested that we use this time to re-evaluate how we do things and what’s important in life, on both a personal and political scale. Part of that has to mean thinking seriously about how we connect with each other to make our society – our world – a happier place. In many ways, it is a loss of that sense of shared humanity that has led us to so many of the interconnected crises that are facing our world today.

Much of this, it has to be said, relies on access to the modern technology and high-speed internet connections that so many of us now take for granted, but which are still far from universal. Just imagining a world of social distancing without access to the internet is unthinkable – which is all the more reason to appreciate what we have, to equalise access to it, and to make sure that we realise its truly positive potential. This is something that has become easy to lose sight of in a time when politics has seemed more tribal than ever, when everyday interactions online have been hostile and unforgiving, and when the most “interesting” – and therefore the most amplified – voices are the most confrontational or controversial.

This is why it is oddly heartening to see how people have rallied together in the face of a shared, if uneven, hardship. Of course, not everyone’s response to this crisis has been sunshine and light, and it would be wrong to suggest that the world and its social media microcosm is not still a very angry, divided place. Not only has the usual cycle of often petty arguments failed to stop, but there are also those who have gleefully jumped at the chance to use this situation as an excuse to attack and vilify others when they could be extending empathy and patience in what is a frightening and confusing circumstance for us all.

However, in the oft-repeated words of Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci: “I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”

This condition, I admit, can be curiously melancholic. To spend your life captured at once by the belief that things can be better and the knowledge of just how hard it will be to get there can be exhausting. But seeing even the smallest green shoots of progress emerge through the concrete in this strange and unsettling moment in our history is enough to remind me that we might still have a chance; people might be basically OK, after all.

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