Tree Raves: A Case Study in Social Protocols
What happens when you open source a party?
Tree Raves
Two weekends ago, my friends Tyler and Jesse hosted a silent disco in a park.
They called it a “tree rave,” and afterwards Tyler announced that tree raves are open source events. Anyone is welcome to host a tree rave. He also posted a message in the group chat with very precise instructions on how to host a tree rave:
Hosting for the first time can be intimidating. I know because I've coached a lot of people through their first hosted event! People get tripped up by the little logistical decisions that go into any event. Sometimes they don’t know who to invite, and worry that no one will show up. They also worry that they'll do a poor job of hosting and that their guests won't enjoy themselves.
Tyler’s approach:
Removes the need to make logistical decisions.
Comes with a built-in guest list of people excited to attend. (The Tree Rave WhatsApp group chat, which grew to 250+ people in 2 weeks).
Is pre-tested to ensure that people will have fun.
Thus it makes it easy for people with little hosting experience to plug-and-play a great event.
The next weekend, Liam hosted a tree rave, and it was a blast. Liam hosted a lot in college but but hadn't hosted in a few years.
And this weekend, Ally is hosting one. Ally has very little hosting experience, but I'm confident she's going to throw a great event.
A Social Protocol OS
A protocol is a well-known pattern that allows people to coordinate with each other. The handshake is a protocol we invoke when we meet someone for the first time. Parliamentary procedure is a protocol for running effective board meetings.
We're less fluent in social protocols today than we were in previous generations.
[In the past], because people participated in these social protocols from childhood, they were more skilled at running them. To give some literary examples, Mark Twain’s “Cannibalism in the Cars” narrates how a group of snowbound train passengers instantly enact comprehensive parliamentary procedures to vote on who gets eaten. Twain clearly assumes that any educated person in the story and reading the story would be familiar with parliamentary rules. The series of teenage novels “Mad Scientist Club” written in the 60s in the US has a group of teenager friends who decide to create a scientist club and immediately elect officials and a treasurer for shared expenses w/o any preamble to explain how they all work. I suspect not even 1 in 10 people alive today could organize and run a club without reading a book about it first.
This isn’t a new thesis — the book “Bowling Alone”, released in 2000, extensively documented the decline of social and civic involvement from the 1970s on — pinning the blame largely on TV, that it proved more interesting than hanging out with people.
Social media is furthering this trend of digital leisure activities supplanting IRL socializing and civic involvement.
How do we teach social protocols in the age of media and social media? Imagine a "social protocol operating system." What if, for any social gathering, you could look up the appropriate social protocol to invoke?
Digitally mediated social protocols make a lot of sense to me. And perhaps my brain has been addled by too much time writing open source and frameworks but it seems like there should be a protocol OS and framework for designing and running social protocols which then can be invoked by groups.
Want to run a club? Invoke the club protocol and you get yearly elections of officers, dues collection, etc. Want to run a book group? Pick one of five popular maintained book group protocols off the shelf and get going. Want to do a monthly potluck dinner with a few other families? Grab it and it’ll help you arrange who’s hosting, the date, the time, dish assignments, etc.
The common theme of social protocols is they help facilitate the coordination that must happen so that it’s easy to get to the fun part of hanging out and working on stuff together.
This post is my first contribution to a hypothetical social protocol OS. The Tree Rave Protocol removes extraneous logistics, and makes it easy to get to the fun part of hanging out. Like any good protocol, I hope it is both structured and flexible enough to work for you.
How to Host a Tree Rave in Your City (The Tree Rave Social Protocol)
[Optional] Gauge interest. In Tyler’s case, he asked an ecstatic dance group chat if anyone would attend an outdoor silent disco event. Tons of people said yes, and his post got over 10 heart reactions, which made him confident that there was demand.
[Optional] Find a co-host. This will make hosting an event less intimidating and more fun. It will also double your reach. In Tyler’s case, he asked the same ecstatic dance group chat if anyone wanted to co-host with him. His friend Jesse did.
Pick a date and time.
Pick a park.
Create a WhatsApp group called “[City] TREE 💃🌳🕺🏻 RAVE.” Make sure that participants have permissions to add other people to the group.
Fill out the following invite template and post it to the group:
[Date] [time]
[Optional description]
🌍 WHERE?
[Location]
⚙️ HOW?
1. Arrive at [time]
2. In Spotify, set the 8 second crossfade (home screen > gear icon in upper right > playback > crossfade)
3. Open the playlist – see link below
4. At [time]:05ish all count down: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, press play all at the same time!
5. Dance with wild abandon
🎵 PLAYLIST
[playlist link]
8 seconds crossfade 🎧
BRING
🎧 headphones
[& anything else real or imaginary u want ppl 2 bring]For the original invitation, Tyler wrote this as an [optional description]:
In Berlin there’s this thing called Tree Dance, where people spontaneously meet up by a tree, sync the same playlist on their headphones, & then dance with wild abandon. Let’s bring it to NYC this Spring!
What kind of dance is this? All kinds. You’re welcome to bring the butoh, contact improv, ecstatic dance, or however you feel like moving.
Feel free to use the same text or take inspiration from it.
For the first tree rave in your city, you'll need to promote it. After that, the group chat may snowball (as happened in NYC) and less advertising will be necessary.
Post on social media. In Tyler’s case, he posted on Instagram and Twitter: https://twitter.com/TylerAlterman/status/1638629477310767107?s=20
You can use Canva to create a graphic for your social media posts.
Post on various local group chats if you’re involved in any. Tyler posted to two dance group chats, a contact improv chat, and a few others.
You can also submit it to local newsletters, if they exist in your city. Someone got the second tree rave announced in Nonsense NYC.
Message your friends or tell them about it in person. Tell your friends to invite their friends too.
Use this playlist for the first event (unless you like making playlists, in which case make your own!)
On the day of the Tree Rave, show up 15 minutes early. Post a picture of yourself and your map location in the group chat so people can find you in the park. It's often easier to meet near a landmark so people can find you, and then walk to a nearby tree to dance.
Even though you said the rave would start at 5 minutes past the hour, expect a lot of people to be late. Plan to start at 15 minutes past the hour.
Once you have a reasonable agglomeration of people, you're ready to begin. Walk to the tree together, put in your headphones, and press play!
If you’re in NYC and want to come to a future tree rave, join the WhatsApp group.