Covid New wor(L)ds #1

Pandemic brought to us, not only isolation, but also new behaviors and habits, all reflected in our now new enriched vocabulary. And words are able to tell so many things about societies and culture. So, let’s reflect on the: new meanings of balcony, Covideo parties and Locktail Hours. And many more words.

The pandemic has made its own adjustments not only in numerous areas of human activity but also added new terms and expressions in language.
Social or physical distancing – keeping a safe space between yourself and other people who are not from your household – was maybe the first new word that enriched our vocabulary. And it was the world that announced a new reality.

Closely connected, “quarantine” expanded its meaning – if earlier it was applied to a group of people isolated from others, now quarantine concerns everyone – “everyone is isolated from everyone”

Covid etiquette-Elbow-bump
Greeting were also replaced; shaking our hands got a new motion: Elbow-bump (new forms of salute in Covid time) or Cipika – Cipiki the term known more by the army during the avian flu scare of 2006 become one recognized by all and in all raised to the rank of high meetings.
Starting with March 2020, the whole press struggles to capture and show the world a cascade of applause Elbow-bump.

 Elbow-bump gesture inspire a lot of people, for example The first GIF Elbow-bump GIF was created by Stephen Paul Wright. You can find more info on www.stephenpaulwright.com

Elbow Bump emoji remain marginal, but emojis become even more popular.
FACT : Five billion Emojis are sent daily on Facebook Messenger alone. The handshake, fist bump and high-five emojis are yesterday’s online greeting – we need an emoji that tells our story. The Power of Emojis in Covid time is impressionable. Y

Entire Social Media World promote de new type of emoticons in idea to encourage people to wear masks,
and the mask-emoji was followed by the vaccine campaign. Vaccine Emoji Comes to Life

Fact: The first emoji were created in 1999 by Japanese artist Shigetaka Kurita (^{_{More about you can find on the WIRED editorial )}}

^{Open – Close/Open-Close/Open-Close >>>??}

🎭The first closed festival in 2020 was the mask festival of Venice🎭
Before 2020, if someone had told you that they are wearing a mask tomorrow, you would probably have thought that the Venice Carnival is being celebrated globally.
In 23 February -Venice Carnival closes
and March was the month of calvar for the Northern Italy region
March 2020 is probably one of the months that if you were Italian you would have given anything to not exist.
2020 became the year with the highest amount of deaths since 1945, when Italy was fighting in World War II.
Since March 9, 2020, the whole of Italy is in quarantine. It was in March not only masks but also balconies have gained new meaning.

BalcoThone: (unusual word, in unusual situation)Marathon for encouraging medical staff from balcony – started in March with a Italian songs (Bella Ciao, O Sole Mio, Volare and more and more and….)
2020 March 14. The national anthem was played simultaneously in millions of homes in hundreds of cities in Italy at exactly 18: 00 on Friday. The initiative was spread in social networks, which became the only way to communicate at the time of the general quarantine.
Residents of Naples, for example, to cheer themselves up, sing the anthem of the football club “Napoli»
People sang to the accompaniment of tambourines on their balcony. In less than a day, the video on Facebook was viewed by more than two million people. This emblematic for Italian sense of resistance true Culture inspire entire world

Like the italian poet Aldo Merini said “music makes you Breathe”.
Following the example of the Italians, a whole world has initiated actions aimed at encouraging the population to get over this period.

A quaranteams (quaranteams aka ‘’pandemic pods’’ or ‘’social bubbles’’ are created when COVID-free neighbors or family members team up to create “pods” with others in hopes of creating responsible companionship). For us, it is interesting how this social concept resonated in the art world …….
If in the first example Art worlds inspire entire world now the Social concept inspire a different type of artist and from this mix, some interesting projects are born:

Christine Beamer Director of Career Services and Music Entrepreneurship at the College of Music
Christine Beamer, Jonathan Kuuskoski from the University of Michigan, and Jeffrey Nytch from the University of Colorado Boulder, reached out to students and organized groups based on the students’ summer project goals.
Students provided inspiration, accountability, and feedback to each other as they created original compositions, arranged pieces for particular instruments, recorded videos, did research and launched businesses.
Several students built websites to advance their business ideas or their own brand. Some cross-collaborated on their projects for an additional outcome.
Every two weeks, each group came together and shared how their individual projects were developing—and got feedback and ideas for the next step of their process.
“Each quaranteam became a mini-board of directors for the individual projects,” said Beamer. “We were all learning from each other, as different members of each group shared their different perspectives and expertise so that the individual project benefited.” More about project here

Also Boston Conservatory at Berklee student Shelbie Rassler convened a virtual orchestra of 75 of her peers to create connection in a time of social distancing . She create a virtual orchestration of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David classic, “What the World Needs Now.”
Distance wont stop us from coming together to share some love…. (more on Berklee Online edition)

Many artists who could not practice their profession volunteered in the call center to help people with info about COVID, participated in programs to help the elderly.

GardenAct – in the summer, musicians and actors organize concerts or perform in public gardens, parks or come close to people in the courtyards of the buildings.

Caremongering. In Canada and India, new Facebook groups are asking people to “stop scaremongering and start caremongering”  These groups aim to help those in need and particularly support the most vulnerable and those at greatest risk from COVID-19 within their communities.

Interesting research article about #Caremongering Facebook publish in PLUS ONE

More and more countries are closed and the streets are deserted. Clean, but lifeless
A world in which the evening was destined for romantic meetings or after-work relaxation has been closed. And the online has come to life with force, without asking anyone if it is welcome

See you at a wine zoom? Do we drink coffee together on zoom? Or on WhatsApp or on Telegram or any-many other channels that appeared like mushrooms after rain and all of them promise you the greatest interaction 😀 with 5 with 10 with 20 or with 100 and the number does not stop.

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But the new term was born – ZOOMBOMBING
and life began to make sense again you need adrenaline to scream, to dance, to have fun to be in your circle of friends.
No problem A COVIDEO PARTY is waiting you

COVIDEO PARTY – invented by Irish comedian Alison Spittle
She launched her first party on March 2020, the idea being to connect people that stay on lockdown amid the COVID-19 global outbreak.

Many were put on hold, and rehearsals could not be done properly, so the art world became more creative than ever – YouTube was flooded with ballet dancers rehearsing in the kitchen. Professionally unsuccessful. But definitely, YouTube hits.

The solitary arts still had a chance – at least painters, sculptures, writers could finally stay at home and create in solitude, without anybody knocking on their doors. Well, at least not physical doors. But online doors had to be kept wide open. for discussion, exhibitions, and especially for online sales.
It was the time when professional digital galleries were gaining traction such as Paralel 45,

or when curators and artists did their first 3D exhibitions, successfully, such as the case of …. from Nigeria.

Meanwhile, big players such as Sotheby and Christie’s art auction went online and artists were cash in money, even before the NFTs craze.
One question popped up for artists: should we all go into such artistic sales?
I mean we could sell our photos from rehearsals, backstage movies, trying to sing when we were kids, our first… whatsoever. “just setting up my twttr” went on sales for $2.5 million. This was the first tweet-ever made by CEO Jack Dorsey. So, why not us selling our picture with first pirouettes? 😀

Sometimes only time has the wisdom of sifting the really valuable things.

We will continue to reveal new words and new covidic trends. Next time we will tell the story of the term Bubble Concert , about Quaran-stream concept, New generation of CORONIALS. We have some story about how to Broadway together, DOOMSCROLLING and a lot more interesting facts.