Losing Sleep

Do you remember the GAP swing commercial? I do. Do you remember the swing dancing craze that followed? I do. That’s how I met my wife. I didn’t start swing dancing on purpose I just kind of stumbled into it. My roommate wanted to go and so she dragged me along and before I knew it I was dancing 6 nights a week. During the height of the dancing craze you could go 7 nights a week but I decided I needed a day of rest.

With the explosion of Swing dancing (lindyhop, swing is to evocative of other less savory activities) came a fledgling community, and one of the focal points of that community was Windyhop. Windyhop was created as a way for the Chicago area lindyhoppers to meet and greet and communicate about places to dance and plan get-togethers. It included everything about dancing from the best shoes to wear, places to buy clothes, places to learn and even the best way keep yourself dry and smelling sweet after a night of dancing. People talked about everything on the Windyhop forum, from the best TV shows, what books they were reading and politics (I always stayed out of that one).

Windyhop was also extremely useful for traveling lindyhoppers. Every year there were events all across the country called lindy exchanges. Basically a city would host a lindy exchange and people from all across the US (and even other countries) would go to that city to dance for a weekend. It was a great time and when Chicago hosted a lindy exchange Windyhop was the place that people posted about coming into the city and looking for places stay and people to see.

The term “Virtual Community” is really kind of a misnomer. There was nothing “virtual” about windyhop. We talked on the Windyhop forums by day and danced together by night. The way we talked may have been over wires and circuitry but when we came together it was physical and intimate (one of my dance teachers used to say a dance was a “3 minute flirt”). Windyhop is still around although it’s a shadow of its former self. I still check it on occasion for places my wife and I can dance but I find myself doing that less and less.