It's kind of goofy. Everyone is impressed that something "important" could bring so many together without violence. Well...ehrm....yes...I s'pose.
Grand Rapids, MI (WZZM)-- More than a thousand pillow toting Facebook enthusiasts descended on Rosa Parks Circle in downtown Grand Rapids Sunday for what may be one of the largest pillow fights ever."It just started with me inviting about 100 people to the event on Facebook. It was originally just for a few friends and then it just exploded," said Rob Bliss who organized the event.
Participants squared off in teams based on the color of their shirts. And then the drama started to build.
The clocked ticked down as the theme song from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly western blared from speakers.
"Then at 2 o'clock I blew my horn and I almost died basically," said Bliss. That was when the sea of colors swarmed the middle of the circle, and people started smacking anyone in their path with pillows.
"It was just epic. There were so many people and everyone was attacking every one and half the time you were hitting your own team by accident because they were getting in the way," said Rick Waldmiller a member of the Black team. "I tried to bring the biggest firmest pillow I could find and work with all my Reds and it worked because I hit a Blue so hard his face paint came off," said Mary Brandt pointing to the blue stain on her pillow.
While on different teams today, Brand and Waldmiller are friends and came to the event together.
But it didn't take long for them form new alliances that reached beyond the goal of being crowned pillow fighting champs.
"It's ridiculous you look back 5 years, 10 years and no one could have even thought something like this was possible," said Brandt. "So many people came together for one thing in a community that we've never even met. I've become fast friends with people on this Red team that I have never even seen before today."
An enthusiastic Waldmiller agreed. "These guys here we met them walking on the way here and talked to them the entire time," he said pointing to two college aged men wearing red
shirts. "And half way through the battle I ran into him and he was like 'hey' and we smacked each other in the face and kept going. Now we're going to find each other on Facebook and keep talking."If nothing else this pillow fight battle proved how powerful Facebook and other social websites can be at unifying people under a coming cause.
2 comments:
Sorry to say, dear Rose, I was not involved with the Facebook Pillow Fight. It sounded like fun though but maybe not my kind of fun :)
It was all over the radio the day before and I really wanted to go and at least see it! Didn't make it though.
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