Give A Bubble

AndyatFocallocal · 23 December 2022 23:42

Goals Targeted:

Reminding people of a time when it was normal to be friendly and have fun with people they’d just met to promote positive light hearted community connection
Connecting people across demographics using bubbles, and reconnecting them with their youthful playfulness

“Real change occurs from the bottom up; it occurs from person to person, and it almost always occurs in small groups and locales and then bubbles up and aggregates to larger vectors of change.”

HOW?

Grab some bubbles
Go and invite people to blow some bubbles with you!
It can be people you meet in your daily life, at work, on trains and busses, on the streets - or it can be an organised activity with friends or other members of our community.
Post photos and videos on social media to share your experience with us all, and inspire others to give it a try.
Please include hashtags giveabubble #PublicHappiness and #YourLocation so we can all see them too. Also these are needed if you are collecting PHAT tokens here.
Remember to ask people’s permission before filming or photographing them as their reactions are central in your media
This is a great way to meet new people by yourself and spread a little happiness. Alternatively you can choose to organise with a few friends, and/or post your activity in the ‘Local’ area of our platform to find others nearby who’d love to go out and make the world a little happier with you.

Intro

giveabubble is a simple and fun way to spread happiness and positivity. We invite people around us to participate in the simple joy of blowing bubbles together, filling the sky with a magical landscape of beautiful floating little planets. As any 5 year old will tell you Bubbles are the most amazing, astounding thing in the world!

Activity Story

This activity is a simple and fun way to show warmth to those around us. As with all of our events, it is designed to make the world we live in feel warmer, friendlier, and safer for everyone.

Take a few minutes and imagine someone who watches too much news and has become nervous and pessimistic of others around them because all they see are negative stories of bad things highlighted with high beam spotlight, normally choosing to ignore the story which led lead to the dramatic and damaging choices being reported on and making those rare ‘newsworthy’ occasions seem far more normal than they really are.

This event seeks to remind them of the other 99.999% of wonderful and caring humans around them who wish only good for them. So they carry on daily looking at everyone around them with distrust.

Or imagine a young kid who is feeling pressured to join a gang for protection because the world around them feels like a threatening and unsafe place – not helped by movies and musicians who (guided by big record and marketing corporations) glamorize aggressive attitudes and lifestyles for profit, rather than telling the world their real story or using their voice to share something meaningful to them.

Perhaps even imagine someone who is about to make a terrible choice, one that will get those spectacle chasing reporters running to fill the nations eyes and ears with that terrible thing that just happened.

Now ask: if a cheerful stranger offered them a bottle of bubbles and invited them to blow some, just to add a little positive fun into their day doing something they almost certainly remember linked to some smiles and fun in their childhood – could that simple act of unexpected kindness and the warmth of the experience change their feelings towards the community and people around them enough to choose a different path?

Absolutely there is a small chance it can if it strikes a chord in them. Now imagine if their local community was filled with inclusive activities which reach out to others with happiness and kindness, and cheerful people letting them know they are welcome and invited to join in.

All three of those people above there would be a much greater feeling that we lived in a safe, warm, open, connected, and welcoming place.

Pro-tips:

BE A BUBBLE GOD!!! Check out bubble blowing machines at any toy store. Some of them are capable of producing more bubbles than 1000 people blowing as hard as they can could! Adding 2 or 3 of them to your activity can really add style and presentation to the activity
Invite your friends and ask them all to bring a few bottles so they have plenty for themselves, and a few to give out to anyone who wants to join in or take some away and giveabubble creating smiles and happiness around them in their day too
If you want to get a little more playful try challenging people to pop a bubble with their nose, or to say ‘bubbles’ 10 times in a grumpy voice (its surprisingly hard, its a really happy word )
Why not buy one of our “Ask me if you’d like to blow a bubble” badges or Tees from our shop and share bubbly happiness all day every day?

WARNING

If lots of people bubble on a smooth floor (i.e. a shopping centre), the floor will quickly become very slippery and people might get hurt

Legal Stuff (how it worked out for us)

If the activity gets really large you might get some attention from the police. In the UK, you can apply for Temporary Events Notice (a T.E.N) but in my opinion the the public have a human right to gather peacefully in a public space and enjoy a positive activity together.

I very rarely applied for one in the ten years i’ve been doing this activity and often have discussions with the police, who often feel they should stop anything which is different, but after explaining that it’s is simply a gathering of local people and a positive community event with no money being exchanged, the police have never insisted we stop. We were once asked to move, but the officer suggested another nearby location… which was nice so we did

BENEFITS:

Researchers argue that significant evidence that social support and feeling connected can help people maintain a healthy body mass index, control blood sugars, improve cancer survival, decrease cardiovascular mortality, decrease depressive symptoms, mitigate posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, and improve overall mental health. Meaning to say, playful activities such as giveabubble definitely brings important health benefits

Science Supporting the Impact of this Activity

If you’d like to read more on the science behind the negative effects of reading the news everyday, here’s a good article