This year, with everyone in the house going to bed early, I spent New Year’s Eve with friends online playing Age of Wonders 4 (Triumph Studios, 2023) and listening to Infoman and Bye Bye with them. I’m telling you, it was one of the best nights I’ve had in months.
Note: This article is an autotranslation. For the original article, click on Français in the menu.
The idea of sitting down with people to watch something isn’t new, whether in a public setting (e.g., a movie at the theater, a play, a hockey game at a sports bar, etc.) or in private (e.g., watching a TV series with family, a movie night at home with friends, etc.). What’s more, when we think about consuming multimedia content with other people, the reflex, at least for me because I’ve organized several in my life, is to assume that the event takes place in person.
However, it’s super easy, and sometimes advantageous depending on the circumstances, to do it remotely. For example, during elections, I love organizing an online “viewing party” (or “watch party”) because it allows me to do multiple searches on my computer at the same time, and I don’t have to worry about transportation home.
There are several ways to organize a remote viewing party. Many people simply make a call on Messenger or Zoom, where one of the participants shares their screen. Others use specialized web platforms that offer this type of service. Unfortunately, the sound quality is not always great, and sometimes there are synchronization issues that create a slight delay between participants.
Personally, I like to use the Discord platform: it’s free, the quality is good, almost all of my friends are comfortable using it, and it opens up options for creating a community around this activity.
Discord has an “activity” feature that offers several interesting options, such as mini-games or the ability to listen to music together. For YouTube videos, there is an activity called “Watch Together” that makes it easy to organize viewing parties. That’s what I used initially, but I quickly realized that there could be synchronization issues, and that the activity module didn’t have YouTube Premium, so there were ads.
Image: Screenshot of the “Watch Together” feature
Here’s how, in just a few minutes, I set up my New Year’s Eve viewing party. All you need is an extra computer (e.g., I open my laptop next to my PC), Discord installed on both devices, two Discord accounts (it takes 5 minutes to create a new account), both accounts on the same server or in the same private chat, and to know what you’re going to listen to and where it’s coming from.
- Open your second device: if you are streaming only with your main device, you will hear the audio a few seconds before everyone else. I also like to use a dedicated device for streaming content, as this avoids several sound issues and mishaps (e.g., accidentally closing all your browser tabs).
- Mute the sound on the second device: this will prevent potential echoes.
- Log in to Discord where you will be listening to the multimedia content with both devices, and make sure the microphone on the second device is disabled: this will eliminate one of the potential sources of echo problems.
- On the secondary device, use the “share your screen” feature and make sure to share only the desired application. If for some reason you absolutely must share your entire screen, mute all other users connected with you, including your primary account: this will solve the problem of hearing yourself twice when sharing.
- Start the multimedia content and enjoy!
As usual, I strongly recommend that you run a few tests in the days leading up to your event to make sure everything is working, your software is up to date, etc.
If you work at a youth center, a CJE, an e-sports program, etc., this is an activity that is easy to organize and adds life to your Discord server.
Additional resources:
- Discord (2025). Go Live and Screen Share. https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040816151-Go-Live-and-Screen-Share
- Savard (2022). VOD Review Exercise: Analysis of gameplay in a war in New World. https://leonin.ca/en/2022/01/03/vod-review-exercise-analysis-of-gameplay-in-a-war-in-new-world/
