Our work did breakout rooms, so we had a “virtual happy hour” with 70+ people, then 10 other rooms with silly names like some animal and the name of some popula

Our work did breakout rooms, so we had a “virtual happy hour” with 70+ people, then 10 other rooms with silly names like some animal and the name of some popular song, and you were encouraged to pick whichever you wanted. Resulted in a pretty even spread of maybe 7 people per room. It was pretty cool because after we broke into groups I got to have some lighthearted small talk with the company CEO (I work at a 10000+ people company), which felt really neat to me as just a SWE a few management detached from execs, and I don’t think it would have happened pre-pandemic. Alternatively, we had another “happy hour” organized by a different team that was like you said, 100+ folks with just a few of the most popular (or maybe just gregarious?) people cracking jokes and taking center stage, like a high school dance where a few people are dancing and everyone else awkwardly stands on the sidelines.