A pillow fight is a common game mostly played by young children (but also by teens and adults) in which they engage in mock physical conflict, using pillows as weapons.
Many times pillow fights occur during children's sleepovers. Since pillows are usually soft, injuries rarely occur. The heft of a pillow can still knock a young person off balance, especially on a soft surface such as a bed, which is a common venue. In earlier eras, pillows would often break, shedding feathers throughout a room. Modern pillows tend to be stronger and are often filled with a solid block of artificial filling, so breakage occurs far less frequently.
Pillow fighting became part of flash mob culture with pillow fight flash mobs popping up in cities around the world.
Women wrestlers, known Divas in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) engage in pillow fights as a type of match, most often booked as a Lingerie Pillow Fight, in which the women "compete" in lingerie. Little or no actual wrestling takes place.
In January 2007, Reuters reported that a Pillow Fight League was operating in bars in Toronto. Pre-selected female "fighters" with stage personalities are paid small amounts to stage regular, unscripted fights. The rules call for "no lewd behavior, and moves such as leg drops or tickling or submission holds are allowed as long as a pillow is used".
The Guinness World Record for the largest pillow fight was set in July 2015 at a St. Paul Saints baseball game, where 6,261 participated in the event that was sponsored by the local manufacturer My Pillow.
Pillow fights were a popular theme in early cinematography. 1897 saw the release of A Pillow Fight by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company followed by Pillow Fight from Edison Studios. In the same year Siegmund Lubin released New Pillow Fight. Lubin returned to the subject in 1903 with the film Pillow Fight, Reversed.