A pillow fight is a common game mostly played by young children in which they attack each other with pillows. Many times pillow fights occur during children's sleepovers. Since pillows are 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.

On the evening of January 16, 1964, the photographer Harry Benson snapped a well-known picture of the Beatles having a pillow fight in their hotel room at the Hotel George V in Paris. Benson claims that the pillow fight was occasioned by "a cable announcing that 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' was number one on the American pop charts" (Benson, Once there was a way). Other sources, however, have the song not hitting number one until February 1, 1964."I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND".

The 1978 film Animal House, starring John Belushi, features a pillow fight in one scene.

On April 17, 2005 students from the University at Albany, The State University of New York in Albany, NY set and currently holds the record for the world's largest pillow fight with 3,648 participants, observed by Guinness Records officials.^* "The Guinness Book of World Records" . This surpasses previous records held by Duke University and Warwick University, and is set to be exceeded itself once the official count for a pillow fight organised by the What Now? television programme in Invercargill, New Zealand is verified by Guinness.

Pillow fighting became part of flash mob culture with pillow fight flash mobs popping up in cities around the world.

It is also one of the more frequent match types among women wrestlers in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

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