I think most communities need a focus, at least to kick-off. Whether that's a game, a hobby, or a shared interest...
I know in my personal experience, the internet communities I spent time in the 00s were from growing up with more time on my hands to explore and dive deep on hobbies. There does seem to me to be fewer smaller forums and communities now-a-days, but I'm not sure how much my experience is globally true, or it's just about where we're at in life. I'm sure there are still lots of communities in e.g. boardgames, MMOs, Discord, hobbies, facebook pages/groups, reddit, whatsapp groups, etc. That said, often these communities are big/sprawling or small friendship groups, and maybe there are fewer medium-sized communities where we can know people on first-(pseudo)name terms - the kinds of places that we have this nostalgia for. I'm not sure.
But I do think you have a point, and broadcast social media has become a default: probably because it's easier to monetize; and easier to consume, because being an audience requires less active engagement than in a community.
I agree completely – I think community does always need some kind of focus, an essential bit of commonality between all members that provides the necessarily gravitational pull to create cohesion.
When talking about physical communities, there is an automatic source of commonality: members all live in the same place. In your village, you might have all sorts of people with different interests and viewpoints, but ultimately all the villagers have the shared experience of the physical space, and a common interest in its welfare.
So obviously digital communities lack that and there needs to be some other source. As you say, there are some things that kind of automatically create a bit of community around something very specific, like a game or working at the same company.
I guess what I find frustrating, though, is that there are of course a huge number of things that people can have in common that could provide the core of communities, but it seems like there is practically such high friction to actually create, grow, and maintain those communities because we just don't have platforms that encourage it. Things like MMO games and work Slack spaces automatically require doing the work to let members collaborate and have an economic motive to justify that work, but what about all the more casual reasons we might want to build communities around that don't necessarily have an economic motive behind them? It seems like we have, what, subreddits (which I think is a pretty poor community solution for the reasons I mentioned in the article)?
So I think the point I'm trying to make is that a huge amount of work has been put into the creation of social media platforms, and it seems bizarre that we don't also have solutions for frictionlessly creating real vibrant communities online. The tech is there, but social media just sucks all of the energy out of anything that might be more community oriented.
And I think the reason for that dynamic (getting into where I want to go next on this topic in future articles) has a lot to do with the broadcaster model having an *unbelievably intense pull*. It's a pull that is rooted in some pretty deep fundamental dynamics of both economics and human nature, which have echoes that go back to the print revolution and even earlier. Basically I think you'e right: social media is easier to monetize and easier to consume. But I think that simple statement hides a somewhat terrifying abyss of depth.
Interesting thoughts!
I think most communities need a focus, at least to kick-off. Whether that's a game, a hobby, or a shared interest...
I know in my personal experience, the internet communities I spent time in the 00s were from growing up with more time on my hands to explore and dive deep on hobbies. There does seem to me to be fewer smaller forums and communities now-a-days, but I'm not sure how much my experience is globally true, or it's just about where we're at in life. I'm sure there are still lots of communities in e.g. boardgames, MMOs, Discord, hobbies, facebook pages/groups, reddit, whatsapp groups, etc. That said, often these communities are big/sprawling or small friendship groups, and maybe there are fewer medium-sized communities where we can know people on first-(pseudo)name terms - the kinds of places that we have this nostalgia for. I'm not sure.
But I do think you have a point, and broadcast social media has become a default: probably because it's easier to monetize; and easier to consume, because being an audience requires less active engagement than in a community.
I agree completely – I think community does always need some kind of focus, an essential bit of commonality between all members that provides the necessarily gravitational pull to create cohesion.
When talking about physical communities, there is an automatic source of commonality: members all live in the same place. In your village, you might have all sorts of people with different interests and viewpoints, but ultimately all the villagers have the shared experience of the physical space, and a common interest in its welfare.
So obviously digital communities lack that and there needs to be some other source. As you say, there are some things that kind of automatically create a bit of community around something very specific, like a game or working at the same company.
I guess what I find frustrating, though, is that there are of course a huge number of things that people can have in common that could provide the core of communities, but it seems like there is practically such high friction to actually create, grow, and maintain those communities because we just don't have platforms that encourage it. Things like MMO games and work Slack spaces automatically require doing the work to let members collaborate and have an economic motive to justify that work, but what about all the more casual reasons we might want to build communities around that don't necessarily have an economic motive behind them? It seems like we have, what, subreddits (which I think is a pretty poor community solution for the reasons I mentioned in the article)?
So I think the point I'm trying to make is that a huge amount of work has been put into the creation of social media platforms, and it seems bizarre that we don't also have solutions for frictionlessly creating real vibrant communities online. The tech is there, but social media just sucks all of the energy out of anything that might be more community oriented.
And I think the reason for that dynamic (getting into where I want to go next on this topic in future articles) has a lot to do with the broadcaster model having an *unbelievably intense pull*. It's a pull that is rooted in some pretty deep fundamental dynamics of both economics and human nature, which have echoes that go back to the print revolution and even earlier. Basically I think you'e right: social media is easier to monetize and easier to consume. But I think that simple statement hides a somewhat terrifying abyss of depth.