there was a rash of think pieces and viral tweets and other such Thought Leadership™ a while back about the lost of "third spaces" or whatever
the idea being that part of the reason everyone's so anti-social now and perenially online instead, is because capitalism has so thoroughly enclosed the commons that there's nowhere left to be except work and home
even the fuckin' malls started ripping out all the benches so the kiddoes won't hang around
but the truth of the matter is, I feel like the internet has had the same problem for a while now, maybe even worse
I get on the Internet, and I have work spaces (Slack etc.), and if I'm lucky I have a home space, usually some kinda chat full of friends like IRC or Discord or WhatsApp groups or whatever is "in" rn ... but I definitely don't really have a third space in the same sense as that word applies to meatspace
of course the closest obvious equivalent was social media, and the comparison to modern social media and shopping malls sure as fuck writes itself, what with all the goddamn everything just being there to sell you shit every minute of every day
but also social media brought this insane reach that I don't think is what people are looking for in a "third space"
posting on Twitter was like trying to have a conversation in a movie theater that's running three screens at once, and also the entire town is there
so many more people than you ever wanted are privy to your conversation, and they're all angry that you aren't talking about the thing they think you should be talking about, and the thing quickly escalates into an all out brawl. If you're lucky maybe you find a few comrades-in-arms out of the process, but you're not gonna consider it an enjoyable place to relax or meet your future partner
the thing that's missing is that real world third spaces often have something that provides both a common interest, and a common filter. not everyone is coming into this particular coffee shop, or record store, or game shop, or whatever. the place itself helps to both draw like-minded people, and disinterest those who aren't into what its providing, and through that common bond, community forms and friendships are made
chat spaces can kinda be that, but usually you have to somehow find out about them in the first place, and public chat spaces tend to have all the problems of any other public social media. It might seem to make sense to say "oh I like this video game, I'll join their discord," but I suspect everyone reading this has learned why that is rarely a good idea
this is why I think forums were so vital to the middle era of the internet, and the real reason so many people are nostalgic for them: they were, for many of us, the closest thing we got to an internet "third space". Public enough to bring us into touch with a wider world, but gated enough to build shared community. The registration barrier, and the often niche nature of topics limited who was likely to take an active part, and the asynchronous pace of them meant it was at least somewhat easier for moderators to maintain a clear tone.
They weren't without their issues, but they bridged that gap between public and private well enough, and many did indeed grow communities that were really about their people more than any one topic. anyone who truly inhabited a forum in those days could tell you the bonds that tended to form, or how the off-topic space tended to grow to be the most popular on the site
cohost is closing down in a few days now, and I find myself thinking about digital third spaces. @staff sometimes billed this place "the fourth website", but in truth, I think this was almost but not quite the closest I've come in some years to finding a digital third space.
the limited registration, the peculiar demographic, the distinct tone and design, all conspired to make a kind of community here, one I wish I had been more active in.
I was just kind of afraid. I forgot how to be in a third space.
In truth, I think if this site's fall has a cause beyond that of simple capitalism, it's that. So much of the conflict that has arisen around the site from almost the first day it started opening its doors wider to the public, reads in hindsight like the reactions of people traumatized by the false spaces that social media has been providing now for so many years.
this place was just too good for the modern world. we forgot how to make it work.
but I think, I hope, that we all learned something from it, and maybe there will more places that carry on that spirit of the digital third space. I've thought a lot this past month on what I could do to make that happen. Even thought of starting a forum.
But I think what I need to do is just ... relearn how to find and build shared spaces again, or just embrace the ones I've still got as much as I can, while I can.
thanks for everything, eggbug.