I chose Notes from a Neighbor as the title for my new Substack space after it was suggested by a long-time and excellent thought partner, Grace Heerman.
Thanks for sharing about the awesome running friends experience, Kim. I also love that you are taking a social media sabbatical. I think they are generally very worthwhile. I'm interested to hear what you learn & decide.
Ha! I still have a Hotmail account. I like to think I’m vintage.
I have not yet been able to be a part of a meaningful community without some sort of in person contact. I have to wonder if that’s because it’s so hard to glean tone or meaning through writing. Once you know someone in person, you have a better sense of how they speak.
But all of my experience with this is through modern social media, never on something like substack. I think people head into social media spaces with defenses up.
Kelsey, I love being "vintage" too. Thanks for sharing this & being open about your own experiences w/ virtual community. You raise good points about trying to discern tone & meaning. I think at this point, most people do head into social media spaces w/ defenses up, but I'm not sure it was always that way. I think it got more toxic over time & the need for "defenses" became more important for most people.
That said, and this is something I didn't talk about in today's note & might circle back to in the future, I definitely realized over the years that I approached social media differently that a lot of the people around me. I don't mean that like I was completely unique (there are, of course, others who use it like I do/did) or like I was somehow smarter using it, but I always had this feeling like I could use it like my kitchen table. Like I could "speak" through it as I would speak to people at my own table. I didn't realize until later, and honestly through some tough conversations w/ people closest to me who didn't see it that way & through some painful experiences where I got "scorched" by people I thought I could have open conversations w/, that not everyone was approaching it this way. And I've experienced the same thing over time as others . . . I am prepared for defense more often now & ultra conscious of avoiding the comparison traps. I think trying to use it like kitchen table helped me experience positive connections, but it also might be unrealistic long-term.
This is such a great and thought-provoking reflection. One doubt I've had about internet-based communities is how inconsistent and ephemeral participation can be--people can pop up any time, participate a little or a lot, and then vanish. But thinking about it more after reading your reflection, I realize that's true about in-person communities too. Thinking about my faith community and volunteer groups I participate in, for example--there are folks who have come and gone, and that's right and appropriate: people should be free to grow and change, and to go where they find the things that are sustaining and helpful for them.
Maybe because work and school are in-person and have so much consistent engagement by the same people year after year, there's a conception of in-person communities being more stable, but a difference is that those are compulsory. I think most of our elective activities don't have that same degree of consistency. (And, even our work and school communities change!) And while homeowners might have long-term neighbors, about a third of people in the U.S. rent. So maybe our in-person communities are not so much more consistent than our online communities as I assumed?
And the bigger takeaway: being ephemeral doesn't mean that something isn't meaningful. I love the story of how you got to go backpacking thanks to virtual connections :-)
Lee, you're examining some really relevant parts of this discussion. Thank you for sharing all this! I think what you said about compulsory vs. elective community is a really interesting thread to follow . . . I think that even if elective might mean less commitment, something meaningful can still happen.
I have made some really great connections via the sosh meeds.
I do think that it helps me realize there are people working on a better world, a more equitable world.
From a work perspective, I may not be surrounded in my physical place in Michigan by other physical therapist and/or personal trainers who are really trying to create a more inclusive fitness environment but I can see that modeled online.
My friends and fam may not be as interested in social justice and anti-oppression stuff but I see it online….
But to feel the hug back, to feel the warmth of community reflected back I don’t have as much. I do if I reach out in a DM in a thoughtful way?
So I guess I don’t know, but I do believe in that liberatory visioning of creating something that doesn’t exist…yet. And I think this can totally be that thing? Why not?
I do love the story of the hiking community showing up for you.
I do like to think about how Mr. Rogers was so intentional with his programming and talked about emotions and hard things in a groundbreaking way.
Beth, you cracked me up w/ the "sosh meeds." LOL! The hug back, the warmth of community reflected back, those are really important points. We have to figure out how to ensure that happens & it does take a lot more intentionality in a virtual space. And thanks for getting the liberatory vision!
Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept. I completely agree. The moral concept is what makes it both beautiful and challenging. People's moral concepts tend to be so selfish that they cannot see their neighbor beyond their noses. I believe it is totally possible (I mean I met you and you are definitely my sister) but it was because we both saw the neighbor beyond our noses.
Orleatha, I feel like you raised something so important here . . . that moral concepts can actually be self-serving. I never thought of it that way before & of course, that is going to have a huge impact on the ability to "recognize" our neighbors. Love you, Sister!
I love this! I think we’re all here, on Substack, with you for the same reasons. We want to move away from social platforms and into a more authentic relationship with others. A more authentic community. I’m grateful for you Angie and really appreciate what you’re doing.
It's really hard to make this "migration," isn't it?! I do sense people want to do it though. We're looking for something more healthy & real. Thank you so much for being here, Amanda!
It is! It took me a year after I deactivated my Facebook account to be used to not being automatically connected to others but it also showed me how negative and depressing it was because I was no longer agitated by it everyday. I crave meaningful dialogue and connection and I’m so happy to be finding it here. ❤️
An interesting read, Angie. I belong to several online communities and feel far more at home with some of the people in them than with those who, by happy (or unhappy) accident, live in the same geographical location - because we have come together via the route of having the same interests. My youngest, too, has found her home on the internet - is it right? should she count people so far away as amongst her best friends? maybe she should go out more? Rightly or wrongly, she never found her tribe face to face, and was victimised in school for daring to be different (she is neurodivergent), and she has difficulty communicating with people she doesn't know and trust. Online, she has found people like her and has been able to spend the time to get to know them. It would still be nice to go out and meet some 'real' people, but in the meantime, she has friends. And how is this different to the fact that the people I love and count as friends from my days at school (a long time ago) are now spread right across Australia and we only get to see each other once in a blue moon (messaging via facebook is SOOO much faster than snailmail!)? We are still friends. Oh and by the way, with a smile on my face, you are still a youngster on computer - I got my first 'box' (and I mean box) back in 1985 - a big blue (IBM)! - mostly because I can't type for nuts and my lovely husband realised that a word processing program would speed up my writing no end! It was second hand, and I have never looked back :) So, yup, I think we can be neighbours.
Cate, thank you so much for sharing your experience & your daughter's. I didn't dig into it here, but I do think a big positive of virtual communities is that they offer something especially supportive to anyone w/ a "difference" from their immediate communities. That was the power of the AIP community as it formed for me & eventually others . . . I had three diseases to manage & I needed to connect w/ others who got that. I can totally understand how your daughter would be especially well served by these spaces. Glad we're neighbors!
Loved reading this and was laughing along about dial up 🤣🤣 Internet. Ok, on to my comment. Ha! Are social media and some online spaces exhausting with tons of issues? Yes, as we ALL know. But I believe in spite of all this hard stuff, we can cultivate beautiful communities. As the Mom of a kiddo with specialized needs, and family members with health challenges, it’s tough to get out. Going online and being in a community is a balm for me. I am thankful for the inspiration to build space online with beautiful souls like you. ♥️ I know it’s not all pie in the sky (lol), but I have several close friends I met online and these relationships are absolute gifts to me! By the way, this 💥quote: “Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept,” is now a fav.! Thank you for this powerful essay, sis!!Sitting with so much of what you have raised here. ♥️
Nice to see you here, Sis! Thanks for commenting. Yes, these virtual spaces offer a way for not only people themselves who may have differences that making IRL connection challenging, but also for caretakers of all kinds who might need the ease of just tapping into a close relationship that exist outside of geography & doesn't require tons of coordination just so that person can leave home for only an hour or two. I can see how those relationships are just as meaningful, if not more so! Glad you love the quote. I think about it so much.
Yes, meaningful online communities exist and continue to be made. They come and go like in-person communities, with people moving in and out as life and interests dictate.
The problem for me comes with the size of communities, and that's true whether they're virtual or in-person. I am more apt to participate in smaller communities, and it's really easy for virtual communities to balloon. Furthermore, when communities are created for business purposes, as many are, then I can hardly complain about large sizes. That's good for business, and if I'm in that community, I want the business to do well. But I won't really participate, and I won't feel relevant. It will become another source of media, not a community for me.
To your question, "Can we be virtual neighbors or is that some naive bullshit?" I resonated deeply with your inquisitive self wandering into the WWW back in the day of bulletin boards and dial up. Like you, I turned to Social Media as a kitchen table, but unlike you I got almost immediately served burned food or worse, lights out at the houses where I thought I might be welcomed. Friends asked me to hang in there because they felt it was important to include diverse voices.
In the past decade, the amount of intolerance, trolling, and racism that was once more distal and harder to name as a child of Chinese immigrant parents to the U.S. -- which was always there, just hanging out in the shadows of the parts of the Internet community I was partaking in - showed its face in blatant, "in your face" ways. People I thought were friends and neighbors, both IRL and virtual, allowed me to see what they really thought, felt, and acted. And my kitchen table felt unsafe.
Still, I would say that for every one or two Internet based connections that have utterly failed, there are at least three times as many people who by affinity with the interests we share, are the kinds of people I would like to be neighbors IRL. I've been fortunate enough to have met up with these individuals as I travel to their countries or drove in their states. And because of these experiences, I remain hopeful that virtual neighborhoods can come together.
I have my guard up, for sure. New connections come with a list of criteria for me that I am painfully aware of, and that is the way it needs to be for me because the nature of the communication tool allows people to hide.
Imei, you brought some really good points to this conversation, esp. about the dangers of blatant racism that you face, esp. because the internet allows people to hide behind a screen. I don't experience racism, but I certainly see it & I understand a little about the lack of safety you must feel . . . I can't count how many times I've been called a bitch or worse for speaking up in virtual spaces thanks to rampant sexism. Your guard being up & strict criteria are not at all unwarranted.
Without a doubt, I've also seen and experienced the rampant sexism as well as the not-so-subtle pressure placed on women to perform, speak, act, and appear pleasant, helpful, and pretty along an acceptable template. Ask an intelligent, thought-provoking, and/or intentionally contrary question? Instead of the response being about the content, it gets directed into ad hominem arguments and name calling based on how you physically look. I cringe when my female friends in the plus-size arena get bullied for their size, and I have cringed for every time I've had someone insinuate that a smaller body means a female is somehow less of a woman because she doesn't meet a certain measure. If she's outspoken, she's called a bitch or aggressive. If she is sportive, she's not feminine enough. If she shows empathy or compassion, she's too emotional. So to the original post: I think I'm still building my own timing and criteria on how I identify and develop Internet-based neighbors. Maybe we all are?
Thanks for sharing about the awesome running friends experience, Kim. I also love that you are taking a social media sabbatical. I think they are generally very worthwhile. I'm interested to hear what you learn & decide.
Ha! I still have a Hotmail account. I like to think I’m vintage.
I have not yet been able to be a part of a meaningful community without some sort of in person contact. I have to wonder if that’s because it’s so hard to glean tone or meaning through writing. Once you know someone in person, you have a better sense of how they speak.
But all of my experience with this is through modern social media, never on something like substack. I think people head into social media spaces with defenses up.
Kelsey, I love being "vintage" too. Thanks for sharing this & being open about your own experiences w/ virtual community. You raise good points about trying to discern tone & meaning. I think at this point, most people do head into social media spaces w/ defenses up, but I'm not sure it was always that way. I think it got more toxic over time & the need for "defenses" became more important for most people.
That said, and this is something I didn't talk about in today's note & might circle back to in the future, I definitely realized over the years that I approached social media differently that a lot of the people around me. I don't mean that like I was completely unique (there are, of course, others who use it like I do/did) or like I was somehow smarter using it, but I always had this feeling like I could use it like my kitchen table. Like I could "speak" through it as I would speak to people at my own table. I didn't realize until later, and honestly through some tough conversations w/ people closest to me who didn't see it that way & through some painful experiences where I got "scorched" by people I thought I could have open conversations w/, that not everyone was approaching it this way. And I've experienced the same thing over time as others . . . I am prepared for defense more often now & ultra conscious of avoiding the comparison traps. I think trying to use it like kitchen table helped me experience positive connections, but it also might be unrealistic long-term.
This is such a great and thought-provoking reflection. One doubt I've had about internet-based communities is how inconsistent and ephemeral participation can be--people can pop up any time, participate a little or a lot, and then vanish. But thinking about it more after reading your reflection, I realize that's true about in-person communities too. Thinking about my faith community and volunteer groups I participate in, for example--there are folks who have come and gone, and that's right and appropriate: people should be free to grow and change, and to go where they find the things that are sustaining and helpful for them.
Maybe because work and school are in-person and have so much consistent engagement by the same people year after year, there's a conception of in-person communities being more stable, but a difference is that those are compulsory. I think most of our elective activities don't have that same degree of consistency. (And, even our work and school communities change!) And while homeowners might have long-term neighbors, about a third of people in the U.S. rent. So maybe our in-person communities are not so much more consistent than our online communities as I assumed?
And the bigger takeaway: being ephemeral doesn't mean that something isn't meaningful. I love the story of how you got to go backpacking thanks to virtual connections :-)
Lee, you're examining some really relevant parts of this discussion. Thank you for sharing all this! I think what you said about compulsory vs. elective community is a really interesting thread to follow . . . I think that even if elective might mean less commitment, something meaningful can still happen.
Woah! Also owner of vintage email.
I have made some really great connections via the sosh meeds.
I do think that it helps me realize there are people working on a better world, a more equitable world.
From a work perspective, I may not be surrounded in my physical place in Michigan by other physical therapist and/or personal trainers who are really trying to create a more inclusive fitness environment but I can see that modeled online.
My friends and fam may not be as interested in social justice and anti-oppression stuff but I see it online….
But to feel the hug back, to feel the warmth of community reflected back I don’t have as much. I do if I reach out in a DM in a thoughtful way?
So I guess I don’t know, but I do believe in that liberatory visioning of creating something that doesn’t exist…yet. And I think this can totally be that thing? Why not?
I do love the story of the hiking community showing up for you.
I do like to think about how Mr. Rogers was so intentional with his programming and talked about emotions and hard things in a groundbreaking way.
Beth, you cracked me up w/ the "sosh meeds." LOL! The hug back, the warmth of community reflected back, those are really important points. We have to figure out how to ensure that happens & it does take a lot more intentionality in a virtual space. And thanks for getting the liberatory vision!
Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept. I completely agree. The moral concept is what makes it both beautiful and challenging. People's moral concepts tend to be so selfish that they cannot see their neighbor beyond their noses. I believe it is totally possible (I mean I met you and you are definitely my sister) but it was because we both saw the neighbor beyond our noses.
Orleatha, I feel like you raised something so important here . . . that moral concepts can actually be self-serving. I never thought of it that way before & of course, that is going to have a huge impact on the ability to "recognize" our neighbors. Love you, Sister!
I love this! I think we’re all here, on Substack, with you for the same reasons. We want to move away from social platforms and into a more authentic relationship with others. A more authentic community. I’m grateful for you Angie and really appreciate what you’re doing.
It's really hard to make this "migration," isn't it?! I do sense people want to do it though. We're looking for something more healthy & real. Thank you so much for being here, Amanda!
It is! It took me a year after I deactivated my Facebook account to be used to not being automatically connected to others but it also showed me how negative and depressing it was because I was no longer agitated by it everyday. I crave meaningful dialogue and connection and I’m so happy to be finding it here. ❤️
An interesting read, Angie. I belong to several online communities and feel far more at home with some of the people in them than with those who, by happy (or unhappy) accident, live in the same geographical location - because we have come together via the route of having the same interests. My youngest, too, has found her home on the internet - is it right? should she count people so far away as amongst her best friends? maybe she should go out more? Rightly or wrongly, she never found her tribe face to face, and was victimised in school for daring to be different (she is neurodivergent), and she has difficulty communicating with people she doesn't know and trust. Online, she has found people like her and has been able to spend the time to get to know them. It would still be nice to go out and meet some 'real' people, but in the meantime, she has friends. And how is this different to the fact that the people I love and count as friends from my days at school (a long time ago) are now spread right across Australia and we only get to see each other once in a blue moon (messaging via facebook is SOOO much faster than snailmail!)? We are still friends. Oh and by the way, with a smile on my face, you are still a youngster on computer - I got my first 'box' (and I mean box) back in 1985 - a big blue (IBM)! - mostly because I can't type for nuts and my lovely husband realised that a word processing program would speed up my writing no end! It was second hand, and I have never looked back :) So, yup, I think we can be neighbours.
Cate, thank you so much for sharing your experience & your daughter's. I didn't dig into it here, but I do think a big positive of virtual communities is that they offer something especially supportive to anyone w/ a "difference" from their immediate communities. That was the power of the AIP community as it formed for me & eventually others . . . I had three diseases to manage & I needed to connect w/ others who got that. I can totally understand how your daughter would be especially well served by these spaces. Glad we're neighbors!
Loved reading this and was laughing along about dial up 🤣🤣 Internet. Ok, on to my comment. Ha! Are social media and some online spaces exhausting with tons of issues? Yes, as we ALL know. But I believe in spite of all this hard stuff, we can cultivate beautiful communities. As the Mom of a kiddo with specialized needs, and family members with health challenges, it’s tough to get out. Going online and being in a community is a balm for me. I am thankful for the inspiration to build space online with beautiful souls like you. ♥️ I know it’s not all pie in the sky (lol), but I have several close friends I met online and these relationships are absolute gifts to me! By the way, this 💥quote: “Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept,” is now a fav.! Thank you for this powerful essay, sis!!Sitting with so much of what you have raised here. ♥️
Nice to see you here, Sis! Thanks for commenting. Yes, these virtual spaces offer a way for not only people themselves who may have differences that making IRL connection challenging, but also for caretakers of all kinds who might need the ease of just tapping into a close relationship that exist outside of geography & doesn't require tons of coordination just so that person can leave home for only an hour or two. I can see how those relationships are just as meaningful, if not more so! Glad you love the quote. I think about it so much.
Oh God. I hope so. I really hope it can be done.
Me too!
Yes, meaningful online communities exist and continue to be made. They come and go like in-person communities, with people moving in and out as life and interests dictate.
The problem for me comes with the size of communities, and that's true whether they're virtual or in-person. I am more apt to participate in smaller communities, and it's really easy for virtual communities to balloon. Furthermore, when communities are created for business purposes, as many are, then I can hardly complain about large sizes. That's good for business, and if I'm in that community, I want the business to do well. But I won't really participate, and I won't feel relevant. It will become another source of media, not a community for me.
GREAT points here, Jen! All of them.
To your question, "Can we be virtual neighbors or is that some naive bullshit?" I resonated deeply with your inquisitive self wandering into the WWW back in the day of bulletin boards and dial up. Like you, I turned to Social Media as a kitchen table, but unlike you I got almost immediately served burned food or worse, lights out at the houses where I thought I might be welcomed. Friends asked me to hang in there because they felt it was important to include diverse voices.
In the past decade, the amount of intolerance, trolling, and racism that was once more distal and harder to name as a child of Chinese immigrant parents to the U.S. -- which was always there, just hanging out in the shadows of the parts of the Internet community I was partaking in - showed its face in blatant, "in your face" ways. People I thought were friends and neighbors, both IRL and virtual, allowed me to see what they really thought, felt, and acted. And my kitchen table felt unsafe.
Still, I would say that for every one or two Internet based connections that have utterly failed, there are at least three times as many people who by affinity with the interests we share, are the kinds of people I would like to be neighbors IRL. I've been fortunate enough to have met up with these individuals as I travel to their countries or drove in their states. And because of these experiences, I remain hopeful that virtual neighborhoods can come together.
I have my guard up, for sure. New connections come with a list of criteria for me that I am painfully aware of, and that is the way it needs to be for me because the nature of the communication tool allows people to hide.
Imei, you brought some really good points to this conversation, esp. about the dangers of blatant racism that you face, esp. because the internet allows people to hide behind a screen. I don't experience racism, but I certainly see it & I understand a little about the lack of safety you must feel . . . I can't count how many times I've been called a bitch or worse for speaking up in virtual spaces thanks to rampant sexism. Your guard being up & strict criteria are not at all unwarranted.
Without a doubt, I've also seen and experienced the rampant sexism as well as the not-so-subtle pressure placed on women to perform, speak, act, and appear pleasant, helpful, and pretty along an acceptable template. Ask an intelligent, thought-provoking, and/or intentionally contrary question? Instead of the response being about the content, it gets directed into ad hominem arguments and name calling based on how you physically look. I cringe when my female friends in the plus-size arena get bullied for their size, and I have cringed for every time I've had someone insinuate that a smaller body means a female is somehow less of a woman because she doesn't meet a certain measure. If she's outspoken, she's called a bitch or aggressive. If she is sportive, she's not feminine enough. If she shows empathy or compassion, she's too emotional. So to the original post: I think I'm still building my own timing and criteria on how I identify and develop Internet-based neighbors. Maybe we all are?
I think we all are. You're right.