Internet "Third Places"

[Recusant]

This site is a relic of an earlier stage in the evolution of the internet, a gathering place for people to socialize and chat. The social media behemoths that eventually sucked most of the life out of many discussion boards have in turn become a parody of their former selves. It's about the money these days. The article below puts forward some glimmer of hope.

"The internet is losing its third places" | Salon

When you're looking at a thread of social media bots sharing the same five replies to AI-generated slapfights between anthropomorphic fruits, it can be hard to remember the internet used to be a lively place. Enthusiastic message boards, blogs dedicated to any niche you could find in any hobby, news and culture websites as renowned for sharp commenters as their stable of writers. This was a time when your blogroll was nearly as important as your friend list, a period where a well-curated feed on Google Reader (RIP) denoted good taste as much as a co-sign from the arbiter of taste Derek Guy does today.

The web never quite reached the global utopian vision of its 1990s early adopters, but for about two decades it was a good hang. Like a neighborhood bar or a bowling alley, the internet was a place you could reliably go to have fun and occasionally learn something from semi-strangers who shared your interests. The internet was rife with what sociologist Ray Oldenburg called "third places," a space separate from home and work that encouraged social interaction and bred cohesion in communities.

"Third places remain upbeat because of the limited way in which the participants are related. Most of the regulars in a third place have a unique and special status with regard to one another," Oldenburg wrote in his 1989 book "The Great Good Place." "It is special in that such people have neither the blandness of strangers nor that other kind of blandness, which takes zest out of relationships between even the most favorably matched people when too much time is spent together, when too much is known, too many problems are shared, and too much is taken for granted."

Oldenburg was pushing back against restrictive zoning and suburbanization, arguing that fully residential neighborhoods weakened the societal fabric of the United States. For a time, the internet did put a Band-Aid on this problem, bringing isolated communities together and providing the sort of crosstalk they couldn't hear on the abandoned sidewalks of gated developments.

At the risk of dating myself even more than I already have, I had a few websites that I visited daily from the family room of my suburban home. Often I'd sign on to read the takes of sharp commenters over the writers who provided the digital parlor.

In the same way I'll now swing through my local bar or corner coffee shop to see who's around, back then I'd find time every day after school to give the forums and comment sections a once-over. I'd scroll down and take in a guerilla column from a reader with an unprintable name and profile picture of a crudely drawn yellow Pokemon with a phallus for a nose. A bit farther down, I'd find the poster who spoke only in comments lifted from forums about the mallcore metal act Avenged Sevenfold. Heading over to the Gawker network of websites — prior to its Peter Thiel-backed demolition — I'd find what the nation's bored lawyers had to say about news from the worlds of gossip, pro sports (Deadspin) and sci-fi (i09). While never quite as gratifying or grounding as a true third place you had to physically visit, these online hubs were the closest thing to cafes and churches that the infrastructure of the internet could offer.

[Continues . . .]

[Dark Lightning]

I frequent several forums- mostly wood working, wood carving, metal working, truck (I have a '70 Chevrolet 3/4 ton) and shooting. By and large they have good groups of people. I do have a FB account to keep up with my eldest son, who is in the Air Force. He gets around a bit. I also communicate with a few friends, but probably spend 10 minutes max per day.