It feels like deja vu but it’s not – because this is what social media looked like thirty-five years ago:
In April 2021, [Kate Glavan and Emma Roepke]’s followers [on Instagram] encountered an invitation to a new medium: “Join Geneva and meet other Sea Moss Girlies.” Within minutes, fans flooded in.
Geneva allows groups of people to talk in different topic-oriented rooms, similar to chat apps like Slack or Discord. Absent follower counts and likes, members are free to interact without the pressure of public metrics, an algorithmic feed, or company oversight shaping their conversations. Fans of the platform say it offers a more intimate, community-oriented experience than traditional social networks.
In their Geneva community, called a “home,” Glavan and Roepke have an easygoing rapport with members. They exchange music and TV recommendations in long threads, they marked National Eating Disorder Awareness Week by swapping personal stories of their mental health struggles and even met up with members for an IRL picnic. [WaPo]
Even including the terminology room, though not home, this sounds like a close description of various Twin Cities Citadels (original author Jeff Prothero aka Cynbe ru Taren) from maybe 1983 through, oh, 2000. Our numbers were necessarily smaller, as we’re talking single phone line BBSes, but we had a wide age range, 10 to probably 70, from students to engineers to psychologists and a judge and and a scientist or two and … and the get-togethers, weddings, funerals
Perhaps a big difference was that a lot of us were social introverts, while it’s not clear from this article if this holds true, but probably not. Online communication is an accepted manner of social connection these days.
In any case, the tangible metrics of ‘followers’ and clicks and, perhaps, even monetization appears to substantially interfere with satisfying social interactions. While losing those measurements may make it harder to, well, measure the success of the community, the very act of measurement may lessen the satisfaction of members of the community.
And moving to a more egalitarian model of community (go read the article!) also contributes to members’ sense of belonging.
Numbers were also necessarily lower because there were as few as 5/8ths as many people on the planet depending on the particular year in question.
Experience indicates the limiting variable was not population, but the technology commonly utilized: one or, at best, a few phone lines per system.