Community: is it though?

 I’ve always been looking for connection in one way or another. 

An only child, reclusive and a bit weird I’d always found it hard to make friends in school, yet I could never shake this feeling of loneliness. I wanted friends, I just couldn’t make friends out of the cliquey school crowd I was cursed with. I was coming of age when chatrooms became a thing, and MSN Messenger. Thankfully I was done with high school before Facebook really got it’s claws in. It was an odd time - this disconnected connectedness. The internet was a bridge to the mainland from my hopeless little island.

Sure, I met people I shouldn’t have from murky parts of the web, did some stupid stuff, got hurt and got in trouble. But these things were all happening to my peers in the schoolyard too, so how much blame we can put on digital platforms for the resulting messes I found myself in, who can say. But importantly, I wasn’t alone like I was in the ‘real world’, and the long nights talking to people I never met got me through some dark times - I can’t imagine the alternative if I didn’t have random music and literary chatrooms back then.

My story isn’t unique for my generation, many of us outcasts grew up online - it’s where everyone who felt different or misunderstood turned to for a moment of comfort or understanding. And it’s ballooned. Online communities aren’t just for the loners and subcultures anymore, in fact if you’re off the grid, you’re the ‘weirdo’ now.

Times have changed, and the roles we play online have shifted. Once I turned to chatrooms and forums to absorb myself into a new community, to feel supported and not so alone. But I’m not a teenager anymore, I’m well and truly adult and I’m no longer lonely, so increasingly I’m the one offering support and companionship to other online users who feel adrift. People turn to me, even if it’s inappropriate to do so. The exchange of energy has shifted to my detriment. I’m hosting exchanges rather than enjoying them, I’m the focus of too much attention and that can be anxiety inducing and strangely isolating. Online communities consist of so many fans demanding attention, games of smoke and mirrors and a phenomenon of simultaneous oversharing and censorship, as well as trolling and ‘cancel culture’.

Recently a friend of mine tragically died, and I wasn’t able to talk about it in spaces where I normally share. Not just because I couldn’t think of the words to say, but because I knew that my online network would largely be emotionally harmful to my situation. People aren’t respectful of sensitive topics anymore - fans will sexualise pretty much anything including grief, people ask inappropriate questions, interrogate, belittle or scorn. I actually felt it would be disrespectful to my friend to even mention it. So it really begs the question, can we even call it community anymore?

I’m away on a digital detox (at time of writing, not publishing)- I’ve deliberately escaped internet and cell reception so I can escape from all the noise. The safe space I need to nurture myself is with birds and baby animals, for now. To grieve I had to consciously create a space to do it. It’s interesting to me how my relationship with the internet has evolved over the years, from one that was a welcome escape, to one that I need to escape from. I can’t turn to the internet anymore, I mean it’s everywhere, it’s harder in fact to turn away from it. It’s likely no coincidence that my real life has blossomed to one less isolating, with meaningful relationships and a lesser sense of loneliness - no doubt that adds to my disillusionment in modern social internet, maybe I just don’t need it. But I have to wonder, with the internet as a massive social engine in the modern age, where it’s not just the misfits writing emo poetry in chatrooms, but an all encompassing validation tool that targets younger and younger people - who does this benefit now? When we no longer turn to our online communities for comfort, connection and kindness, but validation and addictive little dopamine hits - where do the sad, grieving or depressed people go now, if loved ones can’t be found? Social media promises connection and community but increasingly delivers more isolation and self doubt. Arguably it even fractures our sense of identity.

Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make us reassess what’s important. And day after day we invest hours into online spaces, where perhaps that time could be better spent invested in life itself - the people around us, and things that bring us joy. I do think, these relationships and experiences that are real and tangible, are the most important of all, and today especially, I’m sensitive to just how precious that time in our life is.

PETRA FOX

Twitter: @foxandthefeline

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