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People often say they will keep old TV shows like Friends, How I Met Your Mother or The Office on in the background. I think it simulates the feeling of having familiar social connections in ones life.

In Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist's wife Mildred "finds herself more involved in the "parlor wall" entertainment in the living room – large televisions filling the walls" [1]. She frequently calls the entertainers that appear on the screen her family. So this satirical observation is at least as old as that fiction.

I frequently wonder how AR/VR will play in this particular space. Cynically, I believe there is a killer app to be had there.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

> In Fahrenheit 451

The rewriting of online history is going on right now, its like Fahrenheit 451 is a blue print.

I got really into watching Twitch for a while in 2020 (especially IRL content such as a mechanical watch repair guy (relevant to yesterday's top post about watches), musicians, and other small streamers I could get to know and they'd recognize my name) and that scene often came to mind.

I wanted to keep my post short so I didn't list all of the ways I feel we express this tendency. Others mentioned podcasts and talk radio but Youtube and Twitch are great examples. There is no denying that people who watch creators like Mizkif are feeling like they are part of a group of friends. Ludwig called it out most famously in his parasocial video [1]. It is so well known it is already a hackneyed meme.

Sometimes I feel smug looking down on people who become obsessed with the latest Kardashian drama or the British Royal Family or whatever celebrity culture. But then I turn a critical eye on myself and I'll realize I spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos on woodworking, small engine repair and outdoor activities. I don't do any of these things and I tend to watch the same creators over and over again.

Some people want to feel like they have hyper-crazy friends like Jake Paul who live wild fantasy lifestyles. I'm not certain that is different than me watching videos of some guy quietly building a log cabin on his own in the woods.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzyQbfh4t_8

I've read that the decline of religion also plays a role here. Aside from the religious aspect, the sense of community and regularity you get meeting the same people on a regular basis is lost.

It's kind of the mix of a loss of "third place" (institutions, coffee shops, etc.) and the increase of social media bubbles that pushes us to be more polarized, I think.

The only place I've gotten the regularity feeling of a third place was a really specific gym I used to both work and train at. Everyone knew who I was even if I didn't train with them, because I also worked there, so when I trained there it was my third place as well and I was always having great conversations.

I haven't had anything like it since, and I've been relatively proactive too. I have hobbies, go to meets, and go to the same coffee shops and restaurants so often that they know my order, but there is always this barrier between everyone, like no-one needs eachother because they have their phones. I ride the same bike park twice a week and go to the gym every couple of days, but I moved on to a 24/7 gym and everyone is buried in their phones, and I don't see the same people twice at the bike park. Me and the cleaner always have a great yarn though, I appreciate that.

On of the best "third place" locations I've had was a gym as well. This was about 15 years ago, before iPhones and Airpods, etc. existed, or were as prevalent, so it was easy and common for gym regulars to strike up conversations and get to know each other.

I don't go to the gym anymore, but a few years ago when I resumed for a bit, everyone was on their phone, or dead-eyed while listening to music or a podcast, etc, and not interested in talking to anyone.

Boxing/mma gyms are good for this. Can't really keep headphones in if you get hit in the head!

I always say to people that CrossFit is my church, and while I say it with mild sarcasm, internally it is true. Everyday I turn up, see the same people, build a community to the extent we do socials, help each other out with all manner of things, and honestly it gives me fulfilment more so than anything else I do.

I know next to nothing about crossfit and it definitely looks like religion to me. I'm not even sure where this impression comes from but it's probably first or second thing that comes into my mind when I hear "crossfit" (the other thing is that someone I vaguely know does it to keep in shape -- but we never discussed it in any detail).

There is a level of passion and commitment to crossfit that other disciplines don't always have, and due to the way it's practiced it's really beneficial to have your own space for it so crosfit tends to happen at crossfit only gyms, at scheduled times amongst regular practitioners.

To keep riffing on the religious theme, there was a fair bit of controversy around crossfit when it first arrived on the scene, to the point where even other fairly similar gym disciplines were pushing it out of their gyms. That kind of criticism tends to drive you back into your group (the same way door-knocking drives evangelists back to the warm embrace of the parish), and I almost never see crossfit happening in regular gyms, just crossfit gyms. As above that's partly practicality, but I think it's also fair to say it wasn't received well at first and that likely drove people to those specialized gyms instead of practicing it at their local.

I do powerlifting/strength training and powerlifters had the same issue in mainstream gyms, and there are powerlifting specific gyms around. But that's gotten better over time with mainstream gyms having powerlifing/olympic lifting gear more often than not now.

Keep in mind I'm in the UK, so I think it functions very differently than in the states. Religion is already a prominent part of the culture there, whereas here I don't know a single person my age that has gone to church since they were a small child. We don't have the level of radical level of belief of commitment about much here. As such, the atmosphere is more of a pub, minus the drinking, but it fulfills my "3rd space" need outside of work and home. I've heard from people within the community that CF in the US was scarcely cultish in comparison, so take my previous comment through that lense.

Maybe that's why places like SoulCycle, Barry's Bootcamp, or yoga studios have also sprung up. People do want connection, just not in the way it was before.

That's a really good point... These days a lot of us work-from-home or independent contractor types don't even have much of a "second" place.

A good church can be like group therapy. You see the same people. You have common issues. The core challenges are discussed. There is a guide book that everyone agrees is the best. There is a group counselor that helps everyone work through the book to heal together.

The community of my church is probably keeping me there more than my faith is.

I'd probably be more into church if it was just a social club and didn't come with that expectation that you'd be worshiping an invisible sky daddy, adopting questionable morality/philosophies, and attending what's basically a Republican political rally every Sunday. My wife goes to hers and it's nice, socially for her, that it comes prepackaged with a ready-made group of friends, but as soon as the Bibles and Trump flags come out, I bounce.

It’s sad to hear someone’s view of church be similar to that of a political rally because that’s far from the truth of all the churches I’ve been to. Of course, we do read the Bible and worship God, but this social club that comes with “prepackaged” friends that you refer to can’t exist unless the people going agree on some ideas of morality and philosophies of why we’re here on Earth.

Agreed. There was an interesting post here recently that had this theory why churches work:

"Eventually, you pick a relatively relaxed “normal” religion, complete with all the “God” stuff. You don’t believe everything they say is literally true, but our reality is strange and inexplicable, so who knows? There’s a great stable community and you talk about the broader themes of life and you’re healthier and happier.

You secretly guess that the group is sustained by a minority of true believers who make up critical mass for a larger group of people like you, but you never talk about this and neither does anyone else. When you have kids, you feel weird about explaining your thoughts about all this to them, but you don’t parrot back what the religion says when you’re talking about the meaning of life either."

https://dynomight.net/plans/

I'm fortunate to attend a church that is socially progressive, theologically rigorous, and relishes honest questioning and debate. I don't think I would have maintained my faith without this environment.

Heck I would join a church for the community if the faith part and Trumpettes weren't involved. Unfortunately all of the churches around here have more red hats than not.

If your part of a community that meets your social needs your world view changes and you become conservative. The exception is the groups that aren't directly opposed to conservatism but they typically lack the true community adhesion.

This isn't a democrat or republican thing though, you can totally join a Democratic church, with a strong community, but they are largely minority churches.

They are also still generally conservative.

> I wonder if this is because people are lonely..? Just wondering out loud here.

Discord has propped up my social life for years now. And I mean outside of the internet as well! I also engage in independent, more traditional social engagement and it usually ends in nothing more than a hangover.

Not unexpectedly, the internet makes it easier to bring people with similar interests/believes/personalities together. There’s also some weird demographic issue where apparently the internet is the only place where people my age seem to exist. I meet a ton of people irl m, mostly much older, with some only several years younger or several years older. In the past year for example, I’ve met maybe 2-3 people who were within a year of myself.

Also I often find myself mindless swapping discord channels or refreshing HN or Twitter constantly, when I’m bored and want to talk/argue/whatever, typically at night.

I have found that people who grew up on the internet tend to have a "third place" that's online, which it sounds like for you is discord. That kind of makes that your priority over a real-life third place like a pub or something, since it's where all the people you are super familiar with are it's easier just to stick around that.

For me all my online third places disappeared (specific IRC chats and forums), and I never really found another. I'm on discord but they're very shallow places for me now. I spend most of my time online just on YouTube, and the rest of my time at work, with my partner or family, and doing hobbies. It's a very reasonable offline-life but I do find myself missing a third-place. Maybe I need to join a gaming clan or something.

Third place? What are the first two?

Home and work, the third place is somewhere you go regularly which helps form strong relationships with the people there. As some other people mentioned, church often played that role. University can be a third place, community centers, your local pub, sports clubs and so on.

home and work?

Discord is most likely the most phallocentric large scale platform ever made. It is an abysmally terrible place to go to meet people, and particularly to go argue. Ever seen what the most popular politics server on discord looks like? 4chan is tame by comparison...

The issue isn't discord, discord is in essence just IRC again. IRC wasn't exactly a bastion of intelligent conversation in all corners, but one of the biggest issues I think the internet currently faces is that everyone is here now. Every brain with a thought no matter how vapid or vile is now joining the conversation.

But just like with IRC, it's all about the specific community you've joined, not the platform. You can definitely find good communities on discord.

In the real world we have a natural protection from these idiotic or demeaning posts: shame. It is a very important component and mechanism in social connections that is completely missing online (unless your handle is tied to your real identity like VIP Twitter).

How could it translate online where anonymity is like a shell protecting you from shame?

In small online communities that is still how it works, people don't want to disappoint their peers and their handle is their identity with built up socia capital to lose, so they behave or get excluded in some fashion.

The internet really enables large groups and strangers to join those without any kind of social capital buy in to the community. I think one of our biggest mistakes in online communities was thinking you could just open the doors, invite thousands of people in, and expect that to go well. That doesn't go well in the real world when there are real world consequences. Any concert or protest or big sporting event always has bad eggs in it. Think soccer fan riots or protests turned sour or concerts with heaps of assault going on.

I think you're right in some sense it's just that the influences of social mechanisms are different online. Anonymity is often just psuedo-anonymity inside small online communities. People still don't want their online handle tarnished as they use that persona to be part of communities, and they would lose their social capital with that handle if it went south. But it's also possible for strangers with worthless handles to show up and be horrible with zero consequences.

> everyone is here now

Maybe we need a communication medium that requires technical skills to operate again.

It started out as a pc gaming type thing, so yeah, most of it is men, but the choice of server matters and they have expanded and rebranded a lot. If you are going on political servers it's already not worth it and you missed the point with discord, stick to small servers made by friends, people to play games with, or communities dedicated around 1 thing like open source projects or some specific media, etc. Once servers become too general or inclusive the system breaks, but even then on large servers (political or not), 4chan is not tame in comparison.

Deep rock Galactic is a video game that actually has a decent Discord integration, to the point where I feel like I gain value from being there.

The general chats are whatever, but having a collection of people who may respond to an LFG call is great for when I want a higher-quality batch of compatriots for the more 'hardcore' parts of the game. Plus, they have a bunch of pre-made voice pods that cap at a game's player limit, and have built support for direct-in-Discord lobby invitations.

Cry about it somewhere else. Most of the servers I’m in are private servers with small amounts of users and a pretty good gender balance.

It feels like a semantically-strained take, but I think Twitter is more of a place for people to say things, than it is for having conversations. Most people seem to use the site to broadcast something to their audience without really engaging.

Maybe I interact with more niche audiences?

The people I observe essentially live on twitter. They’re everywhere. Both with tweets and replies.

Exactly. Twitter is a broadcast megaphone that tends towards rewarding cults of personality, so it's no surprise celebrities, a president and self-important CEOs love it.

I think pod casts just replaced radio. I don't think that's as interesting of a phenomenon as youre suggesting.

i don't know why everything old feels like it had more flesh, even with the limitation and flaws (conflict of interests etc)

Many youtubers use youtube to reach out to friends or make friends. For younger generations using the media as antidote to loneliness is more common. Unfortunately all the media rot after a sweet period

I miss working with you, Jim!

You're the best Peter! :)

That’s kind of interesting. About 5 years ago I used to stream on Twitch. I did pretty decent at times up to 500 concurrent viewers.

I came to a similar conclusion when asking myself “why do they even watch me?” The same answer came to me “Loneliness”.

Streaming close to 24/7 helps, because it means you are always available when needed. Having a schedule, means people can be there with you in the times when they are alone. Creating a name for your followers, the tribe, being open with people. These things play into it also.

That’s why people connect around specific games I think, to have something in common.

the risk is also low - you can feed your lonely without much risk of damage - the real world is harsh - the world you curate for yourself can be as you please - given we tend away from difficult human interactions[1] - this cure of the lonely is easy and "safe" - however - more difficult to assess - is this making us more or less lonely?

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=books+about+difficult+conver...

It's loneliness in my case.

I have no one to talk to that's close to my age,

I do use it more when I'm depressed though.

Books never did it for myself. I would read, but my mind would wander to negative thoughts, and my problems.

That is fiction though. I have my 1000 plus book library of non-fiction books I thumb through every day. A book is usually right near my computer. I fall asleep with a non-fiction book.

I also have a portable radio with me when walking, or waiting. I just need someone yacking in the background. Without it my mind wanders.

When I was younger and had friends; I was never like this.

When I'm done with the internet, around this hour; I don't want to think about the time I wasted on my devises until the next day.

Would I rather be talking to people on a friday night--hell yes, if it's not get to know you speak.

I'm tight on money, but I could go to a bar tonight, and talk to strangers.

A beer is $8 bucks plus a dollar tip.

I need a car to get to the bar.

I need to white knuckle driving home because I have an old car, and cops love to pull over poor people. Cops know they are easy pickings. Plus--they think we all drink to excess like they do. If they can't nail you on a marginal DUI; they can find something wrong with your car. (If you are ever in Marin County after 10 pm, expect a pullover. 99% are for no reason other than profiling. Even you rich boys who look like Elon Musk sometimes get pulled over too.

It's just easier to pull out the ipad in the end. If you work the internet right, you can avoid the negativity. Here, or on FB, I never come back to a post I commented on.

I do use social sites, like this webpage, as a journal. I say what's on my mind, and it feels good some days. I never get into arguments because I never return to a discussion.