You really have to do it for the love of the game. It can be surprisingly vulnerable to be the social fabric, and it’s super easy to fall into various toxic inner dialogs when you’re busy and others don’t pick up the slack, or if others don’t reciprocate the effort, or worst of all when others don’t include you for whatever reason.
> Lots of people have a sort of consumer attitude towards their communities, where they take everything for granted. I saw things this way when I was young. A social scene is an automatic feature of the world that appears on its own, like a wild blueberry bush. It starts sprouting parties and dinners and conferences and reading groups as naturally as the bush sprouts berries.
I feel like this generally applies a lot in life, and most people generally sees themselves as passive consumers when it comes to most things. You can just do things, even if people look at you weird or say your weird, even in public, and nothing really changes when they say/think those things about you. Just enjoy life as much as you can, in the way you wish, without harming others.
“I’ve come to believe that part of today’s problem of social alienation is a problem of too many free riders.”
I started planning street festivals a few years ago. It’s now a lucrative and growing business for me. The demand for events at all scales vastly outstrips supply, and I think growing social isolation is part of the reason.
The free riders might seem like a problem to someone who just wants there to be events, but it is a huge opportunity to us who throw them.
I spent 15 years building a local community, I had 10,000 daily users once, people recognized me on the street, then everyone left on a whim when Facebook made it easier to hang in one's own echo chambers.
I still think it was worth it.
Once in a while, I bump into a stranger, and they tell me how the found their only true love because of me, or how they landed a job that made them loads of money because I facilitated communication in our community. Other times... I barely escaped molestation by a disgruntled member once, and someone threw a glassful of Orval at me (yes, it really happened).
A bit of a tangent, but it's fascinating how often you hear these stories (and I experienced one, myself), of communities "moving to Facebook" and basically dissolving as a community. I would like to see a collection of such anecdotes, but I can see why it doesn't get compiled, because it would essentially just be [description of community] and then [Facebook], with no specifically interesting thing to report other than "it petered out". Same for Amazon, come to think of it. You can describe what used to be, and that it's now longer there, but there isn't really any compelling tale in it.
Well, at least the organizers that care. There's definitely a class of grifter organizers that view events as an opportunity to profit from high entry fees and low production quality / relying on volunteers.
You really have to do it for the love of the game. It can be surprisingly vulnerable to be the social fabric, and it’s super easy to fall into various toxic inner dialogs when you’re busy and others don’t pick up the slack, or if others don’t reciprocate the effort, or worst of all when others don’t include you for whatever reason.
> Lots of people have a sort of consumer attitude towards their communities, where they take everything for granted. I saw things this way when I was young. A social scene is an automatic feature of the world that appears on its own, like a wild blueberry bush. It starts sprouting parties and dinners and conferences and reading groups as naturally as the bush sprouts berries.
I feel like this generally applies a lot in life, and most people generally sees themselves as passive consumers when it comes to most things. You can just do things, even if people look at you weird or say your weird, even in public, and nothing really changes when they say/think those things about you. Just enjoy life as much as you can, in the way you wish, without harming others.
“I’ve come to believe that part of today’s problem of social alienation is a problem of too many free riders.”
I started planning street festivals a few years ago. It’s now a lucrative and growing business for me. The demand for events at all scales vastly outstrips supply, and I think growing social isolation is part of the reason.
The free riders might seem like a problem to someone who just wants there to be events, but it is a huge opportunity to us who throw them.
Would love to hear more about the impetus for your festivals, the festivals, and the process to get there.
What kind of street festivals are we talking about?
Do not expect a reward, dude.
I spent 15 years building a local community, I had 10,000 daily users once, people recognized me on the street, then everyone left on a whim when Facebook made it easier to hang in one's own echo chambers.
I still think it was worth it.
Once in a while, I bump into a stranger, and they tell me how the found their only true love because of me, or how they landed a job that made them loads of money because I facilitated communication in our community. Other times... I barely escaped molestation by a disgruntled member once, and someone threw a glassful of Orval at me (yes, it really happened).
It was still worth it.
A bit of a tangent, but it's fascinating how often you hear these stories (and I experienced one, myself), of communities "moving to Facebook" and basically dissolving as a community. I would like to see a collection of such anecdotes, but I can see why it doesn't get compiled, because it would essentially just be [description of community] and then [Facebook], with no specifically interesting thing to report other than "it petered out". Same for Amazon, come to think of it. You can describe what used to be, and that it's now longer there, but there isn't really any compelling tale in it.
Wasting Orval is the biggest sin of all.
not if it was open source
Sorry for my French, but they say, it's the only masciline name for a beer because it's the verlan of Val d'Or. So... un Orval, not une Orval.
This makes me realize I should show my appreciation to organizers more. It’s easy to take events for granted.
Well, at least the organizers that care. There's definitely a class of grifter organizers that view events as an opportunity to profit from high entry fees and low production quality / relying on volunteers.
Reminds me of 2013 when I organized a TEDx, gosh so much work for absolute zero return. Also risk, what was I thinking?
In 2026:
- If you build it (and it doesn't take off) then they won't come.
- If you build it (and it does takes off) they will come and compete with you to build their own.
no offence but i dont know what is this article doing on hackernews. looks like a diary entry at best.
Please have a look at the Hacker News guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html