You Actually Want a Collective
A new post?! I can’t believe it myself. To be honest I’ve been having trouble writing, and I still do, so in a rush towards writing something, I’ve decided to give my opinion on a random topic that came to my mind in regards to the use of the Internet. Online communities come and go, things start fast and then slow down, eventually they are forgotten altogether. But this is not true for all online groups.
Community vs Collective
A community is a passive shared identity which relies on the exchange of the now—without the identity there is no binding and without the now; the ever changing fluctuations of the present and how it alters either the perceived identity of the group, or the individual activities they partake in, a community will become stale. This is not to blame a particular community, in reality, we can sort of blame the fact that the world is directionless and all is all encompassing: you can do it all everywhere, and you are very small. We’ve become accustomed to being so small that no one is able to see us among the multitudes of voices. How many have lost their voice in this directionless world? That is the state of online spaces—the Internet is ever eating itself, its users are eating themselves, and communities that rely on this exchange either become part of the ouroboros, or phase-out into silence.
A collective, on the other hand, is an implied identity that exists as the outcome of a group’s purpose. Art collectives share an identity not because they exchange the present, but because their art has similar qualities shared among them. Thus are collectives untimely, less their purpose itself is timely.
In the case of the community, its reliance on the present makes it unappealing in case of inactivity, that is to say, the less people partake in the community, which requires a constant effort of equal quantities at all times, the more people avoid the community itself. Groups that rely on what is actual and present can only fight against the speed of mass social media—which is a losing fight—with a vague sense of belonging, unfortunately that is not enough to maintain a space, less this sense is ever present with a degree of divine self-importance.
Once discussion loses its timeliness either: A) It needs to be reinstated, thus obliging to the self-cannibalization of this exchange. B) It must be left as inexchangeable. In other words, it must be allowed to rot. “A” produces staleness, and “B” produces inactivity. I think a lot of internet communities that try to replicate the past, or either move beyond the past, are under the impression that this is a matter of desire, willpower or alternatives. I think online communities are flawed in most of their designs (mostly by the fact that they are “present-facing”.) In the past this may have been sufficient, and I am not saying it is not salvageable, but it does require a great shift that, perhaps, will alienate a lot of potential community members that otherwise would have joined the initial exchange and the slow death thereafter.
I feel like what people want is a collective, but live under the illusion of the past and the paradigms of old—we don’t need the timely now, and the exchange can fuel itself in parallel to the existence of direct action, while also not being the focus of action itself. If you see it, you’ll understand it. The more it is made for a collective, the more interest it gathers, it is not tied to exchange, because nothing is exchanged timely—a publication that is untimely, a piece of art that is untimely, will always triumph over the latest post or recent activity oriented space. The presence of the now and the individual that is sold by the community is gathered without a need for the exchange of the present, probably in part because it assigns itself some degree of self-importance, but reasons there can be plenty. The exploration of the internet collective is not as in-depth as the analysis of old internet communities, so the ups-and-downs are more nebulous, in particular to the psychology of the contributor against that of the poster.
With communities ever becoming smaller, and the trajectory of a community being downwards due to the demand of an exhausted now, as well as certain attitudes that exist due to the presence of social-media, I think collectives are a better alternative for an online group. That is not to say that all collectives are better than all communities, this is not true, in the same way that there are factors that make a community a certain way, collectives also have their own unique factors, many which are also shared with communities, such as moderation, organization, stance on anonymity, primary method of integration—so it is not one large thing, a lot of these words are umbrellas for groups of people sharing certain group identities not properly defined.
Ending Words
If anything, I just wanted to talk about the difference between those two groups. I don’t really care about sparking change in the world or something like that. My observable reality is a grim look at a lot of online spaces—many of which I hold no particular opinion on.
From the over abundant list of criticism we can have on the current state of the internet, this is but another one. Isn’t this a little bit biased due to the fact that I don’t particularly find most discussions interesting? Oh, 100%. If I have to read another thread about AI, I am going to lose my mind—please, say it differently, bring something different to the table, make it wacky, make it retarded. If some intermediary is necessary from the thought of a random person to the final thing I get to read, great, as long as it makes it more interesting.
It is as if you are asking me: Do you want to get the unfiltered opinion of 100 (not really) people saying (mostly) the same thing, or 3 odd people saying something different? Same thing with the necessity for the now: Is it better to have a million threads (or posts, depending on the shape of your online community) with repeating topics, many of which will disappear into obscurity in favour of the newest one, or would you rather have publications that are very old but can be revisited multiple times due to their quality or uniqueness?
To me all of this is a no brainer, and I speak of it as if it truly is a no brainer. But who knows, maybe you enjoy the fact that it is bad—world be damned, you may think it is a good thing! If you’ve read this, feel free to use this blog post as a way to have “new discussion” in your online communities.