I recently found a web-ring of Buffalo Blogs, only a few are really interesting to me but nonetheless through browsing them I’ve realized that I prefer online communities that have something to do with my actual community. I like the feeling of meeting people in my city that share many of my experiences and live in similar circumstances. In a large community like MySpace there is the potential for meeting many different people and participating in a variety of activities, but the members are such a mystery, you know very little about them and you will probably never see them in real life.
It also takes so much effort to browse through such a huge community and feel like you understand the norms, and then it takes even longer to find people that share something in common with you. And after that is it even possible to have a decent relationship with someone in southern California that only exists online where one can show as much or as little of their true self as they please? That type of quest really doesn’t inspire me to participate.
I had previously enjoyed participating in the forums of the now inactive Fredonia Underground and thought I could get a similar experience from any other forum, like that of MySpace, but this has not proved true. The MySpace forum is huge, it is difficult to find an interesting topic and it is even harder to keep up with the conversation. It seems to take some serious dedication (and a lack of other responsibilities) to actually participate in the forums of such a large community. There may be 30 posts per hour on just one thread, by the time you finish composing any sort of meaningful message there will probably already be 3 new posts. Leading to a sincere lack of meaningful posts, and creating a situation that takes a lot of effort to keep up with.
I can see how my preferences in actual community activities have translated to virtual communities. I am not the kind of person who enjoys going to big wild parties or bars where one is largely anonymous, I would much rather get together with a lot of my friends and a few new people. I will definitely attend larger gatherings, and I might go alone without knowing anybody, but there is some unique shared interest like a band or political speaker. These types of gatherings have an interesting focus, and the community norms are mostly familiar. It is the same online, if I participate in a large online community the focus will be obvious and the culture known to me. And small online communities of friends with shared histories and circumstances are very easy for me to participate in. If anyone else is curious about the Buffalo Blog/website ring I’ve found you can start browsing at http://wny4clark.blogspot.com/. And if anyone knows of an interesting local online community please post a comment about it.