The article resonates strongly with me. In college, I felt part of (and strongly resonated with) the Penn CS / hacker community. Moving to SF after graduation, I had lots of varying friendships and relationships, but there was no unifying community (IE, the graph of relationships and acquaintances was too sparse). The closest I came to community was based on workplace. When I left the US and began traveling the world…
I've also found similar things in the "Burner" community (ie: people who participate in Burning Man and the many regional events). I don't mean to suggest that everyone would have the same interests or that there aren't also a lot of people who just go to the festivals because they're fun festivals. Still, it has ticked a lot of the same "boxes" for me. Ideally, it's a community that's based on participation. When yo…
In Colorado, where I am, it's been really nice to be able to tap into at least the awesome friendly dance parties that are tied to some of the burner scene.
But yeah, I think Burning Man's rise had a lot to do with this vacuum for community. It offers a lot to people. So funny how much judgement there is of it from outside of it. Funny to imagine what people think it's about.