Over the last few days I have been spending time looking into how virtual fashion/lifestyle communities intersect with real-life communities. In order to explore this facet, I have been looking in the VA/DC/MD sub-forum on Hypebeast.com.
The forum is categorized under Regional Forum/ United States and is devoted to people who live in my area. After browsing through multiple pages spanning many months, it seems that most people post advertisements for events such as concerts or store sales.
There is not a lot of talk between members about the area itself. I have not found a single comment where people have discussed different areas or where they live. It seems to be mainly focused on events going on around the area.
This is nice because it exposes you to things you may not have known about. However, it really does not foster much of a community. I think the purpose of the thread was to allow people who communicate online to meet in real life. This does not seem to be what people are doing with the thread.
Instead of the thread transcending online community, it just reinforces the already existing community. In other words, people on the site use the regional forum as a branch of the forum as a whole. Instead of using to make real-life friends, people seem to be content staying anonymous online.
This, in my opinion, highlights how online communities are really different from real communities. The fact that people are not willing to meet in real life, shows how online identities and friendships are not as strong as real-life ones.
No comments:
Post a Comment