Online Communities

With the rise of the internet and social media, there emerges a new platform for solidarity, companionship, and community. The concept of the imagined community is nothing new. Communities have been formed over national identities, ideologies, creeds, and mottos since the Neolithic era, if not prior. However, the formation of new identities and communities have arguably increased as time goes ever forward. The means to expand and proselytize for a community has, however, changed along with the addition of new ideas and mediums to center a community around. Further, with the progress of the human mind, the practice of true equality within imagined communities seems near apparent. Many newer forms of community seem to hold equality as a dear principle practiced. Societal rank and status seem to have less bearing on one’s place in these imagined communities. That is not to say that these communities have no sense of hierarchy, however. With rising adherence to the principle of equality, it is by merit does one rise through the ranks. Newer communities revolving around (online) games, forms of art, and hobbies, for example, regards its members quite equally, but those with merit instead of bloodline, law, race, or nationality are held in high regard. Perhaps, too, there is always the growing sense of independence formed within these communities as well.  The abolition of inequality between nations, the progress of equality within each nation, and the true perfection of mankind discussed by Condorcet (1979) can arguably be an approach to study the framework of imagined communities as well as nations and nation-states.

We have passed the first state of civilization as Condorcet writes. We are no longer confined to small societies that live by hunting, gathering, and fishing. We have developed language by which we communicate to explain and describe our semi-shared reality between humankind. We now have various degrees of idle time in which we can use to indulge in thought and explore new ideas that may not have bearing on our ability to survive, but to thrive and find meaning or identity among fellow humans. We now can form our own communities based on new ideas that idleness has allowed us to find. There is now a relatively new complexity given to mankind with the formation of the myriad of communities in existence already that force ourselves to navigate through. Only a few centuries ago, community was founded mostly in the ethnicity, race, and country one was born in. The Völkerwanderungen of the Middle Ages eventually led to the mass migration and peopling seen in the migration patterns of Europeans and Africans into the New World (Bailyn 1988). In both the Middle Ages and the early colonialization of the Americas, for most people the access to communities was largely based on one’s immediate surroundings. One’s class, economic status, race, family, and birth largely barred one’s ability to resources, art, and other people. This is largely no longer the case as the principles of Enlightenment have decreased the inequality between humans. It is arguable, even, that equality and enlightenment is progressing us towards a civilization without sexes since the aftermath of World War 1 (Roberts, 2015 ).

Perhaps firstly, like many early Americans, people began to increasingly feel disconnected from one another (within physical proximity) and due to their self-consciousness, began to not trust those that seem to be far-removed from one’s self to speak for them (Wood 1991). Secondly, like in early American society, hierarchy, patronage, and aristocracy were brittle institutions from the start, thus a monarchial or aristocratic society had weak connections to the formation of communities on the internet. A partial consequence of these two factors is that communities and identity-politics begin to form. This can be seen within cyberspace as communities are based and founded upon meaningful connections, empathy, support, and interests instead of socioeconomic statuses (Caciulan 2017). Unlike America and other nation-states, the internet and online communities in general did not have to go through a loosening of bands in society. Online communities formed because of and within a society of loose bands. The loosening of bands is best exemplified by the movement of peoples to and within early America. The frequent moving of people to one place to another (or the continuation of the Völkerwanderungen) within America “broke apart households, churches, and neighborhoods” (Wood, 1991). We now live in a time where we do not live and die in the village we are born in. Moving from one part of the country to the next is quite common whether it be for work or enjoyment. This capability to move far from where one is born led to the loosening bands of society within America. For the early American family, this led to a change in how parents treated their children.

Enlightened paternalism came about in America as traditional authority weakened and became less applicable (Wood, 1991). “The social hierarchy seemed less natural” and “leaders lost… their aura of mystery and sacredness” (Wood, 1991). The growing skepticism towards authority included the question of paternal authority; with the loosening bands of society, some parents wanted to prevent their children from moving far away and possibly not seeing them again or strengthen familial loyalty. To encourage children to stay with their parents, a change in how parents treated their children had to occur. Families had to be republicanized “as they were republicanizing monarchy (Woods, 1991). In short, affection grew more important than dependency within families. Affection became more of a primary aspect that kept families together (Woods, 1991). The family began to revolve more around the well-being and satisfaction of the children instead of, say, family pride and wealth. As the internet and its communities began to sprout, it sprouted within a culture that had shifted towards this enlightened paternalism. Communities that are not bound by traditional paternalism and its obligations but bound by general affection towards its members. Community leaders of, particularly, internet (sub-)cultures are not revered like leaders in a monarchial or traditional paternalist society. Instead, like parents, there is a sense of filial piety or sense of equalness, egalitarian sentiment, extended between one person and another. Like how the early American family depended less on the aspect of dependency, online communities, too, do not depend on dependency, rather they focus more on sentimental attraction to keep the community from falling apart. Sentimental attraction towards the members of the online community and towards what the online community centers itself around. Online games, for example, exemplify how aggregated selves come together and demonstrate pro-social behavior.

Postmodern tribes in general depend on the sense of self-identification of people towards a group (Pinto, Reale, Segabinazzi, and Rossi 2015). The pro-social behavior and sharing of resources with others happen usually due to a feeling of unity and sense of an aggregated self (Pinto, Reale, Segabinazzi, and Rossi 2015). People within online communities, especially those that are close-knit, share quite openly their time, effort, and resources among each other. In online games, players work together for a common goal and help other players in an effort to reach that goal. Pinto, Reale, Segabinazzi, and Rossi (2015) go into detail how in online games like World of Warcraft give players an extended self through the usage of avatars and how the extended self gives players the ability to form aggregated senses of self through guilds and alliances. Social media platforms also allow people to form group, guilds, fanbases, and the likes as forms of communities.

Anime, for example, has hundreds of communities. Some are dedicated to a particular series, genre, or character. Some go further still and role-play certain characters and interact with other people online and join or create communities that can have upwards of hundreds of members that share an aggregated self or identity. Despite the hundreds of sub-communities, there is but one uniting factor and that is an artform. The individual is secondary to the reverence given to what a community revolves around and this allows its members to share a common identity and egalitarian sentiment towards one another; a general sense of affection holds its members together. Despite the low likelihood that any person within an online community will know most of their fellow-members, “each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson 2016). If two or more members of an imagined community made apparent their affiliation of their imagined community by happenstance and without having known one another prior to their meeting, then a sense of acknowledgement and sense of similarity is likely to follow.  However, self-identification with a community and the participation of an individual depends on their motivation. People join communities for a variety of reasons ranging from a feeling of acceptance, commonality, belonging, or some sort of end, telos. Reciprocity and exchanging of information or feedback is commonplace among online communities. Peer recognition, identity-verification, and self-image are primary motivations toward the development of online communities and the spur contributions (Chen, Wei, and Zhu 2018). Chen, Wei, and Zhu develop a model that suggests how one can produce an effective IT artifact that encourages 

contribution within an online community. Especially an open-sourced community like Wikipedia.

Another example, though bleak, is a community on Weibo that revolves around suicidal ideation. Researchers Wang, Yu, and Tian found through content analysis that those who had attempted suicide in the past within the community had “little fear of death” (2018). It is possible, as they write, that people within the community or those that join the community want to “get acquainted” with those that are similar in their suicidal ideation and to “supervise” their process of committing suicide (Wang, Yu, and Tian 2018).

Reiteratively, online communities revolve around subjects (from the concrete to abstract). This allows for one to essentially be able to find at least one sort of community they attempt to participate in. So long as there is an interest, a community can be formed around it. Some communities are relatively benign, and others may be arguably malignant or detrimental. Nonetheless, people will join all sorts of communities in an attempt to verify themselves and pursue their interests. Humans are a social species and through historical means, the loosening bands of society spurs the proliferation of numerous communities. In conjunction with the loosening bands of society, more idle time and having passed the first stage of civilization, communities that do not revolve around simple interests dedicated to making a living or food sustenance are no longer necessary to be a part of.      

Resources used:

Anderson, Benedict. (2016). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.

Căciulan, Denisa Andreca. 2017. “Social Networks Sites as a Virtual Community — Can SNSs Replace the Organic Communities?” Romanian Journal of Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Hypnosis. 4(3-4)

Condorcet, J. D. (1979). Sketch for a historical picture of the progress of the human mind. Westport, CT: Hyperion Press.

Chen, Wei, Xihua Wei, and Kevin Xiaoguo Zhu. „Engaging Voluntary Contributions in Online Communities: A Hidden Markov Model.” MIS Quarterly 42(1)

Rheingold, Howard. 2000. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT.

Pinto, Diego Costa, Getulio Reale, Rodrigo Segabinazzi, and Carlos Alberto Vargas Rossi. 2015. “Online Identity Construction: How Gamers Redefine Their Identity in Experiential Communities.” Journal of Consumer Behavior 14:399-409.

Roberts, Mary Louise. 2005. Civilization without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917-1927. New York: ACLS History E-Book Project.

Wang, Zheng, Guang Yu, and Xianyun Tian. “Exploring Behavior of People with Suicidal Ideation in a Chinese Online Suicidal Community.” International Journal Of Environmental Research And Public Health 16(1)

Wood, G. S. (1993). Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage.

Artist: N/A