156 /

I’ve been thinking a lot about community lately — mainly the loss of it¹.

In "Bowling Alone," Robert Putnam defines community as a network of social connections built through shared activities and participation in organizations like bowling leagues, where individuals develop trust and reciprocity, essentially acting as the "glue" that holds a community together; the concept of "bowling alone" signifies a decline in this social capital, indicating a weakening of community ties as people increasingly participate in solitary activities instead of engaging in group activities that foster connection.

And it makes me long for the greatest community I was ever a part of: APhotoADay. (Fitting that the photo up top, from one of the last GeekFests was taken at our opening night’s social gathering… in a bowling alley in LA. And I’m pretty sure that photo credit should go to Ryan Schude.).

The year after graduating from college, friends and I were scattered around the country at internships and first jobs. One friend reached out to me, saying she wasn’t getting any feedback at the tiny newspaper she was at. She told me there wasn’t even a Barnes and Noble bookstore in town where she could look through photo books or magazines. So, she asked if I could start emailing her photos and looking at some of hers. She deeply missed the conversations and critiques about the work that we had in college.

We sent a few photos over email, and then I asked her if she wanted to get more of our former classmates involved. By the end of the first week, it had grown from 2 to 10 to 20. Then some friends at Mizzou got wind of it, and they asked if they could join, and they told friends at Western Kentucky, and then Ohio, and then… you get the picture.

Not only were we emailing back and forth (before setting up this new-fangled thing called a listserv), but we were also hanging out in AOL chatrooms at night, talking with people that we only knew from their work. So in 2001, we decided to meet up in person one year, about a dozen of us came to DC, all sleeping in David Holloway’s basement, hanging out talking about life and photography, Holga-mods and projects we were working on. We all went to the Mall² to make pictures on the 4th of July. I made some of my best friends that weekend. (I can’t find a group photo from the first GeekFest, sadly, but I’m pretty sure at the second one, all of those fabulous people below somehow slept in my tiny one-bedroom apartment just off Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale.)

By the end of the first year there were about 100 APADers (I found this 2001 blog post below!). At our peak we had over 2,000 members from about 30 countries. We continued our annual get-togethers (lovingly called GeekFest) for about 15 years.

And then, it all came to an end.

In my mind, there was a confluence of events. The industry was changing rapidly, and purging itself of its best and brightest. Newspapers were downsizing and offering buyouts left and right (I took one myself in 2014!). So the work that those of us who stayed in journalism were doing was changing. Others got out completely, changing careers. And all of us OGs, who started out together were getting older, starting families, priorities changed, energy went elsewhere.

Yet at the same time, Instagram’s popularity was on a stratospheric rise.

Why is the latter important?

We noticed a real shift. People started posting on Instagram, instead of on APhotoADay. It made sense. More eyes. More editors looking. More little dopamine hits with the likes and hearts and superficial comments. Less feedback and constructive criticism was wanted. More of everything else was.

So after days of little-to-no activity on the listserv, and after several iterations and reinventions, trying new and different things, I let APhotoADay quietly die.

I recently heard someone say that the Internet is the new third space and it really bummed me out. In a world where we feel more connected than ever, we’re actually more isolated, creating silos or bubbles and reinforcing confirmation bias. What’s even sadder though is seeing people hang out, but then watching everyone gravitate toward their phones, checking into their other life — seeking connection on social media or over text, while sitting next to someone IRL. In this constant search for connection, we’ve gotten a false feeling of connectedness. And we’ve lost something in the process.

We’ve forgotten how to have a conversation, or just sit in silence.

Research shows we’ve stopped joining clubs, organizations, and teams.

Real-world observation shows that when we’re kids, we’re often best friends with the neighbor kids on our street. And that now we barely know our neighbors.

After we graduate high school or college, our social circles shrink exponentially. We don’t write letters, or talk on the phone like we used to. We’ve even stopped having coffee with friends (I have a good friend who lives 10 minutes from me, and between her schedule and mine, work and life, I manage to see once every 6 months, and that’s a damn shame) because we’re all too freaking busy these days.

I’ve never had any community come close to what APhotoADay was: friendship and camaraderie and inspiration and support and lots of freaking laughs.

And while I try, I don’t know how to get my community back and I miss it terribly.

1. I just learned that there’s a documentary called Join or Die which examines social scientist Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" theory of how declining community engagement created an American civic crisis. It’s on Netflix. I’m making a note to myself right now to watch it.

2. I love a good ONE STAR review: “Not an actual mall.”