Community
A social experiment to explore the limits of online friend groups.
Goal:
Create a large online group of friends who are there to support each other.
Why:
Popular online figures have large online support networks. Is it possible to create a large support network for every person in a community and not just the leader of said community?
How:
The project is split into three stages that progressively increase the cohesiveness of the community. The stages are explained below.
Stages:
(1)
Create a discord community of online friends that are encouraged to ask each other for help. Do you need some help on a college assignment or a personal project you are working on? Ask around for someone to give you a hand. Do you need some personal advice? Ask around for someone who knows what you’re going through. With that said, don’t expect handouts, and be willing to create an image worthy of help. This stage of the experiment is creating an environment where others aren’t afraid to ask for help and helping others will give you more credit. More credit and people will be more willing to help you.
To get more people to join, members of the community will be encouraged to stream and interact with their viewers. If you like to play games, stream your gameplay and ask anyone watching to join you. If you like to cook, stream your cooking and ask anyone watching to cook along with you. If you like to read, stream your reading and invite anyone watching to discuss the story with you. The purpose of this community is to expand your support network, and streaming will let you meet new people who could potentially become someone you can rely on.
(2)
Create an online client similar to discord, but which has profiles/pages that people can customize and share. The reason that this stage is necessary is that I have greater plans for an online community that would be too difficult on a platform that I can’t infinitely customize. Allowing a lot of power, but also keeping things secure is just not something Discord allows. This is a community where every member is equally important, and Discord just does not allow the autonomy that I desire for each member of the community to have. I also have some interesting ideas on how to structure the server network and limit the extent to which the whole thing is centralized. The end goal is for small communities to branch out and have their own personal internet that they can use to communicate and share things.
(3)
Implement a shared money pool in the community. The idea is that people will donate to the community and the community will decide how to use said money. Does the community want to improve server performance? Does the community want to commission some art? Does the community want to plan an in-person get-together? Does the community want everyone to have a copy of Golf with your Friends? Does the community want to fund a cool project to make a robot? The people who donate will have a larger say on what the money comes together to do, but everyone in the community has a vote. This is funding for and by the community.