*** From the Archives ***

This article is from April 28, 2000, and is no longer current.

Eye on the Web: It Takes a Village of Villages

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I’m an entertainment buff. I subscribe to a gazillion entertainment magazines, browse a slew of entertainment Web sites every day, and get more enjoyment than is natural out of discussing Val Kilmer’s movie career and the sad plight of Charlie Sheen. I see at least a movie a week and watch Friends religiously (since the sitcom has gone into syndication I can tell you the entire plot of any given episode within a minute of turning on the TV).
This being America, I am exposed to a lot of advertising during the course of my pursuit of entertainment gossip (or gossip entertainment), and I can only assume that I am smack in the middle of the demographic these advertisers are pursuing. I’m somewhat conditioned to ignore print ads, and my finger is never far from the mute button when watching TV; but a series of plugs for a particular Web site that have begun appearing in my favorite entertainment rags has slowly wrangled its way into my thoughts.
The spots are generally spread over multiple glossy pages and feature a variety of hipsters explaining that they work as a stripper because they like showing off their tattoos, or they’ve become an actor because they’re brimming with emotion anyway, or that they are a model which really is hard work. I’m invited to learn more about these folk, whom I presumably can identify with (seeing as I’ve got the equally glamorous job of Web columnist), by visiting iam.com.
As I can’t bring myself to hear any more about the miserable life of a hardworking model, and I’d much rather dish about actors than be forced to feel I am remotely like them, I stay away from the site. But the whole thing makes me think of the days before the Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com rivalry, before you could visit www.gap.com to be the first on your block to resurrect the denim jacket, back when the most promising use of the Web appeared to be the creation of online communities.
Online community is a term you barely ever hear anymore, at least I don’t. The bus shelter ads for virtual places to meet people just like you, to exchange ideas and cull information from in-the-virtual-flesh humans, have lately given way to more spots for places to spend your money, or invest your money, or manage your money. Luckily for all of us, however, it turns out the online community is alive and well, it’s just morphed a little.
One of the problems with the Web, according to just about anyone you ask, is that there is so much stuff on it that it’s hard to find the stuff that’s for you – the kinds of places you’d like to visit every day, where you can find the kind of information you want (like www.mrshowbiz.com, if you’re me). When you open your browser, where do you go first? The question is not so different from this one: When you come upon a newsstand, which magazine do you pick up first?
Sure, if you are looking for specific information, you may go to a search engine and deal with that whole rigmarole. But if you are just reading, just browsing, where do you go? Well, it all depends on what you like, and that’s where the online community, in its updated form, comes in.
Say you’re a female, like me, and you’re looking for female-specific content that might involve using a few more brain cells than the standard Cosmo-esque schlock. You’d log onto chickclick.com a compendium of girl- and grrl-related sites with a home page that covers everything from whether you are a good girlfriend (I’m pretty sure I am, so I skip this part) to whether electronic music is going mainstream (I’m thinking yes, in the great tradition of “alternative” rock). At the very top of ClickClick.com, is a list of its sister sites, ranging from technodyke.com to Fit Teen to bust.com, the self-appointed vanguard of the new girl order. These sites carve out a corner of the Web – a digital repository of particular interests, a latter day online community.
In fact, on fametracker.com, a ChickClick.com sister site, I engaged in a lengthy discussion about whether Winona Ryder and Matt Damon had indeed called it quits, and whether Matt Damon is actually a frat goon and Winona Ryder was better off with Johnny Depp. It was great.
But even if you don’t give a hang about whether Angelina Jolie has a downright strange relationship with her brother (though I don’t see how you couldn’t), there are myriad, and varied, places on the Web that can serve as online communities for you. There’s The Well, which began a staggering 15 years ago on a BBS (bulletin board system) and was bought by Salon.com last year – a particularly heady spot for idea exchange that has built up a significant and loyal following over the years.
There are newer, and more specific online communities, such as SFDOG, a dog-owners group of which my neighbor is an extremely active member. And, lest you think the traditional online community is a fading art, you can check out onlinecommunityreport.com, where former CNET columnist Dan Shafer waxes on about how to design the proper online community, and what’s new and exciting in the online community world.
What it all comes down to, if you ask me, is the question of what the Web is for. Is it for buying stuff, for reading stuff, for discussing stuff? The answer is all of the above, or none of the above, depending on who you are. By following links, and listening to other surfers’ advice, by asking questions in online forums, everyone carves out a personal niche for themselves on the Web – their own online community, be it one of celebrity gossip, electronic music, dog-owners rights, or the travails of being a model in the big city. We may not always remember it, what with the great e-commerce rush, but the Web was actually built around the idea of an online community and the only thing that has really changed is that we now have millions of online communities, not just one.
 

  • anonymous says:

    I can’t believe it. I think you should put more of her stories on your Web site.

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