shelfless

Ever have one of those moments where you think you know exactly what you’re going to do, then something throws you and you have to rethink everything?

I had one of those moments the other night.

Totally ready to write my reflection on virtual communities, I read Tracie’s post about the mailing list/listserv experience she had. Crap. I did partake in a listserv. Or maybe it was a discussion list? Hell if I can remember. I barely remember being a part of it, but when I thought about it, it ended up being an important part of what I remembered my first experience being.

I’ll keep it brief.

I was in college. Sometime in the mid 90’s I joined a, lets call it a mailing group for the band Barenaked Ladies. I was a big fan, still am really, just not as active of one as I was back then. The group was just fans sending emails to the group, mostly about the band, concerts, stories. Some people found themselves living in the same area, and I think met up for shows. Not bad, all in all. Definitely a virtual community. and it grew. Alot. I couldn’t tell you how big, or how many folks there were, but it was alot.

I was what you, or Jonn Seely Brown, would call a lurker. I got the messages. I read them, most of them anyway. And that was it. I sent maybe a couple responses, but I never really added to the community. The internet at this period was a pretty fresh tool to me, email included. My first email address was in 1995. Even so, I felt this mode pretty limiting.

There was this “internet” thing… why weren’t we using that? I didn’t know if there was the actual capabilities of it, but it just seemed a better medium to me. My interst wanned. I stopped reading them. I can’t remember if I unsubscribed or just abandonned the account.

It wasn’t until 2000 when I started having satisfying experiences with virtual communities. Living in a new state, I was keeping contact with my friends back in Detroit through Yahoo Messenger. As a comic fan, I spent of my down time perusing the DC Comics Message Boards. Again, I was a lurker, but I participated more and more.

I was a writer in college, but work and what not afforded me little time for writing. At the DCMB I followed a request for people looking to participate in some collaborative fan fiction. That’s how I ended up on the EZBoards, which don’t appear to exist anymore.

I started just participating in writing for one message board. I can’t remember what it was called. “I can’t remember” is a phrase that I use often enough that I’m qualified to be attorney general of the United States. Anyway, the more I wrote with these people the more my posting spilled out over all the forums their board had, meeting and intereacting with the other posters on a more socal level. I became a pretty prevalent poster. Even though I was just one of the masses, I became a “Leader”. I was adding lots of content to the community as a whole, adding to the discussions, bringing up topics, enganging the new people, bringing lurkers out of the dark to post. It was nice. That board was part of a circle of 3 or 4 other boards on the EZboard community. I spread my wings, joining the others and getting to know lots of new people very well. Eventually I became a “mod” for one board. Then Two. Then all of them. The better we all got to know each other, especially the board mods, the more our contact spread beyond the board into instant messaging.

These people who I’d never met had become some of my best friends. It seemed weird… but it was true. We shared a lot of common interests. Comics. Games. Writing. Interests my local friends and I just didn’t have. And because of the interaction through the board and IM, I spent so much time with these people.

Compared to some places, these boards weren’t huge. But they had a great influence on the people that were part of them. It was a dedicated Tribe, as Seth Godin would say. Several years ago when 4 of us migrated away from the EZboard community to our own place. The users moved with us. 4+ years later EZboard is gone and Superbuddies is still a thriving community for people to talk about comics, movies, produce and display art, produce collaborative fan fiction. I’m quite proud.

As for my virtual tribe… I’ve actually met a number of the people who are part of the community several times. I guess a lot of them have become part of my personal Tribe…

Photo: kAos, c/o flickr and jazzalnero