Virtual Worlds · Digital Culture · AI Literati
When a member of a Destiny 2 clan died unexpectedly in 2019, his clanmates held a virtual memorial in the game. They gathered their avatars in a quiet corner of the map, stood together in the game wor...
Read article →Most people laugh because something is funny. Laughter yoga flips that logic on its head entirely. In laughter yoga, you laugh on purpose, without jokes, without punchlines, without anything being par...
Read article →There is something strange that happens when you press play on a voice note from someone you care about. Their breath is in it. The slight pause before they find the right word. The way their voice di...
Read article →The question of whether making art alone can address loneliness sounds almost paradoxical. Loneliness is, at its core, an absence of connection — and sitting by yourself with a sketchpad or a lump of...
Read article →Twitch Community and Belonging: Is Streaming Chat Real Connection? If you have never spent time in a Twitch chat during a live stream, it is easy to dismiss it as noise — thousands of identical emotes...
Read article →Parasocial Podcast Relationships: When Your Earbuds Feel Like Friendship Most people who listen to podcasts feel a little embarrassed admitting how well they think they know the hosts. You know their...
Read article →Reddit as Support Group: When Strangers Become Your Safety Net The post usually starts with some version of the same sentence: "I don't know if this is the right place but I didn't know where else to...
Read article →Virtual Reality Social Spaces: Can You Really Connect in the Metaverse? The avatar across from you in the virtual space is gesturing with its hands as it talks — not because the user programmed it to,...
Read article →Open Mic Nights as Belonging Technology: Why Vulnerability in Public Connects Walk into an open mic night on the right evening and you will witness something genuinely strange. A person you have never...
Read article →Gardening as Community: How Dirt and Seeds Build Neighborhood Bonds There is something quietly radical about putting your hands in soil alongside someone you barely know. Community gardens have become...
Read article →Coworking spaces were supposed to solve the loneliness problem of remote work. The pitch was simple: instead of working from your kitchen table in isolation, you pay a monthly fee to work in a room fu...
Read article →Walking groups might be the most quietly effective friendship-building tool available, and almost nobody talks about them in that context. People talk about walking groups for fitness, for mental heal...
Read article →There is a reason nearly every culture on earth organizes its most meaningful moments around food. Weddings, funerals, harvests, religious holidays, first dates — humans instinctively reach for the sh...
Read article →Men's connection groups are one of the fastest-growing social trends most people have never heard of. Called men's groups, men's circles, or brotherhood circles depending on who is running them, these...
Read article →Most people have a drawer full of acquaintances and a genuine shortage of close friends. You know the type of relationship: you see them at the gym, you like their posts, you have perfectly pleasant c...
Read article →For most of human history, religious institutions did something beyond theology. They provided a recurring gathering place, a shared set of values, a community that showed up when you were sick or gri...
Read article →Friendship apps occupy a strange cultural position. Everyone is vaguely aware they exist, many people have downloaded one in a moment of loneliness or life transition, and almost nobody talks about us...
Read article →Loneliness is painful. Most people who have experienced it know the particular quality of that pain: a hollow, aching awareness of disconnection that seems to color everything and resist easy remedy....
Read article →Adults are not taught how to start conversations. We assume that once you get through childhood and adolescence, the basic mechanics of social initiation should be automatic. But for a large number of...
Read article →Human connection is often framed as one of life's enrichments — a source of pleasure, meaning, and comfort that makes life better. This framing is accurate but incomplete. It positions connection as s...
Read article →Most people feel a sting when they are left out. A party they were not invited to, a group chat they are not part of, a friendship that seems to have drifted in directions that do not include them. Th...
Read article →Loneliness does not just feel bad. It changes how you think. More precisely, it changes how you read other people, in ways that tend to make social situations harder to navigate, which in turn tends t...
Read article →Two people sit across from each other. Neither may be consciously aware of what is happening, but their nervous systems are in continuous conversation. Heart rates drift toward synchrony. Breathing pa...
Read article →There is a classic experiment in stress research where participants are asked to hold their hand in a bucket of ice water for as long as possible. It is genuinely unpleasant, and the time people can t...
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