Community and Presence
Who you are is your lived experience. You are goth if you go to goth shows. You are punk if you go to punk shows. You are a raptors fan if you go to raptors games. You are a post-modernist if you meet with likeminded people in seedy bars to discuss philosophy. What i mean is that, to be a part of the community, you show up and you exist in that space. thats what it takes. nothing more, nothing less. if you only read about it online and dress like that when you go to the mall, you are not a part of that community, because you are not physically present in that space. much the same, doesnt matter how you dress or where you’re from, if you show up to the community, you are a part of it.
an possible downstream of this axiom is communities are ultimately defined by who goes to their events and what they do there. If this is true, then some degree of gatekeeping and exclusion is necessary to have a meaningful, purposed subculture. if you want to preserve certain ideals as an integral part of the community, then it has to be that the people who attend community events agree with those ideals. if they dont, they are not part of the community. this doesn’t mean they are bad people, or should be lonely, they just need to go somewhere else.
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