• Community is absolutely still a real thing. In my experience, however, you have to be willing to step outside of the mainstream and you have to be willing to touch grass every now and then. Socializing IRL is completely different than socializing online, which is different than socializing in VR, or in voice chat, or so on.

    That said, there absolutely is a case to be made for idea that “community” being slowly ground into dust, possibly intentionally so. The death of open gathering places, the rise of online-only interaction and so forth, erodes at the kind of socialization you need in order to build a community. My tinfoil hat theory is that it’s easier to sow division in the unruly masses and keep them at each other’s throats when everyone is alone, so the rich and powerful have an incentive to kill the concept of community so that it’s harder to rise up against them.

    At this point, I believe the places where you’re most likely to find a strong sense of community will be within marginalized groups; people who’ve traditionally been downtrodden tend to band together for protection, relationships and support.