Online Community Groups Are The New Town Square

Every online community group ends up following certain trends once it hits a certain critical follower mass. Enough people will be active that certain topics become more popular than others. Usually it will be the most polarizing topics that create the most engagement.

While it’s clear Meta as a platform will focus heavily on pushing content with a negative tone, it’s because that appears to drive us to comment. In the current landscape, comments are the most meaningful form of engagement. Likes are too simple to count for much, comments take some effort. Shares are good, but moot in a private group.

Once the trending topics become annoying, the anti-trending comments come, complaining about complaining and then nothing changes. Let’s explore what can be done.

Online community groups are a town square

I was listening to the Prof G podcast and he was talking to a lady who had worked at the Match.com dating site. She explained that workplaces had evolved to become the new town square. When I think about the years I spent at the lunch table, it was the real life manifestation of a Facebook Group.

Several loud people, like myself, sat there passionately debating what others deem inappropriate lunch topics. Others try and sneak convos in on the side while secretly wishing me and mines would stop debating politics. Here and there someone will be like, “Can we please just keep it light today, we don’t NEED to be intense all the time.”

That memory totally reminded me of this Facebook post I saw earlier today. A person was whining about people whining about snow removal in the local community Facebook Group. I, and the other loud & passionate folk, get our energy out debating each other. Then, we get so annoying, that criticism is levied our way. 

Personally I haven’t worked in an office since 2020. I miss the interaction, the banter and arguments with people who live completely unlike me. It’s refreshing to be exposed to better arguments than mine. I also value the opportunity to sharpen the debate sword with other debaters, especially those who completely disagree with me.

We’re coming up on 4 years since I’ve had that regular place fish bowl environment. Given we’re in this timeline of life, I find the neighbourhood Facebook group fills a void. Instead of pointlessly arguing with my peers who don’t care, I can find people who care about things that I do, and argue with them, in public. It HAS to be in public or it’s not even satisfying at all.

I sincerely believe these groups are becoming the modern manifestation of a town square. 

Algorithms promote whatever is engaging

If Facebook thought that flowers and blue skies would get good, meaty comments, it would push that down our throats. Instead, a lot of times when people like stuff online, they barely engage with it. I often chortle to myself over a joke while forgetting to “haha” the post. 

Meanwhile, when something grinds my gears, my reptilian brain kicks in and the next thing you know I am writing 200 words on some topic I feel someone has misrepresented. Whether that be snow removal, public transit or whether CD Projekt Red actually fumbled the Cyberpunk launch, the more I relate to it, the more I have an opinion.

Facebook seems convinced polarizing topics that create vitriol are the way to maximise time spent on the site. They probably know what they are talking about. The default for a Facebook Group is that posts are displayed in order of most recent activity. This means every comment on a post will bump it to the top of the list. A good argument will keep it at the top.

These are the posts Facebook will show in your regular feed. These are the posts that are “popping” that Meta feels you need to see. Chances are if you charted out every post in any group, and counted a list of topics, you’d find these noisy ones were a minority of posts. 

However most people find most posts boring, so they do not engage. I can assure you that advertising the concerts I threw at The Wheel Club was largely ignored by this same group. From my understanding, that’s as OG as you can get with a post in our lil group. Since no one cared, no one saw.

Fight back using the tools at your disposal

There is a sizable amount of people who probably can’t stand the way people like me go on endlessly. They dislike our obsessive nature and willingness to spend 45 minutes lighting up their notifications. Our relentless assault on the timeline for weeks at a time, drilling a topic to death with opposing viewpoints, no minds being changed really, aggravates them as much as my excessive run on sentences. 

Those people see that brave soul who finally posted against the noise, and chime in their agreement. This is super valid, but it got me thinking, if people want to see more positive stuff, why do they ignore positive stuff. Literally today someone is giving away extra food they have, a noble charitable act. Go comment on that post, bump it up to the top. Make that one go “viral” so to speak.

All the silent people, feeling transgressed have equal opportunity to dominate the timeline. They just choose to ignore it. Sometimes I just scroll through the group looking for something to trigger me. You could also go comment on 5 posts you want to see more content from. Go use the democratic power of large numbers of comments to prove the point.

Sometimes I get the “must be nice to have time for that”. To that I say, it really is. Some people like movies, I like writing blogs and arguing on social media. Not being a parent at 36 is a vibe. 

You can suffer in silence or you can fight back. By spreading love with abundance in a loud and obnoxious way. This is the real path to making the Facebook Group a more positive place. End of the day, free speech lets us all complain how we want. Go love louder than people complain.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone