What Our Cities Are Missing
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 พ.ค. 2024
- Let's unravel the defining characteristics of third places, tap into their historical significance and evolution, and explore how we can build and nurture the enduring allure of these social sanctuaries in the modern world.
Shoutout to @COLORMIND.mp4 for his co-producing and voicing on the skit!
Introduction - 0:00
What Are Third Places? - 1:57
The Benefits of Third Places - 7:02
The Historical Power of the Third Place - 8:34
What Happened To Third Places? - 9:52
Le Third Place - 13:33
A Few Teensy Critiques - 16:08
Radical, Revived Third Places - 24:20
Title Card Music: Where We Go by Jelani Aryeh
Thumbnail Art: Ernie Barnes
Support me on Patreon!
/ saintdrew
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outro music: Cedar Womb by joe zempel
TH-cam: / @joezempel
Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/3vVDn...
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Sources & Resources:
The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg
www.theatlantic.com/family/ar...
www.thegoodtrade.com/features...
www.brookings.edu/articles/th...
/ the-death-of-third-pla...
inthesetimes.com/article/big-...
![[TH]FFWS SEA Spring 2024 Point Rush - Day 2](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/uTzfNlXO9bg/mqdefault.jpg)
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If you're new to these ideas? You can check out my essentials playlist here:
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I wanna be sure to shoutout @COLORMIND.mp4 for his co-producing and voicing on the skit!
Also, just a heads up, apparently a fully revised and updated edition of The Great Good Place is in the works by Karen Christensen. Perhaps that will address some of the issues I and others have raised with the original text and perhaps I’ll discuss it in a future video or live stream.
Hope you all enjoyed!
In my experience, there's two types of anarchists - those that just want to rebel and smash the state, and those who want to provide viable alternatives to existing systems. Thank you for being the latter.
I'm a statist by virtue of pragmatic realism - but I see anarchic theory like this as an excellent guidepost to how society can be developed. In the same way a student might look to masterpieces for inspiration while still struggling to learn the basics, I don't think the majority of humans are anywhere close to being capable of living anarchistically. And perhaps we never will. But by providing non-governmental solutions, anarchism can still provide real effects even within a statist society.
"what happens in the streets is not the revolution...what happens in the streets is a product of the revolution....in your mind"
@@hieronymusbutts7349couldn't find that quote with a quick Google search. Care to share the author? Thanks
Actually, double checking, I think it was a response poem to that Gil Scott Heron song. What I remember, from 20 years ago:
"The revolution will not be televised
Because the revolution CANNOT be televised
What happens in the streets is not the revolution
What happens in the streets is the PRODUCT of the revolution!
The revolution is what happens in your mind!"
You're great and your channel is great. You are doing important things. F*ck the algorithm if it doesn't agree. Stay at it friend, just stay at it. ✊
Isn't this third place just the church? The Church is supposed to be this third place, this is where community was built and maintained.
In fact, some of these rules, such as rule 2, seem put in place specifically to pretend this isn't what the church was.
But the Church has always been the place where conversation is held, where bonds were tightened, etc. It's almost as if these "characteristics" have been assigned specifically to exclude the church, because if we acknowledge that this is what the church was/is, then it means we have to give up our new religion: diversity.
So if it's not the church, what is it this "third place" in history? According to our romanticized nostalgia, The pub. The English and Irish pubs of old. So I have to question, who made these criterion? Who came up with these rules, and why would they push us into desiring alcohol dependency?
For the majority of people, the moment they leave school is the moment they're communal lives dies.
Why it hit me so hard?!?😢
i completely agree. it’s easy to isolate
This is so true.
True
Yeah, I've talked to a few people and they've told me that they miss school. So yeah, I believe this to be true. I remember a story not long ago, that a South Korea woman(29 years old) in the US, pretended to be a student in a New Jersey High School, because she was lonely. She did this because she was so happy when she was in school, she felt safe and comfortable.
Yo, this video is a mandatory watch for older folk who don't understand why kids don't go outside anymore. There's no soda/milkshake shop anymore, just Walmarts and 7/11's.
Yeah, all the places that used to be to hangout are now closed or destroyed. Malls used to serve that purpose but not anymore.
@@professionalpainthuffer yeah, the library isn’t meant for conversation. It still mostly traps you in the same atomization that work or home does.
@@professionalpainthuffer thanks for adding your two cents! You've put it perfectly. Libraries are great, but very rarely are they third places.
@@AndrewismI don't think it's accurate to say a library isn't a third place. They have meeting rooms where clubs can get together. They have kids activities too. I personally eat lunch every weekday during work hours bc it's around the corner from me, my office building is under construction and they have made a little sitting area for people to have their lunch away from the oppressive heat. My library has remained open during July 4th and labor day holidays bc they have air conditioning during our record breaking summer.
There are different types of third places. The gym is a different kind of third place from a mall from a library and they are all necessary
@@priyas9751It really depends on the library and your mileage may vary. I've been to some great libraries with community engagement and some other ones that are obviously underfunded and aren't very welcoming to hang out in for a length of time.
We need to bring back guilds. Adventurer's guilds. Fishing guilds. Crafting guilds. Thief guilds. The dark brotherhood.
Shamans and Druids
Lol
You've convinced me.
WE KNOW.
Rod and Gun clubs exist all around the country. Unfortunately, many are cliquey and/or full of elderly men who have lost some adventuring spirit or due to age are unable to make trips.
I was homeless for a month. During that month a walked around my city ALOT. We really stuck out to me was the lack of places to hang out. Its hard to just exist without a home. I constantly had to move and couldnt relax for more than an hour. There was one park in my whole vicinity.
Chad observes his environment for a month, introspects and plans his escape from homelessness
I was homeless for a bit longer than that but what i found was that gyms were excellent places for most stuff if you could afford membership
I was spending nearly $180 just to exist without being put in jail the first month. The last month, i had a warm shower every day for $20
@@angrydragonslayer Yeah I did the same. Anytime Fitness helped a lot. I practically lived there. Just spent most of the day working out. I would take 2hr showers just to pass the time.
That must have been a difficult time. You’re right though, there’s nowhere to go without having to pay or buy something. Especially indoors.
@@botezsimp5808 well, now i'm going to have to take a long shower for nostalgia, aren't i?
The worst for me is that even public parks require a damn permit for folks to hang out unbothered these days. It's sick.
An enduring memory I have from my childhood was when my family went out for ice cream and sat in a gazebo in a park and a police cruiser rolled up and told us that we needed a permit to sit there.
Sounds like a classic US only L ngl🙄🙄
@@aturchomicz821 These comments generally are not helpful
@@aturchomicz821yes and no. I'm Californian, my wife is Austrian. Still needs a permit for picnics and things there. Soooooo maybe try looking stuff up before leaping to conclusions. I'm glad you don't have this issue where you are but being rude is super unhelpful also. :/
Permits help keep accountability and helps to pay for the services that take care of the place. Like, have you seen public places where anyone can just hang out? The majority of people liter and turn it into a shit hole.
I used to go to a weekly "draw club" at my local comic shop. You weren't required to buy anything, just hang out and do art! It was a wonderful third place.
Why did you stop?
@@ruinerblodsinn6648probably covid
Same here. I always bought something that caught my eye. Would often join in on the games or just watch... picking up on things as I went. Sometimes just a look speaks volumes.
My ex used to own a tabletop game and card game store and it was a fun place to hang out. No one was expected to buy anything, but he had vending machines and managed to keep the place chugging along. I never got into painting models but it was also fun to hang out at the panting table and see all the creativity happen and talk. Sounds like your comic store drawing nights had a similar chill atmosphere
@@Emiliapocalypse is it still open?
Oh my god. Learning about third-places is making me feel like I’m the captain of the Axiom from Wall-E, rediscovering how humans used to live on Earth. The fact that I have never heard of the concept before makes me feel like I’ve been robbed of a common human experience. I grew up spending more time looking at screens than at friends, and I can only imagine how different of a person I would have grown up to become if there was a place I could regularly go to make and meet friends, or to just feel belonging beyond the isolation of home.
I'm sorry and I suggest traveling. This is a profound comment to be reading.
@@josiahamazetraveling is impacted by the same problem as third spaces. You used to be able to travel on a few dollars a day hopping from third place to third place to hostel, to some friendly stranger’s house who is trustworthy and just wants to help out a traveler. “Backpacking across Europe” to modern young people (especially in USA) sounds like an impossible task without a trust fund level income. That used to be what so many people did, it seemed to fall off in the early 2000’s.
@@_..-.._..-.._ agreex
@@_..-.._..-.._not true. A couple of my friends got the traveling bug and have cruised back and forth across the country since graduating high school. Through them I’ve met a few other nomadic souls that drop in and out of my life when their in the vicinity of the farm. Doesn’t seem that hard to travel to me. They seem to have more trouble staying put.
I live in Bulgaria, I moved here 14 years ago because I like the society. Eventually I realised what I liked about. It was the amount of effort they put into the children the amount of space for children the way they look after children and that builds a better happier society.
Outdoor volleyball courts are ideal for this. It’s like a giant sandbox where people can go and have fun. I’m in the process of becoming an architect specifically to deal with this lack of third places.
Maybe also get a degree in Psychology and Sociology to understand how these things come about and how they keep from going under. Parks are meant for these kind a spaces, but if you see how they sometimes get over-run by no-gooders, then it's clear that you need more than an architect to make these places happen.
@@tomasviane3844 thank you sounds like a great thing for grad school, I was also a psychology minor. Anyone with resources or literature they recommend on this topic would be greatly appreciated.
When I was in university, we had a little board game club in a forgotten corner of one of the buildings. Officially it met weekly but there was almost always at least one person hanging out between classes or having lunch. It really felt like a community and it's where I met almost all of my long-time friends, and where I was exposed to a lot of new, radical ideas through casual conversation. I think I would be a completely different person without it.
I wish more places like that existed outside universities.
"new, radical ideas" - I think you just hit the nail on the head as to why 3rd places are becoming rarer than hens teeth.
Have you tried libraries? Especially if you have the luck of having a library with a game room around.
As a fellow board gamer this sounds amazing!
@@harkonen1000000I don’t know if this is normal or not, but the libraries where I’m from are NOT set up for conversation at all. There are never any private rooms and you’re supposed to be quiet.
It's dawned on me that the features that draw people to an area are often the same features that lead to poverty and exploitation by people who wish they had access to them where they live. Still, I consider myself very fortunate to be part of a thriving local board game club, and to live in a city that, while overrun with tourists and suffering from some of the worst income disparity in the US, has an abundance of third places.
Architect and visionary Victor David Gruen,design the first shopping malls, It was his solution for urban revitalization and encouraging pedestrian traffic instead of cars, he was disappointed on what malls became.
They certainly had the *potential* to be de facto community centres, and certainly an ideal capitalist vision of one. But the profit motive is too strong. Put them inside or near to residential urban areas, and you're in competition with existing businesses and community spaces. But, move them outside the city to the suburbs 🤢 or beyond and with good enough marketing you can entice people to travel into what is effectively a gated community of consumption. You starve local businesses of their customers which only *further* accelerates the shift to out-of-town shopping. The community aspect is destroyed, partly because you can't make money from people just *hanging out* and because people brought in from disparate geographic areas for the purpose of consooming have no real motive to connect with each other. Add in the USA's particular preference for personal transportation and you have a nightmare scenario of isolated people taking their isolated transportation to an isolated corporate space to engage in the fundamentally isolating process of *being a consumer*. Oh and also the car park is 2 square miles because fuck you.
As a temporary expat, I see international malls as closer to his original dream. The malls here always have playgrounds, courtyards to relax, groceries, docs office, sometimes libraries. A trip to the mall is really all encompassing and usually accessible by public transport. I’m really shocked how much we miss a sense of community in the US
I was a mall rat in the early 2000’s and it was a very social activity. Loved meeting new people there
The grand capitalist vision.
People ignore each other at shopping malls. I don't know why people are so anti social now. Maybe its classism. People think they are above or below their peers.
This is exactly what I've been trying to explain to my mom for ages. She claims I don't go outside enough. Where I live, the only hangout places are bars and as I have an addictive personality I'm not encouraging the habit of going to them often. Beyond that, my options for going out of the house are shopping. And there is really nowhere I can go without the expectation of spending money (hell, nothing's walkable, so by nature of going there you're spending cash on fuel.) The end result is I spend a lot of my time gaming in voice chats because it's social and costs me nothing. The gym is the only place I really have to go recreationally.
sad fact is the gym isn't free (and far from cheap in australia). i'd love to go to a gym specifically for the social aspect since i already work out at home, but the prices are pretty extreme especially amidst australia's cost of living crisis
Nothing better than committing felonies with strangers in grand theft auto for "free"
Get your ass into a car and drive somewhere better. Or just take a cab to an airport and go wherever is cheapest to fly.
Your area sucks, not your life. Use your legs and improve the area you're in.
@@Clembo uproot your life, all connections, find a new place to live, lose your job, real easy stuff honestly.
@@Clembo just travel potentially hours away from your home on a work night bro. No excuses!
I was in Honolulu years ago. They have a ton of bars for tourists. My friend and I found this dark building between the bars. It looked like a house. We walked in and sat at the bar and everyone was so excited we were there. It was full of locals and we had our Navy uniforms on. They just talked openly about living in HI, the good the bad, they introduced us to everyone. It was one of the best bar experiences I've ever had. Great people!
How I wish I wasn't station in contus..
I'm curious to know what was the ratio of men and women in that bar?
@@danielhaastrup6713 I don’t remember.
I was born and raised in Hawaii, and it’s so sad to see it slowly lose that charm. The rich are forcing their way in and buying everything up. So many of the third places I remember fondly as a kid have been torn down for luxury condos that no native resident can afford
Appreciate you for your service sir
As a teenager living in America it really sucks not having any easily accessible places that don't need me to drive or spend money. I want to go out and connect with the community, but being a minor without a car or very little cash it makes it sound like just a dream
Yeah if you don't have a car in most places you are essentially not a part of the community.
you're essentially born in house arrest
The best thing I can say is your local park. Try there. Beware stranger danger always though
When I was a teen we always hung at at parks. I did that until about 23. If I do that now that at 31 years old I think a cop would probably roll up. :/ They should make adult parks.
@@botezsimp5808 they should also have low income housing but no one in any form of need is worth catering to
What is really crushing for me to observe, is seeing a wonderful space that fulfills all the necessary criteria for a third place (student radio), but it is becoming abandoned, because students are too busy working second jobs, and going to planned, closed meetings for leisure. Hardly ever is anyone hanging out in that place. And the people who remain at work in the radio are of this strange volunteer breed, who have a sense of duty that drives them to put pressure others to work as hard as they, which further drives away potential newcomers:/
The only people left are the exact ones who ruin everything it sounds like
@@JaceFalconit's a common problem with dying hobby communities. The people who stay the longest are the most unhealthily invested and conservative about evolution/improvement.
Thank you for bringing up the problems with bars as third spaces. As someone who doesn't drink it's very frustrating when bars are often the only spaces people my age gather explicitly to socialize. Even if I go and don't drink, it's hard to not feel left out when I'm not doing the one thing everyone else is doing.
I mainly can't stand the high noise level. I'm not deaf and don't enjoy feeling deaf 😢
You can't even socialize there though, most people go there to screw themselves up with whatever beverage they're currently drinking
...okay, sorry for this much of a generalization but I geniunely believe that bars are not third places. These are not spaces where you can experience some peace, and some good feeling without feeling emotionally overwhelmed
I used to hate it, but now I feel so lucky to have grown up in a somewhat small, almost.. lost-to-time, town in the 90s. My friends and I biked everywhere, explored town and wood, hung out at one of the shops in the “downtown” area - if it could be called that - which had sodas, milkshakes, snacks, and a friendly clerk. I feel like I got to experience the last years of a bygone era. Eventually we made friends with the owner of a computer/phone/pager shop owner and I got really into computers and the internet, slowly moving into the next phase of millennial life. It’s like I have two worlds in my head. That childhood life of open freedom, though, will forever be imprinted on my heart. I am so sad for the many kids these days that will never know that feeling, now that in most places it's subdivisions, busy roads, and stripmalls. Kids don't want to go outside and explore an unwelcoming world with little for them, and adults are afraid and suspicious of the kids that do.
Those early experiences, I think, imbued in me the strength to push forward through many later trials, even battles with anxiety and depression. Something I know the youth of today are struggling with. I think you're right and that this is an important part of the human experience. Something many kids need for lessons that can't be learned in school or on the Internet. It is a significant part of who I am as a man today.
Every third place I had as a teen and young adult has been shuttered. It's left my city feeling empty despite hundreds of thousands of people
Also I notice a difference in me growing up in an apartment complex and my sister growing up in suburb. I knew neigh or kids and got outside and played frequently and it was safe. Most of my sisters neighbors are old with no kids and those few there don't go outside and play in the street cause no one feels its safe. My family has her in after school activities to keep her occupied but that costs money that a lot of families can't front
For me in growing up in the suburbs it was never safety, it was always distance. My friend lives so far away and can't just walk over to my house. And yeah, all my neighbors either being old, and if there were kids they were always YOUNG kids. And at 13-17, I didn't want to hang with them.
I don't think the lack of third places is the problem (in some places it is distance though), I think it's the commercialist attack against quality. Third places have always existed to first meet a need and then sustain themselves and the people running them by making money. Now, they exist to bait you into spending money there by promising you they will meet your needs and providing you with a sorry overpriced excuse for what you expected. It's getting to the point where everyone is so oblivious to what good quality is that they praise not-as-bad low quality and don't know why you don't like it.
card shops had that function also youth buildings. but i don't see them so much anymore. or when I do the feeling is different now somewhat, I don't see people coming to spend hours hanging out with friends like I did when I was growing up. Also arcades are another thing. It used to be a decent space, but now when they do still exist they are way too noisy IMO to be very social anymore. probably attempting to compete with at home gaming.
ya san diego lacks any third spaces at all, just homeless camps.
I just realized most skateparks I've been to work exactly like third places, they're accessible, free, they level people's social status, they allow people to unite over their passion where at the same time always have enough sitting and space just to hang around. Maybe it is mostly for skaters, but skateparks are an amazing social place for people to gather and share.
In the city where I live, there's a skate park that's placed in between a restaurant and a basketball court, across the street there's a Subway, and in the front there's a beach. It's honestly one of my favorite places in the city and one of the most beautiful as well
My skate park was a 20 minute drive from where everyone i knew lived also high 90s in the summers keep people away. The needles on the ground and and the high crime in the surrounding area didn’t help either. We need more walkable cities otherwise these places don’t function/exist.
i’m insanely introverted and skateparks are the only place i’ll talk to random people
@@mikehunt5926 yeah right the bar to talk to someone in these places it's so low any excuse is valid and people are ok with it
This whole video is a giant excuse to be antisocial, literally every single place that isn’t your home or work is a “3rd place“, all people need to do is choose to be social
I went to college on an island and we had a beach that spanned the entire shoreline. It was never closed and easily accessible. You could lounge around and read. You would see fishermen, treasure hunters with metal detectors, couples out for a stroll, people playing volleyball. It was a wonderful gathering place for the people. Some of the more hidden beaches were a great place for stoners to smoke and you could have a contained bonfire. Alcohol was allowed for those of age but no glass bottles. The beach was my awakening to a third place and set the gold standard for me.
I remember how I felt when I got off heroin/fentanyl and I was living isolated at home. I remember missing being with a group of people living on the streets, even though I had to deal with all the pains and dangers of the streets. Same thing when I got out of jail. I was traumatized from some of the horrific shit that comes with it but at the same time I missed being around my friends. I immediately understood why people who did long prison terms would always end up back. Anytime I left treatment or a mental health institution I remember missing being around people who all had something that we all could relate with to. There was definitely some trauma bonding involved but that was only a small part of it. Thinking back on these things makes me realize how much we need something like this. I don’t know how many times I became suicidal, hopeless or ended up returning to drugs (overdosing easily 20 times, shocking even me that I’m still here).
This alienated state that we’re living with in is completely unnatural and even inhuman. Some of the only places where you have 3rd places (and the public transportation needed to facilitate it) are in extremely expensive cities.
The other thing that isolated us to an extreme extent is iPhones and social media. It gives us the illusion of being around our friends while our brains can tell the difference. This not only leads us into severe depression and mental illness, but stunts our ability to socialize with other. It’s only going to be worse for future generations. The skyrocketing suic*de rate among young people reflects this. We need to fix this.
Personally, I think most people need 4 things in their lives: home, work, relaxation, and hobbies. The first three obviously corresponds with what’s discussed in the video, and then the fourth places caters to a person’s hobbies or interests. I’d argue that if third places are social places where everyone can hang out and relax as equals, fourth places would be places of social gathering with purpose. Places where you need to arrange specific times with other people to do specific things. This can be tennis, clubbing, movie theater etc. The main point is that fourth places is not where people naturally go, but one people go to to fulfill a specific purpose. It’s inherently unequal and thus might not contribute to the sense of community that the video talks about, but I think it’s necessary to form deeper personal bonds beyond the third place, as third places are generally meant to be light-hearted and caters to a wider audience. Fourth places let people explore their interests with others and provide opportunities for more close-knit groups to develop. I haven’t thought about this too deeply, but I think it’s an interesting topic worth discussion :D
i like your conception of fourth places!
I like this take, too. Because it's interesting in America - I feel like we have fourth places, but we lack third places. And that emphasizes the contrast between the two in terms of what they offer.
When I make a plan to go out to a movie or play D&D with my friends, it feels like a fun, goal-directed event. It feels like we're all taking part in our mutual interest in a way that's fulfilling. However, it's a rare thing - once or twice a month - and I find that it doesn't really make me feel "connected" like a casual community would. Instead, it serves higher rungs on the hierarchy of needs, like self-actualization. But even if I were able to play those games with my friends regularly, I know that it wouldn't scratch the community itch, and I'd still somehow feel hollow - because those interactions serve a different purpose.
By contrast, the third place may not make me feel connected to my higher purpose. It may not help me feel as though I'm distinguishing myself from other people. But instead, it helps me feel like I belong. Like I live in a world of people who care about each other and brighten each other's days. I felt like that on my college campus, particularly when I lived in the fraternity house. And to this day, I look forward to a time in my life when I can live with many friends and family members around me constantly, because I want to live in ongoing connection with the people in my life. And I think about it that way because I know America mostly won't give me a third place - so I'll have to make my own.
I like this a lot! This really aligns well with my vision for some things I was (before your comment) categorizing in my head as subgenres of third places -- music-oriented spaces for community jam sessions, publicly accessible workshop spaces, things like that. I hereby adopt the term "fourth places" for these, so that "third places" can remain specific to spaces that allow for much more conversation and overall laid-back gathering without such particular purpose/interest involved.
That's good. I was wondering how my regular social spaces (when I get out of my funk long enough to go outside) fit into this conception. There's a bar that I quite enjoy that *broadly* fits the definition of third space, although the music is always a little too loud for proper conversation. But there's also a tabletop gaming cafe (known among TCG nerds as a Local Game Store). It's not a general purpose space, you can't realistically walk in and begin socialising (although sometimes people are friendly enough to let a complete stranger join their game) and it's explicity more profit-driven than the bar. But, organise a few friends to meet up at a specific time or just put a call out that you intend to be there playing a particular game, and you can pretty much guarantee a handful of people to enjoy a hobby with.
I think while third spaces should provide a place free from the responsibilities of work and home to develop broad general connections with a community and fully unwind (and from a radical perspective, share ideas and foment radical thought), this conception of a "fourth" place creates smaller, more tight-knit, more organised groups, initially on the basis of a shared interest, but eventually to the point where you *know* these people have your back. And hopefully, true lasting friendships that persist even across miles and years, and even if you no longer share that interest. It doesn't have to be a private hobby space. It could be a classroom (only for voluntary education such as college or university, the structure of involuntary (ie childhood) education, at least under capitalism, is more like a workplace or prison. That is not to say strong and true friendships cannot form there, they can form anywhere it's human nature, but rather that the initial drive for these friendships is often shared trauma rather than shared interest), a union hall, an allotment (for those unfamiliar with the concept, it's a small patch of land, part of a larger area, used for personal-scale farming and horticulture, although the culture can be as much individualistic as communitarian it depends on how people conceive of the allotments), or any regular meet-up space such as for political interest groups.
I'm liking this discourse, such as it exists. I hope it expands further.
We don't "need" work. We need to eat. There's a big difference.
I didn't get to fully enjoy the concept of a third place until I left the US. A cafe or a bar were such a long drive away. Now I can walk to so many locations and spend quality time with friends and it's really improved my outlook.
If it's any consolation you are seeing cafe's starting to open up in many places in the US, and I'm not talking about Starbucks either.
@rabbitgear That’s pretty cool! If you don’t mind me asking, where did you move to?
Sucks I can't live outside the US do to the over zealous US police overcharging me as an adult for a non violent crime as a minor 🫥
I live in Buenos Aires and it's amazing to see people of all ages meeting in squares and parks to drink mate, play with dogs and kids. In São Paulo, squares and parks are either for the very rich (when it's hard to get there walking) or a place full of homeless people or drug dealers (when it's closer to downtown)
@jjcoola998 you'll make it out someday. I know you will.
I think a place people have completely forgotten are public community/recreation centers. As a kid, I’d go to these centers to swim, play soccer and tennis, run around the track, learn Spanish, go to special events and concerts, etc.
Nowadays though, I rarely hear them mentioned. I don’t know of anyone who goes to them at all anymore, yet there are still so many centers readily available to the public. New York, for example, has 36 of these centers, supplied with pools, weight rooms, bball courts, media centers, dance/art studios, game rooms, libraries, and more.
If these centers were revived and updated, using pre-existing resources while adding in a few basic things to make them even more viable as “third places”, just think of the possibilities.
a very valid , practical first step to converting the West to incorporate third places. Thank you for the idea
Lol my hometown got rid of the rec centre years before I was born
Theres a rec center where I live but it’s not free or even cheap and most of the time is just rented out for parties and programs, plus it’s tiny so heaven forbid there’s more than like 25 people.
That is nyc. There is like 1 or 2 in phoenix where I am, and at least the main one I checked has membership and day passes, not free. Community centers seem to be gutted or almost nonexistent in most places. Seem to just serve as buildings for local sports organizations like martial arts or indoor tennis or whatever to reserve once a week or so.
I'd really like to offer a suggestion to anyone who feels they are lacking a third place in their lives. As I was watching this video, I realized that the locally owned tabletop game stores I've often frequented throughout my life fit the bill almost to a tee.
If you are someone with a passing interest in nerdy/geeky hobbies and you're in need of friends, do a google and see if there's a game store or hobby shop somewhere nearby. Stop in, take a look around, and ask if they hold any events over the week. Chances are they'll have all kinds of cool card game/board game events happening weekly. There's bound to be a group of regulars that would be happy to have you. I've had really great experiences over the years playing in tournaments / game nights at places where I didn't know anyone, and I walked away with new connections and fun memories.
Mileage will vary of course, but there's a good chance that there's a friendly group of gamers somewhere nearby you who'd be happy to have you join in the healthy fun.
That's fine if you don't have a sense of smell....
@@FlatDerrickKeeps the one time visitors out!
@@Cuandomanah yes, so NOT a good third place then? It’s a specific place for a specific hobby and where I live, the two shops only have one table in the corner that has to be specifically reserved. NOT an appropriate third-place I’d say.
Reminds me of how when my girlfriend was 12 her mom told her “if you want something to do so badly just go walk to the waterpark.” This woman was actually telling her daughter to walk 30 minutes in god damn Chicago to go to a waterpark at only 12 years old. That just goes to show how little stuff there is to do when everything is so painfully spread out
and the sad thing is that a water park 30 minutes walk away is drastically better than many people have access to
I recently found a third space in Brooklyn, owned by black women, and it completely changed how i interact with the city
Sounds awesome! Can you put me on for if I ever visit?
Sounds awesome! What's the name of this place? Would like to have a look if I ever get a chance to visit
why do you have to bring race into it?
@@superstar5123just to say it's not owned/completely driven by white males like third places started as in the video, did u not watch?
What kind of place is it?
This is what Michele Foucault was talking about societies of control, if you can’t gather in a public space it’s hard to form any kind of community
as a southeast asian, i used to envy the typical american suburb just because of how much it was portrayed in the movies and cartoons i watched. as an adult i've grown to value the fact that i can just walk 5 minutes and be at the local market, at a cafe, a dentist, a convenience store, a bus stop, a small park, a small mall, a hospital, and so much more. North American suburbs just look so depressing to me now. we have subdivisions here and I've been in them for a short while and immediately you just feel stuck there, there's no way out unless you drive. You're lucky if your house is close to the entrance/exit.
Children of man and children of God, lend me your ears! The righteous father bids you Christians to prayers, and reflection! To you who do not know Christ, let this message be the start of your journey of understanding him, before he returns.
I do like the style of the suburbs (honestly I like anything :p) but other than that the actual material is lacking. just long sidewalks at most.
Bouncers been killing the vibe since the beginning of time.
I hung out with Lucius afterwards and he was actually pretty cool
Never thought I’d hear an anarchist say “Edmund Burke was spitting” regardless of the context but this time I guess he really was 😂
Real anarchists don't talk like that.
@@Scythera99 you go, real anarchist. Show us fake anarchists how sexy and great at anarchism you are
@Joy_Fox_ I thought you'd never ask. It would be my pleasure.
Anarchism has gotten a bad wrap by those who felt most threatened by the open social dynamic it offers. "Control" is their word of choice not freedom... and I mean real freedom, not the bastardised version America has cultivated.
@@Scythera99 Ah yes, linguistic prescriptivism. The most meaningful form of anarchist praxis
The cafe from Friends, the Max from Saved By The Bell, etc. Fictionalized examples of what a a Third Place might be, made to look better for the audience, of course, but the spirit is there.
The closest modern trend for this might be something like a games store, the types that carry Magic: The Gathering and tabletop RPG products, and which host get togethers for the same sorts of hobbies.
Thanks for sharing this.
This was my thought. Local game stores really have that special something that brings so many people together.
I was just having a conversation about this the other day, I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Loneliness amongst young people is a real problem, spaces like this would go a long way to encourage social interaction.
This video really resonated with me. The closest I've ever had to a third place was in a couple of Star Wars games, particularly Jedi Academy on PC. There were some servers that enforced rules against just attacking random people, requiring that you duel them instead. This lead to people just standing around talking most of the time. It was great
As a zillenial I had the same experience with Habbo Hotel and Runescape
This is a prime example of what drives me crazy when people write off internet social interactions. It's too broad a category to assume all of it is frivolous and pointless when you have genuine social interactions that clearly have an effect on people. I'm not saying social media will have that depth, but there's definitely connections that are made through shared interests.
@angelxsiren0 Social areas in games are still infinitely better than nothing. Sure, there's no physical gathering place, but it is open at all times and contains a wide variety of people who are not required to be there.
Dude Jedi Academy Online's community is so good. Feels like Team Fortress trade servers back in their heyday.
“Le Third Place” sketch was great. Really nailed it. There are so many places like that near me. Also kind of reminded me of that episode of Atlanta with the sushi restaurant, so good.
Yeah I don't want to go to a sketch place to interact with a bunch of burnouts I want want to be around friendly social people of different backgrounds
This entire concept is one of the reasons why I wish I could live in a city in the Netherlands or somewhere else similar. The American ideal is so soul crushing when it comes to socialization. It’s so hard to be spontaneous with socialization when everything relies on cars and buying stuff. Even malls now are literally a place you only go to to buy things or spend time with close friends, you’re gonna seem weird if you try and treat it like the third-place it used to be and interact with strangers. Or look at every damn apartment complex and neighborhood that has a “community center.” Why the hell would I ever want to go to one of those unless I have an insatiable desire to play pool.
Agree @ the soul crushing social culture in America. Laughed at "insatiable desire to play pool"
Why haven't you taken steps to move to the Netherlands?
What's so special about the Netherlands? At least for "third places"?
@@possummagic3571 probably walkable dense cities
@@spacegrass6632 Yes, I know "Walkable cities" is the Internet's shiny, new buzz phrase.
I'd been discussing this with my wife a few years ago. I believe that capitalism, suburban sprawl, and the impacts of the pandemic have crushed so many of our third places. I love your analysis and suggestions. For many years, my third places were the library and the gym.
Malls and arcades were too when I was a teen. But kids don’t hangout in the mall anymore
i think its just cause of the internet
Wait you think communism is going to get you what you want😅
@@mikerodix4800yup. Freedom and community. Solidarity in life. Something individualism extinguishes.
@@1x0x I also believe this to be a big factor. Our 'individual mindset' is a part of this as well. Who knows, if people have to struggle more and more to make ends meet, they might gather again to sort things out, help each other or just have a chat.
As a librarian, my hope is for public libraries to strive to flourish as third places. Publicly funded, with everyone welcome and no incentive or pressure for patrons to buy anything.
I honestly feel that they are our best hope for a true third place
Don't libraries require you to be quiet? How do you envision encouraging conversations in a place where we assume we aren't allowed to speak or must quickly whisper? A separate space within the library?
@@LookingForAnotherPlanet The severity of "quiet in the library" tends to vary a little from library to library. While they aren't a perfect third place at the moment, they certainly have the potential to become one. A reorganization of the space within a library to provide solitary areas for those who need/prefer it but also a more communal areas which naturally facilitate a more social environment could be a possible approach. To help break the learned behaviour of not talking in the library, the facilities could initially organise group sessions where they use the space for discussion on a book, author, movie, or other such thing. Casual drop in sessions that encourage the use of the space in this new way. It wouldn't be instantaneous, but over time it could shift to being a viable third place.
@@RedPixelMage I agree with this. In my country there has been discussion about "the quietness norm" in libraries since far back and public libraries work actively to challenge this.
The term used is for the library to be "The common room of society" which is pretty close to the meaning of a third place.
@@RedPixelMageI always thought it was weird that libraries didn't just have little reading rooms off to the side so those who need quiet could separate themselves instead of making everyone be quiet to make those people happy
Elliot Sang posted a video a couple weeks ago about this topic too! Glad to see more people talking about this. There's a Netflix drama called "From Scratch" where one of the main characters, Lino, moves to the States from Italy to be with the woman he's fallen in love with. There's a scene where he says that the city has no center. That's so often the case in cities.
I was going talk about Eliot’s video.
I moved from Paris to the US in 2020 and I still cannot get over the lack of public spaces
@@sweetyftHonestly, I think it's related to how profits are prioritized over people. Even what little public spaces are available get taken over. Like mega music festivals. There's a popular one that's taking place next weekend, for the eighth year now, at the public park in my childhood neighborhood. They're closing it off a week prior in preparation, so people in the community won't be able to use it. One of my good friends has been organizing against it for years but they just refuse to find a new venue. The aftermath of these festivals impact the community, and not in a positive one. So much of the community opposed and pled to the park district to not approve their permit but they did it anyway. When corporate interests and politics get intertwined, the will of the people gets overlooked all too often I think. :/
@@notaburneraccount I suppose the detriment to the local community is only compounded by the lack of alternative parks and public transportation.
elliot sang got me thinking about it im glad andrew made a video on it, i swear andrew never misses
My municipality has a library building that actually functions as a petty decent third place : there is no "silence rule" so many groups meet there to chat (elderly women knitting groups, children hanging out, teenagers doing their homeworks together), there is free water and free coffee, free to use board games, sewing machines and computer, a tool library and more... There is no need for membership and I absolutely love to hang out there just to listen to children chirping. When I use the sewing machine there strangers tend to spontaneously come up to me and ask questions. It has helped me greatly during long months of loneliness.
When I was a teen and into my twenties, it was the pub. Most well behaved fifteen year olds could get served, but they did have to be well-behaved which in itself was a rite of passage into adulthood. Nowadays, those pubs are largely gone, replaced by very commercial drinking establishments, and government crack-downs on teen drinking have made pubs utterly hostile to those fifteen year olds wanting a third-place.
The slow decay of pub culture in the UK has eliminated Third Places for generations who struggle with "adulting", and further divorced them from the ability to have connection with elder generations. I don't even drink, but I love the atmosphere of a pub. It's so different to a bar or a club. I won't go as far as to play darts or pool, but those who do take it *very* seriously whilst still being amazingly welcoming as their own sub-community.
People might say you've got to spend money to be at a pub, but this really isn't true if you're there at a busy time.
EDOT: Sayin' that people spend more time at home than at work is insidious. Take away the recommended 9 hours of sleeping time at home and most people w/ a 9 to 5 job and the usual 1 hour or higher commute in a city centre and the average person probably spends four or five waking hours at home on a work day. Add in household chores to that and the amount of downtime is worryingly small. It reminds me of the current "I want video games with worse graphics and shorter play times" argument linked to people who only have an hour or two of free time to spend on a leisure pursuit, and don't want to feel that this time is like a second job because of games being bloated with collectibles and meaningless side-quests to pad out play time to offer "value for money".
Imagine taking the time out to spend half an hour to go to a gym, sports club, or special interest group during a weekday. What a pipe dream.
Just as bad if not worse in the US, where 9+ hour days are expected, and many people have to have a "side hustle" just to survive. I'm lucky to be able to work from home since Covid, but before that when I had to be in the office, I also wasted an additional 2-3 hours on commuting as well. I rarely had more than 2 or 3 hours free on a weekday, and weekends were mostly spent doing chores and getting caught up on sleep.
I'm in a much better state these days, with more leisure time, but I'm pretty exceptional in that regard.
Are there any sorts of places that are similar that don't involve a bunch of alcohol? I don't plan on drinking any, and I'm also 20 so I can't even drink alcohol even if I wanted to (United States).
@@arcticcircle9178 idk what the culture of your state is like, but a good coffee house can fit a similar angle as a pub does. It's not quite the same (no pork scratchings and diff'rent ramblings from the old guy in the corner), but it can be close.
@@KnjazNazrath I see. I'm not sure where to find one of those. I'll have to look around I suppose.
@@arcticcircle9178 Well, that's the problem, there really aren't any such places that I'm aware of. At least, there might be, but not much more than a handful, and no real cultural presence the way there is with pubs.
A non-alcohol-based pub type of venue would be something very useful for a lot of people.
I used to go the local pub, but a new bunch of scallywags started drinking there and pushed me and my friends out because of homophobia. So we thought a gay bar in the city would be a good idea, literally a place meant for us. Bouncers, loud music, expensive drinks. And hen parties. The best time i ever had was at an old factory used for Warhammer games, and i played street fighter with people i didn't know. It was amazing. It closed, but i still want that feeling again, i don't think ive been out to a pub since covid.
My local pub has suffered one drive-by shooting and at least two bomb threats, because they also host a drag queen story hour earlier in the day on weekends. I don't get to go there often, since they're well outside of walking distance for me.
The one in my previous neighborhood allowed dogs in for quite a while. I'm not fond of dogs, but as long as I'm not forced to interact with them I'm fine having them around. Problem was, this also brought in a lot of entitled dipshits who let their dogs run around uncontrolled, causing problems for other patrons. After a whole lot of complaints and individual boycotts, they finally banned dogs; but I ended up moving away shortly after that.
I'm sorry this happened to you. I've been fortunate enough to live in a big enough city and have the reliable transport and karaoke addiction to enjoy more relaxed gay bars. I quickly discovered the club vibe was not for me.
Unfortunately, such places are especially vulnerable. Queer folks are statistically more likely to be economically vulnerable, so the spaces they support will be first to dry up during economic upheaval. Phones contribute to this because it's made it easier to network with other LGBTQ+ people with less physical exposure. It's definitely tradeoffs and plenty more factors way more qualified-than-me queer folks have spilled a lot of ink over. Just throw anyone blaming bars closing on the increased visibility of trans folks straight into the garbage.
The one femme centered bar in my area closed during COVID. The other more relaxed gay bar close by has great karaoke, plenty of comfy seating, and a manageable music volume. However, I too, moved away lol
@EphemeralTao why in the world do drag queens need to parade around in front of children? Can't get enough attention from adults? Trying to confuse young minds?
Ugh that hurts to hear 🙁 people are the WORST sometimes
We still out here playing street fighter yo, actually even moreso with the release of SF6
Absolutely brilliant video.
When I was on college I worked hard every day, I went to work, school, did my chores but I was never depressed. Now I work remote, 9-5, I'm out of school, and all my friends have moved away. I've never felt worse. I feel alone, lonely, I miss the COMMUNITY college gave me. The fact everyday we'd hype one another up, congratulate one another on another day, every day I felt ready to take on the future as we built one another up. Now alone you wonder what the point is, you have no hope to keep going, it all feels pointless.
Community is a must for us humans, we need a space to exist with others and feel apart of life.
Spot on 💯
God Bless you and your journey
I think what I've enjoyed most about your analysis is that you do give concession where you have critique. Too often in opinion pieces do people get wrapped up in the idea that their opinion is the solution, or somehow inherently correct. Here you do what is so often left undone, and acknowledge some validity in adversarial ideals. Very well done. Excellent content.
I'm so grateful for my D&D group. They provide friendship, comfort and community. I don't know what I'd do without them.
Is it online or in person?
Same here! My friend group has a regular dnd campaign in person every other week and I'm so grateful
@@Ub_Dub Basically just gaming.
That shit got me through lockdown fr
my d&d group saved me in highschool having a reliable group gathering ever week really made me feel like a person
YOOO the college common room is actually a pretty decent example of one of the few modern third places that exist, even though the common room is usually just in the same building you live in lol.
I will keep coming back to this idea. I think it's the root of a lot of college nostalgia today, too. People long for the "good old days," but it's not just because of the unique properties of college. It's because that was the one time in their life that they had reliable access to third spaces, and thus a reliable way to meet their needs for passively being in community with others. And maybe our society has started to believe that need is one of the things you "outgrow" when you graduate, even though it's fundamental.
My dream has been to open a "third place". I never had a good word for it until now. Ive been going to alot of tcg game stores that have always fostered that third place vibe and i loved it.
I've spent a week thinking about this, and I'd say a Fourth Place would be a place that anyone can go to be alone that's not where they live or work, like a public library. There's people around, but any conversation is very quiet and you can get work done or just relax with a change of scenery. Nature trails are another good one, though they often take some planning to go to and aren't available in most urban environments.
If it wasn't for the purpose being conversation, I'd say libraries would be a good 3rd place. They're free, open and welcoming to anyone regardless of background/social class/anything, and while they do have a purpose (providing books) they don't really care whether that's why you're there or not. Really all they're missing is conversation space and longer hours.
I lived in a home that was a lot of peoples third-place. My mom and grandparents had a knack for entertaining and educating so there was always somthing happening. Cooking classes, gardeners club, book groups, big game parties, play dates, people just using the laundry and kitchen. Moving to the suburbs feels like the biggest mistake my dad made.
Interested in the concept of someone's house as a 3rd place - seems good for being affordable/not commercial, but also doesn't quite fit the 'neutral ground' - although there always has to be some kind of host if e.g. a bar or cafe there is a landlord who is hosting.
@@ailime0 When I first moved to Scotland, in the 1980s, people having almost an "open door" policy about their houses was pretty common. You kind of knew who was more into that and who wasn't. That faded a lot, over the decades, but it was a real shock to me, when I moved back to the US in the 2000s, how most people don't even hang out at their friends' houses any more. Communities used to kind of be one big "third place" in a lot of ways.
@@ailime0Gotta do what you gotta do, right? As much as it'd be nice to fit all of the criteria, in this day and age, in this society, there aren't many options for making 3rd spaces that fulfill all criteria. That's why imagination and adaptability are so important.
I myself was living on edge, isolated, absolutely despairing and craving relationships. I'm stuck in a toxic, abusive household where the abusers isolate you from your friends (I won't go into details; I'm disabled and the housing and rent prices in my area is a nightmare). At some point, I knew I had to do something, find new family, find a partner, try to get the hell out and live by life. The little trick I did was to just treat my current job as a 3rd space. Now, can a work place technically be a 3rd space? Idgaf. I'm in survival mode. I will say that ever since making that shift, I've never been more popular at my job. And being popular gives me some influence over my coworkers and even my boss. I do my best to keep work fun and lighthearted, and I try to look out for the teenagers since I know a lot of them have anxiety or are depressed (and managers will get in their cases unnecessarily so I'm able to step in despite lacking formal authority).
I also got absorbed into a steady friend group at work because of this. For the first time in years I'm actually part of a steady friend group and I'm so grateful. One of the friends uses his house to host monthly parties and that feels like another similar 3rd space. He let's people stay over if they're too drunk to drive. Everyone brings their different dishes of food and invites some of their friends. It's amazing. I'm not out of my parents house yet but to anyone else out their desperate for connection: don't give up and use your imagination. The perfect thing won't will itself into existence; you must adapt or build it.
Your response reminds me a lot of my time growing up post recession and my family moving into a decent lower class suburb. It really made me miss being poorer in a way. Gone were the multi culturism of the people I had grown up with before, people were more just "passer by's" instead of long term friends, and everyone was more wary to have anyone over their house. I've been in the same place for ages now and some of my neighbors still figure I just got here because they're so reclusive.
Where did your grandparents live? City, rural?
I love how you are always challenging yourself.
Many religious organizations have their prayer places as 3rd places. This has positive and negative implications.
What negative implications does it have? Not talking about any particular religion itself.
I would assume the negative implication has to do with how it builds very strong ingroup/outgroup dynamics and serves to ostracize people who (for varied, personal reasons) can't submit to the social and interpersonal meta of the religion in question.
It's bigoted to overstate the potential negatives of religious locations as third places. I go to a very large church and there is always new people showing up, people come and go as life continues, and there are many social circles that gather and talk afterwards. Not everyone is a Christian, but they're curious about it. What they find after the ceremony is a group of people that are happy to see them for who they are. No pressure to interact if someone is having a bad day, and no expectation to be anything other than yourself.
I agree. Which makes the lack of 3rd places more prevelent when religion is becoming less common.
@@AfutureVusing them as 3rd spaces means you either are of that faith or are converting. You don’t belong if you have no intention of joining. A lot of religions also have their places as being sacred spaces that require utmost respect. You aren’t making locker room talk at a church or mosque. That’s highly disrespectful to the people of that faith. Can’t sit in a mosque and whip out my Steam Deck and vibe, that’s a hard no.
As a pool hall regular, I very much agree with this. I like pool, but I've been going back for years because of the wide range of people I meet and talk to. And also that people are judged less for their station in life than for their game and how they act as a person.
It's those social interactions and the leveling of an often unfairly stratified society that make the place different and interesting to me, and I usually feel better leaving than when I got there, even if my game isn't that good that day.
I really appreciate your take on making these spaces more inclusive. While I was listening to the description of third places, I found myself wondering where parents are supposed to go with kids for this type of interaction.
It's totally possible that as a parent, third places just don't exist for you for a period of time. It's basically impossible to be a regular at a bar when you have children, unless you've either got a fantastic arrangement for childcare, such as a parent, or you're just a deadbeat.
Either way, third places can't really coexist with parents and kids, because the parent is always watching over the kid. It's like having an armed police officer sitting next to you at a bar; you might be able to relax and enjoy the moment, but you can't really be yourself.
I'm curious what the author might've thought of those types of places.
Growing up in rural, western United States, mothers had free time when kids played for hours at a time outside. We’d pop in for lunch, to check on Mom or Grandma, then off we’d go to explore the wonders of nature or ride our bikes or play ball. And Mom always had Grandma and Grandpa or various aunts to banter or plan with. I feel like nobody dares to let their children just play and explore. That’s the third space children need: a physically UNsafe place where they can test themselves against each other and skin their knees and cut themselves and need stitches, but where what they do will be the dinner table topic for families around the neighborhood. That’s how communities used to raise healthy, stable children together.
I just read an article from an anthropologist who spent 25 years studying and living with hunter-gatherer tribes. He says they are the happiest people in the world. People tend to think life would be unbearable without our creature comforts, but it is actually the exact opposite. Everything they do (hunting, crafting, building, gathering, sex-ing, etc.) is fun and feels like play, so there is no natural boundary between work and play intrinsic to our species. They have hardly any boundaries at all, and the ones they do have are flexible. These people are truly free and the only ones living the intended human experience.
Wow. ... that makes so much sense
Do you still have the link to the article somewhere? I#d lvoe to read it.
@@pjotrkolster Google Hunter gatherers happiest people and you’ll find it. The guy also wrote a book on it. I think I’ll pick that up
how do you measure happiness?
@@vivvy_0 Generally speaking, surveys. But, this is just his opinion after spending a quarter of a decade with them.
When moving into my dorm, I was heartbroken that the only communal space was the kitchen that was almost always in use between 12 of us, making it crowded, loud and often dirty. Instead I found the communal student garden, a really small plot with raised beds on pallets. It has a sign stating the weekday and time of the communal gardening so passersby can just come during that time and are sure to find someone there. I was hoping to find my third place there, but with everyone being students or working their PhDs often from home, there are no regular times to always meet someone apart from the gardening day. The community I found there is great anyways and makes me more excited to find or help create something similar wherever I‘ll be after Uni, somewhere not too far from workplaces or my home, where lunch breaks and evenings can be had with people who don‘t just incidentally cross the same park as each other but rather all believe in some common goal of togetherness and abundance that a community garden symbolizes
:,)
When I was in school, we had a large after school club that strongly possessed third place vibes and it had things like pool tables, gyms, computer labs, board games, movie corner and a bunch of other stuff. I feel like merely going to such a place made me smarter and happier as I had the freedom to choose the activities that I wanted instead of being forced to do stuff for fun.
Today there are a lot of digital "third places" such as lobbies in videogames, chatrooms, fandoms or hobby groups. Many of which are admission free and welcoming to newcomers. Certain jobs also promote a friendly enough environment to count as a physical third place, though these can be hard to find in the US now because of toxic, capital driven workplaces.
Yes we had a favorite coffee shop when I was in HS. We’d go there most nights out of the week. On Sundays we met at Barnes n nobles to read magazines because the coffee shop was closed. We also went to see local bands. Our parents would drop us off anywhere. We were pretty happy young people. I can’t wait to find another spot. This video really inspired me and gave me much to think over.
Can you imagine if you had this channel as a prof in uni…
I am trying to create an online community for neurodivergent youth in my city and this has been a wonderful guide on shaping what a welcoming, non-hierarchical server would look like. Thank you andrewism! Your uploads get the fastest clicks from me.
Thats amazing! I wonder if there is a similar spot here in my city. If you don't mind what city do you live in?
I'm 19. Spent all my time as a kid by myself in my room, on a screen, hiding from life. I realized how sad that was just before I turned 18 and tried to make friends at high school my last year there. No luck.
Fortunately, I found a good third place, a kava bar with many like-minded individuals when it comes to art, politics, and somewhat personality, too. I'm also the youngest regular there, and still don't really know anybody, and am very behind on social skill development. And even there, I get scared to talk to people because it's like I can sense their fear, too. A look on their eyes trying to decide if I'm a threat to avoid or not, just from asking what cool thing they're doing or saying hello.
Last year, I was heartbroken when I realized how much people my age didn't hang out outdoors or at third places. When they do, they stick to their group or they're on their phones half the time--God, I can't stand that when it comes to my irls.
It makes no sense why people are so horrified of each other, and I'm sick of feeling like I'm nothing but a burden just for trying to spend time with a fellow human being.
Totally relate bro, i'm 18 and a highschool dropout so i too fell far behind on the social development. i've been trying to reconnect with absolutely anyone i knew from school, but scheduling is difficult when most of them are finishing their last year of school and many have jobs. i've hung out with one person so far, it was a nice experience even if we aren't close or have much in common. living in the suburbs of australia it's pretty tricky finding places to go, my town has one decent/inclusive bar and everything else is expensive and 1.5hr+ on the train each way. it's tough out here
Thank you so much for covering alcohol consumption and third places! In many central european countries there exists a strong sense of community, and many third places, but it often feels like alcohol is a barrier you almost have to pass to partake. You can deal with it, but I would love to have more possibility for completely sober interaction. Thanks for the vid, have a great great day!
I'm a roller skater who goes to the rink most Thursdays and really enjoy that as my third place. Before my friends got pregnant and had kids, we'd go out religiously to the rinks! But I enjoy it whether I've got a huge group, or I'm meeting new folks, seeing regulars, or it's just me. I try to honor the practice of going to those places. Side note: I'm 33 and although most folks are in their 20s, there are still several older folks that go out too. Some 18 year old will ask me what [high] school i go to. 😂 they're always surprised that someone older (lol) is prioritizing fun and play in a third place as a ritual and need.
One reason I want to go into business is to create public spaces where people are allowed to simply exist without having to pay for the right to exist there. There's a lot of kids dying of overdoses because there's not much to do around here. America's laws about keeping streets maximally clear for business purposes is a disaster for public interaction - it's rare for people to interact with each other in public because they're both paying for the right to do business to be in public, rather than being two individuals coexisting within a public space.
This is huge. Amen. Me too.
There's a lack of people just hanging outside. In other parts of the world this is normal stuff. People just go home and to work nowadays. Not sure if it's a lack of places to go or just peoples attitude.
@@jumbothompson this can be traced, in the USA, at least, to the shift from private mercantile policing, and slave & native patrols, into a public police force. Many modern PDs are directly descended from slave hunters and Indian killers - the Boston PD was originally formed from a native patrol.
"What in the world does that have to do with people in public?" I can practically hear the question already - but the fact is, this shift in policing to a purely public force came with an ideology: mercantilism. This provided two solutions: one, by shifting the cost of security onto public taxpayer money, merchants no longer had to provide their own guards, and two, it came with a slew of laws passed to make sure that urban centres were properly cleared of undesirables so that the businessmen were unobstructed in their business. This is where you start to see laws against loitering, jaywalking, and vagrancy, and increasingly against public drunkenness and prostitution as well.
It's basically never been legal in the USA to truly occupy the public space as a public space as such. It is considered a transitory space that no one is entitled to permanently occupy, that exists only as a mode between private spaces (where neither is anyone allowed to permanently occupy, unless they pay off the bank and government consistently enough)
@@jumbothompson the hispanic communities in mine and surrounding towns do too.. but I fear they will eventually be infected by the boring artificial lives of "modern america", whatever the hell it even is.
@@hieronymusbutts7349Interesting! We used to hand out at malls back when I was a kid but big shopping centers have died off for the most part.
I really appreciate your analysis of bars as a third place. I mostly have found them working for me, but they were also a bad home for many folks that were alcoholics, and not appropriate. Discord is something I recently tossed into the trash because I was tired of their obvious move to harass me into paying a monthly fee to them to access features while it has been free for decades. It's not just the fees, but the constant harassment - you couldn't shut it off if you decide not to pay.
Discord was first released in 2015. It hasn't even been around for a decade.
@@frocoshake2107i think maybe OP was talking about concepts they’re advertising being accessible for decades, like high quality streaming and clipping, as well as larger file uploads. While they haven’t all been localized on one platform before (that i know of), discord’s regular and sometimes not-so-subtle way of asking you to pay for nitro does get annoying
@@frocoshake2107 You sure? Because I am pretty sure I was in chatrooms called discord years before that. Don't you just mean the discord app?
The only place my friends want to go to hang out is the bar because there is no other option. I don’t drink, so I basically never want to hang out anymore. We used to go on long drives, hikes, coffee shop, bookstore, billiards, but not anymore. Those options are mostly gone in this town now. The patio at the bookstore is gone. The sketchy pool hall has closed since a couple of billiards bars popped up. The coffee shops started closing earlier and earlier. No one wants to go on a simple drive anymore, even if there is a destination in mind. Inflation has made it too expensive to even go to formerly cheap places to eat. No one wants to do anything that requires physical exertion.
The closest thing I've had to a third place was this gaming lounge called the Party LAN. I went there primarily as a place close to home that was advertised as a place where people played D&D, but by a d large, people went there to play competitive video games. That wasn't really my jam, but for a time, it had it's great moments of community.
Unfortunately, due to a lack of profits, a frequently anemic amount of customers/patrons, and COVID, the Party LAN shut down. 😔
My grandmother was just getting on me for not having many friends my age and I cited this as the exact reason why I don’t. I literally said, “where am I supposed to meet these people? We don’t have sock hops and Malt shops anymore”
What was your grandmothers response?
@@coldloner7453 It put things in perspective and she admitted that even she noticed what I was saying lol
What do you mean. Of course there are places where you can frequent that have mostly the same people every week. Don’t get me wrong I totally get you and felt exactly the same a few years ago.
You just gotta start going to the same place every week. Eventually you start socializing with people.
For me it was my local climbing gym. Met my wonderful girlfriend and several friends.
@@chrillabbe I think you're missing a point beacuse the whole point is tyhat there is a lack or free or low cost spaces to meet folks. Not everyone can afford a rcok climbing gym... I know I can't and that is an example of why it's so tough nowaadays.
The fact still remins that there are very few spots like there used to be that are meant to foster social interaction while having realitivey no cost. Once you're out of college your options to meet folks easily becomes during a commute, at work, or really not much of asnywhere else.
@@Neochaotic_ Yes 100% true and I’ve felt and seen that myself but I also believe people aren’t trying hard enough. Or they don’t have the motivation.
10:52 - hearing this today was REALLY important to me... A neighbor across the street that we'd had problems with has moved out recently, and there will likely be someone new in a few months if not a few weeks cuz of the still-hot housing market here. I hope I have a better relationship with the inevitable new ones than the last ones, and I know that starts with introducing myself when they arrive. But it DOES feel very hard to "just walk up" and introduce oneself to new people, precisely because of that "no neutral ground" feeling. Even the sidewalk outside feels segmented into neighbors' individual sections, especially visible in winter when some people don't go and shovel their sidewalks. And living in America, that thinking of "well it's a free country" leads to us kind of shrugging and giving up and feeling like "welp, nothing can be done" because we have so many freedoms... Including the freedom to walk away and be lonely forever :( All that is part of why I want to live in a city, that HAS a nice public park like you described.
pro-tip: bring some home baked cookies or a pie or something when you introduce yourself to the neighbor. It makes it less awkward because there's a reason you're going over there, to welcome them with a gift, and then you exchange pleasantries and introductions, then that's it!
@@mbommari That's a good idea! I know I've heard that suggestion before but I'd forgotten about it!
Someone could like the side walk but for real grow balls and treat places like it's your hangout dont feel shame or weird
I think the crucial reason that we don’t have such places is because these places naturally arise in a community that is small enough for everyone to be at least minimally familiar with everyone else. Cities have far, far too many people to create these spaces in, particularly since even neighborhoods there is a constant churn of vastly different people coming and going and constantly changing out. These places can’t arise when everyone is strangers, and massively different from one another, which are the two defining characteristics of modern American cities.
There are tons of cities around the world with plenty of community spaces third places however you want to call it. I've experienced it in many countries as well... except the US
Stop the cope and do better is what I'm trying to say. The issue is not having too many people, ideally many people actually lets people find more niche third spaces. Rather how American cities are setup. And outside of cities... well things are so comically far apart I hope I don't have to explain much. I have seen a few towns with a sense of community though while I was there, but this is already an overwhelmingly low amount of the populous and I'm afraid it's declining as well
The problem with American cities isn't too many people, it's that cities have been purposefully sliced up and wrecked for the purposes of commonality and community. Freeways sliced cities into quadrants that were not walkable. Wide collective spaces in a lot of cities were destroyed and paved over for parking lots (and for yet more freeways). Rent seeking and gentrification have destroyed the possibility of people living long-term in cities or even for multiple generations.
A reason why very different people in large cities don't "come together" isn't because they're different but because they... well literally can't come together. This is also by design. America got very scared by the prospect of collectivism and class consciousness in the 1960s and early 70s and began gutting city facilities for communal interaction.
I would say as a base argument you are wholly wrong.
I like how many makerspaces/hackerspaces serve as third places. Unfortunately a lot of them don't qualify since they're for-profit businesses where you spend like $200/mo for membership. There are still some that are more or less just open spaces with membership being just "You are a regular so you get a pass card and can make decisions about the future of the space" and then as long as a cardholder is present anyone can come in but they're getting rarer.
Hackerspaces often have food/drinks, places to sleep, and meeting/gathering spaces. And since they specifically are spaces to *create*, they're also great spaces to empower. I just wish it didn't require a ton of capital to get one going and draw participants who are generous enough to keep the space open.
What is hackerspaces?
That's an intense cost, I thought our like £30 was quite expensive, like we don't have a place to sleep (unless you wanna nap on the sofa) but we also invest all the money back into the space, there's no-one making a profit other than the landlord who owns the arches. Which I think is the railway? We do tend to share food around though :)
@@youtubeuniversity3638 I'm nowhere near an expert, I've only read and heard about them, but they're basically places where people come together to share skills and work on all sorts of projects. So you could have someone fixing their bike in one corner, a group of writers reading each other's first drafts in another, food chemists messing with weird texture/flavour combinations in the kitchen , and roombas getting re-programmed to do a synchronized waltz in the fourth.
Sitting in my local Hackerspace right now. Don’t actually feel welcome here but the closest I can find. Love it.
@@MH-hh6uzmay I ask what’s the vibe which makes you feel unwelcome? Thanks in advance even if you don’t feel like elaborating ✌️
Tokyo has an abundance of third places unlike many western cities I’ve lived in.
I’m reminded of a bar I frequent each time I visit Tokyo. 5 minutes walk from Shin-Okubo station on the yamanote line, it’s a literal hole in the wall down a staircase into a basement. The first time I went was 4 years ago pre pandemic and I remember conversing with a number of regulars despite being a singular newcomer. I return earlier this year to find it was still owned and operated by the same person, and although frequented by new regulars, still just as welcoming. I look forward to returning again next year.
Ahhh, good thing it wasn't one of those "Japanese ONLY" bars 🙅🏻♂️🤷♂️🙎🏾♂️
Interesting you mention Tokyo, when i was there in that Golden Gaya area, it felt very much like a 3rd place area. But yes, it also looked like many were regulars only
I also think many, if not all, European coutries have a lot of third places since our cities are designed to be “walkable”. Just pointing it out to not make it seem like it’s only in Japan or other Asian countries
@@Sorrowdusk those are rare
@@WillyToulousethey are really common tho
I'm a member and volunteer at a large and successful, non-profit makerspace. Outside of having a (unfortunately necessary) relatively small membership fee, it meets all stated criteria and then some.
This space has not only a large number of shops and studios where people can collaborate on tangible projects, it is also a 24-hour facility with a lounge, classroom, recording booth/photo studio, kitchen, beer brewing and high-end coffee equipment, etc. with both many scheduled meetups and events centered on specific interests (games,movies, etc) in addition to vibrant informal socializing.
I find this is an effective model for community-building through a Third Place.
I had one of these when I studied abroad, and it was one of the best periods of my life because of it. Our dorm had a single shared kitchen and dining room, with a separate lounge. The dorm rooms were pretty small and shared, so I started just spending time downstairs and chatting with people more. After a couple months, I knew everybody there, and we would often spend 5+ hours a day just sitting down there and chatting. Some nights, we would throw on some music on my speaker and dance around the whole room together, we had a huge dorm-wide Thanksgiving with like 40 people there, and just generally got to know each other really well. The effect on my mental health is hard to convey. I've dealt with depression from age 10, and I'm 23 now. It can make you want to isolate, which only further makes your emotions worse, and you can even delude yourself into thinking that you're an introvert and don't want to be around people. But after a few months living in the dorm and making such close friends with everyone, I was actually genuinely content. I spent more time with many of those people in the one semester that I was there than I've spent with many other people who I have known for most of my life. It was this truly amazing feeling of connection. Since returning to the US, I don't have a space like this. I live in a house, and my roommate is moving out soon, so the only real socializing I can do is at work. My coworkers are generally really cool and fun to talk to, but there's still a wall there, because work is a place for working, not socializing. You can chat and be friendly, but the primary goal is to do your job. I really just miss having a communal area
My hometown's 3rd spaces when I was growing up have all closed. We had a roller rink, a bowling alley, and a local pub. We still have free access to the public beach if you live in town (I don't anymore) but it is so crowded with tourists none of the locals go. It's all been gentrified, ofc.
Loved the pictures you chose for this and the sketch..and the rest of it,lol. Thanks for making this
On the note of sober spaces: It's also a major barrier as a parent. If I'm going out to a space INTENDED for drinking, I can't bring my kids. If I can't bring my kids, I can't go. So if that was the only 3rd space I had available, I would be relegated to the home. (And yes I know about how Spain has drinks at outdoor cafe's, but I don't live in that culture. Still further I don't enjoy drinking so I'd be an outsider there and feel awkward and not welcome. It isn't a 3rd space I could be part of.)
Tbh the American idea of sober third spaces is just ridiculous, and is a holdover from prohibition. Saloons were public meeting spaces. They were the third space in frontier towns. I think that the idea that kids shouldn't even be around anything remotely adult is pretty ridiculous and ultimately setting them up for failure.
lol what? who wants kids screaming like crazy for no fucking reason all day long...get a life@@frocoshake2107
Third place is not meant for you and your kids
@@gregorymoats4007 So once one becomes a parent they must shutter themselves indoors? Third places should be for everyone. Not EVERY third place is for EVERY person, but different sorts should be available for people at different stages in their lives, and different personal circumstances.
@@frocoshake2107but what about those that can't drink for a myriad of reasons? We have cafes, but we'll still have to pay for something. And bars can have bouncers, which is kinda lame.
This is why I have been a barista for nearly 10 years- The preservation of third spaces, and building community. I only work at local neighborhood spots and every one of my customers knows they are welcome to come in and hang even if they don't intend to spend money. They need the space, we have it. Why the hell not if they are not bothering anyone??? It works great for us, and has been since the café opened in 1989 :).
This is fascinating to me and something I am really grappling with.
I feel deeply the need of these social spaces. I also think virtual spaces did fill this need for me as a young person in a small town. However many online social spaces have fallen prey to the same traps physical spaces have: losing their accessibility, freedom, or or other aspects of their identity as they’ve become more commercialized and sanitized.
While I think the idea of radical third spaces is also fascinating I don’t know how those could exist in western cultures currently. There is no concept of collective shared property to work from. Maybe I’m too closed minded but I have a difficult time imagining a space like that existing outside the idea of a commune built by a few friends or a political, religious, or other affinity groups. Any community larger than a few will eventually need governance of some type.
This is something I've been acutely aware of being missing in my life recently. I moved to a new city right before the pandemic and struggled to make friends - and now the ones I did make mostly ended up moving away. To have a space to be when I need social interaction, to meet people and converse is sorely lacking in my life and I still don't really have an answer to solve it, but this video helps put it into words
Elliot Sang also has a good video on the loss of third places. Reading and watching videos on this has been truly eye-opening.
For me, it feels like the book club we have going on in my school is (almost) perfectly fitting for a third space. The amohnt of time i've spent there just to talk about political views, life experiences or just to goof around has been like breathing fresh air for the first time in awhile.
this just gave me so many ideas for my life goal. third place on the way guys. thanks for this video, you grounding it so well in philosophy really spoke to me. keep up this type of work
Oh in Spain or at least in Barcelona they have plaza culture. People hang out in a plaza usually surrounded with tapa bars and sit outside or play football until like 2 in the morning. that was a really cool experience.
The death of third places is unfortunately common when people are priced out of long time communities and become dust in the wind.
I was actually taught I mustn’t stay with extended family while doing “capitalism”, I had to do everything physically alone. (Family helped with bills and stuff of course and they never taught me to go as far away as possible. I was taught this in school and media) covid forced a sense of interconnected family for me that made me realize a lot about who I am and want to be.
Well said about the part where COVID forced reevaluation. It happened for me, too. And I hope it happened for a lot of people. Maybe it'll wind up having been the wake-up call we collectively needed in order to start putting each other first again.
I'm still struggling with mindset myself. It really sucks
What about libraries? There are even some that are 24 hours! They do fall into some of the critiques, but they're one of the only free communal spaces left. ❤
Hear hear. From a Librarian! ❤
This is the reason why I've been working at a local coffee shop as a sound tech for the past 5 years. It's not easy. I could definitely get a lot more money if I worked somewhere else, and sometimes I'm tired of sometimes having to justify getting past 15 hours as the employee with both the most experience and the most specialized skills. But on the other hand, the community I helped to build and the benefits on my mental health are more than worth it. Long term, it's communities like this that got your back, too! It's also how a lot of artists got together in the past and created movements. Coffee shops, bars and clubs are incredibly important.
The sad reality for most areas is that the only real third places are bars, and I'd argue that very little good generally ends up coming from people frequenting such spaces that are commonly rife with ignorance and self-destructive tendencies. I wish there could be more that are like that old theater in Germany, but it's hard to imagine that sort of place existing in most places.
Literally every place he listed in history was a bar. Ale house in the Americas, cafe’s in Vienna, coffee bars in England.
Explain.
Underground raves have been the 3rd place of my 20s, so far. It’s a place we’re ppl experiment with sexuality, gender, mind altering experiences, making new friends, and creating art through dance, music and conversation all while respecting boundaries; as that’s an integral part of these spaces, consent and respect. I genuinely believe these headspace’s and vibes can change the world for the better. Raving is almost spiritual being so close and connected together in one space all loving and laughing. Young adults are so deprived of these places in todays society but the raves will never die ❤️
I wish raves were a thing where I’m from. The club culture is to just get drunk with your existing friend group and occasionally hook up. There’s little sense of community because people would rather stick to who they already know.
I wanna go to raves but autism lol
I've been to two and while they were overwhelming i did enjoy the experience and want to do it again
But it can be so scary and anxiety inducing at first that usually i just don't go lol
@@thatoneradicalizedprussian225 aw damn I wish I could take you to some shows and introduce you to some ppl. Most ppl in the scene are also neurodivergent, at least my friends are hahaha
The problem with raves is that they're always so sexually charged or full of peer pressure to do drugs. So many genuinely awful, manipulative people at raves. I just want a place I can hang out and talk about hobbies or music or nature without feeling pressured to either be super respectful and quiet, or super loud and extroverted.
@@bugjams aw dawg I’m sorry if you’ve been to some bad spaces. It can be overwhelming, but trust those are just some bad ppl. I rave sober and there’s lots of scenes that won’t push dr9g use, there’s ppl who go to love the music and the conversations and dancing, I wish I could show you spaces more fit to your liking cause it’s out there!
i literally just saw the title and thumbnail and knew what this video was gonna be about- props to you for just that alone
I am so grateful for the Huerto Cafe which is my third place. It is everything you say, and I love being there. I love the owner, the staff, and my friends there, old and new. There are people of all ages from babies and little kids to old people barely making it with a walker. There is alcohol available, but also espresso coffee, chocolate milk, and green juice, fine teas, etc. The food is reasonably priced, the live music just right and it is for sure multi-cultural. Most days you can hear three or four languages, see people from different income situations, sexual orientations, you name it. I walk there from my home, it is in Jalisco, Mexico.
I feel like another important aspect of third spaces, that intersects strongly with gender, is that they also have a diversity of relationship states? As an ace/aro, something that tended to complicate my engagement with social settings, especially in my teens and twenties, was feeling alienated by areas where hooking up was perceived as a default goal, and now that I'm a bit older, I see a lot of my friends groups solidify as mostly singles, or mostly couples (especially once they're parents). I recognize that another vital role for third places is as an alternative to the uncomfortable self-commodification of dating apps, and I don't mean to suggest they should be rigidly asexual, but I think having social setting where a single person isn't assumed to be looking for a partner and people in relationships can have a social life independent from their family role is an important and rare kind of diversity and neutrality.
Excellent take. I definitely see that kind of issue arise with locations like bars. Like, where do I go to just have a conversation independent of any pretext about my intentions? Even though I'm a cis, straight man who wants romantic and sexual relationships, I'm also aware of the way that my options for meeting and relating to others are constrained by the environments and contexts in which we find ourselves. And while I'm certainly down to hit bars and go on adventures sometimes, what I crave most is the ability to find my people and just vibe with them until something spontaneously emerges. And you don't get that when a space was physically and socially constructed for a defined purpose like you outlined. I hope we're able to start creating more spaces that do away with such things. 🙂
Well said. 👏💚💜🖤👍
Yup, and it's this exact problem that's lead to other societal issues, like men and women struggling to be "just friends" or women being afraid that every man who looks at them wants to flirt.
For me, when you find yourself on this side of TH-cam. It's time to stop looking through the YT recommendations and go to bed lol
I've found a climbing gym to be the best third place I've seen in my life, you build a strong sense of community and there is so much social lubricant and topic of discussion
Same! I kinda miss the college climbing wall being in walking distance. Guess I’ll try and move closer to the commercial gym
Climbets are notorious narcissists
u gotta pay to join them n my area.... not much of a third place....
@@DaFireElfyes but anyone can pay. Wasn’t that criteria?
Gay
When I used to live in Tampa Bay, it has a steong community of hippies, artisans, misicians and tradespeople. There were many third places that have been thriving social hubs since the 1970s.
As I travel the US and the world, I seek to eventually create places of my own that can facilitate the atmospheres described in your video.
I like your well thought out critiques on the matter.
The Catholic Center at my university has been a great example of this. Very welcoming to people of all backgrounds, as I’m not even Catholic yet! Definitely a home away from home and I love the fact that there’s regulars.
Makes me think of being in high school and hanging out with some friends outside of class time. We didn’t do it often, but we went to the local park as a group once. And then we walked to the nearby pet store and kinda just treated it like a miniature zoo. Closest thing to a third stop we had. Remember there being people shopping with their pets, and they were more than happy to stop for a bit so we could say hi to them and hear all about how cool their pet is.
I still remember you, Rosie the pug.
So, you don't need a lot for a social gatherings. It's the same in many southern countries, people hang out in a town-square or just on the street, playing chess or talk about life. That's all there is to it. All this can happen, even in a suburb... if the will is there.
when i look at your videos on creating community, it makes me think of all the beautiful things im missing out on because of my social anxiety and pushes me to do way better and become someone that brings people together. abolish suburbs!
Suburbs are bad when created solely by developers, but there are some that are denser and cropped up mostly organically. There's still some degree of necessity for a sparser space with more seclusion - it should just still make community accessible, by making this region denser and having it border an urban region such that you can still viably walk to the urban area.
Thank you for putting what has been bothering me for so long into words. I feel lost in the suburbs of the midwestern United States. I feel trapped, and I want out. Even the cities in the U.S. do not seem appealing to me because so many of their third places are centered around drinking or sports, as you stated. I want out. I don't want to die because I can just feel that there is deeper socialization waiting for me somewhere. I hope I find it soon.
That's interesting. I had heard of the concept before, but I only just realized that one of the gyms I train at and work at is a third place of sorts. There's a solid community around it, and earlier this week, I was thinking that if something major was to happen, I'd probably head there to link up with people. Earlier in the summer, everyone in the house I was living in got evicted, and my roommates and I were unable to find another house. I started asking around at the gym, and within like 5 minutes, one of my friends and employee from the gym told me that he had a room for me and I live with him now. The gym and people associated with it organize events. For example, every week, there's at least one outdoor training jam, and anyone is welcomed to come by and practice with whoever is there. Earlier in the year, they organized a big barbecue where the whole gym was invited for free, and during it, I discussed with some people about anarchism, communism and libertarian socialism. I explained to one of the older men how his dreams (he just wants to build stuff and give it to people) would be encouraged and easier to reach in an anarcho-communist society. He asked a bunch of questions, I clarified what communism is supposed to be, and he was on the verge of tears thinking how we could live in a much better world. The next time I saw him, he just nodded at me and said "libertarian socialism" with a big happy smile. One of the middle-aged women also told me that Emma Goldman was her hero when she was a teenager.
I get that it's not quite exactly a third space because it rassembles people around a sport and physical practice, but it's pretty damn close. I mentioned it on another breadtube video about sports, but I'll mention it again here: parkour originally has a mentality that is compatible with anarchism. It's practice it meant to get people fit for action, outdoors, at little to no cost. In the past, most people would learn it through other people in the community. It repurposes existing infrastructure. It was originally somewhat clandestine. You can go almost anywhere in the world, and there will be communities of people who do parkour or at least train outside. I've traveled a bunch that way, hitchhiking, living on rooftops or in the woods, sometimes in gyms or at people's places, and training a bit everywhere. I always found myself welcomed in those communities, and parkour is one of the sports where I found the highest number of people with anarchistic ideas without them actually aware that they were anarchistic ideas. When I was an insurrectionist anarchist, this is where I'd look for people with the mindset and physical fitness to help me fuck shit up.
I'm a sometime inhabitant of VRChat. It's a virtual reality platform where people primarily go to talk to others. It's one step removed from internet social media as third place, with many of the same drawbacks, plus a variable price barrier of entry. (though it can be used with just a PC) A couple things it has over social media is communication through body language (half of how we communicate is through our body) and the ability to experiment with identity (people can try on bodies and experiment with gender). It's not a replacement for the traditional third place, but it's an alternative worth looking at.
... VRchat can be used with just a PC? I just commented about how (based on syrmor videos, since I've never experienced VR anything myself) I really think VR has the best shot at simulating third places, compared to anything else the digital world can offer. I really thought the cost/equipment barrier was a definite thing. I've got to get in on this! I'm unhoused but I'm uncommonly well technologically equipped and spend a lot of time on the computer as it is lol, and the physical world is especially alienating/isolating in a lot of ways when you're unhoused (especially with dogs, in my case) so a lot of my most quality socialization happens online, and I've wished for ages that I could get in on the type of community vibe I see in VRchat videos. Thanks for this information.
I think we shouldn't rely on VR to be a third place instead of something local, because of the importance of building local communities and caring for one another. BUT virtual spaces ARE still useful and shouldn't be overlooked - we finally have the ability to build a global community like never before. Both should exist.
@@ItsAsparageese oh yeah, it's becoming more accessible all the time. They're now piloting a way to access it through Android, so mobile phone users can join too. Don't know how it works or when it will be done, but that's coming too.
@@PingMe23 That's so cool! Thanks so much for the info!
Man I wish vrchat was still good :(
I like physical third places, and I wish we had more of them. However, I will say that I am a lot more scared of saying radical or potentially controversial things offline than I am online. Online I might get a bad reputation and have to leave, but offline saying something that is too far outside the realm of "acceptable opinion" might open me up to violence.
Very much this. It's not just capitalism that is destroying third spaces; but bigotry and violence. Local fascists have repeatedly attacked a pub I occasionally patronize, because they host a drag queen story hour.
Plus online you can look for people discussing what yoh care for and have much higher odds of finding them.
IRL you normally need be first to speak, if only due to how few are even speaking.
Such is the risk one takes when being a human who cares enough about people to challenge their notions.
You know what a good physical place to check out is? Self-defense class.
Are u calling people the n word or some shit? Idk man I would almost say it’s the opposite. IRL people are less likely to get pissy like they can online.
I’m only 2 minutes into the video so far but what you’re talking about make me think about my often wish to just walk out of the house and go to a corner store on the street or the store in the neighbourhood, buy some snack or street food and just sit there and talk to the shop owner or other customers who also live in the neighbourhood. I am from Burma and now living in NY. I miss being able to just hang out on the street and at public spaces with at ease.
Reminds me of coffee shops in Vienna around 1900, which seemed to be places where intellectuals would meet up and meet large amounts of strangers. That always sounded quite interesting to me, how that came to be.