[order-matters]

we were made to socialize in person. you can mimic it online and nourish existing connections over it but nothing helps build friendship more than being in the same place at the same time a few different times and talking to each other

[cloverich]

Thats true but online content has always had its place. 25 years ago finding forums and irc was a god send, my lonely hobbies and interests became things i could regularly talk about. Its just modern social media abused the system, the algorithm, and us.

Which is all to say i agree about needing mostly irl, but there is also something of online community that irl could never replicate (for most people).

[order-matters]

i know what you mean, and i think online communities can still be successful. but i think in the early internet you already had some common ground with anyone you met online because spending time on the internet was kind of a irl choice to make. It was like a magic room anyone could enter and find others. Now its so ubiquitous that simply being online or on a forum is not the same kind of specialness to it