LAST YEAR, A FRIEND ASKED ME to join him at an event in town where he was giving a presentation. With no more information than that, I agreed to go, because he’s my friend. It didn’t require further thought—that is, until the morning of the event, when I needed to learn where it was and what time I had to show up.
After a quick search, I found the event’s website, which promised to help members of the creative community “take a deep breath” and move “from exhaustion to optimism.” Framed against a backdrop summary of the frenetic pace of modern work, it claimed the day’s discussions and breakout groups would generate the kind of “camaraderie” and “inspiration” that is only possible when given the reminder “you’re not alone.”
Oh, brother, I thought. It’s going to be one of those. And it was one of those: part kumbaya smile-fest, part networking event, part TED Talk karaoke in which various life coaches soft-sold their services.
Suffice to say, I did not “take a deep breath.” Nor did I move from “exhaustion to optimism.” If anything, I became more exhausted—because the misleading suggestion that community and connection are things people can “add to cart” is already a tired idea.
“Community is everything,” a headline on Lululemon’s website shouted a couple years ago, back when it was trendy to describe something as “everything.” But it’s difficult to imagine this “community” of people unified through the love of moisture-wicking pants.
More recently, the consulting company McKinsey called “community” the “big idea” for marketing in the 2020s, and every few days business magazines publish articles with titles like, “Want to Sell Like Mr. Beast? Brands Must Build a Strong Community.”
But all this talk of “community”—which has coincided with a 2023 surgeon general’s report titled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation”—seems to have only confused our notions of what a community is and thereby magnified the problem of isolation and otherness. The trend of selling “community,” however, continues to grow, because purchasing is often easier than participating, and “easy” seems to be foremost in our minds.
Over the years, while working with a few dozen companies on their messaging, I’ve noticed that almost every one of them wants to use the words “easy,” “simple,” and “efficient” to describe the value of their product or service. “We’re making things frictionless,” many executives tell me during calls.
Aside from illustrating just how one-note the marketplace is becoming, this utopian mantra of “frictionless-ness” has gradually convinced people that if something isn’t “easy,” “simple,” or “efficient,” then it’s not worth tolerating. (And then we act surprised when more and more of us opt out of civic projects, the workforce, and even personal projects, such as marriage and child-rearing, to spend more time scrolling and streaming.)
Meanwhile, real-life communities overflow with inconvenience. On any given day, we might get asked to give someone a ride so they can get their car serviced. Or watch their kids because a meeting ran late. Or feed their dogs so they can take advantage of a three-day weekend.
Furthermore—at least in my case—real-life community entails showing up to gatherings that make me aware how some, many, or most people don’t like me that much (friction!). In this way, community is a mirror that reflects both my strengths and abundant weaknesses, and thereby provides the chance to take responsibility and adapt.
Although this feedback can be hard to take, I tell myself that receiving it and showing up anyway is a critical step in the process of accepting that not everything is about “you”—an idea marketers would never dream to bring up.
For even more than “easy,” “simple,” and “frictionless,” marketers’ favorite word is “you”—a linguistic trick that suggests each audience member is the main character of the world, thus normalizing narcissism.
Here we see a widening gap between a marketed “community,” which can promise to solve the symptoms of a national crisis with a one-day workshop, and an actual community, which relies on individuals subordinating personal interests and enduring friction for the sake of a greater, shared good.
One promises to serve “you” while the other offers the chance to go beyond yourself. That difference, to borrow a phrase, is everything.
