#Microblog Monday 310: Community From Afar
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I love Fathom Events, and we see a bunch of National Theater Live shows every year. It makes London theater accessible for people outside London—it’s a brilliant idea. During the lockdown, National Theater Live streamed a show every week on YouTube. 16 weeks. 16 shows. I didn’t watch even one.
The Atlantic recently had an article about how to build that feeling of community from afar. Reading it, I realized what was missing for me with the NT Lives. When I see a Fathom Event in the theater, I’m seeing it with people. If they had set it up as a limited viewing similar to real theater—going live at a set time, not recorded, behind a paywall—so you knew other people were watching at the same time, you would have felt like you were seeing it with people. But being able to tune in at any point during the week and watch it without knowing if anyone else was on at the same time felt lonely. What made things easier also made things less enticing.
I think it’s still possible to build that same feeling of community from afar, but it has to happen in real time with everyone on together. It’s the difference between tweeting during the debates (knowing you’re seeing them with everyone else and talking about it in real time) vs. reading about the debates the next morning in the newspaper. One is a community experience. One is just imparting information.
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6 comments
I 100% agree. That’s why I love the livestream safaris. I am watching them as they happen, seeing things the same time as the rangers, as if I was there in the jeep with them. And I’m doing it with people all over the world, sharing something with them. We can ask questions or comment, and share in the experience. It’s a community. It makes a difference.
It’s what you’ve done here of course too. Built a community that comes together. ♥️
I wonder what it says about me that I’ve always preferred to read about the debates the next morning, including the Twitter commentary? Perhaps that I’m a person who needs processing time to come to a conclusion I’m happy with? Perhaps that I’m not good with community? Perhaps that I’m looking for fully formed opinions, which often come after the entire body of work has been digested, rather than the reactions that arise partway through? Nah, probably just that I’m a curmudgeon who doesn’t play well with others! 🙂
Hmmmmm, I hear this one. It finally puts words to something I’ve been trying to pinpoint for a time – why it’s not as satisfactory to experience prerecorded stuff or watch things after they happen in real time. I think some of it is also the uncertainty, the sense that something unexpected could happen, either good or bad. Experiencing those moments in real time, together are the difference between a bonding experience and “you had to be there”.
Yup. I feel like one thing that’s happened in this pandemic is the feeling of being alone, even with other people. That you can try to be connected through internety things but it’s not the same, and I fear school in the fall will be like that — with other people but alone. I haven’t gone to NT Live things but I have done other Fathom Events, just before the lockdown, like the Margaret Atwood interview about The Testaments. They were fun to watch with friends. I wonder if we’ll get to do stuff like that anytime soon. 🙁
I get what you mean. I feel this way about sports too. For me, it’s not just the audience sharing in on it, it’s also the whole live, spontaneous, “anything can happen at any moment” experience that we’re all sharing. My husband will always say: “What’s the difference if it’s recorded if you don’t know the results of the game?” but it’s more than that. It’s experiencing it as it really happened. Same with live theater. It’s what makes it so magical and separates it from movies and TV.
You’re on point about that distinction. There is something really cool about experiencing something with other people all at the same time.
Isn’t it interesting how important community has become, now that we have to work a little harder for it?