Hannah and I chose Craigslist Joe as our documentary of the week. It turned out be a very interesting film to say the least. Craigslist Joe is a film about Joe Garner's social experiment to live entirely off of Craigslist for an entire month. The purpose of his experiment was to see if one could still depend upon the kindness of strangers for sustenance as could be done in the early part of the last century. It was an interesting film but lacked any sort of thoughtfulness about what could be learned and extrapolated from his experiences.
Without giving anything away Joe ended up travelling most of the country in his 31 day journey and met many of the types of people you would expect that he would. He even met the founder of Craigslist. Needless to say he spent a couple of nights out on the street and some days going hungry. I believe he would have had much more success if he had been a little more cheery and gregarious. In fact, he may have been so but the film portrayed him as a very quiet and awkward person. It is also fair to say that if he may have had a much different experience if he hadn't been a young middle class white male. Without even considering race, he could never have tried this experiment if he were a woman.
As his thesis Joe says he is on a quest to see if there is still any sense of community in modern America and I feel that he was able to show that there is significant community. It is just different from what people might expect. After seeing this film it seems to me that community is no longer found in our communities but is instead found within groups that we choose to be a part of. It is found in our followers and in those we follow on Twitter. We find it in our selected church or the clubs we are a part of. In the basketball leagues we are a part of and other social groups. This is all well and good and healthy but the problem is that America as a society is losing a sense of responsibility to anyone but ourselves. We no longer feel any need to curb our behavior to what is considered appropriate by any set group. It used to be that if we upset our community (quite literally the people who lived around us) they would no longer do business with us and we could no longer make a living. As such communities were very self correcting. They would deal with the members of the community who broke the rules both socially and economically. These days if you upset your community you just find a new one. This is why there is so much hate online in places like YouTube and Twitter; there is no longer any accountability to one's community. People can and absolutely do say incredibly inappropriate things in these areas because they know they will not be held accountable. Community no longer has any sense of permanence.
This is why online communities are flourishing. We are able to get the sense of belonging that most of us crave but at the same time are afforded anonymity so that our actions in our communities (the things we say and do) have no lasting negative consequences for us. Unfortunately, our actions may have far reaching negative consequences on those we interact with online.
Craigslist Joe highlights this phenomenon. Many people are eager to have fleeting relationships with very little responsibility. People are willing to give a stranger a ride to New Orleans or let them sleep on their floor but only if they meet the person online. Only if the implied relationship comes with no strings attached. While this was an interesting film, it is difficult to learn anything worthwhile from it. This is one you could skip.
As his thesis Joe says he is on a quest to see if there is still any sense of community in modern America and I feel that he was able to show that there is significant community. It is just different from what people might expect. After seeing this film it seems to me that community is no longer found in our communities but is instead found within groups that we choose to be a part of. It is found in our followers and in those we follow on Twitter. We find it in our selected church or the clubs we are a part of. In the basketball leagues we are a part of and other social groups. This is all well and good and healthy but the problem is that America as a society is losing a sense of responsibility to anyone but ourselves. We no longer feel any need to curb our behavior to what is considered appropriate by any set group. It used to be that if we upset our community (quite literally the people who lived around us) they would no longer do business with us and we could no longer make a living. As such communities were very self correcting. They would deal with the members of the community who broke the rules both socially and economically. These days if you upset your community you just find a new one. This is why there is so much hate online in places like YouTube and Twitter; there is no longer any accountability to one's community. People can and absolutely do say incredibly inappropriate things in these areas because they know they will not be held accountable. Community no longer has any sense of permanence.
This is why online communities are flourishing. We are able to get the sense of belonging that most of us crave but at the same time are afforded anonymity so that our actions in our communities (the things we say and do) have no lasting negative consequences for us. Unfortunately, our actions may have far reaching negative consequences on those we interact with online.
Craigslist Joe highlights this phenomenon. Many people are eager to have fleeting relationships with very little responsibility. People are willing to give a stranger a ride to New Orleans or let them sleep on their floor but only if they meet the person online. Only if the implied relationship comes with no strings attached. While this was an interesting film, it is difficult to learn anything worthwhile from it. This is one you could skip.
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