Oh Look, Another Online Drama Factory.
Why your online community ends up sucking.
Something inevitable tends to happen when something awesome is born.
It ends up trashed.
Obviously, not everything. Not every online community, fandom, group, or organization ends up being a drama-filled shitfest. Look at Star Wars fandom! The Comic Book industry! “Awards” organizations! Book communities!
There’s hardly ANY drama in any of those!
WHY DOES THIS SEEM INEVITABLE?
Believe it or not, there is a mathematical reason for online communities or groups turning into drama-filled shitfests.
Let me introduce you to Robin Dunbar:
From the semi-accurate wiki place:
Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar is a British biological anthropologist, evolutionary psychologist, and specialist in primate behaviour. Dunbar is professor emeritus of evolutionary psychology of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford.
The short of it is, homie is an evolutionary psychologist, and came up a fascinating theory about humans and relationships. Part math, part psychology, part evolutionary biology.
Due to the size of the human neocortex, we are capable of sustaining no more than 150 close relationships.
This is called “Dunbar’s Number.”
Now, don’t mistake this for the end all be all size of an online community. There are huge communities. The AARP, the NRA, Code Pink (LAWL), and all of them run without a hitch, everyone agrees, and they all get along. That’s sarcasm, by the way.
DUNBARS NUMBER(S?)
It goes deeper than simply “We cannot sustain, on an evolutionary level, more than 150 close relationships.” You see, changes tend to occur at specific numbers in groups. That’s why that small group of knitters, or your writer’s group, or your after-school-RC-car-club end up being a mess at regular intervals.
Five Close Friends?
The innermost circle of Dunbar Numbers is 5. This is the amount of close, rock-solid relationships humans tend to sustain.
Think of small start-up companies with a handful of people in a garage. That close-knit group of WARHAMMER or D&D buddies. Mr. biological anthropologist is basically like, “Look, you only have so much bandwidth for the folks that’d hide a body for you. Five is about it.”
At five, culture is the same. Closeness is a given. You get along. You know the inside jokes. You’re homies.
Fifteen GOOD Friends?
He also suggest that you can have an extended circle of 15 people considered “GOOD” friends. You know each others personal lives. You have shared experiences. You hang out. You’re invested in one another.
To your average introvert (Hey ya’ll where my people at? Oh. You’re all home like me. Nevermind), this seems terrifying, but it’s understandable. At 15 people you can carry on relationships, know each other by first names. Know each others lives. It’s not “hide the body” close, but it can be really close.
In terms of companies this makes sense too. That little company grows, it’s making waves, you’ve got that original core of 5 folks expanded out. You’re not the OG crew anymore, but it’s all good.
Starting to look at the communities you’re in now, aren’t you?
Good. You should. It gets worse.
Fifty … Friends?
I worked tech support back in the late 1990s (Yay, Y2K!) for a company that had about 50 employees. A bunch of us on the phones, some sales people, some managerial staff.
Did I know the names of everyone I worked with? After a few months, absolutely.
Was I close with them? Nope.
At 50, you tend to be a more diverse group of people and interests. Not everyone is going to get along. People are going to irritate one another. It’s the natural mix of personalities coming in, along with the evolutionary blockade of not having the capacity in your brain to maintain 50 close relationships. It ain’t happening.
Cracks are forming in the dam …
One Hundred And Fifty … Contacts?
At 150, the problem exacerbates. At this point, the 5 founders of a company walk around and can probably greet everyone, but not singularly. You cannot maintain close relationships with all of these people. Eventually varying opinions and personalities make managing cohesiveness a huge issue. This is when they end up hiring “Middle Managers” or “Team Leaders.” And that creates distance between the new guy, and the OG guy, so to speak.
Culture changes. People have their own different ideas of how things should be run, what should be the focus, and what should be happening. Disagreement bubbles up to the surface.
Like if some kind of Sci-Fi community ends up having a bunch of people coming in that absolutely hate, I don’t know, LIBERTARIANS or anyone who doesn’t have blue hair and 34 genders, so they try to shut all of them out, since that group is becoming louder than the original founders and their altruistic intentions.
Just … sayin’.
What Does This Mean For Communities?
It means that if you start a community with a specific intention and the floodgates open for anyone to join in, you are going to end up with issues sooner or later.
However, keeping the group small, well managed, and growth slow, you have a much better chance of stamping out views that are against the culture or intention of the group as they crop up.
Did your writing group explode? Drama is going to happen. Did your knitting group end up with Mary Ellen stabbing Beatrice with her Size 17 +3 Vorpal Knitting Needle forged in the forgotten mountain passes of Greyhawk.
This Is Not Advocacy For Gatekeeping.
But it kind of is. Not in a “We control this industry and indie creators are not welcome,” way. More like a “We need to curate a small group, support each other, and is there really a reason to invite literally everybody in?”
Because unless you’re monetizing … there isn’t. You are better off leaning on the support of 5 active people sharing the same goals and creative culture that you do as opposed to throwing open a Discord server, inviting in a thousand people, and expecting everyone to get along.
You can’t.
You won’t.
It’s going to get old, and fast.
We’ve seen it over and over again in the Writing Community (capital-DUB that is), which is why it’s a never-ending shit show of drama, cancellations, mob mentality, and sniping. Large groups, infested with large groups of people who hold views antithetical to the founding purpose of the group.
Let This Be A Warning.
Listen folks, I’m just speaking from experience here. I’ve been the Army of One. I’ve been in the small company. I’ve run my own martial arts school going from 5 or so supremely dedicated students to classes where I walked in to teach and met a yellow belt … for the first time. Was it fun being the owner and head instructor of a dojo that was nationally recognized? Sure.
Did I miss tiny classes with 4 of my close friends, all of us sweating and beating the shit out of each other on the mats?
You know how we talk about the good ol’ days?
Those were the good ol’ days.
Perfectly put. It's a sad but true phenomenon. I was first introduced to it at a company get together where the head honcho said, "I can only get to know 150 of you so most of you are going to be strangers to me."
Talk about motivating.....
In all honesty though, for me, thats about 148 people too many, so I'm cool with it 😎
So naturally this made me think of Robin Hood. The Merry Men <15. His road dawgs (Little John, Friar Tuck, Alan a’Dale, etc.) <5. Even mythical Saxon folk heroes read David’s blog and take his advice. Go and do likewise!