One of the under-appreciated roles of bartenders is that it‘s literally their job to cultivate strong community.
Regulars keep a place in business. The best bartenders curate a strong vibe that draws solid people in, who then form a community that gathers at your spot.
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I learned a LOT about organizing and community from working in hospitality.
1. If you have 40 people who come to your spot and 1 disruptive jerk & don’t do anything, the 40 won’t come back
2. You need to maintain a fun and welcoming atmosphere even if you have regulars, that’s what helps you grow
This applies to so many areas and industries, but where I think a lot of digital spaces find difficulty is in recognizing they are also serving as hosts in a traditional social sense.
And good hosts don’t let people do whatever (shout out to the book Art of Gathering which talks about this so well)
Social media, and any place where community gathers, are sites of hospitality. You have to treat them as such.
This requires platforms to have high social EQ as much as it does technical skill and product. Just as being a great bar requires curating a great vibe as well as serving great drinks.
And actually, you can get away with beers & well drinks for a while if your spot has a great vibe than if you have a bad vibe but make fancy cocktails.
(The bird app is trying to do the latter right now btw with all the new feature rollouts)
I’ve used this a lot in political organizing as well
I've helped (professionally) shape one of the friendliest and least toxic MMO community and I feel this in my bones. It is possible to cultivate good online communities, it's like gardening. It starts by leading by example (exactly like you're doing) to plant the right seeds.
not sure i'd call the bird app's new features fancy cocktails. it's more like they've added three or four potato chips to their cheeseburger special (and they're kinda soggy) (and they'll probably take one or two of those chips back tomorrow)
Long time waiter/bartender here from long ago. I'll also mention that if the women are having a good time, everyone has a good time. If the women stop showing up, everyone else also stops showing up.
I 100% agree.
I once moderated online communities (BBSes, CompuServe, etc.). Long ago I described successful communities as like "Cheers," the bar where everyone knows you name. And where there's both a barkeep (to get people talking) and a bouncer (to throw out those who don't follow the rules).
As a restaurant worker turned engineer I gotta say my time in customer service and hospitality is as important as my engineering education if not more so for this very reason!
There’s a whole academic discourse around *spaces* that syncs with this. Tl;dr a space is not defined by linear boundaries/materials but by the labor of maintaining it as a certain kind of context. A safe space is a space just like a bar is
Also I’m your constituent and I think you’re really cool and I volunteered for your campaign in 2018 and you took a picture with my wife and her friends a couple months ago at Spot Dessert Bar in flushing and I think you’re the smartest person in American politics
Over a decade in restaurants and bars before I became a lawyer. I constantly get asked how I get people to do and say what I get them to do and say.
I always respond that if you can make a drunk apologize without threatening them you can make anyone do anything.
We have something similar in the game industry, I call it the "talented jerk." someone that everyone tiptoes around who "is just like that" winds up defining your culture completely. You have to decide whether any action you want to take is worth the fight. You gotta root them out right away.
TBH, I forgot you used to be in hospitality. I think you'd like what women in the industry are doing in Houston:
https://www.illhavewhatsheshaving.org/
Maybe you can come to a fundraiser and work with us sometime.
Problem is libertarian tech dudes have convinced themselves that for some reason platforms must be open to everyone despite that being beneficial to nobody, not even the shareholders.
Fair... but from their point of view, doesn't having a platform that's open to everyone transfer the harm/risk to the users of the platform from them. So as long as they don't lose too many users the platform owner gains a net benefit in all sorts of ways?
Good point I hadn't considered, thanks. And I'd *assume* it's easier to deal with them if they're not on the platform generating more problems.
So yes, I see your point. I wonder if platform owners are willing to harm their bottom line like this because the size of the impact is hard to measure?
You remind me so much of Ruth Ellen Brossard, Alexandria.
She tended bar at my university, and was a really committed Member of Parliament for 8 years.
When applying this idea, one must remember that a single bar represents a small subset of the social network of all bar patrons.
You curate *your bar*. Which is good!
Groups of humans are both defined by who they allow in *and* who they do not.
But a bar represents a very small % of overall network of bars.
Most social networks represent a very large % of online public spaces.
Control over who can be a patron of your bar represents less power than controlling who can be a patron of a social network.
And less likely to be politicized.
I’ve been an engineer for the last 15 or so years, but before that I worked in restaurants. I learned so much about dealing with people and good customer service in that time.
It was the hardest job I ever had but also by far the most valuable in terms of life skills.
