There’s a current consensus among trendcasters that community is the new brand: that people increasingly want to pay for connection over individual identity. As a longtime hopeful in capitalism for good, I’d like to think this a step in the right direction for humanity. But I also think we can do much better for both people and profit by selling collective identity beyond community — offering belonging in something instead of belonging on its own.

In The Century of the Self, Adam Curtis documented how the “father” of the field of public relations, Edward Bernays, was influenced by his uncle, none other than Sigmund Freud. Bernays took psychoanalysis’ insight that function can be trumped by selfish desire and gave it to American corporations. Now, after a hundred years of successful campaigns appealing to wants vs. needs, this strategy, “brand,” is giving way to “community.”

“Are community event leaders the new influencers?” asks Vogue Business, as Eventbrite tries its best to claim “Fourth Space,” a term describing communities that gather both IRL and online. Offline, a platform that helps brands activate in these communities, accurately points out that online connectivity has not equaled connection. But neither does simply being together face to face. Are run clubs really turning strangers into friends?* And PR aside, how profitable is this new channel if we’re still just selling people things?

Branded communities should be thinking bigger, à la what Toby Shorin calls on brands to do in Life After Lifestyle, “to stop pointing to culture, and to start being it”:

Actual subcultural membership has something more to offer. To be a hiker means participating in a culture of respect and awe for the outdoors. It involves moral injunctions like leaving no trace, practices that involve taking care of the earth like shitting far away from fresh water.

In his essay, Shorin’s exploration of how brands might engage in true cultural production leads him to compare brands and religion. Deploying cultural components like story and ritual to fulfill a zeitgeist that’s “screaming for meaning” is the “obvious opportunity” of the moment, according to a quoted VC.

Since Life After Lifestyle was published in 2022, our spiritual hunger has only grown, as seen in phenomena like Catholicism’s resurgence**, the manosphere, and AI worship thanks to the state of the world, its accelerating rate of change, and our heightened awareness of it all via social media and smartphones.

Spiritual supply, however, hasn’t kept up, despite the rise in popularity of daytime “raves” and mahjong nights. How might communities elevate their game? By providing connection over things bigger than self expression. Fitness, fandom, crafting, gaming, and going out are still about consumption after all, even if they’re done with others.

Where are the branded groups and events around the stuff of the earliest worship: nature, childbirth***, and the stars? What’s the best way to find people to touch grass with online? Where is the Peloton for doulas and birthing classes? Why, despite knowing so many fans of Chani Nicholas, am I hanging out in her app alone? How might we brand the sacred, the inherently communal?

Sure, true community is just as much about the journey as it is the destination****. Case in point: my current social circle is mainly people I met in crypto. Imagine, then, what could come of journeying toward more profound destinations. Ones closer to our deepest desire for meaning, more worthy of devotion than Huberman or ChatGPT.

*If you’ve experienced this, please tell me, I’m curious!

**Do yourself a favor and watch Conclave if you haven’t already.

***This is NOT an invitation for you to be weird, pro-lifers and natalists.

****Nor is it traditionally a commercial domain, a discussion for another day.

There’s a current consensus among trendcasters that community is the new brand: that people increasingly want to pay for connection over individual identity. As a longtime hopeful in capitalism for good, I’d like to think this a step in the right direction for humanity. But I also think we can do much better for both people and profit by selling collective identity beyond community — offering belonging in something instead of belonging on its own.

In The Century of the Self, Adam Curtis documented how the “father” of the field of public relations, Edward Bernays, was influenced by his uncle, none other than Sigmund Freud. Bernays took psychoanalysis’ insight that function can be trumped by selfish desire and gave it to American corporations. Now, after a hundred years of successful campaigns appealing to wants vs. needs, this strategy, “brand,” is giving way to “community.”

“Are community event leaders the new influencers?” asks Vogue Business, as Eventbrite tries its best to claim “Fourth Space,” a term describing communities that gather both IRL and online. Offline, a platform that helps brands activate in these communities, accurately points out that online connectivity has not equaled connection. But neither does simply being together face to face. Are run clubs really turning strangers into friends?* And PR aside, how profitable is this new channel if we’re still just selling people things?

Branded communities should be thinking bigger, à la what Toby Shorin calls on brands to do in Life After Lifestyle, “to stop pointing to culture, and to start being it”:

Actual subcultural membership has something more to offer. To be a hiker means participating in a culture of respect and awe for the outdoors. It involves moral injunctions like leaving no trace, practices that involve taking care of the earth like shitting far away from fresh water.

In his essay, Shorin’s exploration of how brands might engage in true cultural production leads him to compare brands and religion. Deploying cultural components like story and ritual to fulfill a zeitgeist that’s “screaming for meaning” is the “obvious opportunity” of the moment, according to a quoted VC.

Since Life After Lifestyle was published in 2022, our spiritual hunger has only grown, as seen in phenomena like Catholicism’s resurgence**, the manosphere, and AI worship thanks to the state of the world, its accelerating rate of change, and our heightened awareness of it all via social media and smartphones.

Spiritual supply, however, hasn’t kept up, despite the rise in popularity of daytime “raves” and mahjong nights. How might communities elevate their game? By providing connection over things bigger than self expression. Fitness, fandom, crafting, gaming, and going out are still about consumption after all, even if they’re done with others.

Where are the branded groups and events around the stuff of the earliest worship: nature, childbirth***, and the stars? What’s the best way to find people to touch grass with online? Where is the Peloton for doulas and birthing classes? Why, despite knowing so many fans of Chani Nicholas, am I hanging out in her app alone? How might we brand the sacred, the inherently communal?

Sure, true community is just as much about the journey as it is the destination****. Case in point: my current social circle is mainly people I met in crypto. Imagine, then, what could come of journeying toward more profound destinations. Ones closer to our deepest desire for meaning, more worthy of devotion than Huberman or ChatGPT.

*If you’ve experienced this, please tell me, I’m curious!

**Do yourself a favor and watch Conclave if you haven’t already.

***This is NOT an invitation for you to be weird, pro-lifers and natalists.

****Nor is it traditionally a commercial domain, a discussion for another day.