Social Media Fans Get Together in the Real World

On a Thursday night this January, the Paradise Lounge in San Francisco was transformed from a swank nightclub into a haven for those whose typical social lubricant is abbreviated URLs, not cocktails: Twitter users. Attendees said there were lots of @nametags (echoing the Twitter convention of referring to people with the @ followed by their user name), loud music, and a surprisingly low amount of actual Twittering.

Twestivalsf, as the dimly lit party was dubbed by its community organizers, represented only one of the 202 Twestival events that took place in cities around the world on that same evening. Besides raising donations for an international aid group called charity: water, each gathering aimed to celebrate the power of social media to bring people together. All were organized by Twitter users, not the company itself. The idea, according to the Twestival Web site: meet the faces behind the avatars, and do it on a "revolutionary" scale.

A rising wave of community gatherings sparked by Web 2.0, Twestival included, have been taking the tech world by storm over the past 12 months. Often labeled "camps"--in the tradition of Foo Camp and BarCamp, both early proponents of the collaborative meetup model--these events celebrate new technology and a meeting of minds. DevCamp, PHPCamp, SocialMediaCamp: It seems new camps are springing up each week. Few have any corporate affiliation. In anarchistic, wiki-like fashion, many aim to be "unconferences," face-to-face gatherings unshackled by both organization and the long-distance divide of the Internet.

Why the Meat Space?

The proliferation of these camps--few of which, by the way, involve any actual camping--raises the question: If the Web is such a great way of networking, why do people feel the need to meet in "meat space"? One theory holds that the spread of social networks has increased the number of people we connect with, while at the same time decreasing the meaningfulness of each connection. As we stop calling each other and start Twitter messaging, maybe we crave real-world contact. On the other hand, perhaps the interwoven network of users that is Web 2.0 has inspired us to collaborate in ways we wouldn't have dreamed of if Web sites hadn't already connected us.

The ethos of the camp experience goes back to 1986 and the invention of Burning Man. An annual gathering of artists, hippies, and technophiles, Burning Man is dedicated to an ad-hoc lifestyle that has inspired organizers of the recent wave of camps. In the last two years, the population of Black Rock City, the town that "burners" construct each August in the Nevada desert, has exploded to nearly 50,000.

Jenna Chalmers, creative director for the social gaming company Zynga and a five-time burner, says the increasing appeal of Burning Man for techies is being able to connect without needing to be plugged in. Wi-Fi access is limited, and cell phone reception nonexistent. "Most people I know, even if they're on Twitter and Facebook a lot in their everyday existences, they don't do that when they go to Burning Man," she says. "It's a recess from that technology and investing instead in something more tangible."

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