I hate community 😭😭😭

I’ve written an essay before about how I feel about the word community, but recent situations have me fired up to reiterate my feelings again. 🧘🏾‍♀️

I absolutely fucking hate the word community. Specifically, I fucking hate the way spaces in my city overuse the word community to cover up their actual plans, which are literally just STEALING fucking money from people to pour into their stupid institutions like I’ve actually never understood the whole paying for so-called community events. Like of course if the option to pay is available to help fund it but paying every single time??

like come on pls

I feel like people are so afraid to use certain words for what they are and what they actually mean, because they know using the word community creates a feigned interest in safety and in building some type of “family-esque” space when it’s literally never been that. Places that charge $30 fucking dollars for niggas to come dance are not community spaces. I’m sorry you’re literally just a fucking event center, and that’s okay!!!

People you see regularly at events and get along with are not your community members. They’re just people you see at events and get along with, and that’s okay!! Your friend’s friends, the people you hang out with in a group because of a mutual friend are not automatically your friends. They’re acquaintances, and that’s okayyyy!

People are so afraid to use their fucking critical thinking skills to learn more words to describe their relationships with people, spaces, and connections. There misuse the words friend and community so much that the words barely have any meaning anymore, and I’m so tired of hearing that shit 😭.

When I think of community, I think of my siblings, my cousins, my best friends who have been with me through college, my partner, the new friends I’ve made in the past couple of years who have made an intentional effort to build a connection with me, whatever type of connection that may be. We share mutual interest and hold space together.

My community member from yoga, the gym, poetry club, zumba. Even if it’s someone I see once a week, we are both entering a space and actively building connection with each other.

I’m sorry, but niggas I’m dancing beside at Samambo are not my fucking community 😭.

Like I don’t know y’all, and when push comes to shove, you’re not going to be there for me because we have no connection and that’s okay!

And yes, in a perfect world it would be amazing to live in a place where the people I share space with would defend me if something happened like even for something small as getting yelled out at the club. But most niggas come to these places to dance, get drunk, gyrate, and go the fuck home. Most of them don’t give a shit what happens to me, and will give even less of a shit once they know I’m a lesbian.

I’m sorry, but I do think it’s very hard to build community with people who are fundamentally different from me. Even if we share a love for dancing, doing it in the same space doesn’t make us a community.

It’s sad, but it’s the truth. Most of these dancy-ass leg warrior niggas are raging homophobes and  would gag at the sight of two men touching each other but whose dicks would get hard seeing two queer women doing the same shit. Hyping them up not because they’re allies ✊🏾, but because part of them hopes they could slide in between that.

And you’d think that queer-hosted events would be better, but unfortunately they’re not. 🫩 Yes, the space feels freer. Yes, it’s more comfortable. But the social hierarchy and superiority complexes are so crazy in these spaces. So no even within queer spaces, I don’t feel like it’s a community. These are the same spaces where you can dance with someone all night, exchange Instagrams, and then walk past each other at another event like you’ve never met.

This new era has the word community in a chokehold like I’ve never seen 😭 like e don do.

And truth be told maybe I’m even just projecting. Maybe my experiences are shaping this perspective, and maybe I’m wrong. I know community looks different depending on how you grew up and where you live. And of course there are people who genuinely are actual community builders and leaders and whatnot!

For example, when I look at places like New York based purely on my perception (high-key just TikTok 💀) it feels like they actually understand community. Boroughs showing up for each other. Defending, supporting, building, holding one another. It’s beautiful. I can see how someone raised like that would think differently from me.

But as someone who lives in fucking Minneapolis, it’s nothing like that 😭. People here try to manufacture a fake idea of community just to feel better about living in Minnesota… no shade 💀💀. Meanwhile, they’re deadass some of the worst people you’ll ever meet.

deadass “community builders” after tricking people to pay $30 to dance

Instead of “building community,” let’s focus on being a better friend. A better roommate. A better coworker. A better acquaintance. Show up for your friends who are fighting for their fucking lives. Ask your roommate you haven’t spoken to in a week to get lunch. Have that quarterly hangout with the acquaintance from high school and catch up. It’s not that deep .. call that nigga your acquaintance 😭.

Hang out with your friend and her roommate without feeling pressured to call her your friend. She’s just your friend’s roommate, and that’s okayyy! And if you end up liking her and want to build a friendship, then do that. There’s levels to this shit.

Community isn’t something you force. Community, in the real sense, is about shared resources, mutual genuine connection and aid, and showing up not “we met at this party and see each other here all the time.” It forms naturally, slowly, intentionally whether online or in person. And I wish more people would realize that and be content with it.