I am part of a few online communities so I have chosen to share the one I think is the most positive. It is called ‘The Basement’ and it is a group that originally was set up for people to buy and sell streetwear clothing items. Due to the community being such as success and gaining lots of members, everyone now describes it as ‘a family’.
In the book ‘Personal Connections In The Digital Age’, Baym says: “Online groups can open doors to people”. (Baym, 2013) ‘The Basement’ has done just that by setting up opportunities for people as the ‘leader’ of the group now has his own ‘Basement’ clothing range.
The book also describes how online communities can develop new relationships with people from different locations. Many members from ‘The Basement’ have met up and formed strong friendships with each other just because of the interest we all share.
The Basement created their own pop up shop in London for a weekend so people could meet and buy merch
The members benefit from this community because of it’s original purpose to buy and sell clothes. On top of that they can benefit because people post projects and generate feedback from them for example photography or fashion students would post the work they have done and ask for our opinions. There are certain challenges from this online community which are clash of opinions, possible flaking from buyers (when someone pulls out from buying something) and you can get banned from the group with 3 strikes.
The book also explored how the term ‘online community’ is largely discussed and what community actually means. I think that ‘The Basement’ is the definition of an online community, what do you think?
References: Baym, N. K., (2010). Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Cambridge: Polity, pp. 138
The Basement: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BasementApproved/?fref=ts
Network Society and the Media 
This sounds like the perfect online community for people with an interest in fashion or even the arts. It’s even more amazing that it went from somewhere to buy and sell clothes to expanding to have its own brand clothing. It shows how far a community of people who are passionate about something can take it and turn it into something they can make a living off of while sharing it with the rest of the community. I liked that you pointed out that there may be as clash of opinions, as those are always going to be a part of any community. It’s cool that they did a popup shop as well. I feel like I’d definitely check it out if they did another.
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