Thinking about gatherings and events, I wonder if anyone has written about the all-important comedown and how it’s missing with online gatherings. At the end of a tabletop game or meeting or concert or whatever, there’s that transition into the state of the gathering being over, wherein the gathering’s events wander through the mind while we return to reality and head off to the next destination. With online gathering, we simply sign off or shut down and lose the opportunity to swim through the newly formed memories as we journey to another place. Sitting in front of the screen before, sitting in front of the screen after. And this loss is tremendous. It prevents us from creating the web of occurrences and sensory memories that all contribute to the formation of the core memory of that gathering with those people in that place at that point in time.
I might just be showing my ass here and how I don’t like communicating in any way other than together in person, but an online gathering just feels perfunctory. It is useful when necessary, sure, but it’s not the opportunity to create memories with people. It’s what enables us to work and collaborate remotely but cannot begin to compare to being with someone in the same space.
And most importantly, we lose the chance to part ways, to see someone get further and further away until they’re gone, leaving us to figure out who we are now and how so much could have happened in so short a time.