{"id":1527,"date":"2010-05-20T17:41:39","date_gmt":"2010-05-21T00:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sarahdopp.com\/blog\/?p=1527"},"modified":"2010-05-23T14:40:09","modified_gmt":"2010-05-23T21:40:09","slug":"whitney_is_community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahdopp.com\/blog\/2010\/whitney_is_community\/","title":{"rendered":"My definition of “community” is Whitney Moses"},"content":{"rendered":"
Heads up, this content is 16 years old. Please keep its age in mind while reading.<\/div>

The deeper I tumble down the rabbit hole of community development, the less I care about the social media marketing crowd, and the more interested I am in people who just do it <\/em>without realizing how or why.<\/p>\n

I’d like you to meet Whitney Moses, if you haven’t already.\u00a0 (Chances are you have.)<\/p>\n

\"Whitney<\/p>\n

Whitney is a massage therapist with a social life. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The social media numbers?\u00a0 It’s unfair to talk about them since she could care less, but I’m going to anyway. She has over 1600 friends on Facebook<\/a>, and is actually friends<\/em> with every single one of them.\u00a0 She keeps a close written account of her life for her inner circle of friends (400+ people) on Livejournal<\/a>. And being still kinda new to Twitter<\/a>, she’s rallied about 630 followers from her universe on there.\u00a0 (It’s also worth adding that she and Amanda Palmer go way back<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The only internet stats she does<\/em> care about are her business reviews, since they’re critical to her livelihood.\u00a0 Having changed office spaces several times in the last few years, she’s at the mercy of her clients to rebuild that pile from scratch every time.\u00a0 The last move was a few months ago, and she’s up to 30 reviews on Yelp<\/a> and a 5-star rating.<\/p>\n

Whitney is active<\/em>, both physically and socially.\u00a0 She sings and dances<\/a> regularly in the San Francisco club scene, and she monkeys around at the rock climbing gym whenever she has the chance.\u00a0 She’s obsessed with the human body, and is usually enrolled in extra courses to expand her massage therapy offerings, even though she already has plenty of certifications.\u00a0 Online, she reads as much as she can about what her friends are up to, comments on their stuff religiously, and sends them personal notes whenever she’s thinking of them.<\/p>\n

People love <\/em>her.\u00a0 She’s smart, generous, compassionate, aware, engaged, fair, accessible, and joyful about life.\u00a0\u00a0 Whenever a friend needs something, she finds a way to make it happen for them.\u00a0 Whenever she <\/em>needs something, people run toward her in mobs, holding as much of it as they can carry.<\/p>\n

When I started the Deviants Online<\/a> series in the winter, Whitney was one of the first people I invited to speak at the workshop.\u00a0 But when I asked her, she looked at me like I had three heads.\u00a0 “Social Media Marketing” isn’t her subject.\u00a0 She wouldn’t even consider herself a great example of how to “be awesome on the Internet.” That’s for other people to be experts on. She’s just being herself.<\/p>\n

Exactly the point.<\/p>\n

I’m still working on her, and will hopefully get her to start articulating her methods and philosophies soon.\u00a0 But that’s not what’s going on right now.<\/p>\n

Right now, she has a broken leg. Well… worse. A knee full of ripped ligaments. As of last Saturday, she’s injured<\/a> and not allowed to walk, dance, or work for six months.\u00a0 Our Whitney, the center of a massive community, is down. <\/strong>And without insurance.<\/p>\n

I saw her last night.\u00a0 She was laughing about it, but also clearly frustrated, and worried about how this is all going to play out.<\/p>\n

I managed to wait until I left before I burst into tears.\u00a0 I crumbled into an incoherent, snot-dripping wreck, mumbling onto the shoulder of another friend, “No.\u00a0 We NEED her OUT there!”<\/p>\n

It’s just six months. She’ll get through it. But the shock still has me dizzy: Whitney’s been a lighthouse of passion, activity, health, and engagement in my life for years.\u00a0 I don’t think about it — I just stand up stronger because I know she’s there, and living with the grace and force and connection that I pretend I’ll someday attain. Seeing that threatened hit me like a fist to the gut.<\/p>\n

No. We need her out there.<\/em><\/p>\n

Fortunately, the whole “without insurance” thing is only a half-truth.\u00a0 It’s true she’s probably facing $30,000 in medical bills and 6 months worth of lost wages, but there are also hundreds (maybe thousands) of people who are committed to helping her out.\u00a0 The crowds are already organizing a central calendar to plan visits, transportation, and meals for her, and schemes for several fundraisers are already in the works.<\/p>\n

She doesn’t have that kind of safety net because she’s a nice person.<\/p>\n

She has that safety net because she has spent her entire life listening to and supporting the people around her, pursuing her dreams as honestly as possible, and including as many people as she can in them.<\/p>\n

UPDATE!\u00a0 Stuff You Can Do…<\/h3>\n