Decentralized friendships

I started writing this essay on the plane ride back from ETH Denver 2022. It was 4 of the best days of my life. I partied with venture capitalists, had all-you-can-eat Brazilian steak with crypto investors, and brunched with ex-soldiers.

The kicker is I only had met one person there IRL (in real life) prior to the conference.

I hopped on the plane to see a bunch of friends I only met via Twitter, Zoom, and phone calls. Ten years ago, that might have sounded bizarre (and maybe it still does sound weird to you), but I can assure you I was not the only person in that situation.

When my dad was at college, most of his friends came from his dorm and the bar. Because of the internet, we’re able to make friends anywhere in the world.

We now have communities online for anything and everything you’re interested in. Online communities are not just helpful for finding yard sales in your local area, but also for making genuine connections and building relationships.

Like an IRL community, you’re not going to make friends in an online community unless you get involved, are kind, and are a productive member of the community.

For me, this meant lurking on Twitter for a while, tweeting the occasional funny one-liner, and now writing essays and wellness-tech articles.

Creating content is a magnet for like-minded people.

Because I a) put out useful content, b) engage with others’ content, c) dm people I think are cool, and d) have phone calls, I’ve built my own little digital community of creators, nomads, and founders.

I love my friends in New Brunswick. Seriously, they’re fucking amazing, but why should I only have friends in cities I’ve lived?

Because of Twitter, I’ve made friends in cities I’ve never stepped.

Let’s clarify 2 things for a moment.

1. Some people say Twitter is a cesspool. This is because they are following assholes, losers, and morons. If you follow kind, intelligent people and be kind to them1, you’ll probably make some friends along the way2.

2. By internet friends, I do not mean mutual follows. I mean friends I feel comfortable calling when I need a second opinion on an idea or just want to shoot the shit. If I visit any of these cities, I know I’ll have someone to show me the cool spots.

Rather than solely having a group of Rutgers friends or high school friends, I have a decentralized network of friendships across the country.

There’s a few notable benefits to having a decentralized network of friends:

• Because all of these friends come from different backgrounds, they have unique viewpoints that are beneficial when I’m thinking through certain situations

• When I’m looking for jobs, there are people across the country who can help me

• If I move to a major city, there is a good chance I’ll know someone who can show me the cool spots

There’s probably a bunch more that I’m not even considering. The truth is I see almost no downsides3 to making friendships from a platform like Twitter.

When I tell my Rutgers friends I make friends on Twitter, they’re incredibly confused. Yet, they have sex with people from Tinder, sleep in homes they find on Airbnb, and work for employers they found through LinkedIn.

If people get married from dating apps, why can’t people make friends - a significantly lower-stake relationship - from an app like Twitter?

The URL-to-IRL-Pipeline

This build-up from an online friendship to an IRL friendship is something I’ve been calling the URL-to-IRL-pipeline. If you can’t tell, I’m very bullish on it.

Social media should inherently be social. It should be used not just for seeing your high school friend’s baby pics, but for joining communities and making new friends.

This leads me into the idea of periodically IRL friendships4.

We all have periodically IRL friendships: the friends you only see once every few months, but see on social media everyday. Based off recent trends in globalization and remote work, I predict 2 things:

1. As remote work grows, more of our past frequently IRL friendships will become periodically IRL due to the rising ability to travel as a digital nomad

2. As the metaverse takes hold, people will make more friends online which are typically inherently periodically IRL

You know that friend Morgan you see everyday in class? Well, she got a remote job and is traveling the country with her best friend.

Whereas she used to be someone you see every week, now she is a friend you talk to on the phone and see whenever you cross IRL paths.

And what about that guy Adam from Twitter you talk to about digital health stuff? Now you’re both going to ETH Denver and are gonna grab food and work on the project you’ve been talking about.

You’ll probably see him at the next conference in NYC. Rather than a friend you only talk to online, he becomes a periodically IRL friend.

Periodically IRL friendships will inherently be different than frequently IRL friendships, but different does not mean bad. Different means different.

Go out friend and talk to strangers on the internet.

You’re already getting in the car with strangers.

Twitter: @iamjasonlevin

TikTok: @iamjasonlevin

Podcast: jasonlevin.io/brain

Side note: 

What is funny is I’ve been building periodically IRL friendships since I was 14.

When I was in high school, I was in a Jewish youth group called BBYO. I lived in King of Prussia, but I got tight with a group of guys from Allentown and Harrisburg - both 90 minutes away.

Because I cared a lot about these friends, I was fine driving to them on the weekends and they were fine driving to me. Now 7 years post-graduation, I talk to 0-1 people from my actual high school per year, but I talk to BBYO friends everyday.

Perhaps it’s the fact periodically IRL friendships require more work and are thus strengthened? Or maybe I was just a grumpy asshole during school hours?

Probably a bit of both.