On The Social

I said I was influenced by Hakim Bey. He always championed the social. He wrote it was no accident that there was an attack on the social with the likes of Thatcher - "There is no such thing as society" - at the same time as the rise of computers and electronic networks in the 80s - both leading way to a painful "individualism".
He wrote that if you managed to meet every week with a group of people that are "not your family or 'the people you know at work'", you already have attained the revolution - because you have fought the prime anti-social force of organized power that splits communities and the world in small peaces. Workplace and family were excluded as they were already "self-alienated" groups that were no harm to power, instead complicit with it.
Nowadays a lot more groups could be added to this category. And we have reached a situation were indeed many, many people spent their lives almost entirely at the workplace and their family - is the victory of "power" total?
So what I tried to do with my activities in the Hardcore scene was to give room to the social. That's why I was involved in the AuditivSex fanzine, the Hamburg Hardcore Radio, the All-Out Demolition! parties and so on - to give room for people to meet each other. For freaks to meet other freaks. To create a free community.
Now, I quickly realized this was no easy task. Because the people I met in Hardcore, especially end of the 90s and early 2000s, weren't exactly "social butterflies". They were loner types, often socially anxious or just liked to keep to themselves.
But, maybe paradoxically, at the same time, they were not uninterested in the social. So with the radio, or with parties, I indeed met weekly with people that were not "the people I know at work or my family". And, was it the revolution?
Yes, it was. I never felt so magical in my life. There was a true community of freaks that exchanged ideas and debates and just partying, and of course most of all, great music. There was a free exchange of emotions and thoughts that was not based on a community that stifled, but instead embraced each others individualism.
I don't say this to "boast", but to show that it was really possible.
Nowadays, I feel the rise of social media "paradoxically" is an even more severe attack on the social, and it gave rise to a very toxic all-encompassing false "individualism". False individualism is now marketed as a kind of "salvation" - people longing to be lonely. But in my opinion this is because of the toxic "herd mentality" - a false social - that is existing in society and the media now, that really makes it seem better to be "alone".

Is it still possible to fight this? What way should one choose? With the radio station, for example, real people met at a real location in space and time and a real contact was there. Could the same achieved by creating a Facebook group, for example? Likely not.
With my own activity in the Hardcore scene, I feel I'm part of a community again - again a very magic community. But it was years of struggling, is almost invisible, more fragile than how it was in 2000.
But, there must be a way. Even if we have to find new methods. The fight will continue.