Admittedly this is a bit ranty, and if that's not your jam, feel free to skip.
I stopped scrolling most social media feeds when the slop arrived. First it came in the form of images, big awkward hero images that were psychedelic or had too many arms and fingers. Then it shifted to listicle after listicle. Then the articles that inserted a new line after every... single... sentence.
I was over it.
The personal voice and opinions were gone. The images were uncomfortably odd for my brain to process. The attention grabbing tactics were at an all time high and it just wasn't doing it for me anymore.
So I stopped scrolling. The community that existed on those platforms were dead to me.
This means I missed things like your promotion or new job or even some significant tech news. Eventually the important things did find me, but I never found myself missing scrolling. I took that energy to engage somewhere else.
Fast forward to people saying "this community is dead" or "that community has an engagement problem". The "community" has likely been taken over by garbage that doesn't foster engagement, so the people left. Myself included. Communities are living, breathing organisms and when you fill them with trash, they simply cannot thrive.
This isn't a post to bash on the admins or the moderators, if they even exist on a particular platform, because that's a hard job, and where do you draw the line in this AI-enabled world? You need content, but you also need engaging content. You need engaged users, but you may need to re-engage users who left. Do we even have the tools and understanding to manage this? Do these platforms have community managers or teams evaluating this?
Now more than ever people are looking for community, on and offline. They crave it for a variety of reasons, but a sense of belonging, trust, and safety remains. They want to be part of something that connects them to other people in a positive way. People will cultivate community spaces when they feel empowered, dare I say emboldened, to do so. Active and engaged participation is the goal, not casual drive-by headline reading. You want people excited and enthusiastic to show up. And show up regularly.
So why mention this? Why post this?
Because I love to complain. But mostly if I'm complaining about something, it's because I'm passionate about it. I strongly believe active participants in communities encourage others to do the same - be active participants.
Because I think we are over indexing on "communities are dead" and blaming AI. Have you considered that your AI-generated content isn't engaging? Have you considered comments are more important than views, and provoking a discussion is maybe more meaningful? Have you considered you might be the problem, with or without AI?
2026 is apparently the year where I'm just going to say "we have to live in community" over and over again until I hear people say it back to me. But it's true! If you want an engaged community, you need to lead by example and cultivate the environment you are looking for.
Does that mean I'm suggesting you can't use AI in your blogs? No. But it does mean you should evaluate your blogs for engagement, AI or otherwise. Would you read it? Would you comment on it if someone else wrote it?
Are your actions or participation a value-add? Because we can't put admins, moderators, and community managers solely responsible for supporting healthy communities. There needs to be some level of personal accountability.
And maybe it's more obvious in offline spaces. You won't attend another meetup or event where you felt unsafe or uncomfortable. So if a weird AI hero image made you uncomfortable, why would you read the content underneath? Are you seeing the connection here?
So I'm really interested in challenging this idea that a particular community is dead. Is it dead? Did you or do you positively or negatively contribute to it? And what does it mean to you if it's gone forever?
How important is a community to you? And how actively will you participate going forward?
Photo by mauro mora on Unsplash
Top comments (8)
The community is dead if you see it as is as a whole.
It is almost impossible to track everyone, especially on a platform where there are millions of users. There are communities where it is not well known, but it can be active to someone's eyes. Maybe if you were walking by on the internet and see a community that is based on a game that is very old, you may think that community is dead based on the size. However, if you are part of that community, it is not.
It's all about perspective and how you see it. I can imagine someone coming on Dev.to and see the community is "dead" because of how little 3 million people are on this platform compare to Twitter where there is over 100 million. BUT, if you are part of it, like us, it is not dead and that it is quite well.
You also have to account for communities WITHIN a community. For example, on dev.to, there are organizations you can join that is exclusive on Dev.to and in that org, there are mini communities within. It may seem dead to you, but for them it is not.
Again, all about perspective! Thanks for sharing :D
I love your point about communities within a community. I think that’s also the value of following or subscribing to certain groups or people (depending on how the platform works).
Could you tell I was so frustrated with people going “well, insert community platform here is obviously dead”? 😅 Is it? Or is it just no longer serving YOU and YOUR definition of community?
I was hoping for the "no longer serving YOU and YOUR definition of community" part based on what I read lol
Usually that tone is based on Jealously, but I really don't see it for some reason. Not sure if you hear that tone as well or I might be misinterpreting it.
With online communities where people really got attached to high vanity metrics (views, likes, etc.), it does feel like some kind of jealous or ego issue where people see less likes, for example, and immediately go "well this community is dead." That's where I have to wonder if there was any reflection on their engagement or content that maybe drove less likes, rather than just being flippant.
This kind of thinking has led me to review things like books differently. I usually say "this book wasn't for me" rather than "this book is bad". I'd like to encourage something similar with communities - "this community isn't for me" or even "this community is no longer for me". Feels more constructive and leaves space for other people, who are still a part of that community, to feel good about their investment in that community.
I love this take — especially the idea that “dead” often just means it stopped serving you.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that while building a small project called Yorgute.
One thing I’m trying to explore is:
what if a community doesn’t need to feel “alive” all the time?
Most platforms define “alive” as:
But that’s also what creates pressure, noise, and eventually burnout.
In Yorgute, I’m intentionally not optimizing for that.
No algorithm.
No infinite feed.
So some spaces may feel quiet — and that’s okay.
Because maybe:
I really resonate with what you said about perspective.
Sometimes a community isn’t dead —
it’s just no longer performing.
And maybe that’s not a problem, but a different kind of design.
This hit close to home. 🙏
I've been on both sides of this building communities that fizzled out, and being part of spaces that quietly went silent. The pattern is always the same: at first, everyone shows up. Then gradually, people stop talking unless there's a clear why to show up.
The part about AI changing how we engage really resonates. I use AI tools daily for writing and coding, but I've noticed something: when I lean too much on AI to "polish" my comments or replies, they lose something. They become technically correct but emotionally flat. People can tell.
I've started treating AI as a thinking partner, not a replacement for my voice. The words still have to be mine.
Your point about communities dying because no one is tending the garden that's the truth. Engagement isn't something that scales automatically. It requires someone to keep showing up, keep asking questions, keep making space for others to feel safe enough to speak.
What's been your experience with communities that actually survived? Was there a moment or a shift that made the difference?
Really appreciate you writing this. It's a reminder that the tech changes, but the human part doesn't. 🙌
The collective group continued to show up or reinvest time that had been spent elsewhere. In most cases it was the community-minded people who had some level of tolerance for the ebb and flow of participation. Even if the connection or participation was smaller than it was previously, it was still there, and they were excited for that.
Maybe the biggest thing I noticed was group organizers checking in with the community - did people still want this? Would they show up? Would they volunteer their time? Or had something changed and it was no longer needed?
Well it's a rant, but a great one :-)