Pornhub for Enterprise™

You live in a small town.

You moved here recently, and you want to get involved in your local community, and you see a poster for an online community centered around events and issues related to your small town. Great!

You have some pleasantries, spend a few days hanging out on voice with some people, but not long after, you’re asked if you were born in this town or moved here. The person who asks says that's great! I had a feeling because of your accent. It's nice to have out-of-towners in our community. You are a little self-concious for a moment. Is your accent that different? Does everyone you talk to know you weren't born here, and is being polite about it? You brush it off, even though you're a little hurt.

You spend a little more time in the community. You notice that there's one or two other people who moved to the small town later in life, "out-of-towners", but they aren't very active. The town is a very idyllic place, and you're sure more people have moved here than are present in the community. You also notice that there's a few people, not the majority by all means, but frequent members of the community, who don't live in your town at all. They live in the big city, and used to live in the small town when they were children! That's great for them. You talk with them frequently, and they're polite and courteous. They don't really get called an 'out-of-towner' like you do, but you don't pay it any heed.

Then, another out-of-towner joins the community. She's a little hot-headed, gets into a fight, and is kicked out of the community within days of joining it. One of the people living in the big city says 'Well, what can you expect from an out-of-towner. She couldn't understand the way we do things around here.' You're a little taken aback - you're an out-of-towner, and you didn't realize that's how everyone else thought about you. You ask the person from the big city what they mean by that. They say that since they were very young, they've lived in the small town, and even though they live in the big city now, they still carry the solidarity of belonging to a small town. Sometimes, in the big city, people even comment on the fact that they are from a small town! They can tell when someone doesn't belong. But they complement you, saying you fit in just like a real small-towner. You try and go on with your day.

Over the next month, you start to pick up on some things. A lot of time is spent talking about the big city. There's even a specific space for people living in the big city to talk about their lives, but there isn't a space for out-of-towners who have moved to the small town to talk about their struggles or difficulties adjusting to living in the small town. You ask the people who run the community why there isn't one, and they say there just aren't enough out-of-towners to justify it. You ask why there's so many people from the big city and so few out-of-towners in a community about the small town. The community managers say that they've let people stay in the community for a long time now, going back to when the community was first created, even if they move out of the small town. It's more inclusive!

You don't feel very included as an out-of-towner, but that's alright. It is good for people to have a place to belong.

You try to talk about organizing an in-person board game night on the server. It's going well, and then one of the people from the big city says that they'd rather do it online so they can attend. You say, well, I wanted to get to know some people in person better, so I'd prefer to do it in person. Some other people who currently live in the small town take their side. It's best to include everyone! Why would you want to leave out people from the big city? They've got just as much right to play board games as the rest of us. You don't want to exclude people from the big city, do you? And you agree, so you say, how about we run one board game night online, and another in person?

You only ever end up playing board games online. You've spent a few months in the town now, and you haven't met anyone from your community in real life.

Eventually, you've had a rough day at work, and you come onto the community a little frustrated and looking for something to argue about. Someone from the small town makes a snide comment about out-of-towners, how they always try to act like people from the small town think they're scary because they haven't been part of the small-town social circle their whole lives. One of the people from the big city talks about how entitled out-of-towners are, and that no one thinks that people from small towns are scary in the big city. Out-of-towners are just delusional.

You remember when you first moved into the small town. No one at the convenience store would make eye contact with you. People at work took a few months to exchange anything more than pleasantries with you. A couple people became more distant when you told them how you had moved in recently. You say that out-of-towners do have it pretty tough in the small town, and that it's not really the same for people from a small town moving to a big town. You say you're a little frustrated with how people in the community have treated out-of-towners.

It results in a flame war. You're accused of hating people from the big city (Never mind that you were born in the big city.) Both small-town natives and people currently living in the big city talk about small annoyances that have piled up, things you didn't know were infractions, things that they talked about you doing in private. Eventually, you just say it. Why are people from the big city in this community about a small town? When you try to organize events in the small town, they never happen. When you talk about problems you have living in the small town, they redirect the conversation to talk about problems they have in the big city. Just because they were born here, does that make their opinions and thoughts more valuable than you? Why do they value staying here so much? You're not saying they have to abandon all their friends from the small town, but maybe they could form their own community that talks about things in the big city?

The response is quick. Well, what about people who live out of town but commute to the small town for work. Do you think they shouldn't be here? There are kids that have one parent in the small town and one parent in the big city. Are they supposed to just not have a spot to be in because sometimes they're in the big city? You know that it's more complicated than being a person from the big city or being a person from the small town. And you say, that's fine, those people can be here because they spend time in the small town just like the rest of us. But people from the big city don't live here! They don't know what happens in the small town because they haven't been here for years, and they get treated with more authority than I do! And I live here! I live in the small town!

One of your friends who is from the big city sends you a message. They understand why you're upset. They try to explain to you why they stay in the small town community. They have lots of friends there. In the big city, they're treated like a small town person. Even though they don't feel like they live in a small town anymore, they feel like they have more in common with small town people than big city people. They spent their entire childhood living in the small town. Do you really think they should just forget that? Is having been born in the small town not a part of them?

Having been born in the big city isn't a part of you. Not anymore. You left that place behind. You can't really relate to someone who holds so closely on to the place they were born in that way.

You go back in to the community. Against your better judgment, you send a message. You say, I am not an 'out-of-towner.' I live, and belong, and am a part of this small town as much as anyone else here. Please do not call me an out-of-towner ever again. I live in a small town.

You have to turn off your phone. You don't really get an apology from anyone who calls you an out-of-towner. You slowly start being a little less active in the community. You find out that some members of the community are part of a community that explicitly forbids out-of-towners, including some of the people from the big city. The community staff say that that community is wrong, and they don't support it, but those people still stay in the community, they don't leave. They don't even really act less vitriolic about out-of-towners, they just learn how to coat it in less inflammatory language. You can't stop noticing it. Sometimes, people from the big city make jokes about how much the small town sucks. To your confusion, some people from the small town laugh and agree.

It's hard to not build some resentment towards the people from the big city. They just want friends, you know? The people from the big city aren't any different from you, you both are people who've done the arduous task of moving. You hope you could find some solidarity in that. It's not wrong to live in the big city. You should be upset with the people who hate out-of-towners, really.

But the people from the big city are a little too eager to stay around people who hate out-of-towners. Sure, they live in the big city, but they'll always be a small town person at heart, won't they? They can explain why they like staying in the community as much as they want, but you know that the people welcoming them into small town communities don't care that they were socialized in the community, they care that they were born in the community. Out-of-towners who moved to the town when they were 5 get treated just like you do. As long as big city people born in a small town are welcomed, and people who moved to the small town are excluded, this community will never be a place for out-of-towners.

These are the people that we're insinuating that it's okay to make a political target? Are we fuckin' serious rn?

This is… not a good idea.