Speaking of invitations…

Upcoming has good attributes of both guy culture and Silicon Valley culture.
In girl culture, there are infinite nuances to invitations, non-invitations, and anti-invitations. Girls invite to pre-parties, afterparties, and other intimate moments that complement official get-togethers. When a traditional girl wants you to come, she looks you in the eye an invites *you*. When a traditional girl wants to know you’re only sort of welcome, she tells you that there’s an event going on. When a traditional girl wants to snub you, she tells the person standing next to you that they are invited to her event. Bonus girl points for making sure you hear, while whisking the other person away.
Guy invitations are delightfully simple, by contrast. A guy describes an event, and assumes that’s an invitation. Hey, there’s a tailgate party. Or hey, we’re going riding.
Upcoming does the delightfully simple, guy-like version. The event is declared, with a time and a place. The attendee declaresly, openly and impersonally, if they are “watching” the event, or, “attending” the event. Here it is, come if you want to, no big deal if you don’t.
Upcoming also has aspects of bay area culture. People have a facility at declaring parties. There’s Mobile Monday, and Tag Tuesday, and Wiki Wednesday, and “bar camp”. People pick themes or places and flock, often enough that you need some automation to keep track of it all. And the communities are big and dispersed enough that a public bulletin board is helpful; in smaller communities, it’s easier and more obvious to let the subcommunity who needs to know more directly.
The one thing I wish it did was slurp events into a personal calendar. Today’s task was copying and pasting sxsw sessions and parties.

One thought on “Speaking of invitations…”

  1. I love this, carried me right back to junior high school!
    Now, imagine me looking into your eyes as I say how much fun it would be to see you again at SXSW, maybe at the March 10 evening BlogHer hangout?

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