I feel for you man. I live in Brooklyn and I can meet all the weirdos I want here (though the fact that we're so spread out makes having a 'community' hard sometimes). So I get why Reddit and its ilk would seem like the best available option. But if at all possible, I think moving to where your people are is going to scratch the itch more holistically.
This person has been thinking hard about this: https://twitter.com/Prigoose, https://prigoose.substack.com/
Re:Ask HN: Alternatives to Reddit
by johnnyanmac on Monday June 12, 2023 @04:46PM
(#36300823)
That's the strange thing of it all. I'm not necessarily in Los Angeles proper, but I'm in a suburb and am fine driving downtown. There theoretically shouldn't be a better place to find some 20's people interested in various geek/tech content. I'm sure the groups are there, but I'm not sure where to look.
The only better place in theory is up north in Silicon Valley. But I'm not sure if I want to move and drastically up my cost of living in the process.
Re:Ask HN: Alternatives to Reddit
by pellucidar on Tuesday June 13, 2023 @09:01AM
(#36309644)
LA is a stranger place than it seems if you haven’t lived elsewhere as an adult. SV is definitely not the only better place, though the candidates may be similarly expensive due to the density you need (Boston, NYC, etc.).
I'm also in LA ~ can connect you with some interesting folks!
Agreed that there's not great resources for local discovery, beyond Discord groups and Meetups (which sort of died during the pandemic)
I have better luck online. Heck, I had better luck in mobile game guilds. And the pandemic honestly made things even worse, worse in a way that has longer term effects than I ever predicted.
I can have a whole multi-post rant about the fall of social hubs, the futility of Meetups, and simply the difficulties of a late 20's male trying to find a friend group their age, but that's probably too tangential for a post asking about online communities.