Symbols: The Offline Connection For Online Communities

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People use symbols to help make mental connections more tangible, and the memories of them more easily accessed and brought into the conscious mind. Durkheim (1965 [1912]: 251 – 52) writes of how members of groups tend to become fixed on totems as tangible representations of groups, keeping the images of the totem in their minds and attaching real sentiments to them, because the social reality of a group (even a dyad) is too complex to be mentally retained in its entirety. When a group is dispersed – or the people involved in a social connection are not in direct contact – totems continue to bring those with whom one is involved to mind and even in a sense to “resemble” the group mentally.

There are literally limitless potential totems – people, things, ideas, images – around which people coalesce, which they similarly see and fix upon, and through which they develop the impressions of one another so entral to social connections. Photographs are one of peoples favorite such symbols, often taken or displayed to specifically to remind people of absent others.

I don’t know if I’ve ever even stepped back and asked myself, “why do I want that photo of me and my groomsman on the wall,” but I would gather that who you have up on your wall… are the people that you don’t see everday. You may not need pictures if people are right here, living next door… If you looked at my wall, at the pictures, most of them would be of people that I am close to, but are not around. For example, I have a great friend nearby named Rick. I don’t have any photos of Rick on the wall. (Bruce)

Symbols lead us, as Suzanne Langer tells us, “to conceive their objects” (1957: 6) – the objects, in this case, being the people with whom we form connections. As photographs generate memories, they bring “the other” back into one’s mind and help the connector sense, visualize, and thus renew the connections.

When I hear salsa music, it reminds me of my aunt. (Rosa)

A way of “enhancing and coordinating group feelings” (Gates 1992: 58)., music helps evoke social connections and communities of the mind particularly well. Disc jockey Paul Cavalconte tapped into this idea as he said during his radio show one morning, “Hearing an old song is like meeting and old friend” (WNEW-AM broadcast, February 6, 1991).

But symbols can, in fact, be virtually anything:

-       Being in school reminds me of my mother. (Jose)

-       When I see something geen. Like clothes. Because my sister really loves gree Or when it’s hot out because she’s got asthma. (Joanne)

-       Whenever I’m trying to solve a problem…my friend comes to the top of my head. She’s the problem lady. (Elise)

-       Hearing something about Cuba reminds me of my family. (Rosa)

Symbols constantly touch off mental images and impressions and bring them into the conscious mind, helping us retrieve temporarily dormant memories and connections. Simply put, symbols are the offline connection for online communities.

Questions of the day –

• What symbols are you using in your communities?
• Are your symbols the same as what your community members consider as symbols for your community?
• How many different forms of symbols are you using?

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