This time last year, I was standing in a sea of thousands of people at Outside Lands, utterly alone. I cried softly as Gracie Abrams poured her heart out on stage, some emotional blender of regret for having moved to San Francisco thereby leaving behind my friends and stress of starting a new job for the second time that year. When I had bought my ticket in March of 2025, I felt sure that by the time August 2025 rolled around, I would have made enough friends in the city that I would know someone else who was planning to go. I was wrong. Even now, I feel embarrassed to admit that I ended up going alone.

At the time, my then-boyfriend had become my closest friend in the city by a wide margin. Looking back, this was no surprise. We had reconnected at a time when I was winding down from my previous job, where I hadn’t had the time to invest in local friendships, and he became the medium through which I explored and came to understand the city. It was easier to hang out with him than to try and make new friends, which is a hard, daunting, and slow task. I was counting down the days until my childhood best friend was planning to move to the city, aching for familiarity.

In many ways, close friendships are like romance. Often, you just stumble into its beginnings. Sometimes it’s a conversation with a friend you’ve known for a long time that kickstarts closeness. Sometimes you meet someone and instantly hit it off. Other times you run into each other again and again until one day you realize you’ve become something more.

Although I’ve dissected the conditions in which romantic love is likelier to form at great length, there has been no greater fascination for me than the conditions under which close friendships form. Community is not quite friendship, only the prerequisite and consequence of many friendships, of varying closeness.

Two years ago, inspired by the inaugural field day in Boston, I put forward a hypothesis for community. Over the past year, I have been explicitly and implicitly thinking about how to foster these conditions for others in this city, and how to participate in these conditions myself.

As of late, an extraordinary thing has been happening in my life. It’s hard to say exactly when it happened — maybe as recent as a few weeks ago, maybe it started months ago. Slowly, amorphously, unevenly, and then at all once, like whipping frosting from heavy cream.

Although I won’t be going to Outside Lands this year, 13 friends showed up last minute at my house last Tuesday night just to hang out and help me figure out if my next crazy party scheme was gonna work. Many of these friends have shown up for other live music, game nights, tennis, climbing, long runs, weekend trips surrounding the city; and many more have been wonderfully familiar faces at parties weekend after weekend. I don’t want to say that I feel like I’m in college again, because I think we all deserve this type of connection beyond those years, but I do.

This thing, dare I say, feels kind of like community.

Two field days and one new city later, my hypothesis still stands. To be included and seen again and again feels like belonging to a community. In order to be included and seen again and again, you have to put in the work of showing up. Here it is, revised.

1. Invitation - How Community Forms

An obvious but deeply important prerequisite for community is how it forms and who gets invited. In community building, it’s important that people feel like they have been invited, not just that they have actually been invited.

While there is tension between inclusion and exclusivity, the importance of invitation comes from exclusivity.

Invitation is more than a text or a card to a single event — it is the group collectively saying in some say that they want you to be a part of it. Sometimes it is skill that qualifies you to join the community, like the D1 sports team that bonds deeply over shared trauma and hunger to win. Sometimes you buy a home and your neighbors become your community. Sometimes it is as simple as a silly Partiful, which labels you and a select group of partiers as “Going.”

At one extreme, exclusivity is a big draw of secret societies and things like Harvard’s final clubs. At the other extreme, the cheapness of digital communities tells us a bit about the importance of barriers to entry. A free-entry community is simply diluted.

Invitation becomes a signal of exclusivity, which in turn creates an identity marker. Suddenly, the group shares the identity of belonging to the group.

Invitation is also a signal of inclusion — deliberate inclusion of you. Said differently, invitation matters because it initiates a sense of belonging, which is inseparable from both “visibility” and “stakes.”

2. Visibility - Everyone Must Be Seen

Communities work when they are webs, where every node is connected in some way. It is one thing to be invited, and another to show up and truly feel welcome in a group. The role of a single community is to not to fully understand you — communities, after all, typically are built upon only one shared identity — but to make sure you are seen.

Not everyone needs to see everyone in the group. It’s an impossible task when communities are constantly changing shape with blurry boundaries. Visibility across constituents, even as they change, is why community leaders and organizers can play enormously important roles. It’s helpful when you have one or a few people who really see everyone in the community.

The pastor at the church I played the piano at in high school was, as I imagine many pastors are, a shining example of a community leader. Even I, an outsider to Christianity, felt seen by her. To this day, that small United Methodist church had one of the most genuine, warm communities I’ve ever experienced.

In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker makes the case for the critical role that a party host can play, not just during their event but in the design of it. I suspect this visibility secret is partly why field day is always a smashing hit: every partygoer belongs to a team, with the intent for team captains to see their whole teams.

But every member of the community has agency and influence to invite others in and see them. It can be as simple as saying hi to a new face, or inviting someone you enjoyed meeting to the next hang out or event.

3. Stakes - What Will I Give to Be a Part of my Community?

If I’m being totally honest with you, my friendships in the city have changed dramatically for the better since I’ve become single again. Most of it has to do with time.

Often, stake starts with time. Trading time for friendship can feel like a surprisingly unobvious choice when pitted against romantic interests, career, physical health, family, to name a few.

Community is inconvenient. People might ask for favors. Showing up might conflict with your own priorities. And, although people don’t talk about it, community can be uncomfortable. Because people can be weird. And imperfect. And annoying. But aren’t we all?

Stake can take many other forms than time. It can look like necessity and willingness to be vulnerable; tolerance for annoyance; compromise.

I believe this statement about most things, but especially about connection: everything worth having requires giving of yourself. It might feel more intuitive to ask, what’s in it for me? But the question that matters more is, what am I giving to be here?

4. Continuity - Community Through Repetition

Although I get so much joy from meeting new people, I understand that true community can only form through repeated interactions. Over the past 18 months, I have been learning this lesson again the hard way, which is really the only way to learn it - we simply have to show up again and again, and sometimes we need to be the ones who create the instances for others to show up to.

Events I’m excited for this month:

1. North Beach First Friday Art Walk | August 7, 2026

The North Beach monthly art walk is one of my favorite events in the city, partly because North Beach is the neighborhood to go to when you want to feel like you’re in a rom-com. Grant Ave has a palpable sense of community on this night, and you can check out live music and great art on just about every corner

1. Outside Lands after parties | August 7 & 8, 2026

The energy in the city from Outside Lands is pretty sweet. If you don’t get tickets to the actual festival this year (understandable given the lineup), there are lots of folks hosting parties around the city to keep the night going. Check Partiful!

1. Kaleido SF’s After Hours Open Mic | August 23, 2026

Kaleido SF’s open mic is back at Madrone’s this month! Founded in SF by fellow Gen Z, Kaleido is a nonprofit event collective for artists and creators.

Upcoming at ATTC

1. get a clue!, a scavenger hunt-style dating event | Sept 12, 2026

I’ve been working hard on this one and it’s coming your way extremely, extremely soon… save the date!

2. Purgatory, an SF community zine | Launch party Dec 2026

Details on the zine are now live. Timeline:

• Now: collecting interest here, thanks to everyone who has already submitted!

• Late August - September: make your art! together, if you want

• October - early November: editing + workshopping

• Late November - early December: zine release party!

Til next time,

Jess

It was totally absurd, and it was a ton of fun.

Funnily, we were just one of many groups hosting field days last month. Between lawn games, pajama parties, bouncy houses, and spelling bees, it’s clear we miss the days when we were kids.

Gen Z’s obsession with nostalgia has become so obvious, so prolific, that news outlets, comedians, and cultural commentators have made a caricature and mystery of us.

We’re not obsessed with the 1990s

The media specifically wants to claim we’re obsessed with the ‘90s, which I’m not sure is true.

Curiously, the 1990s do make for a very clean narrative (and perhaps, therefore, a great marketing ploy to sell us Y2K clothing and “analog” everything). They were a golden era, marking the end of the Cold War and into an era of relative peace. Treatment for HIV was finally becoming widely available. The economy was booming, and by the middle of the decade, Gen X twenty-somethings actually had more spending power than the Boomers above them.

Most obviously, the ‘90s was the last decade before the internet ascended like a freaking wild, magical Beanstalk, the last of a world in which we did not yet exist to serve our plastic-metal brick vortexes.

Technology has so sharply shaped the fabric of our lives that it feels almost sillily useless, or uselessly silly, to lay it out here. Yes, the Pope is Catholic. In today’s world,

1. The real cost of technology has gone down, but the price of real-life experience has gone up enormously.

   Ordering drinks, going to concerts, all of it is damn expensive! People have talked so much about longing for “third spaces” that the phrase has become nearly satirical, a box that the algo has put you into. When you live in a shoebox and venues are impossibly expensive, it’s unsurprisingly hard to gather folks.

2. On-demand has reduced opportunities to gather in person.

   We used to go to movie premieres, or gather for weekly show tapings. We’d run into each other at the grocery store, the mall, the post office. Spontaneity spawns out of gatherings. Many of my favorite days in the city have come from starting the day or evening with a particular group, and then mutually deciding to keep doing things together. It’s probably why living with roommates who are good friends is decidedly more fun1.

Both of these changes have the same effect, which is isolation. We desire for connection, but it is structurally out of reach. We live more of our lives alone — or with our immediate family, our partner, and the parasocial relationships we’ve formed deep in the armpits of TikTok and Instagram.

In the end, our generational ache is not about any particular decade. We are coming of age in a time when the rules and structure of our society are shifting, and promise to continue morphing as AI diffuses into the fabric of our lives.

It feels almost as if we have been…robbed? Robbed of, perhaps, free will, most certainly the illusion of it. We are dating less, underemployed or unemployed altogether, and have no clear path to homeownership unless we commit to the “escape the permanent underclass” bit.

In the moments we are not entranced by our rabid hamster wheel lives, we are collectively asking ourselves what the damn point of all this is.

We’re just trying to make sense of the goddamn world

Fret not, for the meaning of life is an age-old question, and in bleak times we can turn to philosophy to make sense of it all.2

Recently, I’ve been compelled by the The Myth of Sisyphus3, where French philosopher Albert Camus describes nostalgia as the ache to ascribe meaning to human existence, even though and especially because the world is fundamentally devoid of meaning.

I think we are filled with nostalgia in Camus’s sense of it. We are desperately searching for meaning in a world that feels increasingly meaningless.4

Camus declares that absurdity is the only reprieve for the angst that exists between human nostalgia and the unknowable.

“The irrational, the human nostalgia, and the absurd that is born of their encounter—these are the three characters in the drama that must necessarily end with all the logic of which an existence is capable.” — Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

So when I reflect on why we all love a good field day, childhood wonder was where the absurd lived most comfortably.

In pursuit of revolt, freedom, and passion

Camus says that a life that is lived consciously — thereby embracing absurdity — through the pursuit of revolt, freedom, and passion, is the best we can do for ourselves. I mean that not to frame life as de minimis, but as a chance at profound abundance.

Camus calls upon fellow philosopher Nietzsche to affirm this orientation toward the absurd.

“It clearly seems that the chief thing in heaven and on earth is to obey at length and in a single direction: in the long run there results something for which it is worth the trouble of living on this earth, as, for example, virtue, art, music, the dance, reason, the mind—something that transgures, something delicate, mad, or divine.” — Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Before we get too wrapped up in this philosophical woo-woo, I really mean to say that at least two notable philosophers are telling us that we should:

1. Party more, for parties are the ultimate stage for absurdity.

2. Make art, of which parties are a form, and which is the other great stage for absurdity.

Make art together!

This month, I am officially launching the project, Purgatory, a one-volume, one-issue community zine. Details on the zine are now live.

Timeline:

1. July - early August: submit your interest here

2. Late August - September: make your art! together, if you want

3. October - early November: editing + workshopping

4. Late November - early December: zine release party!

Claim your limited edition attc tote + snail mail

A very huge thank you to my first-ever paid subscribers — I’m genuinely blown away and honored to have your readership (and, hopefully, partygoership) <3

I’ll be sending out my first batch of snail mail later this month, and with it including a ~limited edition~ anti tech tech club tote bag. Anyone who upgrades to paid before July 15th will be included in this batch!

Events I’m excited for this month:

1. Sundown Cinema | July 24th, 2026

Speaking of bringing back movie premieres as an excuse to gather, the SF Standard runs an annual outdoor movie series each summer. This month, they’re showing Inside Out at the Presidio. Join our watch party here!

2. Valencia Live | 2nd Thursday of the month

On July 9th, Valencia St. will be lively again with dancing, booths, and music. Of SF’s many great night markets, Valencia Live remains my favorite.

3. The SF Marathon | July 26th, 2026

The city’s biggest marathon returns this month! Go cheer on a friend, or a stranger…

Til next time,

Jess

San Francisco is a great magnifier of all things beautiful and ugly about human nature. It doesn’t take much more than a stroll through the now-booming Financial District to understand this. Magnificent skyscrapers pierce through a perfectly blue sky. Somehow, it is always foggy, and it is always sunny here. At ground level, under the bus stop awning, AI promises you’ll never have to hire a human again. Ava the SDR, fading, stares blankly at you with cold eyes and decaying teeth. It’s easiest to look away.

When I first moved here 1.5 years ago, I was overwhelmed by San Francisco’s dystopian bubble, its tale of two cities. Drive down highway 101 enough times, and you will start to believe that there is little more to life than AI agents. You start to feel a little crazy. Is anyone else seeing this?

The technological intensity of the city and its consequences are in many ways a perfect microcosm for how broader American society has developed over the past 25 years.

Technology is tricking us

Like many of my peers, I’ve had Instagram since I was in the 5th grade, posting everything from my first ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery (a real treat) to silly selfies, #stayingfierce through it all. 15 years later, averaging 30 minutes a day, it’s possible I’ve already spent 160,000+ minutes of my life scrolling on Instagram alone. It’s probably how you got to reading these words. Software ate the world, and it has pervaded every inch of our lives for better and worse.

Technology has led us to crave a life of:

1. Optimization (constant search (read: fear of settling), hyperproductivity)

2. Convenience (sanitation of everything, instant or 2-day delivery of everything)

3. Instant gratification (short attention spans, swiping fatigue, TikTok dopamine)

4. Validation (performativity, performance (read: online personas))

These are not easy things to let go of because they are all we’ve ever known. It’s uncomfortable to be inconvenienced, to have patience, to embrace imperfection.

I think we’re tired of this sh*t

But the cost of continuing to live this way has come to bear. I think we, Gen Z, are ready to have our moment. We grew up hearing about Millennials, but now we’re in the limelight, reaching full-fledged adulthood.

Like waking up from a deep slumber, we are coming to the collective realization that this tech-ridden life is not the one we want to live. We do not want to waste away our lives doomscrolling on social media.

This is our moment for reclamation of joy; of connection.

When I look up and around, community is already abundant. Joy and creativity are abundant. In San Francisco, you can go out into the streets, the parks, and increasingly even bars on any given day and feel the city bursting with energy. For many Gen Z techies, it might feel surprising that the first step is just showing up.

How can we take hold of our own reality and engage in the community around us?

Welcome to the tech counterculture

Technology has given us so much. I can video call my grandma from 7,500 miles away, and if I lack the right words in my head to translate, I can find them on my phone. I can listen to all of my favorite songs at the drop of a beat. I can share my thoughts with hundreds of strangers my age with whom I never would have otherwise crossed paths.

I firmly believe that technology can empower us to live more connected and fulfilling lives through intentionality and awareness.

I propose a collective commitment to four ideals:

1. We should minimize screen time

2. Inconvenience is the price for community

3. Our identities are more than our jobs, more than our social media footprint

4. Human > AI-generated content, even if it means imperfections

And, on a monthly basis, I’ll share some real-life alternatives to screen time, some of which will be my (sometimes anti tech tech club’s) own parties.

Events I’m excited for this month:

1. Field Day Festival | June 13, 2026

   The city seems obsessed with bringing back childlike wonder this month, because every weekend seems to feature multiple field days, where adults pretend to be kids and play silly games. For our part, my good friend Jai and I are hosting one next weekend that brings together a classic field day and a music festival. But, I’m pretty sure if you just roam around GGP on any weekend day, you’ll stumble into a flavor of field day, tag, or capture the flag.

2. SF Pride | June 27-28, 2026

   This one perhaps goes without saying! While the main parade is happening Sunday, there are events scattered throughout the city all weekend. This year will be my first time in SF during pride weekend, so I’ll report back next year with some better recs.

3. Stern Grove Festival | Every weekend through August

   Stern Grove Festival, a nonprofit music festival, has been offering free music for all every summer since 1938 in a glorious, ultra-packed natural ampitheater among eucalyptus and redwood trees. This year’s lineup is particularly excellent (shoutout donors!) with a wide range of genres. Lotteries open each week for specific shows.

Til next time,

Jess