What Meetups Tell Us About America

July 11, 2016 2:55 AM

"We collected data on each of the 127,000 Meetup events created in the United States since 2002 and analyzed this data to understand what people care about across the country. What we found confirmed several city stereotypes: the Bay Area is the home of tech, New York is the epicenter of fashion, and D.C. reigns supreme in multiculturalism. We also looked into what Meetup data tells us about the other homes of tech, and the cities most interested in music, and finding love."
posted by ellieBOA (15 comments total)

So, this isn't actually about the get-togethers we generically call "meetups", right? It's actually about some kind of business/app/thing named Meetups™.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:03 AM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yes, it's about events on the site called Meetup.com.
posted by ellieBOA at 5:04 AM on July 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

The myriad Meetup groups that have sprung up round the world bring passionate specialists together, spawn businesses, kindle romances and move political boundaries. But they do so in rather a low key way that flys below the media radar. I think future historians will credit Meetup with being a much more important catalyst for social change in our time that we do now.
posted by rongorongo at 5:08 AM on July 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Are they still charging $12/month to host a group once it gets larger than $size?
posted by scruss at 6:22 AM on July 11, 2016

I pay 10€ a month for over a thousand but we paid that from the beginning.
posted by ellieBOA at 6:35 AM on July 11, 2016

When I started hosting a group with Meetup in 2012, they actually charged everyone with organizer status a subscription cost, no matter how many group members you have. It looks like now you have the option of paying for a smaller group at $10/month and if you have a bigger group (as I do; holy shit we have over 150 members now) the starting price is $15/month.

It's worth it; my meetup group is a source of offline asexual-spectrum support and community, and the accessibility benefits offered by the site are tremendous. Meetup makes it really easy to find people who are local to you and interested in whatever thing you're also interested in doing or discussing, and that in and of itself is surprisingly huge to community development.
posted by sciatrix at 7:16 AM on July 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Mine is an LGBTQIA group for women and it has been so successful, with so many lovely thank you messages from women who hadn't found 'their people' before.
posted by ellieBOA at 7:41 AM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Meetup.com is also a reliable source of 'off-tourism' things to do in a city when I'm trying to get away from the usually recommended selfie stick shrines and meet people that live there..!
posted by vert canard at 8:04 AM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

It would be really interesting to hear the history of meetup.com, as one of the few successfully user-funded web startups who specialize in doing just one social media thing well and haven't been killed/absorbed by FB/Yahoo. I think of meetup.com a lot like metafilter - a niche service well worth paying for.
posted by benzenedream at 8:16 AM on July 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

Meetup is so odd. I can't believe it's still around and still being used by a lot of people. I recently looked at alternatives to Meetup.com and found that they either were more social apps that published events that you could attend, died out after a year of being used, or were possibly being used in other regions but not the region I was in. I'm also surprised that one of the bigger internet corporations like Google or Facebook has never really made a dent in that space either.
posted by FJT at 8:16 AM on July 11, 2016

Facebook probably hosts 100x the number of "meetups" now, the same need is serviced by some awkward combination of public/private events for groups. It definitely doesn't work well for recurring activities with total strangers.
posted by benzenedream at 8:25 AM on July 11, 2016

Meetup is also a great place to find RPG gaming groups in your area, which is often the tricky bit about finding a RPG gaming group - the 'in your area' bit.
posted by eclectist at 8:46 AM on July 11, 2016

I keep meaning to start where I live--it would be an all-women networking/drinks meetup called the Limestone Ladies Libation League--because I cannot think of a more organic way to do it without dudes being upset that I want to hang out with women and drink good beer instead basking in their wisdom.
posted by Kitteh at 9:17 AM on July 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

You should do it! All I committed to mine when I started it was the plan to show up in a specific coffee shop for an hour or two every other Sunday, and now it's grown into this big gangly delightful thing. It's a slow way to grow a new community but it doesn't require much effort at first, just patience and a willingness to commit.
posted by sciatrix at 10:50 AM on July 11, 2016

Meetup is great for the right places. I've moved twice within the last year and a half and I've used Meetup both times to make new friends. In the first move it was easier to meet people, make friends, and hear about new events. Lots of people used it, I'd even meet people outside of Meetup who also used it.
The second move not as many people use Meetup and the city is much smaller, but it still lets you in on local events and gives you good opportunities to meet people. Not every experience, however, is going to be amazing and not every experience will lead to great friendships or interesting conversations, but I think it's all what you put into it...
posted by Lazar89 at 4:25 PM on July 18, 2016