Nowhere to Go: The Loss of Third Places

As more and more disdain forms towards young people's usage of social media, a growing campaign of pushback seeks to turn our concern toward the spaces we occupy in the real world--namely, how much lonelier and costlier they are becoming at the hands of capitalist urbanization.

briefly featuring @FinntasticMrFox as Baudelaire

thumbnail art by @userbfly

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editing by danae o.!

Bibliography

Ray Oldenburg (1989). “The Great Good Place”

Clips featured in the intro: “The Nanny”, “Hey Arnold!”, “Xanadu” (1980), “Saturday Night Fever” (1977), “Grease” (1978), “Back to the Future” (1985)

[willowcreeper]

PLEASE visit your public library!!! As librarians we are actively fighting to maintain third spaces with free wifi, bathrooms, places to sit, books, and information. Most now have non-quiet areas to spend time playing games or talk. We are overworked and underpaid but we're here because we beleive our communities deserve freedom of information and spaces where you don't have to pay to exist.

The best way to support us is to use our services as it shows that we are still worth funding. I love the friendships and connections I see built among frequent library users, and most of us love to interact with you and help you access what you need.❤

[marajones]

One of the worst parts of being a teacher in Philly is when it’s a beautiful sunny day and I ask my students if they will play outside after school and the majority mention how they can’t play outside due to too many shootings. And the nearest park is deemed the Cigarette park off of the cigarette butts and trash all around. It’s no wonder my students were chronically online.

And one of the most beautiful things I love about how the young generation builds community is through dance. Recess is full of dance battles, dance circles and I can just imagine how awesome it would be if these kids had a third place free of charge they could just hang out, play music and dance their little hearts out.

[grahamparks]

Teenagers were kicked out of malls and the malls died. Teenagers used to have teen dance nights and teen clubs now that no longer exists. We’ve installed curfews for youth and kick people out of parks at dark. We’ve criminalized being a kid on a bicycle outside a convenience store. We’ve instituted skateboarding and rollerblading bans. We’ve kicked kids out of coffeehouses and restricted access to live music venues.

[Mindyzzzzz]

There’s literally nothing for young people to do anymore. I noticed over the summer that they’re really no free summer programs, no social clubs and where I lived wasn’t even walkable for them to go to the mall. It’s extremely sad, and hinders their social skills so badly. Parents are too busy working to even interact with them.

[kaitlyn_stark]

As a teenager in suburban America, car dependency and the lack of third places can make life kinda depressing. Even if you have money to do something, if you don't have access to a car and a license you can't go anywhere without asking parents to take you there.

[lusixk]

I honestly didn't even realize i needed a third place until i watched this, I've always felt this lonely claustrophobia about going from work to home or a friends house but i could never even figure out what it was i wanted and this is it. I want a third place

[LewisLittle]

Its not just teens being affected by all this. In my neighbourhood, in the last decade, we've lost three pubs, two churches, a library, a community centre, a post office and a swimming pool. 50% of the local stores are boarded up. Nothing has replaced them. There are no third places here for adults either.

[chocolatecandyman]

I work at a coffee shop and offered the idea of having board games for public use. My boss rejected this since “it’ll bring in kids who occupy tables for longer and disturb those who are studying.” …. I was appalled because if coffee shops don’t want the youth then where else will they have left to go?

[hannahl]

This reminds me of growing up homeschooled. Mom: “You’re always on the computer, I’m concerned.” Me: “I’m on the computer because I literally don’t have anywhere to go.” Overuse of social media is a symptom, not the problem.

[nomorepartiezz]

This video is so perfect.

I was born in 2000 and grew up very isolated due to overprotective parents. Birthday parties, sleepovers, really anything involving socializing outside of school wasnt allowed. It was always someone was gonna rape me. We dont know what weirdo’s are at other peoples houses. You cant walk 2 blocks down to the bus stop without supervision until you’re well into middle school because people could jump out from behind a car and kidnap you. we lived in an incredibly safe suburban neighborhood where my elementary school was almost quite literally in my backyard. but i was never allowed to even go beyond the slight boundary of my house to engage with the small community of events and kids in our neighborhood. to this day my friends joke about how the inside of my house is some super mysterious land because nobody was EVER allowed over

all i had growing up was books and the internet. i used to fly through 500 page books in a day or two when i was in like 3rd grade. my parents were impressed and thought it was because i was some super genius but it was because it was the only way for me to keep myself entertained by losing myself in fantasy worlds. then that addiction and head in the clouds nature naturally started transferring to the internet and phones in the 2010s.

my dad would constantly tell me stories of the adventures him and his brothers used to get into running around NYC, getting into trouble and exploring and making friends, but then he would turn around and confine me to a suburban prison out of propagandized fear of rapists and kidnappers, then he would be so confused and angry at me when i ended up being very introverted and awkward with my head always in my phone. around halfway through high school he started throwing “how to be confident” and “how to talk to people” books at me almost to the point of suffocating as if that was somehow supposed to make up for an entire childhood of mostly just being by myself. its like he expected me to somehow just magically figure it out along the way while never being allowed to do anything and then started panicking when that didnt happen. well, idk, too late now.

and the stupidest thing about it to me is that of course the second i got a car i started expanding out, i started leaving for hours on hours on end without telling them anything. in my senior year of high school i actually made a friend group that went out and did stuff like hang out at skate parks, spend time with each other making memories and doing random shit out of boredom, going to parties and stuff. It was the one year of my adolescence where I felt like I had a normal experience. When my parents look back at it? they call it my bad, rebellious, lashing out phase.

make it make sense.

[jairozepelim]

i was skipping class one day at a park and a lady was walking her dog. i really wanted to pet the dog ('ve been trying to pet every dog possible) and so i asked her if it was possible. she was so nice and gentle that we ended up talking for about two hours, even another lady joined us for a moment. it was so cool, i felt so alive! we are now friends! sometimes we talk still, its nice to be alive :)

[worm_slop]

Lack of public transportation is a huge contributor as well, I grew up in a city with zero public transportation and no downtown and it wasn't until I got my driver's license that I really started having literally any friends

[breannathompson]

Oh my gosh and some people recommend bad "third places." So my town basically has a few options. You go to the bar, where it's a bunch of boomer drunk old guys who eyeball or just talk "at" you rather than with you. You also have the alternative clubbing, but most people in the club are not really looking for a deep connection. Maybe a drug friend, hookup, or a quick night together.

You have the park, its mostly family with kids, its not easy to necessarily approach a family having a picnic, birthday party, etc, it feels a bit like encroaching their personal space if you're a complete stranger.

Restaurants/movie theatres/museums... idk, you'd have no good chance at the restaurant or movie theatre because people just go then leave usually. A museum might strike up a good conversation but most of them are no longer free.

There are no public gathering spaces in my town that i actually *like* besides the farmers market or we'll get lucky with a community yard sale.

[nottellinyou]

My friends had one of our birthdays' gift exchange in a parking lot. There weren't any benches, or any stores we could sit in- because the one coffee shop nearby had closed early, and the nearest park was 30 minutes away.

Then we had our secret santa gift exchange in a parking lot. It was an industrial district, where all of the stores were too small to sit in- or were giant factories and storage facilities we weren't allowed to be around. We didn't see any other people, it was just cars. Felt like a liminal space.

Then we had another birthday, but planned it out to end up at a park. We had a stranger sitting on one of the tables next to ours (despite all of the other 5 being empty), where she sat and stared at us until we pulled out our fnaf boardgame. There was also no proper lighting (it was winter, it gets dark at 7pm), and one of us had to get up and move around the automated lamp every 5 minutes or be left to play in the pitch-black. It didn't even light up the area that well.

It feels like nothing is built for people anymore. The cheapest, easiest-to-manufacture & mass produce things are what are prioritized, and it's always at the expense of the people using those spaces.

[Chrome]

If anyone wonders why shopping malls are empty husks, it's not just rising prices and online stores. So many of these places upped their "security" and actively approached anyone just hanging out and not shopping hard enough (i.e. teenagers) to make them feel unwelcome, and it worked. Many stores even put in these devices that put out high pitched tones that adults typically can't hear, but make teens uncomfortable and give them headaches.

[Gavriel]

This is why the recent popularity of D&D bringing people together in person has been such a boon to the geek community in the US. My local game store is full of players ranging from their teens to their late 40's lately enjoying campaigns every weekend.

[janethousden]

Thank you for this. The death of Third Places affects us old people, too. There's no place to go that isn't expensive, loud, and generally unpleasant because they want you to spend your money and get out.
We need places where we can just be, and by "we:" I mean everyone. Teenagers, Olds, families, the lot.
When I was young I had zero adults in my life. No role models or mentors, just other rowdy kids. It was fun but I really feel like I missed out on a fundamental part of human existence, the part where you learn from other people's experience.

We need to stick together, instead of letting them isolate us. It's not good for anyone.

[dragonflytempb]

Our local pool cost me $2.00 for the whole day. A drink and something to eat, the cost to enter, and 20cents for a call home if I wanted a ride back that day for whatever reason. That was cheap even for then. If it had been $5 that wldv been fine.

This summer it's $40 to enter. That's not the equivalent

We had the mall with arcade, movie theater, food court. Malls were dying well before purchasing online bc they started to disallow kids under 16 to be there without parents. We had a place called "the wall" that was removed bc they wanted to change the area to more family friendly during the day and more gentrified, urban adults at night. The restaurant we could get a huge thing of fries for $2 is now a full sit down restaurant with average meal being $60 for 1 person and the awesome pizza by the slice mini-space is gone.

It's not social media. It's that places decided they didn't want teens. Alot of teen places were dead well before social media. It's sad

[valentinad]

Its so true, even in places outside of the US third places are rapidly dissappearing, you cant go anywhere for free and be safe

[mr.pavone]

As kids in middle school (early-mid 1980s) we had 3 arcades, 2 shopping malls, a public and university library, a comic shop and a TTRP game shop to hang out in after school.
I tell my kids about it and it blows their minds that we hung out in places without our parents even knowing where we were or how long we'd be gone.