The Community We Are in Person, and the One We Become Online

I know I’ve talked about this before, but it’s something I find myself returning to again and again, especially because I keep seeing it perpetuated online and I keep feeling the impact of it in the community that I love. I don’t say that from a place of judgment. I say it from a place of care, and from a place of wanting our lived experience of one another to feel more aligned than it often does.

I also know that I can’t change anybody. I’ve made peace with that. What I do believe is that I can influence how we think, and how we pause, and how we choose to show up. That’s the purpose of this reflection. Not to call anyone out, but to gently call us back.

Yesterday morning, I was at Shaw’s early, around seven. The store was quiet, the way it is before the day really gets going. Employees were already working hard to get shelves stocked and ready. I went to the meat section looking for chicken wings, the big ones, and when I got there, the shelves were completely empty.

I stood there for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Before I could even form the question, a man working nearby noticed me and asked what I was looking for. I told him I was hoping to find chicken wings. He immediately disappeared behind the employee-only doors and came back out with boxes upon boxes of them. He stocked the shelf right in front of me.

I took a moment to thank him, not just reflexively, but intentionally. And I walked out of the store feeling something that stayed with me far longer than the errand itself. I felt seen. I felt heard. I felt cared for.

That experience didn’t feel exceptional. It felt familiar.

When I walk outside, when I go to the co-op, when I run errands around town, there is a sense of camaraderie here that I genuinely love. Complete strangers let me go first in line because I only have two items and they have fifty. People say “have a good day” and actually look at you when they say it. A couple of weeks ago, someone I didn’t know offered me a shovel to help dig my car out of a snowbank. These moments happen so often that we almost stop noticing them.

And yet, they matter.

They create a feeling of safety and belonging that’s hard to name until it’s missing. They remind me that this is a place where people pay attention to one another, where kindness is not a performance but a habit.

That’s why the contrast I experience online feels so jarring.

When I go into online community spaces, I don’t feel that same kindness as often. It’s still there sometimes, but it’s quieter. What I notice more frequently are posts that lean toward negativity, and comments that are filled with derision, mocking, or dismissal. I see people laughing at one another, talking past one another, assuming the worst.

I usually don’t engage with those conversations. I understand that people use those forums for different reasons, and I know that frustration needs somewhere to go. Still, it makes me sad, because the tone doesn’t match the feeling of this place in person.

That mismatch matters to me, not just emotionally, but philosophically.

Part of my work, and part of my calling, is to support people in showing up authentically online, in a way that reflects who they are offline. I’ve heard people say that online isn’t real. I even had a guest say that on my show once, and it made me pause.

Because I don’t think that’s true.

When someone goes online and complains about the town not properly cleaning the roads, that feels real to me. When I see how quickly comments spiral, how energy shifts, how easy it is to get pulled into negativity and darkness, that feels real in my body. Even if I understand the impulse behind it, the impact is undeniable.

I wonder sometimes if part of the reason people feel so comfortable being unkind online is because they’ve convinced themselves it doesn’t count. That it isn’t real. That there’s no accountability there.

That’s a scary thought.

Online spaces, to me, are a reflection of our hearts and our minds. And our hearts and minds are very real. The way we communicate, the energy we bring, the assumptions we make, all of that carries weight, regardless of the medium.

Yesterday, during a conversation on North of Normal with Nanci Carney, this idea kept resurfacing in a quieter way. As she talked about decades of community work, what stood out to me was not a single achievement, but the accumulation of small moments. She spoke about gratitude, about noticing need, about responding where she could.

One story she shared has stayed with me. She talked about delivering food to a little free pantry and being met by two men on bicycles. When she explained she was there to restock it, they helped her unload the boxes. When she noticed that one of them hadn’t taken anything for himself, she encouraged him to take a bag of oranges. He hesitated and said there were other people who might need them more.

It was such a small moment, and yet it said everything.

There was no debate. No commentary. Just awareness, restraint, and care. The kind of interaction that never goes viral and never shows up in a comment thread, but quietly sustains a community.

Listening to her, I was reminded that most of what makes this place work doesn’t happen online at all. It happens in grocery stores. At food pantries. In parking lots. In the in-between moments where people choose to help because they can.

Those are the moments I hold in mind when I think about how we show up online.

I’m not asking anyone to be endlessly positive or to avoid naming real problems. I’m not suggesting that frustration doesn’t belong anywhere. What I am asking for is awareness, and maybe a little restraint. A pause long enough to remember that the person reading your words is a human being too, and might be someone who would offer you a shovel, or stock a shelf for you, or let you go ahead in line.

The work I do is rooted in alignment. In helping people live and work in a way that feels consistent across spaces, rather than fragmented. Online behavior is not separate from who we are. It’s an extension of it.

If we treat online spaces as unreal, we give ourselves permission to abandon the values we practice everywhere else. And that’s not something I’m comfortable doing, either personally or professionally.

So this is my invitation.

The next time you’re online, pause for a moment before you respond. Notice what you’re carrying with you into that space. Ask yourself whether your words reflect the way you move through the world when you’re standing face to face with another person in this community.

We already know how to take care of one another. We do it every day in quiet, ordinary ways. The question is whether we’re willing to let that same care follow us everywhere we go.

Because the community we are in person is real. And the one we become online matters just as much.

-Amanda