I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Tumblr.
That’s a fucking weird notion, that I owe my life to a site that was overrun by porn bots before a recent crackdown left just a few, die-hard stragglers. But at the start of the 2010s, Tumblr was a haven for anyone who felt othered: queer kids, trans kids, those of the nichest subcultures, and endless goths. Among the many posts comprising motivational text layered over soft-focus landscapes, freaks of all stripes congregated, finding community through blogging.
I flirted with the idea of suicide for much of my teens. I was bullied as a young teenager when I came out as bisexual, and discovered wild incongruities in my gender identity a couple years later. By the time I hit 17, I was an utterly miserable trans kid with no hope, whatsoever, of transitioning. My body fit like a too-small glove, constricting circulation, and my name felt as dissonant as if it were being called across a noisy room. I could see no future in which I could even level out, let alone thrive.
I felt completely isolated.
I was, for a while. My long-supportive friends could only help so much: puberty is fucked-up for everyone, but I felt an extra degree of terror every time I looked in a mirror. Even later, when my best friend became my girlfriend—she still is—I had no one to whom I could directly relate.
And then I found a space where I could be gloriously, achingly sad—somewhere I could express my rapidly blooming gender identity beyond the physical confines of my bedroom, with people who were going through the same incomprehensible things I was, and could, perhaps, help guide me through some of it. On Tumblr, I’d found other trans people. I’d found a community.
Fast-forward a decade or so to 2020. As COVID-19 sweeps the globe, it has forced the slowdown, if not the outright closure, of much of the world’s beer industry. It has also left the overwhelming majority of us in a lockdown or quarantine state, sequestered in our homes. Gone are the days of a quick half pint on the way home from work, or huddles of friends bearing bottles pulled from stashes, or tap takeovers with visiting brewers. As a result, drinkers and beer businesses have scrambled to carve out space for themselves online—and these new expressions of community feel uncannily reminiscent of my early Tumblr days, even if the medium has changed.
Video conferencing has quickly sprung up as a favorite substitute for real-life socializing: Zoom and Google Hangouts have become digital common spaces as people seek out beer-related companionship and some semblance of normality. Good Beer Hunting’s own subscriber group, The Fervent Few, has begun daily video chats, and the routine, as well as the chance to see familiar faces, have made them a ballast against loneliness.
“Instead of just reading the news and observing shifting trends (or ignoring them), this community was real. We checked in on each other. We asked about each other’s families. Their communities. And the world, in a sense, became a bit smaller.”
I’ve joined a few calls, and have watched as drinkers cheersed through webcams and cracked open cold ones together. “It's been something to look forward to throughout the day and provides a nice regularity,” says Fervent Few member and recent GBH contributor Samer Khudairi. “Instead of just reading the news and observing shifting trends (or ignoring them), this community was real. We checked in on each other. We asked about each other's families. Their communities. And the world, in a sense, became a bit smaller.”
Some, however, are going further than chats and virtual beers, like Khudairi’s fellow Fervent Few member Steve Rimington. “Me and seven others are doing a video bottle share,” he says, “but we have curated a list of beers, delivered from the same shop, so we can maintain the bottle-share experience and talk about the same beer at the same time. The coordinated bottle share has the advantage of maintaining our group connectivity through this time, plus put money through the bottle shop’s tills that otherwise they would not have taken.”
It has been striking to watch as the online beer community has grown from a group of friends on social media to a vital support network. If in a pre-COVID world, the beer internet was primarily a digital manifestation of an in-person community, it has since become a safety net—and has, for now, become the beer community.
Lucy Clarke, distribution manager for the U.K.’s Siren Craft Brew, lives alone. Back when pubs were open, hers was a familiar face in a number of venues around Manchester. Now, having been furloughed from work since the beginning of April and on her own at home, she misses the pub, which she describes as her “church,” and the sense of community that it brings. Though not a perfect substitute, the online beer community, she says, feels like a reasonable replacement.
“I genuinely don’t feel like I’m away from people—the fact that we’ve got the internet means I talk to people all day,” she tells me. “Because of that, it hasn’t felt too far removed from normal, although it is very abnormal. I’ve also spoken to a lot of people I haven’t spoken to for absolutely ages, which has been lovely.”
Losing a physical community, coupled with all the other worries this pandemic has brought—health scares; confinement; unemployment; and fears for friends, loved ones, and businesses—is proving a formidable burden on people’s mental health. “I’ve had a lot of friends come to me and say, ‘I’m finding this really, really tough,’” says Clarke, “and other people I know have come out on Twitter and said, ‘I’m really struggling,’ and there’s a community of people around them to support or empathize with them, or just be there.”
“I think what this is doing is reinforcing that there’s a community of people out there that are like-minded,” she continues. “And it’s more than just a handful—there’s a lot of people. Maybe those people are just online acquaintances, sure, and you might not know them as a friend in real life, but you’re part of a big social network that you know is there.”
For Clarke, and others living alone, the indefinite shelter-in-place rules are highlighting our collective dependence on the internet for companionship. “If I didn’t have the internet, I would have gone mental,” laughs Clarke, darkly. “Probably within about three days. I can video call people, and I’m messaging people and chatting to friends. If there was no internet, I couldn’t do that—I would be incredibly isolated, and I wouldn’t be as relaxed as I am now. I am absolutely, 100% reliant on this for my own sanity, and that’s what’s made this OK.”
Marc Burgat, who resides in Davis, California, runs Pacific Nomad Brewing as a nanobrewery based out of his garage. Using his small outfit, he’s providing beer at his own cost to thirsty neighbors who can’t or don't want to go to local stores. Burgat, like Clarke—and apparently everyone else with access to a computer—is also reliant on Zoom and other teletechnologies for companionship. Part of a group of dads that, under normal circumstances, meets a couple times a week over coffee or beer (and now meets twice weekly via Zoom), he believes that online connection is “really vital” for everyone, especially the craft beer community.
“Online communication is key for me right now,” he says. “I am spending much more time online, I have become much closer with my siblings as a result, and several friends that I had lost touch with.”
“I genuinely don’t feel like I’m away from people—the fact that we’ve got the internet means I talk to people all day. Because of that, it hasn’t felt too far removed from normal, although it is very abnormal.”
As well as keeping the local community stocked with beer, Burgat’s aware of how important staying in touch with his networks has been for his own well-being. “Communication with friends, family, and colleagues has become critical to my mental health. Even those who are introverts want connection, and Zoom and other online communication allows that. I think this would be more difficult without that technology to keep us in touch.”
San Diego-based beer writer and my Good Beer Hunting colleague Beth Demmon is of a similar view, and also sees the online beer community as a form of escapism. “I’m already prone to solitary activities—reading, yoga, etc.—so during ‘normal’ times, I need a pretty big dose of alone time to function properly,” she tells me. “But it’s easy for me to fall too deeply into myself without societal checks, which I suppose is classic ‘extroverted introvert’ behavior. I like people and I like hanging out, so being able to connect with people face-to-face during these virtual gatherings has given me a much-needed injection of friendship.”
“It’s also just a nice respite from my family unit,” she continues. “I love them, but being cooped up with anyone, regardless of how much you like them, gets old.”
This like-minded community, readily accessible and ever-present during a time of crisis, is what feels so achingly familiar to me. In others’ social media, I see a lot of my younger self: frustrated, lonely, confused, and longing for whatever understanding others can give.
Engaging with fellow beer people on various digital platforms calls back to those long-ago nights I stayed up until 3 a.m., messaging distant friends in the hope of feeling acknowledged, understood, and validated. From my vantage point, I see a great many people unprepared for the weird pivot of relying on the internet for the sense of community usually found in the living, breathing, flesh-and-blood versions of our online avatars. I, like so many trans people, feel uniquely prepared for a return to this painful familiarity.
Like members of the beer community I’ve interacted with across various social media platforms, the trans people I met online eventually transitioned from URL friends to IRL friends. As with any friends made online, those blossoming, in-person relationships benefitted from months and, in some cases, years, of close and meaningful interaction. Harley*, a friend from my early Tumblr days who has known me since before my transition, has recently moved hundreds of miles across the U.K. to care for elderly family members during this pandemic.
“The internet completely revolutionized my ability to form community and make friendships within the trans community: isolation became the norm, but friendships across the globe found on social media helped me feel less alone.”
“For me, the internet provided me with access to community, or perhaps more importantly, the illusion of a widespread social network,” she says. “It alleviated loneliness and anxiety, and helped me meet and find people who I had similar life experiences with. Out of this I found some incredibly important IRL relationships that dramatically shaped my life and direction. That was more often the exception than the rule, however; I made maybe a few good IRL friends—who I still consider friends, say, six or seven years after the fact.”
As well as fostering friendships, the internet was essential for Harley’s well-being in a state of isolation. “The internet completely revolutionized my ability to form community and make friendships within the trans community: isolation became the norm, but friendships across the globe found on social media helped me feel less alone,” she says. “The great thing about the internet is how you are not walking into a room trying to work out if you are surrounded by good people, but instead with a few clicks of a button you can find out about someone’s life and attitude.” Now once again isolated in her family home, Harley’s relying on online communication to remain in touch with the social networks she only recently left behind.
“I think that’s a significant word you’ve used there: lifeline. I don’t think that can be underestimated,” says Clarke, during our conversation. “I think after a couple of weeks, maybe a month, I’m going to really struggle with not being in a pub environment, and it’s not because of the beer. It’s the socialization—that’s why I got into this line of work in the first place. I like people; I like being around people.”
As this pandemic and subsequent lockdown stretch indefinitely into an uncertain future, digital connection is indeed becoming a lifeline for all communities, especially those that lean heavily upon conviviality and social environments. Without people to be around, we’re finding new ways to cope. As we do so, questions about what the beer world will look like upon our collective release start to arise.
“Humans are pretty adaptable, and we’re pretty good at dealing with change, when we have to,” says Clarke. “I think this is going to profoundly change our socialization, going forward. I can’t see it not.”
*Name has been changed at the subject’s request.
Words, Lily WaiteIllustrations, Colette Holston
