Economic crises have always been triggers of new social models, but what we are seeing today goes beyond any conjunctural readjustment. From OnlyFans’ mansions to the women-only peoples, we witnessed the greatest wave of community experimentation since the 1960s, that decade that placed the hippy dream in front of the mirror of late capitalism and ended up begetting Arc House, Twin Oaks, and the ever-cited Arcosanti.
The Bop House, a viral bastion where content creators for OnlyFans coexist today online platform where users pay for exclusive material, especially sexual, and claims to have billed $15 million in two months. The walls of the mansion function as an uninterrupted filming set. Psychologist Cristina MarÃn explains: People looking for these kinds of models of extreme coexistence are obviously looking for a change, obviously, as opposed to traditional models. The television background to these lifestyles is revealing. As Rafa de Jaime Juliá and Daniela Varela, responsible for the podcast specializing in reality and popular culture, The Authentic Ladies of the Street Lista, they emphasize, it was what pushed them to the limit. The premise? On the ruins of the town of Bonanza in New Mexico, children try to create a society with minimal supervision by adults. The 2007 CBS program moved 40 minors to this abandoned town; during the shooting weeks, one child suffered burns, several drank bleach by mistake, and worked 14 hours a day. Years later, the show continues to be surprised by its harshness.
People who depart from society have always existed, says De Jaime. But creating like-minded groups is easier today because everything is one click away, adds Varela, who cites other extreme television formats: The Real Housewives brings together unknown ladies and embarks on a trip with alcohol. Acapulco Shore puts twenty-year-olds in a house and orders them to go out every night. De Jaime points to an important nuance: In Survivors, there is an emergency system; if someone suffers from dysentery, the helicopter arrives, remembering that television maintains safety nets absent in coexistence in the real world.
At that opposite end, away from the screens, you can place the village of Umoja in Kenya, where in 1990 a community of women raped by British soldiers was founded, in which 40 families are still being accommodated today. Very different is Noiva do Cordeiro, in Brazil. The press spread 2014 the story of a group of women looking for men, a bull disassembled by National Geographic. In reality, it is a community of 350 residents with balanced gender distribution, female independence, and the goal of rehearsing another way of living.
Although Cristina MarÃn identifies positive aspects in these types of models of coexistence – they can be more flexible, she also sees risks: These communities can generate social isolation, which is inevitable if I join only people who think like me. It also detects certain sectarian echoes: It is one thing that they are apparently collaborative and another that they disembark in a hierarchy where someone gets sliced.
What new masks will take extreme coexistence in the next global recession? Microcities of digital nomads funded by cryptoons, or climate shelters erected by the tech industry, may emerge. The impulse beats: reinventing life in common when reality tightens.
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