JOIN TALKING TO STRANGERS! @ talkingtostrangers.com OR BY SENDING A BLANK E-MAIL TO talking2strangers@gmail.com
ABOUT:
Talking To Strangers is as much a sociological study as it is a FREE, unique community designed for people who want something different. So join us, embrace difference, embrace the past, and take the strangeness out of strangers.
-------------
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JOIN, SEND A BLANK EMAIL TO:
talking2strangers@gmail.com
-------------
A WEBSITE FOR TALKING TO STRANGERS WILL BE LAUNCHED IN TWO DAYS!
WWW.TALKINGTOSTRANGERS.COM
-------------
HOW IT WORKS:
1. Shortly after joining Talking To Strangers, members will be emailed with a link to the Talking To Strangers website, where they will be asked to fill out a short, basic form.
2. This form will allow each participant to be paired at random with another participant, using pseudonyms, and the two will become, essentially, pen pals. But unlike other web sites pertaining to the concept of this type of correspondence, Talking To Strangers does not pair people based on any commonalities other than their desire to become part of the group.
3. Each participant will also be encouraged to give feedback in the form of optional questionnaires, as well as the opportunity to submit samples -- as much as is desired -- of their respective letters for inclusion in a Talking To Strangers anthology.
4. Also in the works is some type of group being formed consisting of letter-writing strangers, expanding the overall goal of Talking To Strangers into a large, linked community. We don't know exactly where this is going at this point, but we're quite excited.
-------------
MISSION:
Your mother warned you not to talk to strangers, and we’re warning you about your mother’s warning. The mentality that created this cliché transcends childhood dangers and is socially constrictive. Every conversation we start, we start because we do not see strangeness in the stranger. Sure, a stranger is technically anyone we do not know, but if we connect need or want -- in other words, create similarity -- between us and an unknown person, they are no longer so unknown, no longer so strange, and we start talking.
-------------
By limiting our interactions to this comfort zone, we lose everything difference has to offer -- and this is terrible, but not surprising. Difference has naturally negative connotations, and it is difficult for us to accept. This is what Talking To Strangers aims to unwind. We believe that if we only expose ourselves to difference instead of living within these comfort zones, difference will disappear behind the realization that it unites rather than divides. So, we asked ourselves: What would happen if we pulled someone off the street and into a coffee shop or bar or diner and just talked, got to know each other without preconceived notions? This is, in essence, what we will accomplish, only through a more realistic method: handwritten letters -- chosen because, like the overall concept itself, it breaks from conventions.
-------------
Communication today is defined by speed, brevity, and coldness. Talking To Strangers wants to embrace the past. Letters are naturally long, large chunks of communication, because delivery speed is in days rather than seconds; and letters are of course more tangible, waited on with anticipation, rife with characteristic handwriting that gives us not just the words of the person, but a part of the person we can actually hold.
Talking To Strangers is as much a sociological study as it is a FREE, unique community designed for people who want something different. So join us, embrace difference, embrace the past, and take the strangeness out of strangers.
-------------
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JOIN, SEND A BLANK EMAIL TO:
talking2strangers@gmail.com
-------------
A WEBSITE FOR TALKING TO STRANGERS WILL BE LAUNCHED IN TWO DAYS!
WWW.TALKINGTOSTRANGERS.COM
-------------
HOW IT WORKS:
1. Shortly after joining Talking To Strangers, members will be emailed with a link to the Talking To Strangers website, where they will be asked to fill out a short, basic form.
2. This form will allow each participant to be paired at random with another participant, using pseudonyms, and the two will become, essentially, pen pals. But unlike other web sites pertaining to the concept of this type of correspondence, Talking To Strangers does not pair people based on any commonalities other than their desire to become part of the group.
3. Each participant will also be encouraged to give feedback in the form of optional questionnaires, as well as the opportunity to submit samples -- as much as is desired -- of their respective letters for inclusion in a Talking To Strangers anthology.
4. Also in the works is some type of group being formed consisting of letter-writing strangers, expanding the overall goal of Talking To Strangers into a large, linked community. We don't know exactly where this is going at this point, but we're quite excited.
-------------
MISSION:
Your mother warned you not to talk to strangers, and we’re warning you about your mother’s warning. The mentality that created this cliché transcends childhood dangers and is socially constrictive. Every conversation we start, we start because we do not see strangeness in the stranger. Sure, a stranger is technically anyone we do not know, but if we connect need or want -- in other words, create similarity -- between us and an unknown person, they are no longer so unknown, no longer so strange, and we start talking.
-------------
By limiting our interactions to this comfort zone, we lose everything difference has to offer -- and this is terrible, but not surprising. Difference has naturally negative connotations, and it is difficult for us to accept. This is what Talking To Strangers aims to unwind. We believe that if we only expose ourselves to difference instead of living within these comfort zones, difference will disappear behind the realization that it unites rather than divides. So, we asked ourselves: What would happen if we pulled someone off the street and into a coffee shop or bar or diner and just talked, got to know each other without preconceived notions? This is, in essence, what we will accomplish, only through a more realistic method: handwritten letters -- chosen because, like the overall concept itself, it breaks from conventions.
-------------
Communication today is defined by speed, brevity, and coldness. Talking To Strangers wants to embrace the past. Letters are naturally long, large chunks of communication, because delivery speed is in days rather than seconds; and letters are of course more tangible, waited on with anticipation, rife with characteristic handwriting that gives us not just the words of the person, but a part of the person we can actually hold.
posted by Talking To Strangers at 12:34 AM
0 comments
