Joaquin Phoenix, New York, 1996, captured by George Holz
what’s 7 x 5? 35!!! welcome to the 35th edition of CSIF. excited to have you here with us today. let’s do a brief recap:
last month, Chai and Vibes ran 3 ticketed events across LA, SF, and NYC respectively. SF was a hit once again (second year in a row!), NYC was well-received, but there’s a lot to work on for LA. ‘tis the game.
Chapter 1112 of One Piece is released today after a 3 week hiatus.
uh, there’s a new Future album that’s out.
oh and my smoking habit came back with a vengeance, so i’m tryna’ work on that.
i also hosted an online workshop tackling the question of “how do we get strangers to become closer?” i’ll post a summary of our learnings later.
and today, i want to revisit Chai and Vibes’s mission with some newfound clarity.
connection through creativity
years ago i binge watched the entirety of the brilliant work that is Fleabag. the main character, Fleabag, runs a cafe on her own that typically is pretty empty. that is until season 2, episode 2 when Fleabag receives a visit from her sister Claire.
claire: "are you having an event?"
fleabag: "oh...uh...no?"
claire: "well why are there so many people here?"
fleabag: "oh it's successful i guess"
claire: "why is everyone talking to each other?"
fleagbag: "oh it's chatty wednesday. if you buy something, you have to have a chat with someone you don't know"
claire: "wot?!" as britishly as one can sound
fleabag: "loneliness pays" shrugs
last year i talked about how we would have 3 tiers of events under a single belief. that the best way to strengthen relationships is to make cool stuff together. since then we:
did a summer tour covering 4 major cities in LA, SF, NYC, and Chicago.
launched 4 paid events in 2 years
had 2 events run concurrently in SF and NYC
launched a tatreez workshop as a fundraiser
collabed with other brands
and in that year, we've met loads of great folks along the way who share the same vision as us. the mission of bringing people together is a uniting force (shoutout kasra!).
but if you read the points above, they don't necessarily relate to the mission i stated. what i've shared with you is how we've scaled, but that doesn't address if we've moved the needle on our mission. i mean sure, we hit the a target in every single one of the tiers i said we'd have, but did we move the needle?
yes and no. yes we've activated spaces so people 1) have a higher likelihood of meeting someone new, 2) can strengthen existing friendships. so yes we move the needle there. but the no part is more of how we did that.
but where i'd say "no we didn't move the needle" is that we didn't bring people closer by having them make cool stuff together.
don't get me wrong. there is definitely something about being creative and becoming friends through creativity. that's why a ton of spaces have proliferated to encourage people to build. buildspace in SF, Verci in NYC, 535 in Toronto, Socratica at Waterloo, and list goes on.
i was deeply inspired and moved by builder scenes. they're so welcoming, they're united under the banner of building, and they do cool stuff. what's not to love?
well as much as i appreciate those spaces and we can learn a lot from them, that's not why our community comes to us. people come to us for a couple reasons:
1) great way to meet people in their 20s, ambitious but looking to chill, in big cities
2) we provide a sober environment that is an alternative to what's out there
as much as they may love to consume art or appreciate creativity, they're not coming to us to build out side projects. but the idea of fostering relationships by making stuff together still has merit. it just needs to be defined better.
we gotta go back to the basics.
my twitter bio reads: "helping people make friends + memories in big cities a cup at a time." this is the most distilled vision of chai and vibes. when i previously stated: "strengthening relationships," i actually meant "helping people make friends [...]"
but what does that concretely look like? a random facetime call with my buddy Ali helped clarify things.
"what you're actually doing is manufacturing serendipity. and the way you do it is by increasing a person's chance of meeting someone new by, let's say, 10%. you can gauge that by seeing if an attendee talk to someone new for at least 3-5 minutes."
so everything we do is going to be geared towards just that. the goal is make sure each and every attendee talks to someone new for at least 3-5 minutes. the way we achieve this is going to be a mix of things.
like i said i think there's still something about connection through creativity. how do we create experiences that mimic that feeling of camaraderie? something that like-minded crafts people feel?
for example, think of the shared context generated when you volunteer. making sandwiches for the unhoused or setting up a space is a way a great conversation starter. how do we achieve that through getting people to do something fun and creative?
we don't want just icebreakers. icebreakers are cool and important because they provide superficial context. we want to craft unifying experiences with a clear purpose allow for people to engage with each other more meaningfully. perhaps we can have conversation starters as we pair people up for making bouquets or painting. whatever it is, we need to setup our spaces and provide activities that motivate people to talk to someone new.
ultimately, when an attendee walks in the door they come in with baggage. they have their guard up with preconceived notions on who is or what’s cool. what’s prestigious and what’s not. we want to to have spaces where you leave that at the door, and feel comfortable (and curious!) enough to play a whole new game. and by letting down your guard, playing into a new game, we hope you discover new connections. it’s just figuring out what that looks like.
if we hit our goal for like at least 100 people across 3 cities, i'd consider that a success.
there's a story of one of our community members, Sahil, that really motivates me til this day. he told me this over dinner in 2022. he had attended our first Chai and Vibes NYC event in Central Park. he was a fresh MBA student, knew nobody in the city, and worked long hours. while he met folks at CnV NYC, it was really outside the event where the magic happened. slowly but surely he'd run into people he recognized from the event while walking down the street.
"hey you went to Chai and Vibes right?"
that sparked a connection. be it at a parade, at a party, he'd go on to meet more and more people. and slowly but surely he found different groups of friends to hangout with.
sure, part of that involves the magic of New York. but i'd like to think that our one event was a meaningful catalyst by speeding up the friendship making process for this one person. and thus, we were able to reduce the amount of isolation and loneliness he would have felt otherwise.
that's the magic we want for everyone, everywhere we fuckin' go.
let's get after it.
Create the Social Spaces You Want To See In The World by Kasra
aside from the fact that Kasra was kind enough to shoutout Chai and Vibes in his newsletter, i’ve read very few things on the internet that have so thoughtfully captured what it’s like to be in the business of bringing people together. i couldn’t have stated this better myself.
Cosmos
i got this email from an upcoming pinterest competitor called Cosmos, and it reminded me of a lot of crypto art circa ‘21. i really love designs that 1) mimic real life, 2) have some motion, 3) have gradiemt. i’ve def shouted out this type of design before in previous newsletters, and i def want to create something similar for Chai and Vibes. i’d like for our attendees ticketing to appear on some sort of card like the one below, but also have stamps on it for every CnV event you attend. i think it’s def possible, but will take work on blender.
versus 1 song, i made u guys a playlist of 17 songs from songs that have caught my attention across a variety of genres and cultures that i really liked. it’s a bit random and it’s not curated to reflect any specific vibe, just more of what i’ve gone out of my way to discover for myself. '
hope you enjoy it
Thanks for reading this edition. Share this with your friends, your grandma, or your neighbor. And if you made it to the end of this essay and you didn’t just scroll, dm me the words “one piece” on either twitter or instagram. or leave a comment! As always,
Sincerely,
Haroon
P.S. Check out my previous newsletter if you’re curious: Cool Stuff I Found #34