What is Meetup?

Sounds like a dating app, right?

The first thing to understand about Meetup is that it's public, and it's free to use. Anyone can use it. It doesn't cost you any money.

Imagine that there is a public space in every town and city where people can post events that they'd like other people to come to. Anyone can post anything that they want, nobody is discouraged. Bob can post that he's going to a comedy show, and anyone is welcome to come along with him. A group of skiers can post that they're going skiing on Saturday morning, and anyone is welcome to join. Maybe a small business wants to raise awareness for themselves, so they post an open house. Anyone can come, and there's going to be free food!

That's Meetup. And if there's enough community involvement, it flourishes.

Maybe five other people went along with Bob to the comedy show and they all had a great time, so Bob posts another event a week later.  Maybe it's ten people the next week. They all met up at an agreed upon time and location and went to the show. What about after the show? Maybe some of them were having a great time together, so they went out for drinks afterwards. It wasn't on the agenda, but it doesn't matter. In reality, the event that Bob posted was just an excuse to meet some new people.

That's Meetup. A way to meet new people and make new friends. There's nothing saying that you can't meet up with some of those people again, outside of events. There's also nothing that says you have to go back, maybe you've made some new friends and that's all you wanted. Mission accomplished, maybe you're done with Meetup for now.

(If you're wondering whether it's safe [it is], jump to the bottom of this post.)

Meetup is also an even and level playing field. Generally nobody knows anyone else (unless they've seen them at another Meetup event), so it's easy to mingle. Everyone there is looking to meet new people, so it's hardly ever awkward approaching someone you don't know. New to the city? New to the country? It doesn't really matter, and chances are that a lot of the people who went to that event are in the same boat.

There are also no real age barriers on Meetup. Think you're too old for it? Nope. There are groups for older audiences. Quite a few middle aged groups. Some cater to younger audiences. Most are for all ages. Still not happy? Well, you can always host your own even with something more suited to your interests, whatever that may be.

Awesome! So Meetup is a tool for socializing! — Yes! But that's not all... What about that small business that hosted an open house? Sure, they're meeting people and socializing, but they have other motives. Those skiers? If they get some people to join — maybe someone with a car — they'll have room to bring Derek along. Carpooling can be a major benefit to Meetups where you want to go somewhere out of town and don't have a ride.

Before I go any further, and now that you've gotten the gist of what Meetup is, it isn't free if you're the one doing the hosting. Even so, it only costs organizers ten to fifteen dollars per month.

Meetup gets used by small groups of people who just want to get together and have a good time, but it also gets used for a plethora of other reasons. Businesses might host a social mixer in-house with the motive of headhunting for potential new employees. Some might host paid group lessons. Others might do it out of the goodness of their hearts.

That last one probably sounds like utter bullshit. That's not how the world works. A pretty understandable reaction, and maybe one that I'll get into in a future post. Truth be told, though, there are plenty of meetup groups being hosted by organizations with no discernible benefit to the organization aside from a little word of mouth (don't get me wrong; a very valuable thing). Some people want to host an event where they teach people something new or share information, and there are businesses who offer up their office space as the venue. Sometimes they'll even cater it (think pizzas and maybe some beers). Definitely a concept worth investigation in another post.

So that's a rundown on what Meetup accomplishes. I'll now briefly explain the how behind it.

Meetup.com is a website. Within this website, people create groups (eg. "Mothers Who Knit" — a knitting group), and within groups, people post events (eg. "Let's get together Sunday morning and knit while we talk about babies and other stupid shit" — 8am at Cozy Coffee).

Anyone can register on Meetup.com, and it's free. Once you're registered, you can view events happening near you (or a location of your choice). You can RSVP to these events. From there on out, all you have to do is show up. That's it.

If you want to host events, you can either join an existing group and get permission to post events within it, or create your own group and start posting events.

That's it. Meetup is a great tool for meeting new people, learning new things (some events are pretty neat), or helping get settled in somewhere you're new to.

Meetup is used around the globe, and I think it originated in New York City. It will be more active in some areas, and less active in others. It depends how much your local community has adopted it! My current city (Vancouver, Canada) has probably hundreds of groups and thousands of active users.

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/

More information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meetup_%28website%29

RE: But what if it's a murderer organizing the event?! No. You're about as likely to get killed by a serial killer as you are to win the lottery (hint: you're not going to win the lottery). Let's say you show up and it seems sketchy. How's about you just turn around and walk the other way? Problem averted. Dems life skills.

If you really are worried about this, you can always creep the group and the people going to it. Has the group been around for a while? Does it have more than three members? That alone will pretty much guarantee you that it's legitimate. If they keep killing the guests, they'd end up with some bad reviews (I dunno - by the mourning family or maybe the police who were alerted when Bob never came back?) and people wouldn't keep going.

It's an irrational fear. Forget about it.