Community

Personally, I mainly consider myself a member of the teenage girl community. No, not the “teeny bopper” community, as my father would call it. The group of girls all over the world who are 18 to about 21 year olds, the girls I can relate to. This is a group of girls communicating through social media their highs and lows, as well as experiences they have had as a teenager.

In this day and age, I believe community can be defined as a group of people, large or small, that share an aspect of themselves or common experience. There are racial communities, sexuality-based communities, beauty communities — you name the topic, there is most likely a community for it. With the booming presence of social media, there is an enormous amount of space for different communities to exist and grow. There’s the Youtube communities — the “vloggers”, beauty gurus, and gamers — as well as TikTok communities — the mental health advocates, body positivity spreaders, as well as silly things like the comedians. And at the end of the day, these communities all come together to support their members.

Community has significant value to me. I consider myself a part of so many communities I could not even begin to count. For starters, like I previously stated, the teenage girl community. Then also my family is my community, my small hometown, my Italian heritage — so many I am proud to be a member of. I try and be there as much as possible for my community members as well as provide support at all times. I think of communities as support groups, and there is one for everyone. People need a group to be able to lean on in times of need for support, but also to advocate for other members when they are in need of the same.