We all know that Craigslist is a powerful force in local media. Despite attacks from politicians for serving as an occasional conduit to crime, and cries from critics for unwillingness to innovate, Craigslist is a phenomenon that keeps on growing.
Just how powerful is the site? Jason Paul decided to find out. After graduating from American University and unsuccessfully trying to find work as a journalist – he applied to 180 publications – Paul decided to make his own story: living off Craigslist.
Paul set out to relocate to three different cities in the course of nine months. At each stop his goal was to find everything he needed – including friends – through Craigslist. He is documenting his journey on a Craigslist-looking site at www.livingcraigslist.com.
“After graduating from college in May, I was unable to secure a job as a journalist, so I decided to pursue a story of my own,” Paul told me via email. “I realized the only valuable skill I had attained from college was how to get by on the internet. I decided, Craigslist was the perfect entry point for all activities and imagined that anything was possible by way of the site.
“I have spent the last four months attemp
ting to prove this theory, and thus far I have been successful,” Paul said.
Are there any other local media sites that would make this possible? I doubt it.
Paul’s first city was the San Francisco Bay area since it was the birthplace of Craigslist. He is currently in Denver and plans to let his readers determine his final city (“someplace smaller than 400,000 and on the east coast”). He expects to finish the experiment on July 1 and then hole up in his parents’ basement in the Washington, D.C. suburbs to write a book documenting the experiment. “With or without a publisher, I plan on writing an analytical evaluation of the Craigslist community,” Paul says. “In addition to my experiences, the book will focus on debunking the misconception that the internet is fragmenting communities and making face-to-face time a thing of the past.”
Naturally, I asked Paul what he has learned about Craigslist so far.
“I have learned that people are not going to murder or rape me when I go to sell them a toaster,” Paul replied. “I feel so comfortable knowing what is going on behind the listing, I have even stopped carrying pepper spray.
“But aside from the stigma attached to Craigslist, I have learned that, in many ways, the internet can be a useful community,” said Paul, who did a work exchange for housing and meals in Oakland and says he struggled with drug abusers in his second housing situation. “I originally chose Craigslist because I thought it had potential for anything. What I have learned is why that is possible. At the root of any post found on the site, users of Craigslist are looking for one basic thing, human interaction. Okay, so maybe you are not looking for a friend when you sell your futon on Craigslist, but in many of the sections what people are looking for is more the a buy or sell transaction. I even had Thanksgiving dinner off the site, and I had to choose from more than 20 responses.”
I have heard managers at many local media companies state a goal of providing everything a local resident would need to live their lives. All the information, all the connections. Some have done better than others, but none (to my knowledge) have done better than Craigslist. And the site has thriving communities in hundreds of cities, so it’s done it with scale.
I hope a book publisher steps up to help Paul tell the complete story. While it is sure to be entertaining, it is likely to be just as enlightening for anyone still trying build community on a local level.
