But what do we do about it?

If you’re a larp organizer, Facebook is an unfortunate fact of life for you. Specifically, if you organize large-scale, weekend-long larps, this is the space your audience has chosen to use. However, as Meta (which owns not only Facebook but Instagram and WhatsApp) takes a turn toward full James-Bond-villain territory, a lot of us have asked, “can we drop Facebook?”
The conversation often becomes heated because Facebook is like a home for many larpers: it connects us to each other. And if we drop Facebook, where will we go? It’s time to acknowledge two facts and a question:
One, Facebook is bad.
Two, change is hard.
And finally, what comes next?
Facebook is Bad
Facebook is bad. We don’t mean, “we don’t like Facebook” (full disclosure, we don’t). We mean gross and unethical violations of consent and privacy. We mean massive manipulation of users’ emotions. And now we mean outright support for bigotry and right-wing attacks on truth. Facebook is bad. Really bad.
But it’s also like a home for much of the larp community, or at least larpers of a certain demographic. And now many of us are faced with a choice: continue to use a service that increasingly opposes our collective values (and in some cases, even our existences) or leave that home behind.
The thing is, this isn’t really a new problem for most larpers. It’s just one on a really big scale. Larpers, more than other groups, have dealt with unethical organizations that became the social hubs of communities. How many of us can think of a larp we went to that was toxic but was also the place where we saw all our friends? And we know there are consequences to leaving these spaces: most of us can remember friends we just don’t see anymore because we don’t play the same larp. And if we’re being kind to each other, we can realize that leaving such an organization (and its associated community) behind is a personal choice, and one it’s difficult to judge others for making. So let’s accept that Facebook (and Meta in general) is bad, and ask, “What do we do next?”
Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
Facebook isn’t a home for the community; it’s a prison. Like a dog inside an invisible fence, kept in the yard by years of conditioning, we can’t leave because Facebook has taught us, “It has to be this way.” But if we’re going to leave, we have to accept there’s no replacement: we can’t just change platforms; we also have to change our behavior.
And remember, change is hard.
Every one of us only has so much time and effort to put into improving ourselves and the world around us. And every one of us has needs that must be met, including the need for social connections. Leaving Facebook behind is harder for some of us than others: either we use it more, have more connections to other users, or don’t have an alternative that works for us. Some people need to change more, and others have more to lose.
There are also some decent reasons for sticking around. For example, Facebook has developed a lot of privacy tools over its existence, which are important to members of various marginalized groups. One of the best reasons we’ve personally seen was a friend who didn’t want to cede the space. “I have no particular love for this platform, but I mostly don’t experience harm here in how I use this space,” they said. “I am not personally interested in helping Zuck or anyone else have a trans- or queer-free space.”
However, if you want to leave Facebook and lack a viable alternative, you have to accept you have a lot of work to do. But what does that work look like?
A World Without Facebook
First, let’s talk to the larp producers. Remember this: you don’t need Facebook.
Facebook makes your life easier, but finding participants for your larps is a relatively simple formula: Awareness times Conversion Rate equals Participation. Quite simply, if you want participants to play in your larp, you need to make a bunch of people aware of it, and then a percentage of them will choose to play. The best thing you can have as a larp producer is a high conversion rate: the likelihood that someone who knows about your larp will sign up. This takes a lot of time and effort—having successful runs, building a brand, knowing what people like in a larp—but Facebook doesn’t really help you out here at all. In fact, Facebook isn’t even that great at converting awareness into participation (if you can convert 0.1% of your impressions into participants, you’re doing pretty well).
Instead, Facebook increases awareness, to a degree. It’s really good at getting you in front of users who regularly visit larp-related Facebook groups. It’s amazing if you spend $100 on it. But the algorithm is esoteric, and not everyone is going to see your posts. Further, you’re reaching the same group of people as every other larp. Facebook turns communities into self-licking ice cream cones: if a person sees your post, then you’re likely to see theirs, which in turn makes them likely to see yours, and so on. It creates the illusion that everyone is on Facebook… and when you advertise your larps there, that illusion is reinforced by the event itself, because it’s filled with Facebook users. But there are lots of potential participants out there for you to reach by alternative means, and reaching them is even easier if you can get them on something like a mailing list or Discord.
That, of course, is work, and it’s hard to compete with some of the large Facebook groups which are a clearinghouse for larp information. In the coming months, we’re going to see projects to offer legitimate alternatives, and alternatives to Facebook do work. Perhaps the biggest success story is Everything Immersive, a website that provides information about immersive theater. If you want to see immersive theater in the US or UK, you don’t go to social media; you go to Everything Immersive.
For larpers themselves, leaving Facebook is a different problem. They don’t just use it to find out about larps, but to connect with their friends. Facebook is insidious… it doesn’t just rely on preexisting user behaviors but actively modifies our behavior as we use it. After decades, a social media platform like Facebook isn’t just how we connect to our friends; it’s how we have friendships. For some, leaving it behind means abandoning vital connections and simply isn’t an option. However, we ask anyone committed to Facebook to remember two things:
First, it’s bad. We’re not attacking you or your choice to use it, but it’s important to acknowledge that Facebook is actively making our world a worse place. Don’t take those speaking out against Zuckerberg and Meta as people who are criticizing you; to do so silences legitimate criticism of individuals and corporations that threaten our shared values. Likewise, there’s a difference between “this company is evil” and “I don’t like this service.” When we discuss alternatives, your dislike of a platform that works differently (like Discord) is not the same as our dislike of a company actively promoting right-wing and hateful values.
Second, you don’t need your larp producers here. It’s a lot of effort to shift your social networks elsewhere… it’s considerably less to occasionally check a website or Discord. As your favorite producers leave Facebook (and they will, to varying degrees), you’ll receive fewer updates of upcoming larps. This is okay: it’s the producer’s choice where they advertise. Just as people respect your decision to stay, respect others in their choice to leave, and perhaps we can all commit to a simple idea.
Keep in touch.
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