Perhaps I just don't pay attention that much, but today I noticed something I had not in the last few years in attending free comic book day at my local shop (LCS). It wasn't that the shop was full, that is a given on the busiest shopping day of the year for comics, rather, the place was full of happy, smiling, laughing, talking people, mixed in age, gender and ethnicity. It doesn't necessarily matter that they were talking about comics (as one would in a comic shop) and all the stuff around the shop, it was the fact this this social interaction was occurring, and that it was so full of positivity that it actually forced you to walk around with a grin on your face and make you want to join the conversation.
I could easily buy everything I bought today on Amazon, or Ebay, or even be one of those people who download illegally. But I don't, and being in that shop today proved to me yet again that the LCS isn't ready to go down without a fight precisely because of what it, and local small business, can deliver outside of the material itself-- namely an aesthetic, social, communal experience. The LCS is not a den of negative fanboy scary as portrayed in movies and (as of late) reality television. Rather, the LCS can be that kind of place you heard your grandparents talk about, that place where people went and had coffee and read the paper and chatted. And no, the Starbucks in the B&N does not offer this, and I have been in many around the southeast and people aren't sitting around reading the latest issue of Newsweek chatting about the articles. You go there for the free wi-fi that only costs you as much as the cheapest cup of whatever.
The point here I am dancing around is this: support local business as they can still be hubs of healthy social discourse and interaction. Maybe my LCS is an exception or something, I can only speak from my own experiences, however, I know that generally when I go to a locally owned place to eat, or get coffee, people are generally more in tune with each other. By all means conduct your own social experiment as I have and next time you go out hit up these places that are being swallowed by all that is convenient or one-click away and just sort of soak in what is going on. Or, even if your bold, strike up a conversation. If you can strike up a conversation with a complete stranger in a bar you can do it here, ok?
