
The rise and fall of Latitude, an exclusive underground society (2016) - pmoriarty
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/my-year-in-san-franciscos-2-million-secret-society-startup#
======
colanderman
Maybe I'm a boring middle-class introvert but…

> _People I knew made vague threats that I would regret leaving or talking
> about it. A roommate of mine stopped telling me where he was going when he
> left the house. Friends whom I trusted contacted me and played stupid about
> their own involvement in order to suss out what I knew. I can 't say with
> confidence that Nonchalance encouraged this behavior, but they should have
> been able to predict it._

What kind of person regularly interacts with so many people that _several_ of
them – "people", "a roommate", and "friends" – are part of some secret society
and feel the need to start bothering her about no longer partaking?

Hell, I'm lucky if I can find _one_ person I know to play Words With Friends.
And none of them would notice or care if I stopped playing, they'd just assume
I got busy or something, like every other middle-class 30-something with a
job.

I guess this is a wealthy socialite thing? Reading this feels so foreign to
me.

~~~
Domenic_S
Wealthy socialites don't have roommates. This reads like the author is in
college or fresh out, where school friends + roommates + roommates' friends +
parties + nights out = interacting with a lot of people.

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freshhawk
I would love to have this restarted but as a cooperative and with only the
people who refused or left Latitude because of the power/information
asymmetry. Or those types of people. They saw the problem and acted even when
being a member must have been a lot of fun and it must have been painful to be
left out.

The mystery and social connections from something like this are great, the
number of people obviously using it to play out some power fantasy are not. Do
you want cults? Because that's how you get cults.

Kat Meler's quote "I'm more for 'surprises' now, I think. A surprise is a
secret that everyone agrees will only last for a finite time, and will
ultimately be gifted and shared." is a great lesson to learn from this.

~~~
archagon
I wish there were more (co-ed) fraternal organizations without the cult
aspects. You know — a nice house, a pretty flag, a space to hang out and talk
about interesting things. There's a certain social niche that just doesn't get
filled by jobs or single-purpose meetups. Reading about this startup feels me
with a deep sort of longing, despite knowing that it's a corporate construct.

~~~
freshhawk
Wow do I ever know the feeling. The "of like minds and hearts" line from the
Latitude story really got me.

It's been my daydream plan to fund/start/organize one for more than 10 years
now.

I too want a tribe.

~~~
mercer
If you have any concrete ideas and reside in Europe, ideally the Northern
area, send me an email!

------
fvrghl
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11243631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11243631)

Also my original post with no discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11240405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11240405)

------
stickfigure
Wow, I can't believe the cynicism and bile in this thread. Even the title of
the submission!

I didn't get to participate in this game, but I played in a elaborate plot-
based scavenger hunt that some friends of mine in San Luis Obispo spent months
(and thousands of dollars) planning. It was incredible, and I feel very
special and honored to be one of the relatively few people invited to
participate. Many months later some of the semi-permanent fixtures left behind
caused some controversy and confusion in the papers:
[http://www.sanluisobispo.com/opinion/opn-columns-
blogs/artic...](http://www.sanluisobispo.com/opinion/opn-columns-
blogs/article39211485.html)

I had the kind of fun that you only get when someone burns a huge chunk of
their life and treasure to make something _for_ you. It's pretty clear from
reading the vice article that the Latitude Society was a similar project. I
live in SF and somehow completely missed the opportunity to participate, but
I'm pretty sure I would have loved it.

Years ago EA tried to create a game called Majestic. It was an interactive
fiction that interrupted you in the middle of your day, kinda like this. They
screwed it up by doing things like playing "This is a a game." at the
beginning of phone calls you would receive (thanks, legal), but it would be
pretty lame to be reading headlines on HN bashing "EA's for-profit alternate
reality game".

~~~
afpx
Where is the cynicism and bile?

At this moment, there are 5 top level comments of which yours is one, and the
other 4 comments are neutral.

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mercer
> I heard from a Nonchalance employee that Jeff had said he thought we were
> "entitled," that he was angry because he'd given us a $2 million gift we
> didn't appreciate properly.

This is the heart of the matter, I think. While it's speculation, it appears
what went wrong is that Hull failed to delineate the 'business' from the rest
of it.

The way he feels would strike me as odd (at best) if I hadn't experienced
something similar myself. More than once.

On at least two occasions (the rest are vaguer) I started some business
venture where the impetus was largely philanthropic/idealistic. Both times the
end result was messy for everyone involved and largely unproductive. While the
specifics were different, I think the main reason why things went South was
that I mixed business with pleasure. I shat where I ate.

I'm not saying it's impossible or inadvisable to turn your dream into a
business, or do business that you enjoy too, or start a business with your
romantic partner for that matter. Rather, I think it's crucial to clearly
delineate, and write down on paper, and discuss with everyone involved, which
parts of the endeavor are business and which are not. And perhaps more
importantly to discuss whether it's possible to separate these things in the
first place.

------
justaguyonline
A fascinating story that manages to make up for an abomination of a website.

I found the comparisons between then the social networks of Latitude and
digital social networks the most interesting. The failure of Latitude seems to
be in (of course, perfect) hindsight due to the differences in cost between
digital and "human" social networks. To support Latitude, the costs had to be
raised far higher than it's user could support. Facebook of course just makes
you pay with your eyeballs and your privacy. Both of which are evidently less
dear to us than the cash in our wallets.

I can't help but take the human social network as an organization idea
farther. I mean it in the best possible way when I point out that every time I
go to church there is a point in time in which everyone is asked to give what
nominally should be a significant amount of their income to the church to keep
it operating. ( Not to mention the sermons we sometimes get could put NPR to
shame...) All these networks also need funding to survive, this is not a
problem that was unique to Latitude, but an organizational restraint that all
social networks that rely on the "sneakernet" primarily instead of the
internet face. And, it's one that they've solved.

The issue is trying to incorporate normal startup methods of monetization, or
attempting to gather users in a typical software startup way before you even
try to monetize. Facebook could do this because the cheapness and "distance"
of online behavior makes it simple, but as illustrated in the article,
physical space is _expensive_ and people are messy creatures who just soak up
time being dealt with (I wonder how much damage or wasted time "jukebox-
incidents" caused on a regular basis). Human social network startups -- if
such a class exists, would be better served in my mind by copying how other
well established networks such as churches spread, giving up control of that
spread and monetizing that growth instead.

For instance, Latitude could of taken their most dedicated participants, such
as the author of this piece, and given them (perhaps a minimum amount of)
training in creating their own network and allowed the to go out as "seeds"
into other neighborhood and cities where they would create their own "secret
societies". Then, sell digital services, supplies and consulting to these new
operators. I would characterize it as catalyzing an organically spreading
human experience and profiting off the demand created by that spread instead
of centralizing an experience, homogenizing it and profiting off how easily
accessible the information from that experience is.

------
zem
it was interesting to read that shortly after reading doctorow's new novel,
'walkaway'. having the book fresh in my mind really highlighted how asymmetry
of ownership was built into latitude's dna, and was practically its raison
d'etre.

the sad thing is of late this business model has become widespread - the party
with capital to seed the enterprise wants to retain ownership and control, but
they depend for a large fraction of their labour into selling volunteers the
fantasy that they are part of "building something together". you often end up
with a beautiful, vibrant structure emerging from the volunteers, which is
then coopted (and all too frequently destroyed) when the owners try to assert
their ownership by way of more explicitly capturing the created value.

heck, the person behind _little free library_ has trademarked and is
monetising the name
[https://littlefreelibrary.myshopify.com/collections/charter-...](https://littlefreelibrary.myshopify.com/collections/charter-
signs)

~~~
personlurking
You could just as well be talking about Couchsurfing. Surfing, at least for
me, is near impossible because no one accepts my personalized, timely
requests. A flood of people, with no profile description or references started
using the site just to get free accommodations. The few free, community-driven
events there are now, are mostly set up around drinking at night. The
attendees list is now basically a FB-style "like" and no longer a sign that
you're actually going to the event. Three to four years back, 9/10 events were
free and made by other members. Now, 9/10 are "free" (donation required) or
straight up paid, and run by small businesses.

------
srtjstjsj
Previously on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11243631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11243631)

344 points dcschelt a year ago 120 comments

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kingbirdy
This seems like it would've been incredibly fun, at least to me, though it
does make me wonder if I'd have been willing to join in the first place. I'm
also curious what other things like this exist out there in the world that I
just don't know about.

------
Animats
Did some of the people behind that go off to do the Fyre Festival? Same
concept, same kind of screwup.

The current incarnation of that concept is Snctm, in LA.[1] More sex, though.

[1] [https://www.snctm.com/](https://www.snctm.com/)

~~~
freshhawk
Even though I've read this article before, the first thing I thought of this
time was the Fyre Festival tweet that ended with "the real lesson we should
take away is how easy it is to lure a bunch of rich people onto an island with
no hope of escape"

edit: From Snctm website: "...all Gentlemen are required to wear a Tuxedo with
Bowtie. Ladies shall be elegantly dressed in Evening Wear or Lingerie ... At
Pool Party, Gentlemen are required to wear Shorts, while Ladies don Bikinis or
Clothing Optional."

Creepiness level confirmed.

~~~
volkl47
I mean, it appears to be a private sex/fetish club. That's not exactly
surprising IMO.

~~~
freshhawk
I was referring to the ... asymmetry in those rules. It is clear that when
they screen for "esthetic appeal" and "professional status", those have
different weights for different genders. That's the creepy kind of private
sex/fetish club, not the cool kind.

~~~
sbierwagen
Duh? If the "professional status" metric was applied equally to both genders,
then the club would be 90% men, which is the gender ratio you want for a
different kind of sex club.

~~~
freshhawk
Seriously? I mean the implication is that men are screened for wealth and
women for attractiveness. The relative weights between wealth and
attractiveness differ along gender lines. As in: rich men buy their way in to
a club where they can sleep with, or at least look at, attractive women. As
in: there is a hooker/john power dynamic at play here.

I don't mean to be insulting, I honestly thought I was being subtle in a fun,
snide and understandable way but apparently I was not.

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ckamin5
Off topic, but is anyone else having trouble loading and reading the article?
I tried 3 times and the website is utterly unusable. Keeps sending me to the
bottom of the page.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
I gave up reading halfway through because I can't get it to scroll smoothly.

~~~
nikanj
Same here, but they already got my page view, and don't really care if I read
the piece too. I wonder if the random scrolling back-forth ensures all the
banners get actual time on screen, to maximize ad income.

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rurounijones
Cannot read the site on mobile because it keeps randomly scrolling to the
bottom of the page and loading new articles. Lools like borked infinite
scrollong

~~~
subpixel
Similarly I keep getting shunted to another URL via pushstate. But the ads
load fine.

~~~
senorjazz
Equally bad experience trying to read articles on vice. Scrolling is terrible,
jarring, slow, find myself in the middle of a newly loaded article without
realising.

Tend to give vice a miss now, which is a shame as quite enjoy some of there
articles when I should be working

------
jamestimmins
Can this get flagged w '2016'?

~~~
dang
Done now. Thanks.

