James G.

Meetup.com has become a complete joke. I used to attend and organize events all the way from the early 2000's up until around 2013 or 2014. At that point it was still somewhat decent, in terms of actually being able to connect with people and make friends. By 2020 meetup.com became a totally abysmal company, and had lost all of it's authenticity in being a way for people to genuinely connect with one another.

By the mid 2010's, meetup had already changed massively from what it originally was. In the early days of meetup.com, one could type in many different things into the search function, and often come up with real opportunities to simply hang out with like minded individuals. If you liked Elvis, you could go to meetups with fellow Elvis enthusiasts. If you loved a certain breed of dog, you might be able to hang out with fellow lovers of that breed.

By the early 2010's, meetup had changed radically into something that was much, much more oriented to PAID EVENTS, mostly in the form of classes and teaching. There's nothing wrong with paying for an event, but there's a huge difference between paying a nominal fee to participate in a group meditation, and paying absurd fees for meditation "classes". I used to actually run a meditation meetup in the old days, where we would have 30 or more people show up for group meditations at a place called the Metaphysical Research Society. People could come in and donate a small amount or not, and join with many others in very powerful group meditations.

Now, if you're interested in meditating with others, for the most part you will not find that on meetup. What you will find are all manner of meditation classes and "meditations" that cost $20 or more so someone who has read a few webpages on meditation can "teach" you to meditate. The same is true of shamanism. Type that word into meetup today, and you will find many "teachers" hosting "shamanism" meetups which are nothing more than some idiotic and very rudimentary "shamanic journey" which consists of a very basic guided visualization or meditation.

The point is that terms like meditation and shamanism, or in fact just about any facet of spirituality, are thrown around loosely all day long on meetup as if they represented groups that are there for genuine enthusiasts of such things to join in and participate in. This is overwhelmingly not the case. They are mostly there for profit, not for bringing like minded people together.

Further, the people who run meetup these days are truly abominable in terms of any actual customer service or any real commitment to be of genuine service to the community. They, like most of the people hosting meetups these days, are there to further their own agendas, and very little else. Also, they do not accept genuine, sincere, constructive criticism. At all.

Last year I sent them a letter. A very, very heartfelt letter, spelling out in painstaking and honest detail how my experience of meetup had deteriorated since the early 2000's. I explained every aspect of how it had changed, passionately and from the heart. Guess what their response was: NOTHING. They didn't even bother to respond AT ALL to a letter which took me the better part of an hour to write.

And to make matters worse, this morning during meditation I thought maybe, just maybe, I would try meetup again, on the off chance that just possibly they could have found their hearts and high consciousness again. NOT SO! Just an hour ago, I tried to sign up with meetup once more. I attempted to sign up using two different email addresses. In each case, I received a message saying "sorry, you are blocked from registering. Your email address has been blocked". Well, in both cases these were email addresses I had NEVER used to sign up with meetup. Therefore, they literally must have programmed their software to block my IP address from registering, presumably because I had the GALL to share the honest truth with them about what meetup has become. I used no profanity or anything that should have gotten me blocked. Yet I am now blocked from meetup and couldn't join again if I wanted to!

There is a LOT more I could say about the travesty that this "social meeting" tool has become. But I doubt anyone would keep reading long enough to hear the rest of the details. Just be it known that I am very, very sincere in everything I am saying here, and I in no way wanted this to happen to meetup. On the contrary, I am phenomenally sad that this has happened, and that the world has lost what was once a genuinely useful, helpful, and legitimate way to meet people and make friends.

It's time for us to create something new, something better. Meetup isn't a shadow of it's former self, it is the complete opposite of what it once was. And the obstinate fools who run it seem to be proud of this FACT.