The last thing Lenette Nakauchi wants people to think is that her life has been consumed by one Web site. But it has. And it’s worked wonders.
Since moving last July to Chicago from Southern California, the 24-year-old strategic analyst for BP began a raw foods diet, got involved with a women’s social group, dabbled in the knitting and yoga communities, took part in a twice-monthly club discussing the current best-selling book “The Secret,” and helped lead a group of 500 young professionals new to the city.
Nakauchi’s calendar has been kept full by Meetup.com, a social networking Web site that’s becoming the contemporary equivalent of a bulletin board at the student commons.
There are nearly 900 Meetup.com groups in the Chicago area alone, as wide and varied as Disney movie enthusiasts in Naperville, a sign language practice group in Crystal Lake, and blues fans who like meeting on the third Thursday of the month.
“I’ve made the majority of my friends, and the friends of their friends, from Meetup.com,” said Nakauchi during a recent raw foodist meetup in Hyde Park.
While interaction in similar sites such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com takes place within the digital realm, Meetup.com encourages face-to-face meetings between like-minded members-grouped by interests, hobbies, political persuasions. Indeed, it’s a Web site that encourages actual human contact.
“We use the Internet to get off the Internet,” said Andres Glusman, a senior director for the New York-based company.
The site gained traction in 2003 when members of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign used it to organize rallies and fundraising events. Often confused with MoveOn.org, the left-leaning political site, Meetup.com remains non-partisan, though one rule is strictly enforced: no hate or adult-themed groups.
It was after Sept. 11, 2001, that Scott Heiferman — a Homewood native living in New York — was inspired by the sight of a wounded city reconnecting with one another.
“There was a real feeling of people looking for each other — a city of neighbors, not just a city of strangers,” Heiferman said. “What if that feeling could be bigger? How can we make it easy to find others locally?”
So Heiferman and four others locked themselves in a room and three months later, the idea for Meetup.com was born.
In the nearly five years since the site’s founding (it launched June 2002), Meetup.com has attracted 3 million users in 20-plus countries worldwide. Meetup groups from Sheboygan to Shanghai come together to play blackjack, discuss postmodernism and ride vintage motorcycles.
For the majority of users, Meetup.com events are free or cost a few dollars at the door. For organizers, many pay the $15 average monthly fee to use the site and promote their events (to sign up, go to meetup.com and click on the “Start a Meetup Group” tab).
The Chicago Raw Food Community was founded four years ago, but only began using Meetup.com last July. The result?
“It’s expanded incredibly,” said organizer Ariane Glazer. “We’ve doubled our group in less than a year.”
Curious as to who goes to these events and why, At Play hung out with three meetup groups in three days. These are their stories.
Pug love
The scene inside can lead to sensory overload, if you’re not prepared. The pugs — they of the smooshed-nose, wrinkled-face dog variety — run free in circles and zigzag lines. Five pugs race toward a young lady for a chance to snack on the crunchy treats she holds. Then, unabashedly, acts of pug-on-pug love break out as their blushing owners try to pry the dogs apart.
Doggie Woodstock this is not. Rather, it’s the Chicago Pug Meetup Group, whose monthly events resemble an afternoon at an over-caffeinated petting zoo. On this Saturday, tiny paw prints in the snow lead to the entrance at Of Mutts & Men, an indoor dog park in Lakeview.
Up and running since February 2003, this pug group is as much for the owners as it is for the dogs. They raise money for each other when their pugs need medical attention. They trade advice on veterinarians and breeders, and rent Santa costumes to take Christmas pictures with their pugs.
Or they pick up each other’s pets and gush over their cuteness.
“Ohmigod! Look at this puppy,” squeaks Elana Mendelson, picking up the tiniest pug in the room, a black pug named Soybean. “Shut. Up.”
Mendelson owns two pugs: Slugger and Sandberg. They’re big baseball fans, as you can imagine. Sandberg, wearing a dog-sized Cubs jersey, has a leash autographed by the second basemen (Ryne, of course) he is named after.
Mendelson appreciates more than the company of like-minded owners. Since joining this meetup group (nearly 600 others have), Mendelson has started to “pugshare.” It’s a dog-sitting service for pug owners, for when they leave town and need someone who appreciates and understand the needs of a pug.
That, for one, pugs were bred to be lap dogs for Tibetan royalty. That they’re quiet dogs, barely bark and love the company of humans. And that their eyes can easily be scratched because of their flat noses. And as this afternoon wears on, it becomes clear that pugs have boundless energy, outlasting their human friends.
Several dozen pugs zip by, leap, dart between legs, look with their round doggy eyes. If you haven’t experienced pug overload, then you haven’t truly lived.
Web site: pug.meetup.com/55
Next meetup: April 7
Not just veggies
The idea that heating food destroys its enzymes, necessary for healthy bodies, might make it seem as if raw foodists chomp on carrots all day.
The Chicago Raw Food Community is hoping to change that perception. They exist not only to promote a healthier lifestyle, but more importantly, to help fellow raw foodists live in a city where vegetables often come steamed with a side of steak.
“When you’re in a raw community, you need a lot of support,” says Karen Baier, a member of both the raw foods and pugs meetup group. “It’s hard to stay raw. There are not a lot of options.”
On a Sunday evening, 50 or so raw foodists and the raw-curious meet in the basement of a Hyde Park supermarket. Members donate $10 or bring a dish for the raw potluck. Vendors show off their latest products, such as the mother who sold $5 Styrofoam cups of bissap, a Kool-aid red-colored hibiscus and mint tea.
In the test kitchen, raw chocolate maker Wendy Johnson demonstrates how to make a mint chocolate ice cream — no dairy products, of course — using frozen bananas, mint oil and agave nectar. A no-bake chocolate brownie using walnuts and almonds elicits a “heavenly” from one attendee.
“At first I thought it was going to be a bunch of weirdos,” says Mickey Hornick, a member of the group. “Instead, it was nurses and policemen and executives and plumbers. And everybody was in a great mood, just an energetic positive, group of people.”
Although the raw food movement extends to fish and meat, it is all vegetables on this night. A line stretched 30 deep for raw lasagna, “unfried rice,” and bowls upon bowls of leafy greens — but not a single carrot stick in sight.
Web site: rawfood.meetup.com/222
Next meetup: March 31
Ciao
Salvatore DiMartino was born in Sicily and moved stateside at age 8, nearly half a century ago. At home, he conversed with his parents in Italian — “one of the most beautiful languages in the world,” he proclaims.
Then both his parents died and DiMartino stopped speaking Italian. There was no need, and no one to speak to. He began losing his language. But DiMartino sought to reverse that.
“I wanted to recapture my heritage,” says DiMartino, carousing with several dozen Italian speakers at a Lakeview pub on a recent Monday night.
This is DiMartino’s second event with the Chicago Italian Language Meetup Group and already the language is returning in bits and pieces.
Drinks in hand, members of the group talk about the latest cultural fad, their favorite pizza restaurants and share memories of recent trips to Naples and Florence — all in a chorus of sultry Italian. English is discouraged, if just for a few hours each month.
What started with a half a dozen people who barely spoke Italian has grown to a group of 500 members and is expanding, says organizer Kate Janes.
Today, a $10 membership covers one year of events. Most in attendance are native English speakers who happen to be Italian aficionados. A number of members were born and raised in Italy.
Like Francesco Arena, a photographer who grew up in Puglia on the Adriatic coast of Italy. On this night, he’s teaching the delicate art of non-verbal Italian communication. Twisting your index finger into a cheek means the food is delicious. Tapping your palm on top of a closed fist means to go away.
And as for hand signals to avoid? Innocuous gestures in America that would be deemed vulgar in Italy?
“Some things,” he says, “are better you don’t know.”
It is, as members point out, the next best thing to being in Italy, if you’re serious about learning the language.
“This is the easiest, cheapest, most fun way to practice,” says Elizabeth LeClair, a group member. “Classes can be $50 an hour. Here, you buy a beer for five bucks and talk Italian for a few hours.”
Web site: italian.meetup.com/21
Next meetup: March 25
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kpang@tribune.com
