Community

People used to tell stories about others, which Randy does not consider personal stories.

But I think people have gotten

just

through coming to more events

they've gotten

the message

the idea

that it has to be about me.

He and Joyce did not try and tell people they can’t tell stories about others. The community decided and moved towards only telling truly personal stories. This connects back with the autonomy of the event, also. The creators didn’t impose this constraint. It came out of the event.

The community also decided that hero stories are not so great.

We don't get so much

like we did in the early days

hero stories

where the teller

is the hero of the story.

Everything was so screwed up

and I came and

everything was fine.

Then

whenever you hear a story like that

[halfhearted clapping]

it's great [sarcastic].

If you hear a story like

everything was so screwed up

and I got in there and

I made it so much worse

and I don't know if I can ever fix it.

That story:

Yeah!

I can relate to that!

Tellers used to share hero stories, but got a negative response. Now those stories aren’t often told.

Not talking while the teller is performing is not something that Randy and Joyce enforce. Randy said

And that

for some reason

that just sort of grew

grew on it's own.

It is a community norm. He says the reason he thinks it has happened is

because many of the people in the audience

imagine themselves up there

whether they put their name in the hat or not

they imagine themselves up there.

What if that was me?

I'd want people to be quiet and pay attention

even if

they're not that interested in the story.

This is “do unto others” reasoning. Either way, the community has decided this is how they should behave, and they do.

Also, Randy actively tried to work against people talking at Venkman’s, so it is interesting that he says it just happened naturally at Manuel’s. What if it hadn’t? Would he have taken action then?

The primary value Randy lists of Carapace is the forming of friendships. He said,

It gives that to people.

Gives them

a microcommunity

of people who

were strangers

until

they started getting together

at Carapace.

These people were strangers, but now they aren’t, because they shared their stories with each other.

When Randy talked about the social community at Carapace, he said

we're ordinary people tell ordinary stories to each other

and appreciating each other's existence.

This jumps from appreciating each other’s stories to appreciating each other.

The community subtly decides about certain aspects of Carapace, but Randy has actively avoided having individual community members make direct changes to the show. In offering advice to others wanting to create a similar show he said

Be prepared to

have a lot of

a certain kind of stamina

because you're gonna be dealing with a lot of

different kinds of people.

Some of whom will have

really specific ideas

about how your event is supposed to go.

And you'll have to listen to that

and then

not change your event.