Would you go on a three-day trip with people you’ve never met, simply because, online, you profess a shared hobby?
Benson Chu would. Settled into the back seat of a Range Rover, he and three strangers, all central Arkansas residents and users of the website Meetup.com, will spend the next nine hours in this Rover before joining 13 other Meetup users on the porch of a bunkhouse in Benton, Tenn., some 500 miles east of Little Rock.
They’ll spend two nights on rickety, close-quartered bunks. They’ll share bug spray and meals, and they’ll paddle the Ocoee River’s 1996 whitewater Olympic course in absolute tandem, or else risk being tossed among rocks that have shattered bones and taken lives.
Meetup was founded amid the chaos of mid-2002 Manhattan. The dot.com bubble had burst, and images from the previous year’s terrorist attacks were freshly seared on the national consciousness. New Yorkers seemed different — vulnerable but also more open. Volunteerism spiked and journalists noted the big city’s small-town vibe: People were starting conversations with strangers and checking on neighbors.
Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.