Six years of Articles Club

Six years ago this month, Stephanie and I posted an invitation on our respective blogs: would anyone be interested in reading articles together and discussing them once a month? It would be like a book club, but with articles! That first night, we sat around my living room with snacks and drinks in hand, 10 or so strangers who just happened to have a little blog in common. I didn’t know anyone in the circle except for Stephanie… which is a pretty crazy situation for an introvert to find herself in.

These photos are from our six-year anniversary dinner on Stephanie’s back deck… it’s good to have a wedding planner in the group!!

Six years later, the faces around the circle are beloved friends. I wrote extensively about this realization last year, how these strangers had become true, dear friends, so I won’t go into it again. But the thing I’ve been trying to figure out recently, is why this group is so special. I mean, yes, we’re friends – lots of people have those. But everyone in Articles Club is completely besotted with Articles Club (seriously, just listen to Steph wax poetic), and I do have a few theories as to why that is.

1. It’s rare to meet dear friends later in life. Often, the new friends you do meet are the parents of your children’s friends and not necessarily those you’d pick for yourself, and so it feels positively spoiling to have gained a dozen kindred spirits in my late 20s and early 30s. Bonds grow quick and deep when you sit around a table for hours of conversation each month, discussing everything from childhood to work to parenting to relationships to politics to religion to finances.

2. We are all starved for community. The pandemic has exacerbated this, yes, but loneliness was an issue in the culture at large long before COVID. As many as 61% of young adults feel “serious loneliness” right now, and about half of Americans say they have three or fewer close friends (which represents a precipitous decline in friendship over the last few decades). I think I can speak for us all when I say I am SO GRATEFUL to have a guaranteed evening of friends, conversation, and laughter every single month in this bleak landscape.

3. We’re starved for meaningful, compassionate, nuanced discussion. It’s not all laughter :) To the table we bring different backgrounds and opinions and passions and convictions, and yet we’re able to have nuanced, generous conversation. We live out the idea that what we have in common matters so much more than what divides us. I can’t tell you what a haven this feels like in a sometimes-cruel world that loves to point fingers and keep score.

4. We appreciate what we each bring to the table. Stacy will make you split your pants with laughter (Libby, too). Bethany teaches us up-dos. Adelyn keeps us young. Kelly is our resident luddite. Ginna is our resident mom. Julia keeps us from trending too precious. Pressley and Chelsey are our forward scouts for almost every rabbit hole we could ever want to go down. And Stephanie makes us feel loved and special by seating us at the most beautiful tables. We’re all just normal people, but the things (and people) we love grow lovelier by loving them, and that’s definitely true of this group.

Yes, that is the chicken pot pie I made with a “six” carved into the top.

All this to say – I think you should start an Articles Club. I think our world would be a happier, kinder, wiser, more generous place if you did. I KNOW it might seem scary, or you might not know where to start. But YOU CAN DO IT, and I hope you do. Lots of tips here if you’d like to try :)

Now onto some of the articles we read in the past year together, if you’d like to read along!

Working From Home:
15 Ways Homes Will Change Post-COVID-19
The End of Open-Plan Everything
10 Work-From-Home Habits That Have Saved My Days

Surviving Winter:
How to Make the Most of Covid Winter
How Will You Stay Cheerful This Winter?
The Secret to Enjoying a Long Winter
The Norwegian Town Where the Sun Doesn’t Rise

Higher Education and Purpose:
Reimagining High Education in the United States
You Don’t Find Your Purpose – You Build It

Hope:
The Power of Hope Is Real
How Hope Can Help You Heal
When Toxic Positivity Seeps Into Schools

The Aftermath of January 6th:
Our Shared Unsharing
Only the Church Can Truly Defeat a Christian Insurrection
The Roman Road From Insurrection

Opinions, Disagreements, and Changing People’s Minds:
How to Argue on the Internet Without Losing Your Mind
The Science of Reasoning With Unreasonable People
The Highest Form of Disagreement
Bonus: Adam Grant on the Armchair Expert podcast

The Current State of Friendship:
The Pandemic Has Erased Entire Categories of Friendship
Why Having Seasonal Best Friends Is Actually Really Healthy
Staying Close to Your Friends Without Kids
What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
We Want Our Friends Back! But Which Ones?

Strange Habits and Personal Hygiene:
The Hygiene Culture Wars That Started on Social Media
Coffee + Crumbs Episode 6.3: Why Am I Like This?

Current Events in Schools:
What Happens When a Slogan Becomes the Curriculum (and a follow-up by the same writer: ‘The Narrative Is, “You Can’t Get Ahead”’)
Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene
You Have to Read This Letter

Influencers:
When Grown-Ups Have Imaginary Friends
Momfluencer Content Enrages Me. Why Can’t I Look Away?
Quitting Social Media Made Me a Better Parent
Bonus: Under the Influence podcast
Bonus: This Instagram Stories highlight from Cotton Stem

The Bloggernacle: Or, the Intersection of LDS Culture and Blogging:
The Most American Religion
Instamom
Why So Many of Your Favorite Beauty Personalities are Mormon
Why I Can’t Stop Reading Mormon Housewife Blogs

Nostalgia:
The Surprising Role of Nostalgia During the Coronavirus Pandemic
What Is Nostalgia Good For? Quite a Bit, Research Shows
11 Reader Comments on Childhood Memories

I’d love to hear: what’s an article or essay you’ve read recently that made you want to discuss it with someone? Or, what do you think would be an interesting theme to discuss with a group like this? Leave a link – we’re always looking for new ideas! :)

Articles Club through the years:
Year One
Year Two
Year Three
Year Four
Year Five