The Original Social Media

We are now connected to each other more than ever.

I can contact my representative, video chat my mom, and have food delivered to my couch with a phone. However, even with all that connection, we are more isolated than ever before. Our political and social views are becoming more polarized, and our youth are experiencing more anxiety and depression than ever before. But there is no stopping this train, right? Technology is here and we even now have smart toothbrushes!  So, is it too late? Can we turn the train around?

I think so.

What if we did something that was so simple people had actually been doing for generations, but for some reason, it had fallen to the sideline of popular culture.

What if we used the original social media? What if we used opening a bottle of wine as a reason to get together?

I believe something pretty magical happens when you pop a cork, put the tech down, and look across a table. It doesn't even need to be a nice table... it can be an old washing machine. The magic happens when you give a gathering a simple reason for existence.

"Hey, I just got a new bottle, come over and try it!" 

Then, after you spend a moment talking about the wine, your conversation shifts...

"Hey, how's work going?"

And BOOOM all of a sudden you see a smile, or a look, or maybe even a shrug IRL... you experience the other person. I know this sounds scary and hard to believe, but people have been doing it for a long time, and I believe we need to bring it back.

We know everything about someone we sat next to in college seven years ago but might not know our next door neighbor's name. 

So, with Brix and Barrel, I want to give people a reason to get together, to invite someone over, to show up to someone's house they haven't seen in a while, and ultimately just connect more through the original social media. Because, even though it sounds like a big goal, I believe if we all put our tech down from time to time and had more conversations over a bottle of wine, this world might actually get a little bit better.  

Cheers,

Trevor