Yes And No Podcast · YesAndNo Podcast - Matt Barrieres and Arda Bengu | One-Third Media

Are We Losing Our Sense of Community?

·46 min·3 clips

Matt says therapy and four years of change made him realize a community can become part of an identity trap.

1. Yes And No Podcast frames the episode around whether society is losing a sense of community and what that loss means for daily life. 2. Arda hosts with Matt as a friend and recurring co-host, and both matter because they argue from lived experience rather than theory. 3. The episode asks whether community is a mirror of identity, a source of comfort, or a structure that can trap people. 4. Matt describes volleyball clubs where people felt like family, shared volleyball history, and spent time in ping-pong areas and a cafeteria. 5. Arda compares that feeling to church communities, where weekly attendance creates trust, support, and emotional closeness. 6. The conversation shifts to social media, with both saying platforms promised online community but often produce a different dynamic. 7. Matt mentions music scenes and a Myspace-era underground society in Paris as a place where community shaped discovery and belonging. 8. Arda says today people often search for like-minded people online, then move on if the fit does not work. 9. Matt says TikTok can connect creators and audiences through personality, art, and shared problems, but he calls that bond shallow if it is too broad. 10. Both argue that knowing what you want matters, because people can chase the wrong community under pressure from culture or other people. 11. Matt says therapy over the last four years made him rethink his identity, and certain videos or sounds can pull him back to older environments. 12. He says those reminders can restore a sense of self, but they can also show how a community can become part of an identity that is not entirely his own. 13. Arda says he does not have many friends, but he combines close friends into a small community that gives him social interaction and intellectual dynamism. 14. The discussion then turns to the app 222 Places, which Matt found on Instagram and described as a social experience designed to create events for strangers. 15. Matt compares the app to The Game and says it asks questions, then places users into events where they are not looking for a friend or girlfriend. 16. He criticizes the fact that this human connection is not free, because the app charges money to help people meet. 17. Arda and Matt then widen the topic to religion, nationalism, taxes, and democratic systems as forms of community with rules and responsibilities. 18. They end up agreeing that communities can become dangerous when they stop changing and start treating outsiders as wrong or inferior. 19. The tone is conversational and argumentative, with quick back-and-forth, interruptions, jokes, and recurring examples from LA, Istanbul, Paris, and music scenes. 20. Listeners who like friendship dynamics, social philosophy, and platform design will get the most from this episode, while people wanting a tightly structured argument may skip it.

As heard by us

A loose conversation about community, loneliness, and an app that tries to engineer connection.

Yes and No Podcast opens with Arda and Matt circling the loss of community and the way other people can mirror who someone is. The exchange feels loose and unscripted, with jokes and back-and-forth remarks carrying it more than any tidy conclusion, though it does repeat its…

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Why you'd press play

If you want a conversational take on community, loneliness, and an app that tries to engineer serendipity, press play.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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