UPSTREAM THINKING
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Splash of the Week
Belonging.
Hi friends,
A few weeks ago, I saw something that stopped me mid-scroll.
On Tagesschau, Germany’s most traditional nightly news, the anchor opened a segment about the 2025 “Jugendwort des Jahres” (Youth Word of the Year), with the words:
“Liebe Community” = “Dear community.”
I’m not sure if it was meant as irony or an experiment in tone, but it made me think: When even the national news greets viewers like an influencer, what does that say about the times we’re in?
Everyone Wants a Community
Right now, community is the word of the moment. Brands use it. Startups promise it.
And entire industries, especially the rise of social wellness clubs, are being built around it. But what if all this talk about community is actually a signal? A symptom of how disconnected we’ve become?
We don’t just want better spaces; we want a place to belong.
The Science of Belonging
In psychology, this isn’t new. Susan Fiske’s Core Social Motives Framework (2004) outlines five universal motives that drive nearly everything humans do:
Belonging the need for stable, close relationships.
Understanding the need for shared meaning and prediction.
Controlling the need to feel effective in shaping outcomes.
Enhancing Self the need to protect self-esteem and identity.
Trusting the need to see others as well-intentioned and the world as safe enough to act.
We don’t outgrow these motives, we redesign how we meet them. And right now, we’re redesigning belonging, by creating a “Belonging Economy”.
The Belonging Economy
Hospitality Groups like Rosewood Hotel Group’s rebranded their whole culture as relationship hospitality.
Euromonitor’s Voice of the Consumer states consumers place greater value on experinece than on material goods in 2025.
Now we have social wellness clubs, co-working collectives, and membership spaces. These are booming not because people need more matcha or yoga, but because they’re engineered to meet these five motives at once.
They give you belonging (membership = “community”),
understanding (shared values),
control (agency over your time and rituals),
self-enhancement (identity and aesthetic),
and trust (a safe, curated environment).
It’s the same psychology that used to live inside villages, temples, and universities, now redesigned as subscription-based tribes. The business model of belonging isn’t about wellness. It’s about reassurance: You’re part of something real.
But the experience economy is nothing new. Walt Disney is often describes as the experience economy pioneer. Harvard Business Review wrote an article on the experience economy in 1998, worth a read: “Welcome to the experience economy”.
What’s new isn’t our desire to belong, it’s how that desire is being designed for.
When even national institutions start speaking in the language of “dear community,”
it tells us that audience isn’t enough anymore. We don’t just want to consume; we want to be seen. But belonging isn’t created through branding, it’s cultivated through trust, proximity, and shared rhythm.
Belonging used to emerge organically through shared work, faith, or geography.
Now it’s orchestrated, through UX design, membership tiers, and brand tone.
It’s not just an emotion we stumble into; it’s a product feature, carefully architected and optimized.
We’ve shifted from belonging as a byproduct of community to belonging as a deliverable.
That’s the pivot of our era.
While everyone’s busy optimizing belonging as a business strategy, maybe the real work is just saying hi to the person next to us again.
— Clouds
A Final Note
The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self. The ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of seeing the essence of another.
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Disclaimer: This newsletter does not provide medical or nutritional advice. The content shared here is for informational and educational purposes only. To inspire a more mindful and empowered relationship with water, and yourself.