Fax Club: A year of anonymous writing

What is Fax Club? A writing community embracing arcane technology

Have you ever heard an idea so left-field you just had to give it a go? Every Friday for the past year, I have received a fax. Alas, not one printed on that flimsy shiny paper you pull out of the machine after the whirr of the modem alerted you to its arrival. But a digital fax.

Each fax posed a question or scenario. Some were straightforward. Some were counterintuitive. Some were puzzling.

Then I logged into a platform with almost 100 other people and wrote my response. Usually it was a couple of paragraphs, sometimes longer. No-one knew my name. No-one knew where I lived or what I do for work. No-one knew anything identifiable about me. We’d read what each other had written and had the opportunity to respond.

We were each given a number.

And we were sworn to secrecy.

Because the rule of Fax Club is, you don’t talk about Fax Club. It runs on anonymity, vulnerability, and playfulness.

What happened when Fax Club 2.0 met up in person

On Friday, those of us who could, met for the first time in London. The numbers became names, faces, and stories.

People flew in from America, others got the train from the Netherlands, Germany, and France. Some found it took them as long to get to London from parts of the UK as it did from mainland Europe.

At the end of the day we all went to the pub and stayed chatting for hours.

The idea came from David Hieatt, founder of the DO Lectures. He asked: what if…? And put the idea out there.

Fax Club 1.0 wrote a book about their experience. Now it’s Fax Club 2.0’s turn to decide what comes next. Will we write a book? The jury is still out. We’re discussing where we go from here.

But a group of people who had never met were able to come together in a room, collaborate, laugh, and develop ideas together. If we never create something for people outside our crazy experience, we will always have that experience and connection.

Getting to know people without social cues

I had many thoughts about the experience during the meet up on Friday and I’m still mulling it over. It was entirely human and honest. There was no AI involved. It was us, our thoughts and reflections, all considering the same prompt and seeing what we all came up with.

This left-field idea appealed to people from a range of backgrounds. All willing to take a leap and commit their time.

Some people answered all 52 questions. Hats off to them. I wasn’t one of them. And I’m sitting with that.

We discovered that one person from Fax Club 1.0 came back and did Fax Club 2.0.

At a time when people seem to want to drive us apart, this experiment created a group that was open and willing to connect. There were no egos in the room on Friday. No-one insisted on their idea being taken up by the whole group.

And by the end of the day, many of us still didn’t know what other people in the room did for a living. We talked about all kinds of other things. But not that.

Instead, we found value in sharing skills and knowledge we had developed elsewhere in our lives. We enjoyed tales of childhood games, some of which were hilarious. Some of which could have led to serious injury. Many were played outdoors with friends. Many involved doing the same thing repeatedly and yet they kept each child occupied for hours.

The only mention of a digital experience involved a very early games console where a move could take 30 minutes to process.

Collaboration without ego

We found synergy in our outlook and willingness to explore.

We were content to end the day with no clear outcome, except that we wish we had longer to talk to each other and we would like to keep in touch.

I don’t have a specific lesson or learning from this experience. But I do have a series of questions, avenues to explore, and curiosity about the nature of connection, collaboration, and how we can bring more humans together to explore and have fun together.