From Coworking Hubs (Back) to Country Clubs: The Price of Belonging
📌 Hint:
Membership culture has gone from kombucha taps to Giorgio Armani spas—what does that tell us?
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I’ve been noticing a familiar pattern in the world of gathering-based businesses. Every few years, the marketplace reinvents how we package, sell, and socialize community. The rules shift, but the endgame stays the same: exclusivity for a fee.
The Co-Working Dream
Remember the height of the WeWork era? Mid-2010s, when millennials were flooding into glass-walled offices with barista bars, “purpose-driven” promises, and pingpong tables. It was marketed as more than just a place to work; it was a lifestyle, a communal dream. Startup culture bulldozed office decorum, and coworking quickly became its biggest beneficiary. But as the shine of Tech Bro tendencies wore thin, a new crop of women-centered brands emerged, promising not just sleek desks and kombucha taps, but a corrective to the boys’ club energy that defined the first wave of co-working.
Girlboss HQ
The women-centered workspace boom ushered in spaces like Think The Wing, The Riveter, and Create & Cultivate’s nationwide conferences (or rather, career festivals). These spaces offered up belonging for a new class of ambitious women seeking the community they weren’t finding in the average conference rooms. For a minute, it worked. But when the “girlboss” era deflated, so did the infrastructure built around it.
Pop-Ups and Photo-Ops
Then there was the rise of the immersive pop-up. The Museum of Ice Cream. The Color Factory. Glossier’s pastel-hued beauty temples. More than exhibits or stores, they were pipelines for content. A ticket bought you not just entry, but proof you were there—an Instagrammable badge of cultural participation.
Of course, all that glittered was not gold. Once the pandemic hit, no one wanted to dive into a monochrome ball pit touched by a thousand strangers. Suddenly, what was once escapism looked more like a health hazard. The model collapsed almost overnight.
The COVID Reset
COVID shifted how people related to work, wellness, and each other. Layoffs, burnout, disillusionment with tech all left a sour taste. The spaces that once symbolized community and aspiration now felt hollow, even dangerous. Gathering for gathering’s sake was no longer viable.
kith.com
Enter: The Country Club (Rebranded)
Fast forward to now, and I’m seeing a new wave: the return of the country club model, dressed up in luxury branding. I just told you about The Gathering Spot in Atlanta with its cabanas, skyline views, and curated Black professional networks. Now, look at Kith Ivy, the new $36,000-a-year members’ hub in downtown New York, outfitted with padel courts, a Giorgio Armani spa, and Erewhon’s first location outside of L.A.
We’re past grassroots co-ops or playful pop-ups. We’ve now arrived at elite membership spaces that trade on scarcity and brand cachet.
This shift doesn’t stop at physical spaces. It's mirrored in the culture industry, too. Even the trend of mainstream celebrities stepping in as creative directors for legacy fashion houses signals the same divide. In the past, stars built their empires by selling music, merch, and products directly to fans. But as technology disrupted how talent could be monetized, direct-to-consumer revenue streams shrank. To compensate, celebrities have tethered themselves to the only brands that can still afford their price tag: luxury fashion houses. The alignment reinforces class stratification—community once meant fan bases, but now it’s exclusive brand partnerships, gated access, and luxury affiliations.
And honestly, it makes sense. Politically and culturally, we’ve shifted. Body positivity and DEI initiatives are being rolled back. Media aesthetics are tilting conservative again. The economy is polarizing; the middle class—the traditional consumers of concerts, retail, and mass entertainment—is being squeezed out.
If you’re a brand today, aligning with “luxury” isn’t just positioning. It’s survival.
Why Exclusivity Wins (For Now)
What we’re witnessing now is a pivot away from inclusivity, the dominant ethos of the 2010s, back toward exclusivity as cultural currency. Membership isn’t about belonging; it’s about stratification. Who can enter, who can afford, who can align themselves with the “haves.”
For consumers, this means access to cultural and entertainment experiences is narrowing. For brands, it means survival hinges on whether you can cement yourself as relevant to the upper echelon.
The Bigger Picture
The “gathering-based business” is always cyclical, bending to the cultural and political winds. From WeWork to The Wing to the Museum of Ice Cream, each wave promised access to connection. Today’s wave is promising the opposite: the prestige of exclusion.
And that’s the real pivot worth watching.
Sources:
“Kith Ivy: Where Wellness, Community, Padel, and Erewhon Converge” (Hypebeast)
Briaan L. Barron is a media and cultural studies writer, brand architect, and CEO of Heye Frequency, a creator-led marketing agency. Based in Seattle, she has led marketing efforts for a broad spectrum of brands, from Amazon to the region’s most recognized cultural nonprofits. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and grad school dropout of Boston University’s MFA program in Film & Television Studies, Briaan’s work centers on liberating overlooked voices from personal and systemic barriers to true autonomy.
