Vestitor:That exclusive-club mentality is what helps keep Esperanto like it is. People fooling about making comedy YouTube videos for the converted and translating cartloads of empty-headed sci-fi novelettes. In that world it might as well be Klingon.

How would you go about changing that mentality, and in your ideal world, what would the Esperanto community look like and how would it promote itself? This is a serious question. My personal thought is, there is a place for silly videos etc., but you also want that backed up with other activities so it looks like a normal language community (i.e. in the English internet you also find a mix of silly videos, serious political commentary, and everything in between).

As for the cost, I don't think that's a dealbreaker. Check out this article, and I think you will agree Esperanto is not too far-out compared to these camps:

I agree that some parents are willing to spend an arm and a leg on summer camp for things they find worthwhile. The problem is that almost no one who isn't in the movement already sees Esperanto as worthwhile enough to spend a shedload of money to send their kid to Esperanto summer camp. People don't even think it's worth a free class, it's hard to see a critical mass of people interested in spending thousands to send their kid to Esperanto camp.

Vestitor:That exclusive-club mentality is what helps keep Esperanto like it is. People fooling about making comedy YouTube videos...

I didn't think there is an exclusive-club mentality, but I don't have much experience to draw from either.

Those crazy youtube videos keep me interested and engaged in Esperanto. I love them. They are great learning and community building tools.

Also, exclusive clubs often have no problem getting members as long as they can provide tangible benefits (example: Rotary club)

What would you like to see different? Complaints are business opportunities.

Alkanadi:Also, exclusive clubs often have no problem getting members as long as they can provide tangible benefits (example: Rotary club)

Is this actually the case? I always think of things like the Rotary Club and the Lions club as being mainly the preserve of old people (that is, that younger people are not joining to replenish the ranks). I may be totally wrong and maybe these clubs are thriving but I know only two people my age who are involved at all in anything of that nature.

What tangible benefits do those clubs provide?

Erato - you asked two questions: 1) how did I become a speaker of fluent German: It is the first language that I spoke. My grandmother cared for me here in the US when I was still knee high to a grasshopper. Then I went to German-language Saturday school and finally I went to live in Germany where I attended the uniiversity and then got a job texting and supervising marketing experiments. For an ethnic language, the very best way to acquire native-level fluency is to live and breathe the language and its culture.
Pragmatics is the way in which you use the language. Gammaticity offers many solutions but pragmatics is highly culture-dependent. There is an American joke about Lufthana. The flight is about to leave and the head stewardess is on the intercom: "Welcome! You will now sit down and enjoy the flight!" To a native German speaker who has not experienced American society, this sounds perfectly normal. To an American this sounds very arrogant reminding one of WWII movies that made fun of the Nazis.
When I first went to Germany (already speaking fairly fluent German) people said that I was 'overly polite' and too 'flowery' when I talked. Then I learned that I was apply American pragmatics to German - it didn't come off well.
The study of pragmatics stems from 'discourse analysis'. Both are relatively new fields in linguistics. Look them up. Look up 'Grice' - he made some mind-blowing discoveries about pragmatics.

robbkvasnak:Erato - you asked two questions: 1) how did I become a speaker of fluent German: It is the first language that I spoke. My grandmother cared for me here in the US when I was still knee high to a grasshopper. Then I went to German-language Saturday school and finally I went to live in Germany where I attended the uniiversity and then got a job texting and supervising marketing experiments. For an ethnic language, the very best way to acquire native-level fluency is to live and breathe the language and its culture.
Pragmatics is the way in which you use the language. Gammaticity offers many solutions but pragmatics is highly culture-dependent. There is an American joke about Lufthana. The flight is about to leave and the head stewardess is on the intercom: "Welcome! You will now sit down and enjoy the flight!" To a native German speaker who has not experienced American society, this sounds perfectly normal. To an American this sounds very arrogant reminding one of WWII movies that made fun of the Nazis.
When I first went to Germany (already speaking fairly fluent German) people said that I was 'overly polite' and too 'flowery' when I talked. Then I learned that I was apply American pragmatics to German - it didn't come off well.
The study of pragmatics stems from 'discourse analysis'. Both are relatively new fields in linguistics. Look them up. Look up 'Grice' - he made some mind-blowing discoveries about pragmatics.

Ah, you're a native.
How is that arrogant to an American? Is niceness not allowed or something?
You didn't understand me at all, it seems. I asked how to learn proper pragmatics, not what pragmatics are. I know about pragmatics and what it entails: there was no need explaining that to me.

robbkvasnak:The flight is about to leave and the head stewardess is on the intercom: "Welcome! You will now sit down and enjoy the flight!" To a native German speaker who has not experienced American society, this sounds perfectly normal. To an American this sounds very arrogant reminding one of WWII movies that made fun of the Nazis.

To Erato - this is funny to me because it sounds like an order. And it sounds to my ear, not arrogant, but laughable that someone would order me to enjoy myself. How much I enjoy myself is up to me, it's not something someone can order someone to do!

robbkvasnak:When I first went to Germany (already speaking fairly fluent German) people said that I was 'overly polite' and too 'flowery' when I talked.

This may not just be the American thing. It may have something to do with learning from your grandmother. My grandfather was raised in the US speaking Russian. When he went to Russia on business as an adult, he was using pre-revolutionary Russian that was probably 50 years out of date by that point. People laughed because he was too flowery and polite. He told me that he has been raised using more polite forms than the ones currently in use in Russian society. Germany didn't undergo a revolution like that, of course, but I can imagine that your grandmother raised you with the German that she grew up with, which may have been more polite than what Germans were speaking when you went back decades later.

erinja:To Erato - this is funny to me because it sounds like an order. And it sounds to my ear, not arrogant, but laughable that someone would order me to enjoy myself. How much I enjoy myself is up to me, it's not something someone can order someone to do!

Ah, here in the Netherlands it'd also be said in the imperative like this, but it is understood not as an order, but as a kind wish.

And it sounds to my ear, not arrogant, but laughable that someone would order me to enjoy myself. How much I enjoy myself is up to me, it's not something someone can order someone to do!

But Erinja, isn't that what Americans do when they say 'have a nice day' or 'enjoy your meal'.

What makes it sound like an order is the 'will'.

Robb, I have argued in the past that Esperanto is an intercultural language, and actually carries no culture in itself in the way that national languages do.

(I suspect that when English is used as lingua franca between non-native speakers it functions similarly. The problems arise when English is used with native speakers.)

The obvious question then is what role for pragmatics in Esperanto?

Would a German Esperantist say 'Vi sidiĝos kaj ĝuos la flugon'. Somehow, I think not.

sudanglo:

And it sounds to my ear, not arrogant, but laughable that someone would order me to enjoy myself. How much I enjoy myself is up to me, it's not something someone can order someone to do!

But Erinja, isn't that what Americans do when they say 'have a nice day' or 'enjoy your meal'.

My brain puts those in the same category as "feliĉan naskiĝtagon" and "bonan tagon". As in "[I hope you] have a nice day", "[I wish you a] good day", "[I hope you have a] happy birthday", "[I hope you] enjoy your meal", etc.

erinja:I may be totally wrong and maybe these clubs are thriving... What tangible benefits do those clubs provide?

You are totally right. They don't appear to be thriving. However, in the past, they thrived a lot.

The number one tangible benefit that the rotary club offers, as I understand, is business connections.