I think firstly you should try to make meetups virtual and based on topics of interest? let the system get traction and then do physical things. Also allow users to have their own username so that they can choose to disassociate with their original HN account for privacy.

I would personally join a virtual online meetup on my favourite topic for sure! If not that, I would watch it later on youtube FOR SURE. It's like a discord for hackernews tbh.