On Community

It's been a long while since I posted anything in here - mostly after I decided not to stream publicly (this streaming equipment is helping me to plan and coordinate one hell of a friends and family D&D game though!), combined with just getting really busy in summer, as happens around here! There are only 169 days left until Christmas, as an instance. That sounds like a lot until you look at my crochet and crafting load - then it's already crunch time, and no kidding.

As I do all of my crafting, I tend to have Twitch on anyhow - like "Gamer Radio".  Because my main love is World of Warcraft (WoW) I tend to follow WoW streamers, mostly. Through their variety gaming, when they do that, I've found lots of other interesting games that I look at, sometimes try, and then go back to WoW. But anyhow, they're what I watch and listen to as my hands are wrapped up in yarn or covered in Mod Podge (I hate it when they end streams as I'm mid decoupage), and I've been enjoying that - when I can't game, they do it for me ;) LOL!

Now some folks are going on about "parasocial relationships". I have made actual friends online, to be sure. In fact I consider a streamer to be a very wonderful friend of the family now, and he's always invited here anytime. He feels the same about us and we have likewise been invited to visit - but he's not the norm. Not in a lot of ways. He's an above average young man who will be doing far more than streaming in this life - he will be doing some much bigger things in the future. He's also just a wonderful human being, and has a massive heart.  We all adore him in this house and always want the best for him. He is indeed a friend.

For the most part though I do not see these streamers as personal friends any more than I would, say, my local radio hosts. Just to be clear, I like my local radio hosts, but I do not imagine that they're my friends. I see Twitch streamers as pretty much the same, but needing my funding, kind of like if they were anchoring game news and gameplay on a local PBS station, and they're always on pledge drives. I think their content is great or I wouldn't be watching them and subscribing. But no, they're not about to come around and have a cocoa with me, they don't care if something happens here - we are not personal friends. I just enjoy them and their content.

That's why the word "community" being tossed around may seem strange at first to people. I saw Bellular laughing about it. I am thinking he doesn't spend a lot of time in various Discords? I am unsure - but if he does, he'd see actual friendships being made all of the time. A lot of people make friends not with the streamer usually, but with each other - that's what I see. All of these mostly young people reaching out, communicating, making friends, having meet-ups, gaming together - that's what's happening and that's what makes community. These streamers are not streaming to empty air. They're streaming to humans, and providing various Discords as online meeting places for a bunch of people to meet and talk.

It's not a new thing. People have met in WoW, married, and been together for YEARS now. They've met in various chat rooms - I know of three couples from IRC #politics alone that are still together after 20 years. I know people who formed guilds in various other games years ago and are still friends to this day. I think everyone knows a couple by now who met online and are together. I think a LOT of people have friends now that they first met online. It's not really a revelation. So why pretend that a WoW community doesn't also exist? I can assure you, it does, and it's millions of people in a subculture, some never knowing each other, but all with a love of WoW (and lots of other games). The same thing happened with the culture around Metallica. The message boards and concerts created TIGHT bands of friends.  It happens online and off, and why people are still debating this or surprised by it 30 years into the public internet is a shock to me. I am shocked that they're shocked, I guess is how I see it.

The streamers though - they are a part of it. They ARE a part of our community. That's important for everyone to remember. They're humans also. How did they become WoW (and then variety) streamers? They love the game. They loved and love it so much that they make videos about it, stream playing it, spend TONS of time involving themselves in the lore and the game and everything about it. They have their own groups that they interact with and have made close friends in. The difference is that they chose to fire up OBS, have a camera and a mic, sometimes spend inordinate amounts of time editing, and had a BIG personality to carry them through to becoming streamers and YouTubers. They are as much an integral part of the community as everyone else. They create content that loads of people truly enjoy.

The dueling tournament with Asmongold, Esfand, and Rich was a big part of that. Did they invite their own friends? Yes, absolutely - we all would. We all  know who their friends are because we also watch their friends and enjoy their content. And the charming "hominess" of the tournament - the hurried scribbling of a bracket onto an Amazon box, as an instance - it showed us that even though it was a dueling tournament of streamers - they're just as much compete nerds as we all are (if that wasn't already apparent - it was their massive nerdiness and passion that led them to stream and create videos in the first place ). It was a bunch of 12 year olds in grown-up bodies all having a contest in a game with all of their friends, and we all got to participate by talking among OUR friend groups about the game also, and being our own 12 year old selves. THAT is the definition of  a community. In fact I think if they'd done the tournament "professionally" we wouldn't have loved it so much - it would have felt too distant.

But these are a group of nerds who have made friends among themselves, and that's wonderful. I cannot fathom why people demonize them and treat them like shit (some of the things I see typed in Twitch chat make me embarrassed for the person typing them). These streamers are fellow nerds. Are they part of our inner friend circles? No. But should they be treated like garbage, as I see being done? Absolutely not. I wouldn't put them on a pedestal, and I wouldn't treat them badly, like I see people treating them. There is a middle ground - and that's being kind to another human being who enjoys the same hobbies that you do. Be kind to the D&D group in your local gaming store, be kind to steamers, be kind to other people in your Discords and chats, just be kind. We all get enough crap for being nerds - do we need to give each other this much crap too?  I don't think so. Community also means we all understand that we're all just flailing through life, trying to get by, and that snacks and gaming make it much more bearable. We are a community of spazzes - be proud ;)