Tdrag has no compunctions about airing her dirty laundry for the world to see. She's taken that logic and applied it to the health and well-being of clan relationships. Yes, we said, '"relationships." Put on your big boy pants and keep reading. It'll be good for you.
There has always been an unwritten rule of the site that you “don’t air your clan’s dirty laundry in blogs.”
Fuck that.
Dean and I have developed a de facto philosophy over the years in regard to our relationship: We don’t pretend to be perfect. We have made dinner parties awkward. We discuss taboo shit – sex, money, finances; all the good stuff that people actually crave talking about. Dean says, “When you discuss your business with other people, you find out that you’re normal.” (You can also Google your questions to find out if you’re normal, but everyone knows you can’t trust the opinions of people on the Internet.)
I’m adopting this philosophy for clan life on 2o2p. Clans are similar to any other type of relationship. There’s a honeymoon period followed by a natural waning of lust that has an indirect relationship to a growing comfort level. Sparks stop flying without provocation and are only replaced by intended efforts to introduce novelty. Some people adjust to a relationship’s natural transition while others sit wistfully recalling the glory days when the relationship didn’t require effort to make it hum.
I’ve been in ARTofWAR for almost four years and we have been fighting the equivalent of a marriage’s 7-year itch for at least two of them. We’ve all seen the drama that creeps its way into blogs regarding clan death and turmoil. Clans break apart and new clans form. Members get booted and write seething rants for their blogs. Inane YouTube videos or pointed rebuttals get posted in an attempt to squash said rants.
The site has even had entire factions splinter off to create their own website. Throughout all this unrest there’s a bridling social rule about keeping your business “in the clan” so that you don’t make anyone “look bad.”
Well, I’m going to talk about it. And I hope it’s a little bit awkward.
A meaningful clan will not survive unless it is built on friendship. And a clan cannot be built on friendship unless the gamers that make up that clan have dealt with the cognitive dissonance of placing online friends on the same friendship tier as their real life friends.
I’ve cut to the chase, now let me pick that apart for you.
Any stupid clan can be formed around a stupid game. Example:
(Illustration 1)
This clan will play together for as long as they like Halo. The gamers will seem to be genuinely fond of the friendship they formed while playing Halo. However, if one party loses interest in Halo, they might find out they were never *really* friends. It might go like this:
(Illustration 2)
Once the honeymoon wears off and the luster of the clan’s flagship game has faded, a divide forms. On one side of the chasm you have clan members who are only interested in the clan as a bulletin board for gaming escorts -- people to play the game they like, when they like and on shallow terms explicitly agreed to. On the other side you have people that by design or default, ended up invested in the relationships more so than the gaming. They may have intended on the clan to be just “online buddies,” but somewhere in those months to years of playing, online buddies became real life friends that infiltrated Facebook accounts, cell phones and even spare bedrooms for a weekend.
There is no right or wrong side of the chasm. There are enough people on 2old2play to meet everyone’s needs. Drama ignites when there’s a mismatch of personalities within a clan and a break-up becomes imminent. And true to form, there can be a lot of drama when it comes time to divide up the house and decide who gets to keep the dog.
But before I tell you who gets custody of pets, let’s talk about an element of online friendship that further complicates the whole mess of clan life.
I experience cognitive dissonance when I volley the ideas of gaming as some random pastime that is just-for-fun versus a legitimate interest that connects me to like-minded people. I’m sure many other gamers feel the same discomfort. It’s often those non-gaming assholes that are to blame.
Anyone that is an open gamer (out of the closet?) is accustomed to comments from the average co-worker, friend or even a spouse about gaming being an inferior activity to other common hobbies. In my experience, the tone of these comments is typically one of self-evidence to boot.
And if our "real-life" social circle’s belittling of our online friends isn’t enough, there are always other gamers who are too cool to make friends online and only too happy to help you question the validity of the relationships you’ve formed. When surrounded by people all day that just don’t get it, it’s no wonder why we treat our online friends as second-rate and decide to forego the effort and adaptation that is necessary to keep clans alive.
For the lucky gamers who regard their online friends the same as their real life friends, there’s an extra reward beyond pals. They get custody of the clan and forum when the two-year itch hits. The members looking for gaming escorts get to seek other venues for their hookers. There will always be another turnstile clan that cycles through people and disposes them when interest in a game wanes. Those clans can usually be identified by long lists of rules that force people to participate. There is nothing inherently wrong with that model if it’s clear to all parties that the game > the people
But if you’re a member of 2old2play and something, at some point, drove you to this site, I’ll venture you’re looking for more than disposable friends to play your favorite game.
ARTofWAR was “the” herald and most kick-ass Gears of War clan on 2old2play for a long time. It’s not anymore. The people that continued to like the Gears franchise after Cliffy B shit out Gears of War 2 have left. The remaining people play Call of Duty or have simply dropped off the earth. Every few months we have a flare up about how the clan has changed for the worse, people fight, people leave, and I stress about how to keep things moving in the right direction because I legitimately care about the friendships I’ve made.
I’m not going to stress about it anymore.
Clans should operate just like the rest of life. If the game you’re playing, the job your working or the sandwich you’re eating doesn’t do it for you anymore and isn’t worth saving … act now! Sell the game, find a new job and throw that sandwich in the trash. Eating an unsavory sandwich doesn’t help starving kids in Africa. You grow fatter and unhappier, the kids in Africa stay starving.
Leave the clan that doesn’t appeal to you any longer if you have no interest playing a direct role to improve it. If you are interested in contributing to the longevity of your clan, participate! Keep playing video games, chime in on the forums, go to the LAN or send a clannie some cookies. Above all, have fun and make friends.
I’ve been participating in clans for about five years now. I clearly don’t have it figured out - but I’m smarter now than I was two years ago. Leave a comment and tell me where I’m going wrong and what else you do to make your clan thrive. Let’s talk about clan drama; hopefully it gets awkward.
