Well, as I'm sure most of you know at this point...I've quit Smogon primarily due to the fact that the NU community is really cancerous and being surrounded by such negativity constantly made me stop enjoying the game.
So I figured I'd share a few thoughts.
I love how people are referring to "the clique" as if it's some mystical thing that nobody is certain of if it exists or not. There is a clique, everyone knows if they are in it or out of it. Simple.
How did this clique start?
Well, I believe either late 2014 or early 2015 I created a Skype group with a group of 10 friends from Smogon. Most of these people were NU players as it was the tier I was playing the most at the time, and I said at the beginning of the group that this was meant to be a small group of a core group of friends with a reliable group to discuss teams for tours/chat/and just have a good call to fall back on. It was never intended to have people added to it. However, despite it being my Skype group, people slowly began adding people without even asking me first, and the majority of these additions were people that had power in Smogon, it was really an extreme form of ass kissing tbch. Due to the supreme level of ass kissing, most of the people in this skype group started getting promotions within the NU room, or sometimes even globally regardless of whether or not they deserved it. Over time, the group got larger and larger as more and more people were added, and I didn't even know around 80% of the people in the group. Complete strangers in MY group. This was pretty aggravating to say the least. Now this group has climbed up to around 50 users (predominantly NU players or other smogon auth) and the general consensus was that the chat was "cancered" up by a few people they added (shocking I know, adding a bunch of people you hardly know because you're trying to get ahead sounds like a great idea!). So they made a new skype group, the NU group. This group is basically just as large as the old one, but with new additions from people from PO and also kicking out old users that they did not like anymore for some reason. Somehow I made the cut despite the fact that I rarely even participate in this chat, but it's really intriguing getting to see what's happening. (fascinating chats full of (monkey),(celebrate), and "xd" as the only forms of communication!)
Why does this matter?
I know it's completely normal to have a group of friends, as humans we're going to be drawn towards certain people. But in an environment where you're trying to create a culture and/or a feeling of community, its important to make everyone feel accepted. The first example I'm going to use is with Orphic. I really don't know Orphic at all, and that doesn't really matter. The fact that you, hollywood, say that "maybe its because you're not a good teambuilder" is actually fucking laughable. I was there and you know that there were discussions about keeping Orphic out of teambuilding lab as well as preventing him from taking over BOTW because the group didn't like him. If you really believe that someone who is not only badged, but has also consistently been a good presence on forums isn't capable of teambuilding (or running a poll every week (so challenging)), then maybe this would be a good opportunity to take in a user who is trying to contribute and talk with him more about general teambuilding ideas. Or bounce ideas off each other and try to improve as a community. But no, "oh I don't like him, don't let him do it".
Secondly, the constant feeling of superiority among members of the clique is amazing considering many of them have actually done nothing significant in any sort of tournament scene. There have been countless times that I was shot down for not being good enough, or not playing this tier enough, or not agreeing with the hive mind that is the clique despite the fact that I had actual SPL experience and went 2-2 against the four best NU players in the tour. Any time someone makes a suggestion that those people disagree with, it's "kys" or "that nigga is fucking retarded". I'm not really sure that that's how auth are supposed to act. Was I a perfect auth member? No. But I was willing to stand up for what I believed in (not treating people like shit constantly) and publicly stated my frustration knowing full well that I'd lose my position.
(If you're curious about that. In a game that iplaytennislol was playing, his opponent made an amazing play going for HP Fire with Magnezone on a Talonflame predicting the Ferrothorn to come in and got a kill. I said "oml" in the chat. This caused tennis to put on modchat and say "why don't you talk now goomy? oh wait, you can't...you're not global voice".) Classic.
What about Alienation/Participation?
Before I got into NU, I was predominantly an OU player, and as such had a lot of OU friends, including being a part of a private OU room. Why does this matter? Well, in the end I invited a few of my NU friends to this private room, and the sucking up to the people with power continued here as well. At this point, people literally said "I would suck your dick for an NU private room". ... So an NU private room was created. However, this was not a room for the NU community. It was a room for the clique. In the end, users like Teddeh and Sir Kay 9 were excluded from the private room for fear that they would bring "their followers" into the room. Teddeh and Sir Kay are a few of the people that contribute most to the NU chat, why would they not be included? As it stands, the private NU room is basically a ghost town because the only people that are in it are in the Skype call anyway and why talk in a private room on PS when you can just post something in the Skype group?! And most of these people don't contribute to the actual NU chat at all anyway because they don't want to talk to anyone outside their group or that they see as "beneath them". I have also received word from people like Shuckleking87 that say they felt alienated because they didn't want to do the things that these people were doing.
Memes?
Memes are funny to an extent. I've generally been viewed as someone that has a track record of making "meme" posts (which I don't really understand since most of my likes came from SPL victories or RMTs), but the majority of the NU chat is currently "venom" or stuff like that. It's just not conducive to a good community. Making fun of people with memes is something that happens far too often, and really the only time I believe it's acceptable to go after someone on forums is when they have consistently shown that they are ignorant and the only way they will learn is through discipline (ex:) Leremyju or flowre.
All in all, this website as a whole, but particularly the NU community is so bad that I'm not willing to be considered a part of it. I hope that at some point I will be able to rejoin this community and start my way back up from the bottom. But for now, I will continue to play Splatoon and VGC. Good luck Raseri, and I still love you CanadianWifier.
Im sorry for doing that and I already apologized. I know it was a dick move on my part. Additionally, you havent always been a perfect user, stop picking on people jesus christ. I can think of many examples where you were a sub par user. If this gets deleted then so be it. I just needed to get this out