"A stranger is being shown around a village that he has just become part of. He is shown a well and his guide says "On any day except Tuesday, you can shout any question down that well and you'll be told the answer." The man seems pretty impressed, and so he shouts down, "Why not on Tuesday?" A voice from in the well shouts back, "Because on Tuesday, it's your day in the well."
Howdy y'all. Hula here. This is a great honor for me as I have badly wanted to have an interview in "The Smog" webzine as far as I can remember, but by the time I had become notable enough, they were no longer being done (I ended up having to create my own interview with myself in "The Flying Press" in order to have it
) And such a prestigious number too, I know it was in high demand.
This ended up being pretty long so I broke it down into hopefully easily-digestible sections.
Chapter 1: Pre-Smogon Days
First found out about Smogon in early 2012; at that time I was part of the StarCraft 2 community and one of the eSports channels I followed happened to do an interview at a VGC event. Around May of that year, I ended up deciding to leave StarCraft 2 over what I saw as extremely toxic and self-destructive attitude in the community (looking back, it's what we would today call cancel culture, which is doubly as bad when the scene is only almost sustainable and sponsors' investments are a leap of faith). I was trying to find a new community and dabbled in Yu-Gi-Oh! for a bit in the summer, but I found it too frustrating at higher levels. Eventually I got SoulSilver and became obsessed with it, and started to get interested in competitive Pokemon. I started watching MTGXerxes and Frostypixie on YouTube, and finally started using Smogon analyses. I, like many, judged BW as the shark-jumping moment, without even playing it, so that was the time I stopped following Pokemon. But I warmed up to it and played BW2 later that year. Looking back, I think it was the last great generation (sorry Yung Dramps).
I was a pretty early adopter of the internet, so almost every site I had joined, I had joined within the first three years of its existence. Smogon was founded in 2004 of course, so in 2012 it was already 8 years later. I didn't wanna be the new guy, so I hesitated on joining, but I figured the longer I waited, the younger the account would be, so might as well join now and look somewhat established when I eventually start posting. So, on September 24th, 2012, I finally joined. Crazy now that *I've* been on the site 8 years, which is how old it was when I joined. The first user I remember meeting was Theorymon that night on #pokemon, who mentioned that Smogon kinda needed new users.
Chapter 2: Smogon Career
From 2012 to 2014, I did homeschool (virtual school) so I had a lot of free time to spend. I mostly was involved with Orange Islands to begin with, since I was pretty bad at the game. Over the next year, I tried to get on the GP team and tried to get established in BW2UU (got into the Hall of Fame, shoutouts), but nothing really stuck. So I mostly hung around Orange Islands and became the host of the movie nights (taking over from Layell) where we watched all the Pokemon movies and specials as a group, and the Orange League, a series of in-game challenges. That was actually the first competition on Smogon to offer a banner as a prize, so if you got a banner as a prize for a tournament something, you have me (really Stellar) to thank! lol. I eventually got Community Contributor for that.
My big break on Smogon came in August 2014 when the Battle Spot leader (JabbaTheGriffin) and his most likely successor (Theorymon) were both inactive. Stellar was a supermod and a big mentor to me at the time, since I was coming up in Orange Islands where he was the section leader. So he came up with a plan to revitalize the Battle Spot section with me (and Age of Kings) as the section leaders. That was a big honor and a lot of fun to start college and become a mod at the same time. Smogon was very cliquish and exclusive at the time, and we made an effort, since we were basically starting a community from nothing, to be really friendly and inclusive. (Over the years, I saw the other sections go that way too as new leaders came in, which was nice). A few months later, AoK told me she didn't really enjoy the game anymore after ORAS and retired, so in January 2015 I nominated cant say to be the new co-leader. Yes, I gave cant say his big break so just like with the prize banners, if you are a fan of his you have me to thank. You're welcome again.
I have a pretty laissez faire leadership style, and I was far too shy to be in the public eye for the most part (yes I know that slightly contradicts always wanting an interview, what can I say I'm a complicated person
), so I never really posted much in policy threads or Inside Scoop, and I even just used the standard "Moderator" banner for the first two years. So most people didn't really know who I was. Most thought cant say was the sole section leader, and some even thought that Theorymon was the section leader (he never was!) which is big sad, but what can you do. At least you know now, dear reader. I wasn't a big fan of the SM metagame so in January 2018 I ended up retiring. I made a lot of good dear friends here though, so nowadays I just hang out. Mainly in the Battle Stadium (Battle Spot) Discord and the GP Discord despite doing neither (I do feel a bit guilty about that). I always wanted to participate in Firebot but was too scared of being called cringe or getting owned by mean witty users so I rarely did. I did see that culture start to change a bit around the latter half of last year, and Smogoff is loads of fun. So I'm happy to be here.
Chapter 3: Real Life
Brief real life stuff: 24, Male, Floridian. I'm a first generation Vietnamese-American; my parents were war refugees who had to walk to school with the sound of gunfire and bombs going off everywhere, which is extremely epic. Years later they met in the US and then had 2 sons 1 miscarriage then me. Pretty typical Asian family, my mom is a math teacher, my dad a philosophy professor, and my uncle a Karate instructor. Everyone else is either a doctor or a preacher.
Graduated grad school (at least I hope I did) this past December with a Master of Liberal Arts in Humanities, with a graduate certificate in Film Studies/History. Yeah liberal arts, I know. I can't deny that it's the "I don't know what I wanna do, so I'm stalling adulthood by doing this" major. 90% of my cohort was that. Previously, I was a Psychology/Social Work major with the intent to become a therapist. But eventually I decided that I wanted to be a teacher or professor, so it seemed like the right path for me. At my university I got a lot of opportunities to lead small 20-student discussions and 70-student lectures which was very fun and rewarding.
In November, I successfully defended my thesis, which was titled I'm Going Digital: Potentials for Online Communities through Internet Remix. In it, I basically situate the position of digital tools and internet memes within the history of art, and then offer some speculation and analyze some research as to why inside jokes and humor, especially the irreverent or edgy, become the primary way of building community and signaling solidarity online. Basically what we're all familiar with here, so it was cool that I could add some semi-autobiographical sections and that most people could actually understand what I was doing.
Looking for jobs teaching now, because I love being a positive influence on younger people and helping them to appreciate that life is more than just your job. It's a lot of fun helping some of the younger discord users with their essays and other homework as well. When it comes to hobbies, music is my life. My dream would be to be in a wedding band. I was always dragged to strangers' weddings by my parents as a kid, and they were always a blast even though I didn't know anyone. It's really the perfect audience. I would also love to be a composer for an indie game studio. I also wanted to be a novelist or tv writer for animated series when younger, but motivation has waned. Music is more immediately rewarding, lol.
Epilogue:
I think that's it really. That was kinda long but anyway. The tl;dr is I am responsible for prize banners so appreciate me.
Anyway, I got mixed feelings about being in such a self-indulgent spotlight but I'll try to enjoy it.
I'm sure if I forgot anything important someone will ask me anyway. With that, I leave the floor to you!
Howdy y'all. Hula here. This is a great honor for me as I have badly wanted to have an interview in "The Smog" webzine as far as I can remember, but by the time I had become notable enough, they were no longer being done (I ended up having to create my own interview with myself in "The Flying Press" in order to have it
This ended up being pretty long so I broke it down into hopefully easily-digestible sections.
Chapter 1: Pre-Smogon Days
First found out about Smogon in early 2012; at that time I was part of the StarCraft 2 community and one of the eSports channels I followed happened to do an interview at a VGC event. Around May of that year, I ended up deciding to leave StarCraft 2 over what I saw as extremely toxic and self-destructive attitude in the community (looking back, it's what we would today call cancel culture, which is doubly as bad when the scene is only almost sustainable and sponsors' investments are a leap of faith). I was trying to find a new community and dabbled in Yu-Gi-Oh! for a bit in the summer, but I found it too frustrating at higher levels. Eventually I got SoulSilver and became obsessed with it, and started to get interested in competitive Pokemon. I started watching MTGXerxes and Frostypixie on YouTube, and finally started using Smogon analyses. I, like many, judged BW as the shark-jumping moment, without even playing it, so that was the time I stopped following Pokemon. But I warmed up to it and played BW2 later that year. Looking back, I think it was the last great generation (sorry Yung Dramps).
I was a pretty early adopter of the internet, so almost every site I had joined, I had joined within the first three years of its existence. Smogon was founded in 2004 of course, so in 2012 it was already 8 years later. I didn't wanna be the new guy, so I hesitated on joining, but I figured the longer I waited, the younger the account would be, so might as well join now and look somewhat established when I eventually start posting. So, on September 24th, 2012, I finally joined. Crazy now that *I've* been on the site 8 years, which is how old it was when I joined. The first user I remember meeting was Theorymon that night on #pokemon, who mentioned that Smogon kinda needed new users.
Chapter 2: Smogon Career
From 2012 to 2014, I did homeschool (virtual school) so I had a lot of free time to spend. I mostly was involved with Orange Islands to begin with, since I was pretty bad at the game. Over the next year, I tried to get on the GP team and tried to get established in BW2UU (got into the Hall of Fame, shoutouts), but nothing really stuck. So I mostly hung around Orange Islands and became the host of the movie nights (taking over from Layell) where we watched all the Pokemon movies and specials as a group, and the Orange League, a series of in-game challenges. That was actually the first competition on Smogon to offer a banner as a prize, so if you got a banner as a prize for a tournament something, you have me (really Stellar) to thank! lol. I eventually got Community Contributor for that.
My big break on Smogon came in August 2014 when the Battle Spot leader (JabbaTheGriffin) and his most likely successor (Theorymon) were both inactive. Stellar was a supermod and a big mentor to me at the time, since I was coming up in Orange Islands where he was the section leader. So he came up with a plan to revitalize the Battle Spot section with me (and Age of Kings) as the section leaders. That was a big honor and a lot of fun to start college and become a mod at the same time. Smogon was very cliquish and exclusive at the time, and we made an effort, since we were basically starting a community from nothing, to be really friendly and inclusive. (Over the years, I saw the other sections go that way too as new leaders came in, which was nice). A few months later, AoK told me she didn't really enjoy the game anymore after ORAS and retired, so in January 2015 I nominated cant say to be the new co-leader. Yes, I gave cant say his big break so just like with the prize banners, if you are a fan of his you have me to thank. You're welcome again.
I have a pretty laissez faire leadership style, and I was far too shy to be in the public eye for the most part (yes I know that slightly contradicts always wanting an interview, what can I say I'm a complicated person
), so I never really posted much in policy threads or Inside Scoop, and I even just used the standard "Moderator" banner for the first two years. So most people didn't really know who I was. Most thought cant say was the sole section leader, and some even thought that Theorymon was the section leader (he never was!) which is big sad, but what can you do. At least you know now, dear reader. I wasn't a big fan of the SM metagame so in January 2018 I ended up retiring. I made a lot of good dear friends here though, so nowadays I just hang out. Mainly in the Battle Stadium (Battle Spot) Discord and the GP Discord despite doing neither (I do feel a bit guilty about that). I always wanted to participate in Firebot but was too scared of being called cringe or getting owned by mean witty users so I rarely did. I did see that culture start to change a bit around the latter half of last year, and Smogoff is loads of fun. So I'm happy to be here.Chapter 3: Real Life
Brief real life stuff: 24, Male, Floridian. I'm a first generation Vietnamese-American; my parents were war refugees who had to walk to school with the sound of gunfire and bombs going off everywhere, which is extremely epic. Years later they met in the US and then had 2 sons 1 miscarriage then me. Pretty typical Asian family, my mom is a math teacher, my dad a philosophy professor, and my uncle a Karate instructor. Everyone else is either a doctor or a preacher.
Graduated grad school (at least I hope I did) this past December with a Master of Liberal Arts in Humanities, with a graduate certificate in Film Studies/History. Yeah liberal arts, I know. I can't deny that it's the "I don't know what I wanna do, so I'm stalling adulthood by doing this" major. 90% of my cohort was that. Previously, I was a Psychology/Social Work major with the intent to become a therapist. But eventually I decided that I wanted to be a teacher or professor, so it seemed like the right path for me. At my university I got a lot of opportunities to lead small 20-student discussions and 70-student lectures which was very fun and rewarding.
In November, I successfully defended my thesis, which was titled I'm Going Digital: Potentials for Online Communities through Internet Remix. In it, I basically situate the position of digital tools and internet memes within the history of art, and then offer some speculation and analyze some research as to why inside jokes and humor, especially the irreverent or edgy, become the primary way of building community and signaling solidarity online. Basically what we're all familiar with here, so it was cool that I could add some semi-autobiographical sections and that most people could actually understand what I was doing.
Looking for jobs teaching now, because I love being a positive influence on younger people and helping them to appreciate that life is more than just your job. It's a lot of fun helping some of the younger discord users with their essays and other homework as well. When it comes to hobbies, music is my life. My dream would be to be in a wedding band. I was always dragged to strangers' weddings by my parents as a kid, and they were always a blast even though I didn't know anyone. It's really the perfect audience. I would also love to be a composer for an indie game studio. I also wanted to be a novelist or tv writer for animated series when younger, but motivation has waned. Music is more immediately rewarding, lol.
Epilogue:
I think that's it really. That was kinda long but anyway. The tl;dr is I am responsible for prize banners so appreciate me.
Anyway, I got mixed feelings about being in such a self-indulgent spotlight but I'll try to enjoy it.
I'm sure if I forgot anything important someone will ask me anyway. With that, I leave the floor to you!
or 
