Community, nerdfighters, and games

Recently I've been watching the vlogbrothers, and by "watching" I mean I started with their first videos in 2007, have been going through their playlists, and now I'm almost done with 2011. Now, theres allot of interesting things in that many videos, but the one to talk about first is the nerdfighters themselves.



French the llama, nerdfighters are awesome!
(This pic is from the tumblr of A Film to Decrease Worldsuck)

Sorry, for those who just got confused, nerdfighters are a community that sprang up around the vlogbrothers' videos (and John's books and Hank's songs) and while they are fans, it seems inaccurate to just call them fans. They are, but they're not just getting together and geeking out about a shared interest; they're also raising money for charities, and doing other projects, and having meaningful discussion about many varied topics.

But that's actually what I wanted to talk about: what communities do once they do come together for whatever reason. What really impresses me about Nerdfighteria (the community of nerdfighters) is not just the great things they've done and continue to do, but the values they advocate and the support they provide. Its something my archive binge really highlighted, because in the early videos you can watch the role John and Hank have in shaping that.



Cunning masterminds that they are.

Nerdfighter history, oversimplified
Their channel started as Brotherhood 2.0, where they corresponded through daily vlog posts, and from the beginning there was engagement with commenters, responding to them and making spaces for them. It progressed to creating the "Foundation to Decrease Suck Levels Worldwide" (opening it up) and discussing what a nerdfighter identity meant. Eventually they started supporting these conversations with forums (named "My Pants" for great puns, then later "Your Pants" when it was remade), challenging the community to do things (which they did...and then more significantly), and then  realizing its capability, working with that community to try to make the world better.

So now, they have the events  like the annual Project for Awesome to raise money for charity, Esther-day and the This Star Won't Go Out Foundation (in honor of the nerdfighter Esther, who they lost to cancer). And John and Hank themselves keep making videos that keep people engaged, explain important issues entertainingly, and reinforce the values of the community. Values including empathy and inclusiveness and enthusiasm and initiative and critically thinking about issues or thinking about them complexly, ie not being a jerk, doing awesome things and being excited about them, and geeking out in ways that help understand the world and/or help solve problems. And yes, I'm including understanding yourself as part of the world.

And yes, I'm a big fan of those values, in case that wasn't clear.
(Side note:  this may be the first original image I've made for a post)

 

Too much awesome for one community
But ok, so the nerdfighters self-describedly made of awesome, but what about other communities? Well that brings me to Harry Potter. So lots of nerdfighters are Harry Potter fans (especially Hank), and after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, nerdfighteria teamed up with the Harry Potter Alliance (which reminds me of the Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Adrenal axis every time I abbreviate it HPA, because I've TA'd too many neuro courses) to send relief and supplies. And the HPA has ongoing efforts to increase worldwide literacy.
So that's a fan group that's doing great stuff, too.

So that got me thinking about communities, and that great Wil Wheaton quote that "It doesn't matter what you love, it matters how you love it", and how much benefit people can get and provide from communities, even if its only marginally related to why they originally came together.

And how, particularly with video games, some communities are such positive spaces and some are so toxic.

"Nice to meet you, too"

Now, if you're a game designer, you probably have your own vision for the game you're creating. But if there is any concern for its impact on the world, it seems like the kind of community its likely to attract and support should be considered. I touched on this a bit in the Minecraft post,; how the game itself is going to attract certain people and influence others in certain ways. Minecraft is such a creative space, its probably both attracting creative people who want to make things and make new tools to make things, and perhaps at the same time introducing that kind of mindset to people who hadn't encountered it much before. And you get a community sharing resources to create new things, and plethora of mods and how-to guides.

On the other side of the coin, you look at some of the more infamously "toxic" communities. To reuse some language, from a soulless business perspective these are bad for your game because it scares away new players, new paying customers, and with a soul its even worse for just being a stressful, negative space in people's lives. If the important question is "how are these people are loving these things" the answer is "in a bad way".

But the important questions I have are 1) are there video game communities that are even trying to have the kind of  positive impact nerdfighters are, and 2) how do you make games that  would attract/develop/facilitate/support such communities?

Ok, yes, technically that game has such a community,
but that's not what I meant.

 Let me know what you think in the comments.

photo credit:  gamasutra, Carnegie hall

P.S. in case anyone was concerned about my "nerd credentials", 1) I'd say stop trying to exclude people, 2) I'd point out the bit where Harry Potter reminds me of neuroscience. On my blog thats largely critical and design analysis of video games. That I write as a break from working on my dissertation, in which I'm designing and testing a video game that teaches evolutionary biology. So yeah . . . =P