In the making of my last post, the matters discussed became trivialities in the wake of longtime FGC member Ludovic's kidnapping by the fascist pigs at ICE. If we can't protect our communities from state violence, nothing else matters.
In the immediate term, support his campaign for freedom here. As for beyond...
"Support your locals" is perhaps the most common FGC-specific refrain out there. It is an applicable response to frustrations about netplay, tournaments/their venues shutting their doors, and more. Baseline tasks that constitute "supporting your locals" range from simply showing up, bringing a setup, volunteering to help run/stream/commentate the event, sticking around for teardown, buying whatever product the venue sells normally, and so on.
At all levels, the value of locals is clear. Instead of queueing for ranked in a sea of faceless randoms, you are face to face with people you know in real life at the same place at the same time every week/month/etc. This makes it an inherently more personal experience than the solitude of netplay. Simply running a session with the homies is the concept of cameraderie distilled. Even if the meetup has a bracket, the local environment is designed to maximize familiarity with everyone else present, which means facilitating extracurriculars (such as a group dinner after everything wraps up) is easier than trying to harangue people on opposite sides of a convention hall. Out-of-game friendship leading and in-game rivalries going hand-in-hand is nothing if not a bonus serendipity.
Likewise with the value of helping run locals. TOing gives you a greater appreciation for the effort that goes into running and supporting a scene. By running brackets on-time and error-free, you'll become more widely respected in the scene at large, and start to gain the trust to run your own brackets either as side events to where you're currently at or as the main event elsewhere. Being a commentator will open up more opportunities involving other avenues in which a microphone gets put in front of you. Same deal if you replace "commentator" with "streamer" and "microphone" with "capture card".
Live Your Values
The most common phrases used to describe locals are "grassroots" and the "lifeblood of our community". "Grassroots" carries the implication that the space is not for sale. Indeed, community is not something you can buy. To describe something as somethings "lifeblood" carries a very important weight, suggesting that it is required for something greater to exist. This very much rings true too: the promise of giving everyone a place to play is fulfilled through locals, spreading interest in the games being played along with it. As a local organizer, you are fostering a community you want to be with.
If these exact terms and feelings ring a bell from any other context, that's very intentional. Independent grassroots organizations are often cited as the main vectors for political change. You should embrace this resonance in the aims taking the next step beyond "supporting your locals": curating them so that everyone shares the same values and is willing to do what is morally right.
The crux of this value system is being explicitly anti-fascist. The Nazi bar metaphor rings more true by the day, and making it abundantly clear that reactionaries don't belong in our community is more than enough to deter those paper tigers. For any notable bigots and sex pests who already infiltrated the wider fighting game community, be proactive in banning them, emphasizing that keeping them around is an active safety risk.[1] Keeping these people out results in a larger, more vibrant, and more diverse scene, as nobody wants to share space with someone who wants them dead.
Of course, it's not enough to fight for what's right when it's easy, you gotta do it when it's hard too. The next step up in difficulty from fighting fascism is fighting the capitalist system itself. You don't need to be pidgeonholing Marx quotes into everyday conversation or turn your scene into a literal DSA chapter or anything of that sort[2]: the focus should primarily be on doing good things for the surrounding community that capitalism doesn't want you to do.
Given the current regime's priorities, our line item number 1 should be rapid response. ICE raiding venues that host fighting games or other locales that fighting gamers frequent is not out of the question, and there should be a plan in place for if that happens. At the minimum, whistles should be freely distributed and the virtues of vigilance should be instilled in the scene at large. If any grave injustices that happened before your scene enters the rapid response network, be prepared to protest armed with good OpSec.
LRPs: Past few events I been talking with folks about how it's only a matter of time before this ice shit hits our communities and events. Need to be ready to organize fast at majors, frfr.
Fuck ICE, support the homie Lud & support your local folks who are fighting back against this shit.
There are many other injustices that vulnerable people need help being lifted up from. The key to doing this is mutual aid, which encompasses many different actions. Have food and clothing drives as part of your events, partnering with dedicated mutual aid organizations that you'll let table at them. Host a potluck to raise community members' confidence in cooking for other people, and then use those skills to form a strike kitchen in coordination with local labor unions. If any community members have lost someone or something important to them in tragedy, be ready to organize a way to materially support them frame one.[3] If you have hormones to spare, give them to someone else in the community who needs them.[4] Having explicitly socialist organizations present at your event also supports the initial goal of keeping the community as safe and inclusive as possible. I was ecstatic when I saw this particular announcement in the leadup to Beach Episode last year:
The mutual aid, Food Not Bombs, will be tabling at Beach Episode 2025. 💪
They're looking for donations of new and unused undergarments to help those in need. Donating on-site will enter you into a raffle for a Snack Box Micro! 🥏
start.gg/beach ⛵
Beyond political activism, there are even more ways to actively facilitate the good behavior of other people. Mandate masks and good personal hygiene, and supply extra masks and antiperspirant/deodorant just in case.[5] Ecnourage sticking around to clean up the venue space so it looks exactly like it did before people arrived. Majors may have a lot more attendees than locals or regionals do, but you can still actively promote good behavior there too. Share a box of masks with your roommates and bring a roll of garbage bags for cleaning up both the room and the lobby before people part ways to head home.
All of the above touches on what I think is essential to be a community in the first place; something to be stressed when curating your communities. Namely, communities need to be centered around actively and critically engaging with the shared interest and vision. Uncritically consuming product and waiting around like sitting ducks for the next product is unfulfilling and feels like cosplaying as a community as a result of this.
Theory Becomes Praxis
When I originally got to work writing this post, I envisioned summarizing the last section with a sentence or two and ending it there, encouraging you to marinate on future plans. However, during the writing of this, the sportswashers that bought Evo unveiled their plans to monopolize the FGC under the Evo brand by counterprogramming established grassroots majors and bribing locals. These schemes will only work if we let them work by complying in advance.
The easiest step to take is to not go to any of the Evo-branded events. They are such terrible value compared to independent grassroots events that not going to them barely registers as a "boycott" in my mind. Still, it is important that we ensure that independent grassroots events, whether they be locals, regionals, or majors, remain independent. The first step towards this goal of ensuring independent events stay independent is showing up so that they are able to keep the lights on. After the event, they can and should have a publicly available way to solicit feedback. Be armed with a list of commitments that would make the events closer to the vibe you want to curate that you would like them to reaffirm, with the express intention of no longer attending the event if they are not honored, such as:
Putting the well-being of every attendee above everything else.
Being not for purchase by any outside corporation or government.
Stress that being morally good is good for business, as the good vibes fostered by a safe, welcoming environment are reason enough for people to show up in the first place. Conversely, make the point that taking blood money or pursuing any plans that would require outside funding at all are not worth it in a business sense in addition to the moral sense[6]: infinite growth does not exist, and when the rate of profit begins to fall, you'll be holding the bag and be worse off than if you just committed to staying at the scale you currently occupy.
Much like what I was talking about above regarding the internet and not needing a website where everyone is doing everything on, the fighting game community doesn't need an event that is a Super Bowl-level spectacle for the entire genre.
[7] The focus should be decentralized and local. Fortunately, there is already a framework in place that reinforces that these should be the focus. usafgc.com is a project to get every state in the Union their own dedicated hub for FGC activities. Initially, the scope of these websites included a calendar of events in the state plus information about the organizers and streamers making it happen. The next step up is to turn these sites from places that direct people to where locals already exist to places where community members who wish to run their own locals can get help with hitting the ground running. The message board system is perfect for this application, and I hope the state fgc websites add forums to do this. Also on these forums, we can organize many other types of events, such as potlucks, cookouts, mutual aid drives, charity auctions, and more. This will ensure that the thought of betraying the community never cross anyones minds.
You are probably asking yourself "how does this issue relate to the real world struggles for economic and social justice?" Well, this is a battle between billionaire capitalists and the proletariat. The former will concoct any scheme possible to ensure that the latter remains divided. Evo's attempted monopoly of the fighting game calendar is the culmination of capitalists exerting their will on fighting gamers through esports. In this sense, the offline, grassroots FGC functions as a dual power structure that must be built further to fight the capitalists ruining our spaces; one big social union, so to speak. Extrapolating from the idea that the grassroots FGC is a union, giving money to or taking money from Evo to attend/run a scab event is tantamount to crossing the picket line.[8]
The overaching theme of capitalist society is that of a global prisoner's dilemma where the participants are propagandized to believe that mashing the "betray" button like its 2A on wakeup is the only option there will ever be, that there is no alternative. The message that better things aren't possible is meant to both demoralize and disengage you. Fight back by amplifying the message that a better world is possible, that you can cooperate with those in your life instead of betraying them, that collective action gets the goods.