More Zoiderblogging

[HenrikZoiderberg 469]

Maybe I got into this at the wrong time. Maybe I fell in with the wrong crowd. Maybe i'm just not suited for this anymore.

 

When I joined up, I was welcomed with open arms to my team, was given an eye into leadership, was even encouraged to join and participate in the VHLPA. I've never been the core of the community, but I wasn't at the outskirts either. I was close enough to see the path inward, and to catch the complaints of those in the orbit of leadership. There's a lot of good ones in this league, DA, TFong, and others who I'm not going to name. But at the same time there's people who think they're hot shit just because they're not Doug. There's individuals in the higher echelons who are repeatedly caught cheating, who don't follow the basic rules of player deployment, who give the old guard a much easier path to the top. Who give preferential treatment throughout the league and continue to perpetuate this cyclical favoritism. Those who call out this behaviour are often ostracised, or at the very least compartmentalized. It's become a game of politics, and it's not all that fun anymore, even being one of the people with a foot in the door.

 

The VHL can be such a good time and outlet for creativity when you first approach it. There's some amazing people here and I'm so glad to have met most of you, but at the same time the model this entire system is built on isn't sustainable or conducive to growth. Recruitment seems to be way down since I first started, the same users get their players recruited to the same teams by the same GM's season in and season out, and those who care abotu the league seem unwilling to make the difficult changes. When those changes are made, they're often ill-thought-out or implemented without warning and defended with a self-righteous zealotry that turns members off from  bothering to interact and engage. 

 

The Bears have been an amazing family to me, and I have to thank each of them for their support and love. Like Mexico before them, they've been their own little welcoming community. I'm grateful to Bana for all he's done, for treating his players with an enormous measure of respect and gratitude, and for always trying to speak the truth, even when the truth is hard to do. I'm not leaving, I'll continue to update and earn, and hopefully start maxing again sooner than later, but I find the more I distance myself from the league as a whole, the less I look to it as an obligation, the happier I am. This isn't something I have the emotional energy to care about and still be fulfilled. It's fun at times, but it's so toxic at others, and that's not a feeling I can tolerate right now.

'

I hope I've articulated this all in a way that isn't accusatory or short-sighted. There's growth to be had here, and a power dynamic that needs to shift before that growth can happen. For all of our sakes, I hope it does.

 

With love for you all,

HZ

 

532 Words

TPE for week ending February 16, 2020

[Banackock 8,073]