Professional Friendship: A Discussion On When a Friendship Group Is Also a Business Venture
This post is not an invitation to discuss recent happenings regarding cuts of people. The moderators locked the thread for a reason and this is not me opening another.
The game we all know and love is best played between a large group of friends who know each other and the ways in which they lie and solve and read. It is paramount to the way it is played that everybody is on the same page regarding boundaries and playstyles. There is also a large content community (in context to the size of the game) which produces content for people to enjoy, and which acts as a huge jumping on platform for people interested in the game. These groups each have dozens of people volunteering their time to showcase this game. Many of the larger channels are monetised for the content they produce. I will note that I am a member of some of these and volunteer my time to play this game for them.
What this means, to me, is that these streaming groups who play the game more regularly the most often become a large friend group who happen to volunteer their time to play the game on a big stage. What this also means is that there is a business incentive for the relevant content creators to maintain their view on what constitutes good content. This has major risks of causing a clash in what is expected. If the content creator deems that a person within their sphere is not making good content for them and that all discussions have been had and there is nothing that can be done to rectify the situation, then there are only two choices:
Removing the player in question and ostensibly casting them out of a group of friends.
Keeping the player in the group and risking the content degenerating.
I don't think there is a good answer. Either option is hurtful and damaging to at least one person. On the one hand, it is almost certain to seriously hurt the people who end up being cut. On the other hand, it is the content creators' (and by extension, their volunteers) job to have fun playing this game. There are groups of players who are paid to play this game within the larger channels. There are fundraising events aiming to make more lavish content for the sake of expansion. Larger channels are now engaging with smaller channels which can help the viability of this being an actual job prospect.
Where is the line between a streaming group being a group of friends and a bunch of volunteers/colleagues? Is that a line that is always going to be blurred for the benefit of the content produced? One thought I had was that the content creators could set a hard boundary and outright state that this is something that is a business model for them. The risk there, however, is losing the natural touch. The content could suffer if people are told it's not a friend group. As I said earlier, this is a game best played with friends. If you are making content on the matter, it's best to make it with friends or to be very sure you're good at creating that facsimile.
Any streamer, video maker or content creator in this sort of space is selling their friendships with their player base to an audience. The group is to seem amenable and natural. This coalesces with the relationship the creator and their troupes have with the wider community that engages with them. The friendliness and relationships that are shared internally is being broadcast externally. Any issues are therefore at a much higher risk of becoming public knowledge and thus “internet drama” as people have bought into those relationships in some respect.
As a result, I think that that parasocial aspect of making people believe you're all friends bleeds into the way that the stream groups act internally. Content groups have to be friends to sell the content and to sell the game, but this breaks down when the content demands a change in roster for the sake of growth or stability. There comes a point where business will inevitably conflict with friendship which is a problem when friendship is a core practice of the business model. This, in turn, makes a business decision (which should be impersonal) into what can easily be construed as a personal affront. Maybe that's a necessary evil to successfully sell the idea of people-who-are-friends-and-love-this-game, but there maybe should be recognition internally and externally that moderation of the groups is important to the cohesion of the product. And yet, if I or anyone I know in this sphere were cut, I would be deeply hurt and worried that I'm not fit to be those people's friends.
I'm interested in other people's thoughts. Is there a solution? Or is this just a risk that has to be taken when you're within this part of the community?