Goofing around this week, I tweeted, “You and I are not addicted to the drama, we're just Vorthos re the community metagame. Community Spikes/Timmys will ask you to move on, ignore the drama, tweet about something else. Sorry, that's not my psychographic. Don't yuck my yum.”
The more I thought about the concept of player types applied not to how we enjoy the game, but how we enjoy the online community experience, the more it felt like
an interesting thought experiment. So here goes, let me
break down the Online Community Psychographics.
(Note: before you think this exercise involves passing judgment on some
of the players I’ll describe below, remember that this exercise is actually the
opposite of passing judgment. Psychographics
are labels we can use to describe
different people’s different, but equally valid, utility functions.)
Not familiar with the overall concept of psychographics and
what each of the commonly used ones are?
Start here https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03
and here https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Player_type
Spike
The Spike of the MTG Online Community is the content creator. The folks monetizing and otherwise thriving
off the “like, follow, and subscribe” or the Patreon or the viewer
donation. This is the one that feels
like the best fit and most useful description.
Useful in the sense that once we identify that some of the Spike
behaviors feel different to non-Spikes than they do to Spikes, we understand some key disconnects and can empathize with either side of an exchange. If you’re a Timmy/Tammy, Spike’s Twitch
jargon and donation call-outs feel transactional, maybe even invasive (“it used
to just be people trying to have fun in their spare time”). But to the Spike, as is true of all Spikes,
the successful pursuit of the measurables is actually fun. It actually gets them feeling good, into
flow, etc. when the fans/viewers/subs are having a good time and getting what
they came for. And if it means fewer
hours at the 9-to-5 slog, that’s a win-win for those at the top of the ecosystem. To the Johnny/Jenny, the Spike's content plays it way too safe and way too repetitive. But Spike is playing a longer game than Johnny/Jenny and values having positive engagements with members of the community 5 or 6 days a week, not just every once in a while.
Timmy/Tammy
This community member loves hanging out online with friends,
whether those friendships are virtual or IRL in origin. The person doing the liking, subscribing,
donating – likely a Timmy/Tammy. The
person who likes 90% of LSV or Kibler or Professor tweets they see – likely a
Timmy/Tammy. The Spike understands the online
stage, and the Timmy/Tammy understands the fun of being in the audience or part
of a low-stakes conversation about their hobbies and interests. Johnny/Jenny doesn’t think Timmy/Tammy has
anything interesting to add, and Spike views Timmy/Tammy in a commodified way, even
though it didn’t start out that way 2 years ago when they first started
streaming. Timmy/Tammy is able to smile while looking at their feed, something non-Timmy/Tammys can kinda remember doing back in the day, but couldn't say when.
Johnny/Jenny
The MTG Online Community members who enjoy the self-expression
and creativity from which a hot take or good joke or new decklist springs. While Timmy/Tammy is perfectly content to RT
a prominent take and leave it at that, and while Spike locates the take (consciously
or subconsciously) that will resonate most with who they view as their target
audience, Johnny/Jenny wants to Tweet the take or joke that the prominent
community members didn’t think of. The
Spike and the Timmy/Tammy think that Johnny/Jenny are just being contrarian
(Timmy doesn’t understand why they aren’t going with the existing takes), or attention
grabbing (Spike understands how different/controversial can be monetized, and assumes
that’s what’s going on here, even if that’s not what’s actually motivating Johnny/Jenny).
Mel (Melvin/Melanie)
Mel is interested in the mechanisms of the community itself. (This post you’re reading now is a Mel’s
dream). If you’ve never submitted to a
content creator program but you know the name of one or more people at WotC who
content creators had to curry favor with at one point to get the inside track
on program resources or spoiler cards, you might be a Mel (did Matt just slip
into a Foxworthy pre-meme meme format? the Mels all ask in unison). While Johnny is willing to take a side on
community drama, Mel stays “Above the fray” and speaks to or about both sides of a
debate, finding the commonalities in the positions or the features of the platform that led to
the prominence of the discussion. Mel can tell you what types of content or sub-communities thrive on Discord vs. Reddit vs. FB groups, while Spike struggles to understand why the folks on one platform aren't as receptive to the same content as the folks on a different platform.
Vorthos
The MTG Online Community drama is what keeps Vorthos
from deleting their Twitter account. The
black belts among the proverbial Underground Dojo Keyboard Cagefighters. Is a Twitter Mob forming (Johnny/Jenny spotted
something and made the first tweet, but others picked up the signal)? Vorthos is glued to The Website today. Vorthos will click through 8 threads and open
2 incognito tabs to get to the source Tweet(s).
Vorthos hates spoiler season on Reddit because the new card posts make
it harder to find the community drama posts.
Non-Vorthos community members will think Vorthos is wasting way too much
time on these pursuits, but to Vorthos what are time & a platform really
for if not the juicy drama?
