Staying Classy and Being BRAVE

This is a straight follow-up post from my previous one. I had mentioned putting an alt in BNI last fall and subsequently my entire corp re-rolled to join them. So, why did we decide to join them instead of simply getting rich off flipping goods into their market? Well, because, ultimately these folks shocked us. By being classy.

Even their propaganda seemed oddly free of cursing...

From the moment my "extra" alt (a 15 million SP character at the time) got set up in Barleguet and now had a BNI ticker attached to him, it was non stop fun. The Defense Fleet was up almost 24 hours a day with constant threats of small gangs in the home systems. Roams of every kind - from mining ops to null roams to wormhole dives to large warfare - were constantly up. The market in the HQ was amazingly stable and active for such a deep Lowsec pocket. Hundreds of Alliance-only contracts were always available, providing everything from cheap tacklers to doctrine Battle Cruisers. But, most importantly, the culture shock was what sold me. Brave Collective wasn't an alliance that "stayed classy" on the surface for propaganda reasons or simply paid lip service to the phrase. It truly stayed classy in all aspects of the alliance culture.

Classiness is catching on everywhere, btw.

Let me give you an example of what I mean when I say "classy". With a constant stream of players joining, it was common in their comms for someone to drop a bigoted stereotype. You know the kind I mean. The kind of crude attempt at humor that many of us attribute to the comms in Sov Power Blocs or any other large Alliance in EVE. Phrases such as "I'm broke - I'm gonna go j*wing with my Buzzard."; "I just popped this n**ger"; and any number of other more ugly sayings, gifs, and the such. But in Brave, the moment this type of language is uttered it is quickly stomped out. 

Now, let me stop you here and explain something: I was raised in rural Illinois. Cornfield and cow country. After growing up with a red neck among country folk, I'm numb to most stereotyping. I don't agree with it and I find it to be embedded in ignorance. But, I also understand that it's deeply rooted in our history to the point where a person may not believe in the stereotype itself, but doesn't grasp why it is not culturally acceptable to make jokes or ironically use the sensitive terms in a crude fashion. Usually, the person doesn't quite understand the power these words have to anyone who is affected by them, or they are so used to having them in their vocabulary that the deep meaning of the word is completely missing in their mind. Trust me, I get that. And, as someone who took literally years of training to stop using the word 'gay' to mean 'not right' (thanks to my gay childhood friend Aaron for smacking me every time he heard me say it), I am a little sympathetic when someone gets flamed hard for doing what I used to do. Hatred begets hatred and rarely will it correct the problem.

Yah, sort of what I meant, Yoda. 

The first time I can remember hearing it happen in Brave comms was when a player was rambling a story along and said "...and we were just about to kill him when the f*g entered warp". And let me tell you, the moment that word was uttered, comms erupted with exasperated WHOA!'s and HEY!'s. I held my breath to see what would happen as that poor guy has just obviously committed a big no-no. Would they kick the poor bastard? Ream his ass? Mock him?

One voice (with priority speaker to stomp on everyone's transmission) calmly, but authoritatively, said "Hey bud, just a friendly reminder to keep it classy on comms. We don't use that language, okay?" Wait.... what? That's it? He's going to treat this player with polite style and grace? But... this is EVE, right?! How is the guy going to respond I wonder? I held my breath for what seemed an eternity, but was probably two seconds when the player responded with an embarrassed tone "Sorry Lychton, it slipped. My bad." 

Wait... That was the alliance leader who spoke up? THE ALLIANCE LEADER TOOK THE TIME TO ADDRESS THIS GUY ABOUT THIS AND EVERYONE WAS POLITE AND... AND.... WHAT'S GOING ON WHERE AM I?!?

I mean, this is EVE online we're talking about, after all. Do you know how many times I've hit D-scan in highsec to see a fleet of Hulks all named "Jew Miner"? Or had someone go completely off on another person in Local for really dumb reasons? Or seen a character name that has a name like "Jew Hunter?" Or had chat shitted up with the "girls don't play games" debate? Or found a container on a gate that says "Hang all Ni***rs?" Or had your fleet channel spammed with porn? Or been on various fleet comms to hear someone screaming "Kill that fucking sp*c!?" You don't like it, but you need this particular fleet to accomplish this particular goal, and stopping to ask the FC to not use that language will not go over well. You grit your teeth and bear it. You report the container or the player, but nothing ever seems to get done. It's rampant. It's accepted. It has become the culture we must slog through in order to play.

So, imagine yourself as me, an EVE player sitting in a new Mumble and hearing that exchange of words between Lychton and the Brave member. Now, imagine that you start seeing it everywhere within this alliance. No one names their ships with ugly words. No one even posts their killmails in local to taunt the person they just blew up. There is no taunting at all. You're told to flood local with "GF" or "7o" instead. If the enemy posts your lossmail, trump it by taking your most embarrassing lossmail and put it in local right below the other. A very classy way of telling the enemy "I'm having fun with this. I have the control. What else you got?" You are expected to have fun, but treat everyone you encounter with respect.

Highsec mining isn't a cause for rambling hatred. No, it's an entirely active fleet in this alliance. They have entire divisions of chat channels, alt corps, and guides for doing nothing but training newbies in aspects of PvP, PvE, Industry, PI... my god, they even give away free skill books and ships through the Brave Dojo channel!  Centered around the newbie, the entire alliance was there to encourage each other to "maximize their fun-per-hour", no matter what their play style was.

Jesus! Someone even made a graphic celebrating these guys!

Maybe this doesn't appeal to you dear reader, but by God, I felt like I had found the home I was trying to build within my own corp. It wasn't long before I was convinced that this was for real - Brave had grown up and found a way to keep this culture true to style across the entire alliance. I called for a corp meeting, reported what I found there in Brave, we took a vote, and the rest was history. Thrall Nation was formed and we rolled into Brave Collective. 

You know you wanna.