Ethnography

We walked down the dimly lit stairs after pulling open a door to a shop in a plaza in Framingham, Massachusetts. I personally expected it to be a normal shop, not one that went underground. It was daylight when we arrived and it felt as if we were taking a descent into darkness when we opened that door to the shadowy underground. We took the steps down through the dimly lit stairwell and rounded a corner, finding ourselves in a brightly lit video game shop littered with tables that were spotted with television and Nintendo Wiis. Everyone was crowded, nearly shoulder to shoulder (some had to stand due to lack of chairs), as the sound of control sticks clacking against the plastic of the controllers echoed over the chatter of the players.

Nearly everyone was playing the same game to warm up before the tournament; Super Smash Brothers: Brawl. It was somewhat of a cult hit, this game. The point of it was to "KO" your opponent on a floating stage. You wouldn't KO them in the traditional sense of hitting them until they ran out of health, though. In this game, you had infinite health, but as you got hit, you took more "percentage", which meant that you'd go flying farther when hit at higher percents. In order to KO someone and take a life (more commonly referred to as a stock) you'd have to hit them with a powerful blow that's strong enough to knock them clear off the stage and into the "blast zone", where you'd die. This aspect is what makes it such a unique fighting game, which also lent to it's popularity.

The game originated on the Nintendo 64 as a royal rumble of sorts, starring all of the major video game characters of the Nintendo franchise. Link (a medieval styled swordsman) from Legend of Zelda, Mario from the world-renowned Mario Brothers games, Kirby from the series of the same name (he's a small little pink fluffball), Samus (a female bounty hunter from a futuristic setting) from Metroid, Fox (a mercenary piloting spaceships from another futuristic setting) from Starfox... all of the characters were ones you'd know of if you were an old-school, hardcore Nintendo fan. It then moved to the GameCube, increasing the roster of characters with the release of Super Smash Brothers: Melee. Now, the competitive game on the Nintendo scene was Brawl.

The tournaments were pretty standard; the use of items was forbidden (except for characters who could create items in match), the matches were strictly eight minutes long at max, and both players were alotted three stocks to fight with. There's even a list of stages that you can only choose from, to ensure optimum fairness so that your lose was due to a lack of skill to defeat your opponent. Some stages had outside forces that could kill you, which could be frustrating in the middle of a match if you're winning and then the stage kills you, turning the tides against you.

As I scanned the crowd, I couldn't possibly find a single way to categorize them. There was no single definite label to give them as a whole. There were players of all ethnicity and colors, heights and weights, appearances and personalities. There were the archetypal video game nerds, the gangstaz wearing their bling and representin', the average Joes, the japanese "otaku", emo kids, scene kids, trendsetters. There was a little bit of everything here at this major Brawl tournament known to Brawlers (what the players of Brawl refer to themselves as a whole) as Mass Madness. This was the 17th Mass Madness and although it was on the small side, about fifty or so participants had arrived.

At it's height, Mass Madness had seen around double that number, but even with a smaller crowd, it was still fun. As I walked around, I mingled and observed, enjoying the atmosphere. Everyone was friendly. One of the first things I noticed about this group was that almost every one of them had a unique GameCube controller. Also, let me explain. Despite the game of Super Smash Brothers Brawl (hereby referred to as SSBB or just Brawl) being a Nintendo Wii game, just about all players used a GameCube controller, as it allowed for better control over their character compared to the Wii-mote and nunchuck control set up.

But I digress; It was hard to spot two remotes that looked the same between the fifty or so players. When I asked, I was told that most competitive Brawl players customized their controllers so they wouldn't lose them, and if they did, they'd be easy to recover. I was also told that some just did it because they liked having a unique remote, be it for show or for luck value. Some adorned their with stickers, others painted them. Some even removed half of the controller and replaced it with another controller's half so they'd have a silver and black GameCube controller, for instance. Other more extreme varients involved removing buttons and control sticks with other kinds of buttons and control sticks for a completely customized look.

As the Brawlers played, you could hear a lot of unique terms that you'd not recognize unless you were active in the competitive scene. I am half in and half out of the competitive scene, so I know most of them. One of my top favorites and probably one of the most common is "No Johns." It's a common retort when a player makes an excuse as to why they lost a match.

Most often the excuses are aimed at the stage they played on causing their loss, or the character they chose not being their "main", or character they use most often. It's used almost universally for any excuse, no matter how valid the excuse is. I soon came to find out that even if someone stabbed you in the side mid game, if you attempted to use that as an excuse for losing, you would be verbally smacked with "No Johns" until you submitted that you lost.

When I asked about it's origins, I was told that the term was coined back during Melee, when a Texas player named John would make excuses mercilessly, never accepting a loss. Eventually, people started to refer to excuses as "Johns" and those who made excuses were accused of "Johning", in reference to the most infamous excuse maker of them all. It eventually was warped into "No Johns", and is a universally accepted term in the community.

The next most important knowledge about the game is the existence of "tiers". In fighting games, tiers are a prominent feature of the metagame. Some characters are naturally designed better than others, and therefor can play better than other characters. People tend to play the higher tier characters to place better in tournaments. Tiers are established by the quality of a character in terms of how powerful he is regardless of the player.

Meta Knight is ranked first of all the characters, and is a universally despised character in the SSBB competitive scene. He's commonly referred to as "broken", because he is overpowered in comparison to a vast majority of all the other characters. He is faster than nearly all of the other characters, dies less often, can kill more often, and has one of the easiest learning curves compared to the other characters in the roster. I've even gotten comments from people who play as Meta Knight, saying that they hate the character, but use him just because they can win with the character. There have even been movements to ban the character from the competitive scene, but has been overturned multiple times by the staggering population of players who would hate to lose their dominance because of the character getting banned.

Despite the soreness between players who lost to Meta Knights or other characters deemed "cheap", a lot of the players were very cordial and polite. There were a few bad seeds that the players refer to as trolls, a term coined on the internet for those who cause conflict for the sole satisfaction of irritating people. But even then, the atmosphere was very fun and lighthearted. Also, among the players there are a large share of inside jokes either about the characters or sometimes even about players.

My best friend who had brought me to Mass Madness had told me in specific about a certain player who went by the handle "Inui" that they liked to make fun of. He was an incredibly sore loser, had and over-abundance of misplaced self-esteem and ego, and liked to trash other players who used the same character as him. So, the players in the SSBB community decided to create an "Inui Bingo" wherein they baited the player Inui online to say various things that were sometimes so ridiculous that you couldn't help but laugh. Although spiteful, most viewed it as well deserved. The SSBB community likes to poke fun at one another in some interesting ways.

Among the bingo slots were "Get Inui to trash another fellow Peach player" and "Cause Inui to rant on about how good he is" among others. This trend continued as other players who were often needlessly raucous and obnoxious had bingo cards made for them as well and distributed in secret.

Between intermissions in the tourney, the food consumed was fairly common amongst the players despite the wide differences in people who attended. Almost universally, fast foods were eaten at the tournament during the lunch break, and either soda or some kind of energy drink was consumed alongside of it.

After, I had participated in the tournament and played against a handful of players before getting knocked out of the brackets. Although during a match the atmosphere was tense with concentration (especially in close matches where both player's skill are almost even), after the match finished, the feeling of seriousness immediately washed off and you were greeted with a smile and "Good game." from your opponent, even if they lost. Even having gotten knocked out fairly early, it was still a fun social event and I got to meet a variety of interesting and hilarious people. One group in particular I played with had a penchant for shouting and grunting random things mid match in exaggerated voices. In the end, we strode out of the underground shop having enjoyed ourselves.

My best friend Kyle, after having buckled up and started the car, looked over to me as I continued jotting down notes. "Get enough material?" He asked, and I nodded. "I think I've got enough."