Community Backstory

Music has long been recognized for its power to bring people together. But VGM is special. The bonds formed are not just of a shared affinity but those of shared experiences yet are also beautifully unique. We want to share your story of how VGM made an impact on your life during our event.

Story Ideas:

  • How VGM helped forge a new bond between yourself and a friend or significant other
  • How your fondness for VGM led you to a VGM community in your area or online
  • Any other meaningful event from your life related to VGM!

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Your submission does not need to be a work of art. In fact, we encourage you to just whip out your phone and hit the record button.

Format: video (mp4), audio clip (mp3, wav, aac), written text

Length: Recorded submissions should be 5 minutes or less.

Where to submit: Send submissions to vgmtogether@gmail.com with the subject line ‘Backstory’. In the body of the email, include the name and pronouns you want associated with your story, if any, and your Discord handle (for raffle purposes)

Deadline: Submit by Sunday, October 23 at 9pm EDT to earn raffle tickets.

We will continue to take submissions after the event to share on our Youtube.

SAMPLE SUBMISSION

Below you will find a written sample submission.

I count myself as one of the lucky few who can say, without any sarcasm, that the pandemic brought positive changes to my life: I found a wonderful group of friends.

Swag Fam didn’t seem like a place I thought I’d find myself in — its name seemed cheesy and I only knew Nujj because she greeted me along with every other chatter in DrumUltimA’s stream. But I found myself there anyway thanks to Doug’s shoutout and a deepening desire to reconnect with people after six months of lockdown.

Swag Fam’s channel was abuzz with regulars rapid-firing in-jokes in chat. I managed to squeak in a ‘hi’ and was a rewarded by a very enthusiastic Nujj exclaiming, “HI WOZZA. I’M GLAD YOU’RE HERE! YOU SHOULD JOIN OUR DISCORD” before trailing off with a not so enthusiastic “…or not…if you don’t want to…” On any other day, I certainly wouldn’t have joined that darn Discord. But it just so happened to be on this day, I thought, “Heck, why not?”

Of course Swag Fam’s Discord greeted me with a similar level of chaos and an even more over-the-top amount of Swag memes. There are approximately a billion channels but one category stood out. I kept my eye on it, and over the next few weeks I jumped into the FFXIV voice chat when Nujj was around, which helped us get to know each other more. Though she would soon find herself working on Swag Fest every waking hour, Nujj managed to jump into my streams, make stupid jokes with me, and included me in whatever perfectly normal thing she was up to. To this day we do this things, and I’ve been even luckier to be perfectly normal with her in person.

Periodically I find myself in awe at the staggering odds against such a friendship forming. And yet, when I look around the VGM community, I know that our love for VGM played no small part in me finding one of my closest friends. That’s pretty barn lucky if you ask me.

Nujj and Wozza, from VRChat to real life.

Submitted by Wozza