This was a reaction on a discussion written if larp should go more mainstream to get more players. Written in March 2014.

 

Fuck the mainstream! The mainstream audiences wants to consume bland lowest denominator stuff like X Factor, Eurovision Song Contest and the next ‘you can almost see them fuck’ reality show. 

I want dedicated, passionate visionary larp designers.
I want motivated, give it all players.
I want daring larps with new ways of seeing the world. Larps that does not play it safe, trying out new shit. 

I do not want designers only in it for the fame.
I do not want players going to larps only to meet up with friends they rarely see, or larps that they feel they need to go to not because they are motivated but because then they are not hip.
I do not want larps cast from the same mould, using the same techniques just because the previous larps used them and not because it makes sense in the design of the larp. 

I want us to grow as a community, not by going mainstream, but by connecting to people around the world who have the same passion as us, and together get new perspectives and new ideas. 

I want us to go to more larps, I want us to make more larps and try out new ideas. Make larps that dare to try with a chance of failing but also a chance to move larp forward.

But only with a keen knowledge of where we come from and what has been made before can we make new things. If you do not understand what has come before you will not make new stuff, but only bland copies of old larps. 

My best experience by far at KP was when the Czech showed up and told us about their amazing larp culture. I learned to get down from my high horse and actually look people from outside the Nordic countries in the eyes and hear what they had to say, and not buying into the bullshit that we from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland are, always and without a doubt, the best at our craft. That we cannot learn from anybody because we did it in the 90′ties. We need to stop that bullshit and look up from our own inbred circle of people and ideas and learn from the world around us.


Not only other larps and larpcultures but also other fields. 

So my friends, look around you for inspiration, know your larp history, ask you peers for advice and go make some larps!