LittleBigPlanet Clan

From left to right - Row 1: Khorne Empire, Red Eagle Army, Young Planet. Row 2: Red Skull Republic, Remnants Union, Armageddon Empire. Row 3: Master Creators Society, Knights of the Force, Taurian Concordat.

A LittleBigPlanet clan is a colloquial and antiquated term for a organized group of players of the LittleBigPlanet video game series. Although what constitutes a clan can vary widely, the term is most often used for organizations that existed before the 2020s. These organizations may vary in size, intentions, and goals. These groups engage in one or more of LittleBigPlanet's main tenets: Play, Create, and Share.

Social Basis of LittleBigPlanet Clans

LittleBigPlanet's creative freedom has allowed players for years to express themselves not just as individuals, but as groups. Players can create text, iconography, costumes, and creations in the game. This allows groups of creators to express themselves together and pursue similar objectives. Clans were never recognized by the game and its developers.

Defining LittleBigPlanet Clans

Etymology

The term 'clan' comes from the mid to late 2000s concept of a video game clan, a group of players who play a video game together consistently. Although a few LittleBigPlanet clans were explicitly racist, the term does not come from any association with the KKK. Being antiquated, the term is seldomly used in the LittleBigPlanet community in the modern day to describe any type of organization.

Roleplay

Roleplay is a common characteristic of many clans of all categories, but not all. Some organizations have leaned into roleplay as their primary objective, while others utilize it only partially. For some groups, this is not a present trait at all. Testimonies from clan leaders like Polarlab indicate that many who were involved with common clans took much of what they partook in politically very seriously.

Categories

LittleBigPlanet clans varied in size, intentions, goals, creative styles, and structure. This resulted in a number of dramatically different organizations.

A clan might be defined under multiple categories, or just one. These are arbitrary definitions created by the LBP Union Archives.

The LittleBigPlanet Union once was an alliance of common clans dedicated toward making the LBP community a better place.

Common Clans

Common LittleBigPlanet clans are organizations with a defined leadership and structure. They may engage with other groups in sociopolitical interactions. This category alone has a great deal of variance, however most of them carry the same general structure and culture. These groups tend to take part in all aspects of Play, Create, and Share but they may focus on a particular element.

Hundreds of common clans are known. The H4H Bounty Hunters, Young Planet, Armageddon Empire, Akatsuki, and LittleBigHeroes are all examples of common clans. Alliances of clans also have existed such as the LittleBigPlanet Union, Axis Alliance, and the Remnants Union.

In the modern day, LittleBigPlanet Discord servers may be viewed as a successor to historical common clans.

OddBall Studios is a group of creators focusing on animated cinematic content.

Creative Organizations

Creative LittleBigPlanet organizations are groups that focus chiefly on the creative aspect of the game and don't engage in sociopolitical interactions. These groups often do not refer to themselves as clans, opting for titles like teams or studios instead. While some of these groups like the Master Creators Society have interacted with common clans, most of them are very distanced from this category.

These groups are much less numerous than common clans, but their influence on the general public is much more widespread. Some other examples of creative-centric clans include Trixel Creative and OddBall Studios.

Although this category shares similarities with other types of groups commonly referred to as clans, it's rare that anyone actually refers to these groups in that way. Therefore, this may be a good example to demonstrate what most people refer to when they discuss LittleBigPlanet clans.

BattleClanArea5 is a competitive league of clans focusing on minigames like x-spam. They are controversial for their alleged hacking and widespread cheating.

Competitive Clans

Competitive LittleBigPlanet clans focus primarily on gameplay, creating teams to oppose one another in some form of gameplay. These clans tend to form larger groups or leagues where each clan can compete with one another. Some common games that competitive clans have competed in are sword fighting, mech battle, Online Create Battle, and others like x-spam.

Some examples of competitive clans are Slapsters and BattleClanArea5.

Legacy and Influence

The Master Creators Society was an LBPU Observers State that sought to mentor creators to help them improve their creative skills.

Positive Influence

Creative-centric groups like Trixel Creative have created content that has been received extremely positively by the LittleBigPlanet community. Smaller groups like OddBall Studios have also been largely successful in promoting their brands to the point that their content no longer primarily revolves around LittleBigPlanet.

Although less influential, some common clans have attempted to become positive forces in the community. The LittleBigPlanet Union over several periods of time united common clans together. The Master Creators Society, an observer state of the LBP Union, started a creative mentorship program to help others improve their creative skills.

The Axis Alliance was a group of clans with fascist and militant themes that was involved in numerous conflicts with other clans.

Controversy

LittleBigPlanet clans often are a topic of controversy in the LittleBigPlanet community. In 2010, Vector Troop was criticized on the forum LittleBigCentral, and in 2017, the resurgence of the Axis Alliance sparked criticism of clans on Twitter and elsewhere.

Modern LittleBigPlanet organizations may directly challenge the term 'clan', citing the 'wars' fought by common clans in the past.^{[citation needed]}

Colloquialisms & Linguistics

A number of expressions have developed related to LittleBigPlanet clans. For example, the present progressive verb clanning is a word which was often used to describe LittleBigPlanet clans in general. Thus, to clan has been an acceptable verb infinitive for some who have been involved with these groups.

Also, the word clanner is a colloquial noun that has become popular among these groups that can be pluralized into clanners. This is used to describe people who engage in LittleBigPlanet clans. These terms are primarily used by common clans and aren't as popular outside of this circle.

Another uncommon informal verb infinitive is to war. Polarlab writes in his autobiography, "I had enough of his crap, so I warred him."