Establishing a Legacy - My Thoughts on Californithon

Let me preface this open letter to you all by pointing out the fact that I've re-written this thing 14 times. This one is the one I'm posting. I'm done re-writing it, I'm going to stick with this one. I might forget some people and if I do, I apologize from the bottom of my heart. Please do not take it personally, I will make edits to it as necessary if I happen to remember anything I may or may not forget.

So here we go. I've cried each time I've tried writing this and even now as I write it for the 15th time, that hasn't changed. I can't stop thinking about that weekend. About every day, every minute, every second leading up to it. The anticipation, the fear, the excitement, everything. But the thing that I think about the most, perhaps, is that this is something in the speedrunning community that I can be truly proud of.

I've always had this admiration for people who have set some sort of legacy for themselves. Whether it be something unintentional, like BLK's discovery of null egg, something deliberate, like pie's "Pie Jump" in Paper Mario, or something big like the work done by people like Romscout or Mike Uyama with the GDQ's. They all did something that has cemented its place in history, however relevant or significant it may have been. I always had a certain level of respect for something like that. These were all people who had stories about them, or were remembered for something they did or said. I never really set out to accomplish that, nor did I ever desire it, but I always thought it would be nice to have something like that.

But alas I'm terrible at every game I lay my hands on. But ultimately I came to accept that fact. Then along comes this idea, after evolving from a meme to blindly run several games, to reach out to all the speedrunners in California and put together a grand scale meetup. Not just a couple guys, but as many people as we can to get involved. I had been told for months before that that a SoCal (even west coast altogether) marathon would never happen, thanks in no small part to the stigma that "everything in California is too expensive." I always thought this was, with all due respect, a very foolish and somewhat ignorant claim to make, as there are countless places that aren't major tourist locations (WHOA). Not only did we manage to get a location with nearby, decently priced hotels, but we got the venue for free. 100%. f r e e. All it took was reaching out.

But I digress. Back to the main topic, as much as I like the idea of this being my legacy, the marathon was in no way exclusively my work. I received help from innumerable sources. In fact, the first people who I can recall that actually made a major contribution were TonyOgbot and SecksWrecks. I remember being in a twitter convo with them and *I think* seckswreks saying tony did something for some event once and then tony brought up the specific idea of eSports Arena and h o l y f u c k what a godlike idea. I mean... wow. The marathon wouldn't have been nearly as close to what it was had that idea never been suggested. tbh I feel like I owe a debt to you for that alone.

But I want to actually go back a bit. I mentioned earlier how this started from a dumb idea to do blind runs. Here's the story of the origins of the event. To my best recollection, it was some time around AGDQ 2015, possibly a bit before that. Myself and MrShasta had a bunch of games we talked about running for a long time but never got around to learning the routes for. One day I suggested we just take all those games, watch a few runs, then somewhat blindly run all of them for a day. We were gonna call it Dumbathon. To tell the truth I still want to do it lmao. But yeah, that was how it started. Not long after, we found out BlkYoshi lived relatively close to the both of us, and I said that we should get him in on it. He seemed down with the idea, but it never really left the idea phase. I think it was a few weeks later, now around March of 2015, when we found out Studio lived near us too. We talked about hitting him up to be involved, but decided that we should just drop the dumb idea and just play games we were good at lol. This was, I believe, sometime around memeathon. We were making plans to go to SGDQ around this time too. The original plan was, me shasta Blk drive to arizona, pick up carlsagan and his girlfriend on the way, then the 5 of us drive to denver and then drive back down after. This was during that beautiful era when gas prices were unbelievably low, I think like $1.30? It was amazing. On top of that, everything east of the Colorado River was even lower the further east you went, as low as I THINK $0.80/gal. The round trip, with my cars extra shitty mileage, would have only cost 300 dollars. Split between the 5 of us that was like 60 bucks for travel expenses. Fucking godlike.

That was until the location for SGDQ was announced. SGDQ2015 was announced I believe in mid April that it would be in late July/early August, and in Minnesota for the first time. So yeah, our plans were shut the fuck down. (sidebar, I did still try making arrangements to go, but between a wedding on one weekend and working the 60th Anniversary at Disneyland that week, I wasn't able to make it :<). It was sometime around the time I found out I couldn't make it to SGDQ when it was said in a discussion, something to the effect of "fuck 'em, why don't we just do our own thing?" Seeing as how we already somewhat had that idea in mind, it kinda resonated with me, despite the aforementioned people saying it wasn't going to happen. I remember distinctly, sometime after SGDQ, making a twitter group with Mes, Shasta, Blk, Studio, and a couple others, with the instruction to "add literally everyone you know who lives in california." This was the beginning of something I had no idea would inevitably become what it did. Fun fact, there was a brief moment where we thought we could pull this off before Halloween lmfao.

Skip forward to sometime in late October, this was when Tony told me about eSports Arena. I had never been there, so I posted in the group chat asking who wanted to come with me to check it out. Duke suggested that we go on November 2nd, a sunday. He said his brother had "some tournament thing" that day. I came to find out that the "tournament thing" was SSS, and that his brother was UCI's very own LuigiKid. So I show up that morning, the only person there that I had met before was Studio. That morning, I met Duke, Benezzia, Megotsthis, Peaches, and TheIntercom. We met with the staff, who had mentioned in an earlier email that they were actually trying to get some sort of speedrunning thing there for a while, so with us coming to them with the offer of a marathon in need of a venue, it was a match made in heaven. Meeting went great, we discussed where we could do the stream and how it could work, and said we'd be in touch once the staff had a meeting about our proposition. Then we went as a group to this sick sandwich place for lunch (same place we went to a few times during the marathon lol), and parted ways. I had been back to the Arena a few times after that, catching up with the staff about dates and stuff, and as the twitter group grew, so too did the buzz we were generating.

The week of December 2nd through December 8th was an absolute whirlwind. We announced the date, then we announced the location the next day, snowfats made the announcement trailer that evening, then we opened submissions a few days later. All the while, our designer was working hard on our layouts and graphics, constantly changing them to what they are now. We had submissions open til' January17th, which was chosen specifically to accommodate for the games that may have become popular or interesting after AGDQ, and a week after it ended to give people time to get home and return to normal living. As soon as submissions closed, we got straight to work on discussing and watching each individual run. We made cuts, balanced availability, and published the schedule on the 25th, just 8 days after submissions closed. It was after this that the big stuff, as far as the public eye was concerned, slowed down. But work didnt stop there. We were constantly working on everything, mainly the charity (but I don't want to get into that too much. Lets just say things were less than perfect at times but it all worked out in the end).

OH FUCK so yeah somewhere in there was when romscout sent me this email that was unbelievable. One day we were getting all hype that the marathons existence got mentioned on Final Split, suddenly the next day I'm reading an email that says "hey so your shit is cool and i wanna help and basically so does twitch because speedrunning is rad and california is rad u feel me" (note: there is a slight chance that I may or may not be paraphrasing). But yeah it was the first moment I realized that this thing was something people cared about and were genuinely interested in, especially on a potentially big scale. That was fucking insane.

Anways where was I? oh yeah late January into early February. Only thing major that happened was the dates got moved. The original date was the 18th-20th. Would have really preferred that. But due to stuff outside of our control, we had to move to the next weekend. Don't fault the venue though. It was an accepted risk that we knew about from day 1 and they worked with us every step to make sure we still made it work. I won't say too much but believe me when I say that I wasn't mad at them and no one should be for that decision. We didn't get shafted. Anywho, mid February into mid March was the most stressful time of my life. Between struggles with getting things working and school stuff going abso-fucking-lutely insane, I nearly lost it. There was a three day period where I nearly had a mental breakdown due to stress. But eventually things found a way of working themselves out, as they typically do.

I think that's about it for the history and the lead up to the marathon. I think I'll establish the things I feel bad about first then get onto the stuff I liked and feel sentimental about.

To those in attendance, I apologize for the way overnight was handled. In all fairness, ours was the second overnight event the venue had ever held. It was out of my control. I talked about it with the staff on day 1 and they said "make sure everyone knows whats up" so I did exactly that. I went to each and every person individually and made sure they knew the deal. Everyone was receptive to it. THEN the guy who works there (I won't name names) gets on the PA and announces in the least sensitive, most misleading way possible, that we're essentially (allegedly) going on fucking lockdown. Again, I'm sorry. I didn't know he was going to announce that, nor did I know how horribly he would phrase it. I was honestly offended by it and I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to save face with everyone who now was looking at me like I was trying to sugar coat it. It was out of my control.

To those who watched from home: estimates on the layout. Sorry. They're on next years layouts. Our designer was MiA for a good while leading up to the event and there wasn't much we could do. We barely had category bars added by bradnthings last second since the race layouts had them and the nonrace layouts, for whatever reason, didnt. Sorry fam. The ball was dropped on this one.

uhhhhhhhh what else

Oh yeah so I was kinda running around like a chicken sans head for most of the event. I went out to eat a couple times and tried sleeping for like an hour twice and that was it. Sunday was the only real break I had, went home took a shower had dinner with family for easter. was really nice. fuck dude the 4 am is kickin in. But i can't turn back now I gotta post this one. but yea i was running around a lot. my communication was, at times, terrible. And I feel genuinely awful for that. but y'know what? I've already apologized to the relevant parties for the things I need to apologize for. that's not what this for. I'm gonna talk about good things now.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT WE RAISED 5500 DOLLARS AND ALMOST EVERYONE WAS ABLE TO MAKE IT AND OH GOD I LOVE YOU ALL

lets go

Everyone at the event. Everyone I met. you were all incredible. I realized that I don't think I ever actually met riskbreaker. Sorry buddy, next time for sure. But like... lets go down the list of the memories that stick out the most. Going to jack in the box with muncha calistus and dolfin was rad. felt like I was just hanging with friends going out to get something (i mean thats what it was but i meant like it felt like normal everyday friends idk shut up meeting internet friends is weird okay but this was chill). Konasumi was the first person who actually approached me, and then asked to take a picture with me and inside i was like AAAAAAAAAAAAAH OH MY GOD THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING lmao. went to dinner with rom, phil, dolfin and zorlax saturday night, that was super cool. I ended up hanging with muncha a lot from what i can remember. he was a really cool dude. that was the other thing that stuck out to me, i thought it was kinda cool that, given this was a california thing, everyone who came was generally a cool person imo. like... there was none of that basement-dwelling-nerd feeling from anyone i met. and dont act like that doesnt exist because there have been GDQ runs where you can tell the guy on camera has never spoken to humans before. But like... I didn't get that vibe from anyone here. Everyone I met was a genuinely chill person and I thought that was really nice. So... thanks for being normal people? idk why I brought it up, in retrospect. Just something that stuck with me, I guess.

Really though, there were so many people that I just wish I could be able to hang out with all the time. Some of them I have seen recently, some I've already made plans to see again. I somehow managed to make a shitton of new friends in the span of 3 days and thats cool. I understand that all of you have your own individual things you may not have liked but I seriously can't thank you enough for all the support each and every one of you gave. One of the things that struck me in particular was the fact that known memesters and shitters actually showed genuine support for it. I kinda appreciated that a lot, mainly because the event wasn't immediately the butt of a joke.

I had support from people on Friday, like trihex raiding us right out of the gate, giving us 200 immediate viewers. that was so sick. Saturday night after the smash tournament was cool too. we hit almost 2500 viewers thanks to the 2GG raid (Champ is a fucking homie), and thanks to pie and spike raiding post-race. Also thank you to unusualcook for the raid from swampathon, didnt get to watch it (was a tad busy ;) ) but I hope it went well! yeah i think that was all the major raids and hosts and assists with viewership. Thank you all for that.

I also had immeasurable support from Maddi. I love you so much and can't thank you enough for the help you've given me and the support you provided when I was at my lowest moments.

Thank you to Vulajin and Romscout for basically being mentors through all this. You both taught me more than I could have ever hoped to learn on my own. I will take every single word you said to heart and will do everything I can to make next year even better.

Thank you to Grand_POObear for literally bringing in like 30% of the money, holy shit dude i was speechless to say the least. you've got a fantastic community and you know what they say, they don't call it super money maker for nothin ;)

Thank you to the eSports Arena staff for being so fucking rad helping us with everything all weekend. I was speechless with everything that you guys helped make happen. What a fucking fantastic venue with an even greater staff making the wheels turn.

Everyone I met was so wonderful. Every moment of the marathon was a dream. I can't believe it happened, but I know for a fact that it wouldn't have happened were it not for the help I recieved from the entire group we assembled back in august. I know some of you couldn't make it and I'm saddened by that but there's always next year. but like............. WOW. It happened. you all made it happen. We fucking did it. the early versions of this had thank you's to people individually but I didn't want that in this one. Maybe I'll make that list again but I've already talked to most of you individually, you know who you are <3

so. yeah.

OH SHIT THAT ONE TIME ON FINAL SPLIT WHEN THEY TALKED ABOUT OUR SCHEDULE AND SPIKE WAS LIKE "WHOA DAMN THIS IS A FANTASTIC SCHEDULE" I WAS LOSING MY MIND AND THAT WAS SO SICK ok almost forgot that one, cool

In summation, I feel like I made something special. With the help of all of you, I made something I can proudly call my legacy in the speedrunning community. I made the first marathon on the West Coast. The Best Coast, even. They said it would never happen but look, we did it! We made it happen. And I'm happy to say that this is something I can leave behind one day and not fade into immediate obscurity. I can look back at this and think fondly of it, with a strong sense of pride. I'm not the best speedrunner, but I think I managed to put on a damn good show. I'm glad I managed to build my legacy in the community. I found my home. Thank you all for every contribution you made. I love each and every one of you.

See ya next year.

---Jeff Yochem