NODE ONLINEPhoenix, AZ0 on the network
TIRED OFBEINGINSIDE?
Once a month the people you have been yelling at through a monitor show up in person. Turns out they are fine.
press / anywhere for the command line
What this actually is
Don't know where to meet people who make things? Given up on conventions because the air in the artist alley is a documented war crime?
Local Asshole Network is one room, once a month. Every asshole who has ever thrown your Overwatch match, missed your stream, or ignored your Discord ping is here in person — talking shop about game dev, streaming, cosplay, art, music, and whatever you actually spend your nights on.
No badges with your job title on them. No elevator pitch. Nobody is building in public. Have a drink, eat something questionable, and get comprehensively dismantled at Magic the Gathering by someone who has not slept since Tuesday.
When you are here you are just you. Everyone starts at the same rank.
This is for you if
- you have a project on a hard drive that nobody has ever seen
- you have shipped things, or you have shipped nothing, and both are fine
- your last three social interactions were code review comments
- you would like to talk about frame data for forty minutes with someone who does not leave
- you are new here and quietly terrified — we have a plan for that, see the manual
This is probably not for you if
- you were going to ask what my ARR is
- you brought a pitch deck
- you use the word "synergy" without irony or shame
- you think being here is beneath you
- you cannot be nice to someone with fewer followers than you
Everyone else: the door is open and the first one is on us.
How a night goes
- 18:30DOORS
Come early if crowds are hard. It is quiet, someone will say hi, you can sit down and nobody will make it weird.
- 19:00SHOW & TELL
Six people, five minutes each, anything you made. Broken builds encouraged. We clap for the crashes.
- 19:45THE HANG
The actual point. Tables for tabletop, a corner for whoever brought a machine, and enough chairs that you are never stuck standing.
- 22:30STRAGGLERS
The good conversation. Historically where the collaborations start.
- LATERIT KEEPS GOING
Everyone you met is on the network by the time you get home. That is what the card is for.
You get a card
Show up once and you leave with a physical LAN membership card. Your name, your number, a code on the back.
The code turns into your account on the network — a profile, your links, and the feed where everyone posts what they are working on between events. It is a much smaller, much less humiliating LinkedIn, or a group chat that remembers who everyone is.
The card is deliberately a physical object. You cannot lose it in a notifications tray, and handing someone a card is a much easier thing to do than saying "what is your handle" out loud.
LAN
Local Asshole Network
Member
LAN-0042
Name on the network
@you
Your name here
Issued
ON THE NIGHT
tilt it. go on.
The network
Profiles that are actually useful
What you make, what you are working on right now, what you are looking for, and every link that matters. No endorsements. No "open to work" frame.
A directory of people who were in the room
Filter by discipline. Everyone in it has met you in person, which is the entire trick.
One flat feed
Chronological. No algorithm — there are not enough of us for one, and you would be able to tell.
Nothing is public
The directory and the feed are behind the door. Search engines never see any of it.
No public profiles, no indexing, no algorithm, no ads, no scraping. You met these people in a room.
Six rules, and we mean them
No well-actually
If someone is mid-sentence and technically slightly wrong, let them finish. It is almost never the point.
No feigned surprise
Nobody says "wait, you have never used Blender?" here. Acting shocked at a gap in someone's knowledge teaches them to hide the next one.
No backseat driving
Do not lob advice into a conversation you are half-listening to from the next table. Join it properly or leave it alone.
No subtle -isms
The small stuff — "you throw like a girl", "it is so easy my mom could do it". Say it, get told, say sorry, move on. It is not a trial.
Punch up or sideways
The whole brand is a joke about ourselves. If a bit only works because somebody in the room has less standing than you, it is not a bit.
Ask before you photograph
A lot of people here are recognisable, streaming-adjacent, or simply do not want to be online tonight.
Get told when the next one is
We are between dates. It is not a marketing tactic, we are just negotiating with a venue owner who has not answered an email since Tuesday. One email when it is locked, then nothing.
Tell me when