Sapphire: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 09:39, 26 January 2017
  | |
| Type | Organization |
|---|---|
| Industry |
|
| Founded | Davie, Florida, United States August 2011 |
| Founder(s) | |
| Headquarters | Davie, Florida, United States |
Key people | Bryan (CEO/Chairman and Owner) |
Number of employees | See Members |
| Other names |
|
| Website | sapphiredev |
Sapphire Development (more commonly known as Sapphire Dev or simply Sapphire) is an organization that formed 2011. Sapphire began as a two man team that initially expanded when the ArmiTunes Minecraft server closed, acquiring part of its player base. From its conception, Sapphire was centered on its gaming community, but it has also conducted work in fields such as software development, video production, live-streaming, and professional gaming. Sapphire's member base is built around its original group of individuals who introduced several of their own mutual friends into the group.
The History of Sapphire
The Backstory and the Founding
October 2010 - August 2011
It all began with Bryan and Emanuel (also known as t3sla), when they played the game Minecraft for the first time in October 2010. They had found out about the game through SeaNanners' Minecraft videos. In one video, he gave a tour of "Sexy Town", which was on a server he played on. Bryan and t3sla sought out the server address, coming up with a server that was called ArmiTunes Freebuild. It was an open freebuild/creative server, which was the type of server SeaNanners was playing on. They had been told that SeaNanners played on ArmiTunes, however this turned out to be a hoax. Despite this, Bryan and Emanuel continued to play on ArmiTunes.
Months passed as the two logged on to the server daily, working on building projects. One of the biggest projects was Seaport, a union of cities scattered throughout the server. Through this project, the two managed to gain friends and popularity. They befriended staff members of the server; Bryan was eventually promoted to moderator while Emanuel's promotion came a few months afterwards.
In January of 2011, the two gained interest in Minecraft modding. They formed a development team and worked on some small projects, primarily under the name Team Cake and briefly as Team Redemption. Bryan handled marketing while Emanuel worked on the technical end. The team released a few mods during their early days.
One day, ArmiTunes fell victim to griefing, the intentional destruction of other players' buildings. As a result, the administrator revoked building privileges from the public, and instead gave them to those willing to prove their building skills on the "Proving Grounds". Bryan and t3sla, as moderators, had the responsibility of scouting the Proving Grounds and reporting back to the administrator. While patrolling, Bryan and Emanuel formed a small community by befriending Funky, Caleb (known at the time by his handle Slar3xSpr33), Cydax, Sindre, Sarim, Mike, Jack, and James, most of which were worthy candidates from the Proving Grounds. Around this time, Bryan and Emanuel reformed their development team into a new organization Sapphire Development, which included their newly formed community.
In August of 2011, many members of Sapphire became fans of Team Avolition (AVO), a griefing group that filmed their exploits and posted them on YouTube, ironically the same type of people that wreaked havoc on ArmiTunes. After gaining inspiration from AVO, t3sla began working on the SapphClient, which became Sapphire's first mod project.
The Early Minecraft Era
September 2011 - December 2011
Just around September 2011, Mojang had released an update for Minecraft. ArmiTunes had a protocol for when new Minecraft updates were released. Since the update would break the server's plugins and configurations, the normal map was backed up and replaced with a temporary map until the plugins were updated. This temporary map was survival (as opposed to the usual creative/freebuild game mode). At this time, Bryan (and Emanuel, although he played less around this time) huddled with Caleb, Funky, and Mike in a Skype call while Cydax stayed with his friends Sarim and Sindre (the Norwegians of Sapphire) in another call. A third call existed, which consisted of Jack and James.
Sarim began pressing for a merger between the calls, in order to improve communication within the community. One day, his efforts paid off as the Norwegians' call merged with the main call. The third group eventually merged as well. Eventually, Bryan, Emanuel, Caleb, Funky, Cydax, and Mike became Sapphire's first leadership team, now known as the Founders of Sapphire.
Together, the entire community of Sapphire collaborated in order to construct Keldagrim on ArmiTunes, a fortress that consisted of a fake base on a mountain with its real operations hidden underground. Keldagrim became Sapphire's first Minecraft building project. In order to boost manpower, Funky brought his friends lilfizzhead and Alexander Thomas into the community.
Keldagrim was brilliantly designed; a fake base was strategically placed within the mountains. It had shops, farms, and a large wall. The front gate was equipped with a defense mechanism designed by Jack and James. All of this was known as Surface Keldagrim. Its purpose was to stall invaders and allow time for the development of Underground Keldagrim, which was excavated from two intersecting ravines, which contained a half-water, half-lava river.
When not working on Keldagrim, the community enjoyed watching Team Avolition videos, while Emanuel resumed the development of the SapphClient. Members of the community would assemble teams to grief random Minecraft servers with the SapphClient. They had fun, however they vowed to not grief their home server, ArmiTunes. However, one day, the administrator of ArmiTunes created a new temporary map, which voided all the effort put into building Keldagrim. Feeling betrayed, a few members griefed the new temporary map on ArmiTunes. For unrelated reasons, ArmiTunes shut down and never came back online.
At first, Sapphire's members experienced confusion, anger, anxiety, and then remorse. After taking time to reflect upon their time on ArmiTunes, in November of 2011, they decided to start their own server, as an ArmiTunes legacy server project. Initially, Bryan hosted the server. The community started another project, a YouTube channel, using it to advertise their server. After the leadership decided to push for expansion of the community, Cydax and Sindre stepped up to co-fund a VPN for the server in order to be able to support a larger player base.
The server was mainly populated by the members of Sapphire and it only had a few public players. The leadership was so frustrated and desperate, that when JokarGirl randomly joined the server, she was accepted into the group and given the Moderator rank on the server. Interest in the server declined after a few weeks, which ultimately led Alex and Ethan to stray away from Sapphire. The Sapphire server remained online for quite a while longer, however, it was almost never used. Eventually, members fell back on griefing and watching Team Avolition videos for entertainment as the server project was falling apart.
After a series of successful griefing raids, the group eventually stumbled upon the "ungriefable" server: Darkholm PvP. The reason being because it was a hardcore player-versus-player server, which incorporated intentional destruction of other player's property. Members of Sapphire began playing on this server, believing that it would be able to fill the void left by ArmiTunes. Ahead lied some of Sapphire's darkest days.
The Dark Ages
December 2011 - May 2012
When members of Sapphire initially began playing on Darkholm, they created a "faction" (a team that can own land and invade other factions), which was composed of Bryan, Slar, Cydax, Sindre, and Sarim. Emanuel spent some time away from the group while Mike and Funky were dealing with real life issues. Jack and James rarely played Darkholm.
The faction's first leader was Cydax, since only VIPs could start a faction. The VIP rank was obtained by donating a certain amount of real money to Darkholm. The faction was named Void, as suggested by Bryan. Void quickly grew in power and gained opposition, consequently gaining much adversity. After many base moves, Void finally found a temporary sanctuary for its Headquarters.
One of the main aspects of Darkholm was Player-versus-Player (PvP) combat. Darkholm had a PvP-designated zone at the Spawn. Often people would leave their most prized possessions at their faction bases, get equipped with PvP gear, and teleport to the PvP Zone. While in the PvP zone, Void attracted the attention of a devout warrior whom was known as Creasingwolf, who was declared an enemy to the faction. After much trash-talking, the battle against him ended in a draw.
The encounter with Creasingwolf only worsened the situation as he was apart of a faction of great PvPers who were out to eliminate Void. As more opposition grew towards Void, it decided to fight back by fiercely destroying factions that opposed it. Void picked up some displaced individuals who contributed greatly to the faction. Tybljo, who always located the bases of anti-Voiders, was assimilated after his own faction's base was destroyed by Void.
Meanwhile, in real life, Bryan had met another Minecraft player at his school and introduced him into Sapphire; his name was Jerry Plasker. He was interested in Void's situation and joined in to help. Shortly thereafter, Cydax ceased funds to the Sapphire Server and as a result had it shut down due to lack of interest as well as due to accusations that it was trying to imitate Darkholm by using its spawn design and pay-to-win rank structure.
Back on Darkholm, Void had to re-settle on an island. The faction was now led by Caleb and, as apart of his plan for Void, strategically renamed the faction to RedStoners in order to create a temporary diversion against enemies. Cydax, Sarim, and Sindre split off from RedStoners and temporarily cut off ties with its members. They restored the true Void faction separately, and planned for its return someday. Caleb's plans fumbled as people discovered "RedStoners" to be an alias of Void. A spy from Creasingwolf's faction turned up; Kenan Heath, who was known in-game as SpecialK, was thought to be a friendly until it was discovered that he was showing enemies the way into RedStoner's newest base on the island. Consequently, RedStoners' base was raided and destroyed. One individual, Dakota Warner (known as hyprman33 in-game) was revealed to be pulling the strings behind Creasingwolf and Specialk. These events ultimately lead to a decline in the RedStoners faction.
After those events, Darkholm's VIP system was revamped. The original three-tier donor rank system was replaced with a five-tier system that gave a donor several game-breaking abilities. Ranging from the Squire rank (5 dollars) to the King rank (100 dollars), they were extremely over-powered and were in high demand. A ten year old rich boy nicknamed 741 became infamous for lending money to everyone he knew. He was exploited, even by RedStoners, to gain power.
After countless trials, RedStoners succumbed to the enemies' pressure. Caleb decided that RedStoners had failed and he would step down from his position as leader and split off making his own faction called Onyx, while outside of Minecraft he spent some time away from Sapphire due to criticisms he received from fellow members over Skype. Cydax saw this as the opportunity to restore Void in all of its former glory. Bryan agreed to join Cydax, while Tybljo and Jerry followed Caleb into Onyx. There were often feuds between Void and Onyx, which caused ripples in the group's friendship outside of the game. This went on for months until eventually the tension reached a breaking point when Caleb allied Onyx with hyprman33's faction, the faction of the former leader of Creasingwolf. Effortlessly, Onyx's new alliance overpowered Void and destroyed its base once again.
Outside of Darkholm, Caleb and Dakota (hyprman33) began playing League of Legends. While they were distracted outside the game, Void used the opportunity to rebuild its faction. Void persuaded legendary mercenaries Creasingwolf, Specialk, Woods, and weyrt to help execute a treaty that merged several powerful to create one superfaction, positioning Bryan as Supreme Emperor of the Void Empire.
Void's requirements for recruits were brutal: an applicant must have at least had the Baron rank (a 50 dollar VIP rank) or King (100 dollar VIP rank). Putting together all the resources that were collected, the Void Empire was born. The Headquarters were located in a massive obsidian box that contained all of Void's resources and valuables. The Headquarters were surrounded by a lava moat. Both the HQ and the moat were encased in yet another obsidian box. At this point in time, Void was the largest faction to ever exist in Darkholm. Meanwhile, hyprman33 kept on the down low while plotting his attack on Void.
The primary anti-Void forces were the followers of Glen, a rebel who was tired of being suppressed by the Void Empire. Several anti-Void soldiers lined up against the walls of the Void Empire ready to bring them down. When the battle started, Bryan went to protect the Headquarters. Just then, hyprman33 appeared inside the base, having entered via illegitimate means. Since the Headquarters had been penetrated, Bryan made a difficult decision to initiate a self-destruct sequence to ensure that no one would be able to achieve the glory of defeating the Empire. Thus, Bryan single-handedly ended the Great Void Wars and consequently the Void Empire. The Void faction returned shortly afterwards, however, it remained inactive in the server-wide race for factional glory and power.
After all of these events, Nick (Creasingwolf), Weyrt, and hyprman33 became long-time members of Sapphire while Specialk and Woods only remained for a short time. Furthermore, Caleb had finally made a return to Sapphire. They still played on Darkholm, focusing on getting staff positions, resulting in Caleb and Cydax both becoming moderators. However, due to the corruption in the server's management, Sapphire unanimously decided to completely withdraw from the server. During this time, the group made a transition from Skype to Raidcall, in hopes of a better voice communication service. Caleb and hyprman33 persuaded the entire group to play League of Legends, which eventually interested Emanuel and brought him back. Finally, Jerry brought two new members to the group: Jimmy and Jessenia, who were already experienced League of Legends players. This marked the end of the entire Minecraft and Skype saga of Sapphire.
The DayZ Days
May 2012 - May 2013
In May of 2012, League of Legends became one of Sapphire's staple games. Caleb spent more time away from Sapphire, again, due to more differences but eventually came back. As soon as June came around, school wrapped up and people left on holiday trips. This was a new experience for Sapphire because it was Sapphire's first summer. Nearly everyone had left on a trip. In July, when everyone returned, the community began playing a new game called DayZ, which was a zombie mod for ARMA 2. The community, along with its newest members, had experienced a peak in fun. In DayZ, Bryan and a few others encountered El Saviour, which was an armed rescue ranger vehicle, which appeared all over in ARMA, who has saved many members of Sapphire from certain doom. El Saviour became a mythological and legendary figure to the community.
Eventually August came around, giving everyone an unpleasant reminder that school was coming up. As soon as school started back up, everyone went back to playing League of Legends. Throughout the school year, Jimmy began to establish himself. He brought in his younger brother, Johnnie, sometime in late 2012. Around this time is when Caleb made his third hiatus.
As 2013 approached, it was settled that Sapphire's community would upgrade to a twenty slot TeamSpeak server, funded by Bryan. As the transition was being made, Caleb returned to Sapphire once more, for good this time. In early 2013, Jimmy brought in a new friend from school named Ryan who only talked but did not game with the community. Jimmy began to play League of Legends professionally; by this time most of the community had developed decent skills. During the months of March and April of 2013, Sapphire opened an eSports subsidiary called Sapphire Gaming and organized a League of Legends team (also called Sapphire Gaming) to play in tournaments. Members of the team enjoyed practicing together, however it was painfully obvious that the team was dysfunctional, and it eventually became inactive.
Callisto raid
April 2013
See Callistostarianism and Callistover for the full articles.
On April 20th of 2013, Sapphire Gaming finished scrimming with a team they enjoyed playing against. They had invited the enemy team to join the TeamSpeak server to have a chat and play some All Random All Mid matches together. Meanwhile, a figure named Callisto whose voice can only be described as angelic joined the TeamSpeak server for an hour and held a Q&A session. Appropriately, this occurred on National Weed Day. That day, the events that led to Callistostarianism occurred, and from then on, every 20th of April was known as the Callistover.
At the request of Callisto, the server became ceremonially known as the People's Republic of Callisto [of Sapphire]. A few members were not present during the first Callistover, and refused to accept Callisto-sama. All of the members of the team which joined the TeamSpeak server left, except for one member stuck around for a bit: Brandon Lin. He was interested in playing League of Legend with the group, however, the group itself began to lose interest in League of Legends.
A New Age
May 2013 - December 2013
The League of Legends team sponsored by Sapphire, Sapphire Gaming led by Jimmy Hong, was disbanded when Jimmy Hong and co got into a big argument with the rest of the group. Afterwards, Jimmy, Johnnie, Jessenia, and Ryan all left. With the fall of Jimmy Hong and co, some room was cleared for new members. The coming of a new age demanded for new memes in Sapphire, and as such the usage of Dis Dik started to increase.
During this time, Funky brought a new member, Usama. Caleb introduced his friend, Chase, during the Summer of 2013. Chase Jenkins quickly passed his Initiation which involved a lot of DIK. Over the Summer of 2013, the group took interest to online Poker and an MMORPG called Haven and Hearth. After the summer holiday trips occurred, the group held a reunion to see each other off to school. This also involved the miraculous resurrection of Nick and Weyrt, who became a cool kid (420).
During the Fall of 2013, all of Jimmy Hong and co, except for Ryan, returned. Furthermore, they resumed playing with the crew of Sapphire Gaming to warm up for Season 4. The group had shifted its focus primarily back onto League of Legends. The TeamSpeak server, at the time provided by GameServers, crashed frequently, and many exploits were found. Jimmy took over the server, with the help of everyone else, and defaced it. These events are known as the Happening of Jimmy. This prompted the group to switch to a better host. From this point on, the server was provided by MainVoice.
One fateful One For All match in League of Legends, Bryan, Jimmy, t3sla, and Johnnie met Blood1310017. Half of the group wanted to play Fiddlesticks and the other Leona. Yet, Blood, a randy, picked Malphite and won over the other two suggestions. From watching him play, the group came to the conclusion that he was the best player, ever. An episode of THE BEST RIGHT NOW, MALPHITE IS THE BEST RIGHT NOW, also known as The Life of Blood1310017, was centered around the events that occurred with Blood. Meanwhile, a large portion of the group got together with a few non-members and played Haven and Hearth once again.
Sometime late during this year, the group started a rivalry against TitanClan, previously known as Mantis Clan. Members of Sapphire used to go on Titan servers, but intolerance of Titan's memes grew and a few shots were fired. This turned into a back-and-forth from one TeamSpeak server to the other, until eventually a ceasefire occurred. Ever since, Sapphire held a negative view of Titan, with exceptions such as Jerry (because he was also a member of Sapphire) and Pandemic.
During the Winter of 2013, the group began to play Dota 2. Mike and t3sla played only Dota 2, while the rest of the active group members either juggled playing both games or only League. Bryan invented a new meme which complemented DIK. The act of making this noise was called thumping. The usage of thumping was over exaggerated and the meme eventually died out.
New Members
January 2014 - May 2015
Over the new year, the group began to spread out a bit. t3sla harnessed his old Counter-Strike skills and one-trick pony'd Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and had re-entered t3sla mode. Even though he went back to t3sla mode, he still made contact with the group and influenced the group to play CS:GO; as suspected, playing CS:GO became a trend in the group.
Jerry began to frequent TitanClan's TeamSpeak, although he often came back to visit Sapphire. Meanwhile, the Norwiggas (Cydax, Sindre, and Sarim) reserved a channel on TeamSpeak to hangout with their real-life friends, and less with the core part of the group. Mike and Funky brought their real-life friends, the DirtyChinx, into the TeamSpeak server and had their own channel created. Finally, Slar and Chase introduced more friends to the group:Ben Thomas, Ryan Costa, Greg, and Garrett. The remaining people were Bryan, Slar, Chase, Funky & Mike (with the DirtyChinx), Ben, Greg, Garrett, Creasingwolf & Jimmy (semi-active), Ryan, and t3sla (occasionally).
Ben Thomas was one of the most controversial members to join the group. So far, all members had been east coast rep'n, but Ben represented the west coast, specifically California. Another problem was that everyone in California blazed. Yet, Ben claimed he was "clean" of drugs.
With this new age beginning, an opportunity to start new memes has opened, especially since DIK is slowly dying off. Creasingwolf was a major force in the revival of necking. He was extremely dedicated to the game and spread it everywhere he went, including school. Meanwhile, Bryan and Slar took the jinxing game to the next level. A jinx, as referred to by the cool kids, fifth graders, and niggas, is when two people say the same thing at the same time without having prior knowledge of the fact that the other party would say the same thing as them. However, in Slar and Bryan's version of this, they would say "Get out of my mind/head!"
On top of these, many other memes have spread throughout the group. Among recent events, the revival of swagfaggotry is one of the greatest things to have happened. The leaders of this revival were Jimmy and Funky, each bringing their own unique techniques to the table. Due to swagfaggotry being integrated into Sapphire, one new graduation requirement of the DIK Academy is to study the HOW NIGGAS ACT AT SCHOOL video, as it is essentially the textbook of Sapphire. Not only does it cover swagfaggotry, it also covers DIK and many other fundamental topics to a certain extent.
On March 10, 2014, Ben was publicly executed and died (in other words, he was votekicked from a CS:GO game and left Sapphire) by Bryan, Slar, and Pasta. On the third day, Ben Thomas was resurrected from the dead (he came back). Ben, at the time only being in the group for a few weeks, had left Sapphire, similar to the behavior of Slar in his early days. Although he had returned, Ben became less active in the TeamSpeak.
The Summer had begun and once again it was a summer of less people. Jose Cruz (check0ut) randomly joined the TeamSpeak and befriended the group, despite him seeking people that play League of Legends (which at the time, the group did not). Slar brought Brad into the TeamSpeak and got part of the group to start playing RuneScape (which only lasted for a few weeks, afterwards Brad became inactive in TeamSpeak). t3sla had once again returned from hiatus in t3sla mode and became more active in the TeamSpeak. Jimmy also began to pop up into the TeamSpeak every now and then. The Dirty Chinx began to interact with the group more often, which meant talking to Mike and Funky more often. Funky took Bryan's old meme, xDieselfuel, and blew it up, eclipsing its previous success. Over the summer, Sapphire became a Meme Factory and the overwhelming amount of memes caused the average life span of a meme to drop to five minutes.
Nearing the beginning of school, Cydax left for college and as a result the Norwiggas became less active. Garrett and check0ut also both began/resumed college around this time. Ryan, ever since graduating, had his work grind on. Everyone else had started up high school again or in the case of Slar, stayed home and played vidyas.
The school year went by as many people became inactive. At certain times, there were a good amount of people, but for most of it, TeamSpeak was a ghost town. Slar was always in TeamSpeak, as was Bryan. Except, Bryan was AFK all the time. By the end of the school year in May 2015, Chase had graduated and also gotten a job.
Developments
June 2015 - February 2016
The summer of 2015 had seemingly marked the beginning of a new age. TitanClan was reorganized into an uptight community, RGN Community, which eventually shut down, causing Jerry to return to Sapphire. At the same time, Jimmy made a miraculous return to the TeamSpeak server, and began frequenting it. Funky also returned to the TeamSpeak server, although mostly only kept up with Sapphire via messaging and social media. Bryan, Slar, Jerry, and Jimmy briefly brought League of Legends back to Sapphire, and even got t3sla to play, which was yet another miracle. Simultaneously, Jimmy also led the group into playing Battle Royale on H1Z1. These were attempts of unifying the TeamSpeak population by playing the same games, but these were games that some did not play. Instead, they stuck to playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, a game that was hot with Sapphire for the last couple of years. Over time, playing League of Legends became, once again, a sort of lost art.
This caused a recession back into the previous phase of the Community where most individuals played CS:GO primarily, while a minority existed that played only other games. Although this recession was briefly stopped by efforts of getting Chase to play League of Legends and Jimmy to play CS:GO. Despite all this, the Community went back into its CS:GO phase where they played a few other games on the side. The year was relatively successful in that the TeamSpeak server maintained a decent population of members.
2016 and beyond
February 2016 - present
The new year heard a unanimous declaration from the members of Sapphire that CS:GO has reached a point where it is simply not playable anymore. The TeamSpeak server saw record-high numbers of population with many Sapphire members returning to play video games together. League of Legends, at this point, became the staple game that literally everyone played. This time around, even Emanuel and Chase played. With the introduction of dynamic queue, playing ranked games together was only made easier, and therefore was done several times nearly every day. This time around, Adam, Andy, and Jose were also present nearly every day. The group also began playing Black Desert and Stardew Valley as side games.
By Spring time, League of Legends was once again declared a cancer game by the active members of Sapphire. The community sought new games to play, and as a result ended up playing a bit of Minecraft - Feed the Beast: Infinity Evolved. When Overwatch came out, nearly every active members of Sapphire began playing it, anxiously waiting for the release of the ranked gamemode. Around July, a quintet composed of Bryan, Emanuel, Jerry, Caleb, and Jimmy began unironically playing World of Warcraft. By the time Fall of 2016 came around, League of Legends was declared tolerable once more. Meanwhile, the Sapphire PAX Committee was established in order to organize a Sapphire Gathering at PAX East 2017 and future events.
In late 2016, TeamSpeak activity started increasing again due to members resurfacing as well due to George bringing his friends into TeamSpeak.
Culture of Sapphire
| TRIGGER WARNING!!1 This section may contain surreal, unserious, and/or potentially offensive material. Read at your own risk. |
The Community of Sapphire is based in the Sapphire Community TeamSpeak server. The community's unique culture is known as the Circle culture (aka: Sapphire culture). Memes are imported from all corners of the internet as well as the real world, which then undergo sapphirization. Sapphire's memes mostly come from 1) Bryan saying something, 2) Emanuel finding something, or 3) the collective effort of the rest of Sapphire's finest memers. Circle culture is rich in folklore, which is either adapted or produced in-house (such as Sapphire mythology). Circle culture has three basic tenants: it's fast, fun, and easy.
Bad manner
Within Sapphire, a concept of wrongness exists: it's called "bad manner" (shortened: BM). It is a term t3sla introduced to the group ages before the term even became mainstream. Sapphire defines BM as actions that are annoying, harassing, making fun of, flaming, pestering, etc. BMing is usually punishable by roast session, ironically.
"It's not BM if it's true"
It's not BM if it's true is a justification of BM which states, quite literally, that it is not BM if it is true.
t3sla exception
Credited to t3sla, the t3sla exception is an exception to the It's not BM if it's true justification. It states that sometimes it is BM even if it is true.
Callistostarianism
See Callistostarianism for the full article.
Callistostarianism is a philosophy based on the teachings of Callisto. A man named Callisto stumbled upon the TeamSpeak server one day and began to answer questions, which are recorded in the Callisto Dialogues and in an episode of the Circle Podcast. During the Q&A session, Callisto recited his epic poem, I'm not Callisto.
Coke vs. Pepsi
One of the most renowned arguments in the world is whether Coke or Pepsi is better. Well, Sapphire is largely undecided on Cok or Lelsi (meme terms), but some can agree that Dr. Pooper is master race. Other popular beverages in Sapphire include tea, water, and others.
Dank memes
420 memes are some of the greatest in Sapphire. The most important components are 420 and Blaze it faggot which are manipulated at an insane rate. The most popular byproducts are 420 blaze it fgt or 120, 220, 320, 420, 520, 620, 720, 820, 920, 1220, blaze it fgttttt. It is not known how 420 memes became mainstream.
"Death" & Mike's Grandfather's Funeral
When a member is away from keyboard (announced/unannounced) they are said to "die". Nick Zaslav and Will Messick are two people who often "die" and "return to life" months later. Mike and Funky also "died" before, but have since been "resurrected".
"Death" was expanded as a meme in late 2013 when Mike, after a long time of being active in TeamSpeak, had to go to his late grandfather's funeral (may he Rest in Peace Grandpa McGloin). Mike, known for his rugged record of activity in TeamSpeak fluctuating from very active to sometimes off for months, set himself up for a running gag that would run until this very day. After going to his grandfather's funeral, he would rarely show up in TeamSpeak. Whenever he would show up, he would be asked "Mike, are you still at your grandfather's funeral? It's been x amount of weeks!"
DIS DIK
Just before Sapphire's golden age came around, the demand for a new staple meme grew. Bryan proposed the perfect solution, "DIS DIK", which was the "real answer" to the mathematical equation 1x/1. Furthermore, a similar solution was proposed also by Bryan back in 2011. DIS DIK began to diversify, as most memes do in Sapphire. From it spawned: DEEZ NUTZ, DIESENUHTZ, DIESELFUUL, , eventually xDIESELFUEL, etc. DIS DIK is also used as a response to most sentences. For example:
- What is the time?
- It's, uh... DIS DIK!
- *haha*
"DIS DIK" has become one of the most renowned memes in the history of Sapphire. So great, that it was heavily involved with the initiation of Chase Jenkins, who managed to pass the trials. It is a meme that is frequently exploited and snipped to be used on audio tracks creating what is known as a DIK remix, also known as a DIKmix.
DIS DIK: THE FRANCHISE
As Bryan foresaw, the "DIS DIK" meme can be monopolized. He started a franchise which planned to include a game, movie, novel, TV show, and album.
| Product | About |
|---|---|
| DIS DIK: THE GAME | Before Bryan went on vacation during the summer of 2013, he mentioned making a game about DIK, DIS DIK: THE GAME. It was supposed to be released in a day after its confirmation, but rather it was scheduled to be released in waves. The alpha will be released in "8 months", the beta in "16 months", and the full game in "24 years" (all the timeframes being relative to an unspecified date). |
| DIS DIK: THE NOVEL | On September 21, 2013, Bryan announced a new product of the DIK franchise called DIS DIK: THE NOVEL. It was later scrapped. |
| DIS DIK: THE MOVIE | Has not been announced. |
| DIS DIK: THE SHOW | Has not been announced. |
| DIS DIK | On Hallowe'en of 2013, Bryan published his first mixtape in spirit of the meme. |
Funky's Law
Funky's Law of League of Legends states clearly that:
- To play an AP character, you must build AD.
This law has caused conflict and unleashed massive amounts of BM within Sapphire due to the fact that it is encourage a meme build that most of the time might fail.
Hall of Memes
Some of the greatest visually represented memes in Sapphire's history.
|
Jimmy's microphone
Jimmy often eats things loudly, and it often sounds like either soup or something very crunchy.
Necking
In real life common practice, an individual who is confronted with an idiotic statement or situation is obliged to respond with "That's a neck!" and proceed to get the neck of the offender. When calling a neck, or getting necked, people have the option to:
- call "no nothing", which nullifies ALL other calls
- call "self-serve", where a person necks themselves in order to avoid an otherwise worse neck
- call "teleport/time travel" in order to call self-serve, which is only overruled by "no nothing"
- call "my big toe". Don't touch it.
- claim "false neck" when a neck is truly unjustifiable. This results in a counter-neck.
Plasker syndrome
See Plasker syndrome for the full article.
For the longest time, Jerry could not play games because they would always crash on him. That was the first known symptom of Plasker syndrome (PS), also known as Black voodoo syndrome (BVS). It was possibly contracted from when a magical African American technician had worked on Jerry's PC, hence "black voodoo syndrome". Besides Jerry, Caleb and Emanuel have also been known to have computers that came down with Plasker syndrome.
Sapphire meeting
The Sapphire meeting is a rare event where a large amount of active members of Sapphire gather in real life. Throughout the history of Sapphire, the idea of a Sapphire meeting was frequently discussed; in the past, the plausibility of such an event was debated heavily. In 2012, Cydax planned a campaign to South Florida, although it was never executed. In 2016, the Sapphire PAX Committee was created in order to attempt to organize Sapphire meetings at events such as PAX East.
Sapphirization
Sapphirization refers to the adaptation of memes and material in order to align with the established culture of Sapphire. Sapphirized material is memeish in nature and has the tendency to meme on things or people. Most material that cycles within Sapphire is sapphirized material from various parts of the Internet. When a meme is somewhatcancerous, but is salvageable, it is sapphirized so that it can be used to meme with conveniently. An example of this scenario is the word troll, a very cancerous term, which was sapphirized to le bait for more memeish usage.
At some point, sapphirization also began affecting the context of the material. This is because Circle culture now involves a distinction between ironic and unironic actions. For example, "troll" is now being used as much as "le bait", if not more, due to the breakthrough that is ironic memeing.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a mobile application in which users can take snaps (called snappers by Bryan), pictures, and send them to another person or group of people for a limited amount of time. The receiver can screenshot, if they're fast enough. Members of Sapphire tend to use Snapchat as a platform in order to create and share original memes. They take bizarre pictures and usually exploit any opportunity they have to get a kek out of something. In an incident, Cydax got mad at everyone for screenshotting his snaps and sending him "retarded" snaps, and therefore blocked Bryan. It has since turned into a meme, for example: Playing CSGO Don't shoot Cydax, he might block you on Steam.
Swag
Swag is the act of having and displaying large amounts of swag. Swag has been integrated into Circle culture due to its comedic value. It is one of the key points taught in the Initiation into Sapphire. A great video demonstrating swag: HOW NIGGAS ACT AT SCHOOL!
Characteristics of a swag are:
- collecting sneakers/shoes/kicks
- using instagram, kik, vine, and/or worldstar
- listening to rap and hip hop
- acting and talking like like dis fam
t3sla mode
From the founding of Sapphire, until the Summer of 2012, t3sla never spoke a word over the microphone; he was in t3sla mode. It was considered massive BM and therefore he was prompted to start using his microphone. Jimmy once entered t3sla mode for a brief period of time due to eating his microphone too much and breaking it.
Times Caleb has left
See three times for the full article.
Caleb, a founding member of Sapphire, has "left" Sapphire a total of three times. Initially, he made his first departure hoping to fool the whole group. It was such a lengthy vacation that it was considered an actual leave. He returned, but left a second time to start Dirty Players Gaming. Caleb, at this point, transitioned his online handle from Slar3xSpr33 to DirtySpr33 or just Dirty. Dirty Players Gaming disbanded, and Caleb returned due to the fact that he was bored. His third departure saw him focus on making videos on YouTube and streaming on Twitch. He befriended the Solioz Stream Group and brought them into Sapphire upon his third return.
Dictionary
| Term(s) or Phrase(s) | Actual Meaning |
|---|---|
| autism, autistic, autist | dumb or stupid |
| bad manner, bm | to annoy, harass, make fun of, flame, pester, etc. or something that causes annoyance, harassment, etc. |
| bent | banned |
| banana | see meme |
| book club | church |
| broken | something that is overpowered, underpowered, or dysfunctional |
| cancer | something that is unbearable |
| cancer build | a build on League of Legends that is unconventional (which is usually bad, "unless you're Jimmy") |
| clown | a dick, or to dick around |
| cok, pepso, and dr. pooper | soft drinks |
| cuck, (mother)cucker, to cuck, to be cucked | someone who gets screwed over, or to get screwed over |
| dis dik, deez nuts, etc. | See Dis Dik |
| default, default computer | office/prebuilt computers |
| dimagglio | damage |
| doge | See shibe and |
| down's syndrome, left's syndrome, etc. | See autism |
| ecksdee, xD | a very funny meme |
| edginess | a phase in ones life manifested as edgy tendencies and edgy music |
| fiber | One day Bryan got into an argument with others in TeamSpeak over whether or not fiber has an effect on constipation. |
| flip, fast, frick, , eff, frank | memeish alternatives for swear words |
| gag | See cancer |
| gat | "God" or "gun", depends on context |
| gay, being gay | to be heterosexual |
| hella | something Ben says (see gay) |
| hella noise | Illinois |
| hue, huehuehue, kek, kekeke | chuckles |
| inb4 | in before |
| -ino, -ito, -ado, -oonie, etc. | makes a word cancerous |
| jimmies | the gland in the jimmeological nervous system that is "rustled" |
| le | comes before a noun or verb |
| le baited, to le bait | See meme |
| meme, memeing, memer | you should know what a meme is |
| mfw, tfw | mfw, tfw |
| mining | to mine bitcoins, litecoins, dogecoins |
| ninja | nigga |
| Norwegian Day | One Thanksgiving, Cydax was sad that only Americans get to celebrate. Bryan saw this and decided to declare Norwegian Day a holiday for all Norwegians to celebrate alongside Americans and their Thanksgiving. |
| ooo, kill'em | See swag or this |
| pulling a bryan | dropping from Bronze I to Bronze V |
| pulling a jerry | performing a sigh that Jerry does and claims to have obtained from a Dunkey video |
| pulling a jimmy | verb. coming back from 3-17 in League of Legends. |
| pulling a pasta | verb. wrapping around/flanking the longest way possible in a CS:GO map, named after Ryan Costa (Pasta) who is notorious for doing the pasta |
| randy | a random person among a bunch of premades |
| rekt | destroyed See also bent |
| riot runes | secret runes in League given to players by Riot |
| ruse | a good meme, or to meme good |
| rustle | the act of upsetting the jimmies See jimmies |
| sapphirization | process of adapting to the style or needs of Sapphire See Sapphirization |
| scale | noun. a scale is used to measure something Example: the rage scale, ranging from one to Caleb, etc. |
| shibe, so shibe | 
|
| shots fired | phrase indicating that shots have been fired, used literally or metaphorically |
| snap, snapper | an image on snapchat |
| swag, swagfag | acting like a real nigga 💯 |
| t3sla mode | phase where a person strictly communicates through typing, and not via voice chat |
| TRIGGERED!!!!!!!!! | Jerry yells this when Bryan upsets him |
| unironically | as opposed to ironically |
| weyrt dinner | when someone goes AFK in teamspeak for dinner, but comes back in two minutes |
| worth, el wortho | the positive value in a recently performed action |
| 3-2-1 | watching a video at the same time as someone else in order to gain a more dynamic experience |
| 420 blaze it fgt, x20 blaze it fgt | Dank memes |
| 9GAG | something that is vile, disgusting, and/or cringe-inducing See autism |
Demographics
Religion
Many members either identify with Christianity (including Catholicism) or Edginess.
Politics
Political opinions in Sapphire vary on a grand scale, however, without a doubt, most members will tell you that politics are broken (see Dictionary).
Ethnicity
Sapphire's member-base is composed mainly of ethnic Americans, Eastern Europeans, Western Europeans, Northern Europeans, and South Asians.
Members
List
| Name | Joined |
|---|---|
| Bryan | Founder |
| Emanuel | Founder |
| Ole Martin | Founder |
| Caleb | Founder |
| Funky | Founder |
| Michael | Founder |
| Jack | 2011 |
| James | 2011 |
| Sindre | 2011 |
| Sarim | 2011 |
| Ethan | 2011 |
| Alexander | 2011 |
| Ellen | 2012 |
| Jerry | 2012 |
| Nick | 2012 |
| Weyrt | 2012 |
| Dakota | 2012 |
| Jimmy Hong | 2012 |
| CobraStrike | 2012 |
| Jessenia | 2012 |
| Johnnie | 2013 |
| Ryan Chabot | 2013 |
| lekk | 2013 |
| Brandon | 2013 |
| Chase | 2013 |
| Usama | 2013 |
| Ben | 2014 |
| Ryan Costa | 2014 |
| Greg | 2014 |
| Garrett | 2014 |
| Brad | 2014 |
| Jose | 2014 |
| Swydo | 2014 |
| Adam | 2014 |
| Aerius | 2014 |
| Andy | 2014 |
| Anna | 2015 |
| Jason | 2015 |
| Trees | 2015 |
| George | 2015 |
| Ricky | 2015 |
| Tafari | 2016 |
| Komal | 2016 |
| Jenny | 2016 |
Legends
Legends are people who are often mentioned as folklore in snapchats or in teamspeak. Some are real figures, while others are mythical.
| Name | About |
|---|---|
| El Saviour | A rescue vehicle that occasionally appears in ARMA: DayZ. |
| Bobo | A random African-American that joined the TeamSpeak server. |
| Callisto | A sage-like TeamSpeak hopper. Spontaneously joined Sapphire's TeamSpeak on April 20, 2013. |
| Blood1310017 | A "professional" Malphite player; met a couple of Sapphire members on League of Legends. |
| Gatzi Almighty | A legendary figure that appears in visions. |
| Birdnose | A dumbass. |
| Jughead870 | A streamer that Caleb and Chase follow. |
| Nolan | The dumbass brother of Caleb |
Initiation
The Initiation into Sapphire is a series of trials (usually different for all new members and last different amounts of time) that a provisional member may be put up to in order get into the flow of being a member of Sapphire. It covers most of Circle culture so that the initiate will be able to assimilate seamlessly.
Structure
| Name | Type | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Division | Online community | |
| Division | Software and web development | |
| Subsidiary | eSports organization | |
| Subsidiary | Multimedia organization |
| Name | Reason for closure |
|---|---|
| Department of Media | Superseded by the Sapphire Network |
| Bank of Sapphire | Dissolved |
Game Timeline
The history of games* played in Sapphire.
*most known games
| Game | Introduced to Sapphire by | Importance | Time span |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minecraft & Mods | Most early members of Sapphire | Monumental | since 2011 |
| Terraria | Many members | Seasonal | Various amounts of time in 2011, 2012, and 2013 |
| League of Legends | Jerry Plasker, hyprman33, Slar | Monumental | since February 2012 |
| ARMA 2 & Mods (DayZ Mod) | t3sla, Cydax | Major | June 2012 - ? 2013 |
| Smite | Funky, then later Garrett | Minor | August 2012, September 2014 |
| OMGPOP | Funky | Minor | ? 2012 - April 2013 |
| Counter-Strike:Source | Many people | Minor | November 2013 |
| GMOD | Many people | Minor | Various times |
| Dota 2 | Mike | Minor | November 2012,
December 2013 |
| ARMA 3 | t3sla, Cydax | Minor | March 2013 - ?2013 |
| Grand Theft Auto IV | Slar, Chase | Minor | July 2013 - August 2013 |
| Full Tilt Poker | t3sla | Minor | July 2013 - August 2013,
December 2013 |
| Haven and Hearth | Cydax, Sarim, t3sla | Minor | August 2013 - November 2013 |
| Battlefield 3 & 4 | Several members | Minor | November 2013 |
| Solstice Arena | Slar | Minor | November 2013 |
| Starbound | Slar | Minor | December 2013 |
| Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: | Many people | Major | since November 2013 |
| Rust | Cydax, Slar | Minor | December 2013, April 2014 |
| DayZ Standalone | Almost everyone | Minor | December 2013 |
| ArchAge | Slar | Minor | 2014 |
| Clash of Clans | Slar | Minor | March 2014 - early 2015 |
| H1Z1 | Jimmy, Chase | Minor | June 2015 - November 2015 |
| Black Desert | Slar | March 2016 | |
| Stardew Valley | March 2016 | ||
| Overwatch | May 2016 | ||
| World of Warcraft | Slar, Jerry, Jimmy | July 2016 |
Media
Sapphire produces massive amounts of media and culture. Some members of Sapphire each have solo or partnered projects on YouTube. This allows for a more diverse source of income and reference to Sapphire. The rest of the members either work for a person with the channel or the main Sapphire network itself.
Social Networks
Sapphire has a Facebook and a Twitter.
YouTube
| Channel | Link |
|---|---|
| Sapphire Main Channel | SapphireMovies |
| Bryan's Channel | The Notorious B.R.Y.A.N. |
| Funky's Channel | MZAAO |
| Jimmy's Channel | Jimmy Hong |
| Cydax's Channel | Cydax |
| Mike's Channel | Compare To Advil |
| Slar's Channel | SlaresProduction |
| Ryan Costa's Channel | OfficiallyBeastly |
Twitch
| Channel | Link |
|---|---|
| Sapphire Main Channel | Sapphire |
| Bryan's Channel | amBryan |
| t3sla's Channel | thestreamscribe |
| Slar's Channel | DirtySpr33 |
| Jimmy's Channel | Jimmyooo |
| Funky's Channel | funkykong245 |
| Cydax's Channel | ShinyPaperClip |
| Mike's Channel | xICExFROZEN |
| Chase's Channel | OMGitsMorganHD |
| PASTA's Channel | OfficiallyBeastly |
| check0ut's Channel | check0ut |
Popular series
Series created by Sapphire members, which might involve other members or might make references to Circle culture.
| Series | Creator | About | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| THE BEST RIGHT NOW | Bryan | THE BEST RIGHT NOW is a series of films created by Bryan from the perspective of t3sla,
called Draven Knoxville in the videos. They are about the meta-games of League of Legends. |
Playlist |
| Animation Adventures | Funky | A series of random recordings by Funky
that are accompanied by animations of sorts. Similar to the Circle Podcast. |
Playlist |
| The Circle Podcast | Bryan | The Circle Podcast is a series of random recordings by Bryan. It is focused on capturing great moments in TeamSpeak (see Culture of Sapphire). | Playlist |
| Cooking with Slar3xSpr33 | Bryan, Slar3xSpr33 | Comedic cooking show starring Slar3xSpr33. | Playlist |
Discography
Sapphire Records
Sapphire has its own record label, Sapphire Records.
Bibliography
| Title | Author | About |
|---|---|---|
| Callisto Dialogues | Bryan | The dialogue that occurred on the very first Callistover. |
| I'm not Callisto | Callisto | An epic poem on fraud and egoism. |
| Poetry | t3sla | A short poem about Ole Martin Fiska. |
Servers
Bryan's Server
This server runs anything at any time, per request.
| IP Address | Availability | Location | Operator | Running |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | 174.48.238.73 | Ft. Lauderdale, FL | Bryan | Check in TeamSpeak to see what game is being hosted |
TeamSpeak3
See Sapphire's TeamSpeak3 for the full article.
TeamSpeak3 is a voice communication program that allows members of Sapphire to communicate daily, however, anyone is welcome to join.
| IP Address | Availability | Location | Operator | Running |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ts3.sapphiredev.org:7373 | 24/7/365 | New York City, NY | hosted by MainVoice | 20 Slots |
Discord
Sapphire's Discord is available as a backup for any unanticipated TeamSpeak connection instability.
Tournaments
Sapphire hosts tournaments, though, not all for a prize pool. Some are purely for fun and/or recognition.
League of Legends
| Tournament | Winner |
|---|---|
| Best Jayce SA | Never occurred. |
| Hallowe'en 2013 1v1s | Never finished. |
Pool Tournamenets
Pool Tournaments are hosted once per month, and the current Prize is an award-recognition. Actual prizes might be sponsored soon. Pool is played on famous mini-game network OMGPOP.
| Name | Date |
|---|---|
|
1st Place February 2013 | |
| Caleb | 1st Place March 2013 |
| Never occured | 1st Place April 2013 |
Yu-Gi-Oh! Tournaments
Dueling Network tournaments will now be hosted aswell, for similar prizes as to the Pool tournament. It will NOT be on a strict schedule.
| Name | Date |
|---|---|
|
Never occured |
- |
Poker Tournaments
During the Summer of 2013, the group began to play online Poker on programs such as Full Tilt and Carbon Poker.
| Name | Date |
|---|---|
|
Never occurred |
- |
Fantasy Basketball
Starting with the 2016-17 NBA season, Sapphire started a fantasy basketball league for its members.