Group World
From The Extended Group
Group World is a term (presumably) coined by Rama to describe a state of socio-political affairs in which nations are replaced by members of the high school group (e.g. Ramerica) and relationships are correspondingly renamed.
Contents |
Origin
The first stirrings of Group World type metaphors can be found generally in some combination of two sources. The first originates sometime Senior Year relying on Rama's love of war, in which Rama would liken the state of friendships to that of diplomatic relations between fictional countries. A second source developed within the interest of world affairs held by Kevin, Brett and Lukas (among others), which similarly compared relationships to macro-level events, but relied much more heavily on actual historical or ongoing current events (an early example of this was the development of the Theory of Appeasement).
Division
A revised version of Group World began to be espoused by Rama in the early months of 2006. By now, however, the earlier splits in using geo-political metaphor had grown into two distinct camps. Rama's model continues to rely on generalizing group relationships to fit within the framework of each person being a generic nation (usually called [person's name]-land), with an emphasis on descriptive quality over direct satire.
A contrary model, argued for by Brett while he buys Rama lunch (see Rama Patronage) relies instead on equating member "nations" to actual countries or organizations in an attempt to mimic real world events as closely as possible. This method characteristically relies on numerous puns. It is not known how other actors in this medium (such as Kevin, Lukas and Nathan) fall in this controversy.
The War on Terry
On salient feature to Group World is the introduction of a dynamic known as the War on Terry (a play on the War on Terror) that was first elucidated by Kevin and Lukas. One version, argued for by Brett, is as follows:
- The United States of Ramerica, Great Brettain and Devosstralia (among other nations) ally to form a "Coalition of the Reddy" and launch a global War on Terry.
- Terry-supporting nations include Tsomalia (capitol: Mogadudeshescute) and Afgavinstan, which harbors the infamous Terry cell Al-Qillya (responsible for the Septemb-er, uh 11th Terry attacks).
Other versions of this event are numerous and varied (and should be added here by those who came up with them).
It is worth noting that such metaphors do not necessarily (as is the case with the War on Terry) reflect an actual commentary on the said group member's behavior.
