Fun fact, I’m not even top 13,000 in the world for 3×3 speedsolving. So yeah, I’m a big believer in the title.

Speedcubing is a large portion of the cubing community, but saying it is the cubing community is like saying Italian food is the only type of European cuisine. There’s a lot more out there to experience.

Not all cubers are speedcubers. As a YouCuber, sticker modder, and collector myself I should know. (If you’re not familiar with the above terms I recommend reading my previous blog about these terms!)

A previous blog entry that breaks down the various “factions” within the cubing community

Only discussing speedsolving when talking about cubing reflects an inaccurate image of the cubing community that leads to greater hesitation to join from those not interested in becoming fast.

What if you’re not interested in speed? What if you’re an antique toy collector or you really like to just solve complex puzzles?

Somebody like this who learns about the cubing community may easily be put off because it seems from the outside that speed is the only thing that matters. How can we fix this?

Cubers:

If someone shows interest in learning about the community, start by providing them with solving resources.

It’s easy to jump right to speedsolving, after all it is the thing that draws a crowd in the first place, and many people in that crowd typically ask questions centered around solving quickly.

But if you present information about cubing isolated from the specific goal of solving it quickly, you will do a better job of accurately portraying the scope of the community.

Some examples:

Q: “What’s your fastest time?”

A: “X is my fastest time, but it took me a while to get there. I started just solving for fun. There are some great resources on YouTube if it’s a skill you want to learn. A lot of people solve as fast as they can, but not everybody is concerned with speed in the community.”

Conclusion:

Note: There is no “general public/non-cuber” perspective here because there is nothing that can be done from the other side.

In order to accurately advertise cubing, you have to advertise all of cubing. Making sure to emphasize that speed is not everything is a healthy introduction that will help others get more into the hobby.

It’s an age old problem: for every good community there will be young participants who ruin it. In a young community like cubing, we have quite our fair share of younger cubers who are perceived by others as annoying and toxic to the culture of cubing.

While I could go on all day talking about how this notion is completely ridiculous and that young cubers should be accepted despite their flaws, that’s not what this blog is about.

*Phew* you were just saved from a huge lecture!

What this blog IS about, is understanding boundaries between cubing and the general public and how we can bridge the gap, so what gap exists as a result of “toxic cubers?”

Elitism.

An important distinction to make here is the 2 types of elitism present in competitive communities like cubing.

1. Elitism from highly competitive, cocky cubers
2. Perceived elitism from young cubers who yearn recognition.

We will be talking about the second one. There is no better place to find perceived elitism than YouTube. Go to any YouTube video of a celebrity solving a cube and you will find comments that all read about the same.

Do you see them? They boil down to, “I am faster than you.”

The unfortunate truth is that young cubers seeking recognition and acceptance for their skills come off as elitist, turning off the general public from the hobby.

What can we do to solve this?

Non-cubers:

Nothing. There is literally no role that you play in this. Perhaps maybe stay skeptical and keep in mind that comments like these are usually just young kids looking for attention. In fact on the Justin Bieber video one of the top comments is from one of my good friends. The comment is objectively obnoxious but guess what, she was 11!

Show me one 11 year old who isn’t an obnoxious attention seeker looking for recognition. Doesn’t exist.

Young cubers:

So you want to post on a YouTube video of a celebrity solving a cube. I get it. But please do it respectfully. Believe it or not there are good ways to accomplish this that will succeed in informing the non-cuber viewer. Try this:

“I love seeing famous people solving cubes! The Rubik’s cube community is fantastic, the Rubik’s cube is surprisingly easy to pick up and many cubers are speedsolvers who can solve the cube in under 10 seconds. My personal record is 11 seconds. I urge anyone who’s interested to give it a shot, cubing is full of great people!”

Recognition… check, advertising cubing… check, respectful… check.

Experienced cubers:

Please don’t make fun of these annoying comments. New flash: you were once an annoying kid too. A lot of these cubers are unaware the elitist message they’re sending. Maybe inform them respectfully that changing their tone may allow them to have better success in convincing people that cubing is great.

Conclusion:

I find myself repeating this a lot ever since I’ve since I’ve switched to discussing solutions to cubing problems: just be respectful. It’s not hard, the solution in the first place for young cubers is to be respectful. The solution for older cubers correcting them is to be respectful.

If everyone stops making fun of everyone else and instead provides constructive criticism we might be able to stop sending the message to the general public that cubing is full of cocky people who only care about how fast you can solve a plastic children’s toy.

I am going to give you 2 statements that are theoretically common in a hobby and you tell me which one sounds like a hobby you’d be more likely to get into:

A. Sometimes I get the nerves when I’m at an official event, so my times are                    better at home.

B. I average sub-20 and my PB is 16 but I’m inconsistent in comp so my PR ao5              is around 21.

B sounds intimidating, and also probably like some sort of code. As it turns out, B is something you may hear from a cuber. While A is that cuber saying the same thing… just to their parents.

In my blog post Personal Best and Jelly Sandwich I covered some basic cube talk, and when discussing solutions to bridging the understanding boundary in cubing we have to revisit these terms.

My 11/1/18 post about cubing jargon

All hobbies have specific jargon that strengthens the sense of community and makes talking more convenient between individuals with similar interests. As it turns out it has another consequence: It intimidates new comers and discourages them from getting involved in the community.

Cubing terms takes cubing and makes it sound complex and nerdy, something cubing as a hobby already suffers from image-wise. How can we solve the issue of complex cubing jargon discouraging new cubers from getting involved in the community?

Cubers:

Don’t change how you talk around non-cubers, but don’t be judgmental if they don’t understand something. Encouraging others to ask questions is a great way for others to get familiar with the terms used in the community, and correcting the incorrect usage of terms can be done respectfully to accomplish the same thing.

The goal is not to water-down the community or how we talk, it’s to make it easier for others to learn and get involved.

Non-cubers:

Cubers are passionate about their hobby, so don’t be intimidated if you don’t understand. Ask questions and you’ll learn pretty fast that things aren’t as complex as they seem. Let’s take a look at the sentence that we started with as an example!

You may ask, “what is a PB, PR, comp, sub-20, and ao5?”

A comp is a competition, where cubers go to record official results.

In a comp, cubers complete 5 solves and get an average as a result. This is known as an ao5 or average of 5.

sub-20 means under 20 seconds

A PR, or personal record, is a cubers best time or average in a competition.

A PB, or personal best, is that cuber’s best time or average that they’ve ever recorded in or out of a competition.

Now read that sentence back: I average sub-20 and my PB is 16 but I’m inconsistent in comp so my PR ao5 is around 21.

Not so bad now is it? All this is saying is that someone averages under 20 seconds with a best of 16, but they get nervous in official competitions so they average 21 seconds there.

Conclusion:

Nothing about cubing jargon is particularly difficult. Like any other hobby it consists mostly of short phrases or acronyms that really amount to vocab words. Though it maybe seem like a lot to learn, if cubers are open to answering questions there is no reason that someone outside the community should be intimidated by the use of some vocab words.