 Hi guys, EvilDeer here. So I wanted to speak to you today about the Esperanto movement. Now, most of you won't know what the Esperanto movement is. Esperanto, as I said in my previous vlog, is a creative language. Now, since it hasn't got a homeland, as the speakers of the language have to somehow communicate. And it's called the Esperanto movement, where all the speakers we come together and we push this idolistic view that we want the world to become a better place, so we want to remove barriers between cultures, stuff like that. So the Esperanto movement has traditionally for the last 100 years or so been dominated by these things called associations and federations. Now, for instance, in New South Wales, where I live, there is a Esperanto federation and then there's one for the whole of Australia, which is an association. Then you have one for the entire world, which is the Universal Esperanto Association. Now, the reason I wanted to speak to this is because traditionally these associations would govern everything that happens in the area, and they would organize events and stuff like that and basically help the movement move forward. However, what I've noticed since I learned Esperanto a while back is that associations and federations are becoming more of a hindrance to the Esperanto movement. Because what's happening now is people are coming in and they're seeing these very small groups of Esperantists. Most of them are highly idolistic. They're the type of people that run around with like a green shirt on this as Esperanto. And people just think they're crazy, like cult figures, basically. Because what's happened with time is youth, such as, well, I don't know if I can still call myself a youth, young people no longer want to go to physical meetings in the city and go meet other Esperanto speakers. We just prefer to hang out online and talk online or maybe occasionally go to one big international meeting to finally meet our friends, which we've made online over time. So when people come along and they go, okay, like say media or something, they go, oh, let's learn a little bit about Esperanto. They go to these local associations, usually because they're registered within the papers and stuff like that. And what happens is they see this very small, usually elderly group of people all going, Esperanto for the future, save the world, save the dolphins, type of thing, you know what I mean? And it gives us a really bad image because the majority of Esperantists aren't like that. They don't want to go to meetings. They just like to sit online and talk with their friends and actually utilize the language for what it's meant to be. These associations have this tendency to create these mini power struggles where they'll be like say 10 people in a group or something and you'll get three people who just want to hold that power and let's have a meeting for everything and organize everything and have minutes and everything for like 10 people. And you're like, come on, can we just move forward and create plans or whatever or just use the language? But it turns into this bickering contest between these small little groups of people who just want to battle over everything like how we should hand out flyers, what exact words should be on those flyers, blah blah blah. I don't know if this is the same with other associations or groups of people who come together say small religious groups or something. I don't like to compare Esperanto to a religious thing but some people treat it that way. They almost treat it like a religious obsession. And it's really, really annoying. So you have these small little bickering groups and they'll drive away new people who've come to long to actually learn the language for whatever reason. Now a lot of people these days don't learn it for traditional reasons. They might learn it because they're interested in linguistics. They might learn it because someone in their family way back in the day also learned it. So the majority of them don't want to learn for the traditional idealistic reasons. They're just there to have fun. And when these small associations get a hold of these people, they have a tendency to drive them away. I've seen so many potential people who could have actually had a use for this language being driven away from the language simply because of these people who are like you walk through the door type of thing. You're like, hi, I heard about this really rare and interesting language. This is really cool. I'd like to learn it. And then someone's like, you better learn it if you don't learn it. Because of people like you that the entire world is bad. It's because of wars and stuff that you cause. And the person's like, whoa, stay back there. You know, Jesus, if I had a cross in some Hollywood, I'd throw it at you right now. I personally believe it's just a matter of time before these local associations, maybe not the national ones or the international ones, or maybe in some cases, but at least the local ones will die. And it will probably be a good thing for the Esperanto movement because at the moment there's so many Esperanto speakers that we don't need these traditional associations which are just holding back current speakers and scaring off new ones. There'll probably be some type of organization method between speakers, maybe websites or blogs or like the rest of the world, how we communicate. If you want to speak about games, you'll go to a gaming website. There's so many Esperanists now that we can do that. We can have websites about particular topics and they do exist. So this traditional structure of associations and federations, it's just, it's not needed anymore. And people within the Esperanto movement complain a lot about the fact, especially the older generation, that, you know, where membership numbers are dropping, magazine membership numbers are dropping. That's how it is. We're evolving with the rest of the world. Don't see it as a bad thing. It's okay. Now, I'm at the end of my time, so I hope to see you in the next video. And if not, I will find you. Bye-bye.