*A (Meme) Career Retrospective: Baby Yoda - Printable Version +- International Simulation Football League (https://forums.sim-football.com) +-- Forum: Community (https://forums.sim-football.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=5) +--- Forum: Media (https://forums.sim-football.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=37) +--- Thread: *A (Meme) Career Retrospective: Baby Yoda (/showthread.php?tid=53796)

*A (Meme) Career Retrospective: Baby Yoda - SwagSloth - 10-27-2024 I’ve had a lot of fun in my time here in the ISFL. Hopefully with more ahead. But some of the most fun I had was during my run as “Baby” Yoda. Coming off a run as GM of the Arizona Outlaws, I was feeling the burnout and chose to embrace the meme. This was before Grogu became an official name for the character, but Baby Yoda was a brand new sensation taking the internet by storm and I decided to adapt him into an ISFL player. This was, of course, completely ridiculous, but that was the whole point. The outlandish concept of this small alien child playing against full-size adults was beyond over the top and silly. This resulted in several first-person articles as the character of Maz-Ta “Baby” Yoda grew and developed. Hopefully,  you’ll enjoy this look back at the articles focusing on his career, whether you were there for the original run or not. First Article: “Baby Yoda’s First Interview” The idea was still fresh and new at this point. I wasn’t sure how Baby Yoda would represent himself. The first attempt was simply an interview where he never spoke. This wouldn’t be sustainable and I think most people who enjoyed the articles preferred it once his personality would come out, but the interview did provide some important backstory. His country of origin, how he came to the United States. His green skin and small size. Looking back, I don’t think this article was one of my highlights, but it paved the way for future articles. We’ve had a lot of wildly outlandish renders here in the ISFL, but part of the fun for me was trying to justify this silly concept in a semi-realistic fashion. Second Article: “The Force Awakens - Baby Yoda Enters the DSFL” This looked at Yoda’s performance in the 4 DSFL games following the trade deadline. The article was still playing it fairly serious, trying to discuss this very silly character in a more conventional sense. It does plant some seeds for character development, such as Yoda being very impressionable (like a small child).That would definitely play a role in later articles once the character found his own voice. Third Article: Baby Yoda Prepares for the Draft This was the final article before Yoda’s character took a more hands-on approach. His initial season in the DSFL had gone well, but I hadn’t written much media on it because I still hadn’t decided how I wanted to represent the character. In hindsight, I did enjoy the line about Yoda’s pancakes actually being trips; it’s hard to imagine this little 2-foot-tall character literally knocking grown men down on the turf. It feels in bad taste to laugh at my own jokes, but this whole article is about replaying the hits, so pardon me if I pat myself on the back a little. Fourth Article: “First Words - the Baby Yoda Interview” I can’t remember what made me decide to finally have Yoda speak. In all likelihood, the silent character angle wasn’t making it easy to make media. Obviously, the character from the Mandalorian doesn’t speak, but I wanted to embody the spirit of the character while still letting him speak and interact with others. This would introduce a few running gags, one of which was Yoda describing things in very simple terms. His articles definitely had an “Explain Like I’m Five” vibe to them. Fifth Article: “Baby Yoda Reviews the Outlaws’ S22 Draft” This was the first article involving Baby Yoda that wasn’t focusing on him, but it probably did more to showcase his personality than any of the articles before it. This would start the “blog” style of posts that would have Yoda discuss events in the league through his innocent point of view. Almost every response featured him talking about making a new friend, but it also gave Yoda to show off his very simple, limited understanding of the game of football. Sixth Article: “Baby Yoda” Checks in With the Fans” Short and sweet. This continued the new blog style posts after the previous article had a great response. Yoda was in the running for OROTY, so this was kind of his pitch; I don’t think I won it, though. Still, it was another chance to lean into the new talking Yoda and continue working on something that people were enjoying. Seventh Article: “Baby Yoda Reviews the S23 NSFL Draft (Rds 1-4)” This might be the article I’m most proud of. It was a draft review article in a sea of draft review articles, but it was also a chance to display the loveable green munchkin’s personality in a way that drew a lot of eyes. Ultimately, the whole article was one big running joke as Yoda gave all 12 teams an A+. He threatened to give one team an A-, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it and upgraded them to A+ in the end. One poor user missed the joke and was excited to see his team get an A+. At the end of the day, Yoda was all about making friends and having fun and probably had more business being in an after-school special than on a football field. Draft reviews can be cruel and that just wasn’t something Yoda was cut out for. Eighth Article: “Baby Yoda Looks at S23 Weeks 1 - 13” This would be a mix of my second article, only this time from Yoda’s point of view. Stats were never the big focus of Yoda and this wasn’t a great season for him, but as a young player, that was understandable. He still had a long way to go. Regardless of the stats, the little guy was trying his best. Ninth Article: The ISFL’s Cutest Free Agent This was a departure back to the out-of-character perspective, but had a quote from Yoda at the end. The decision to leave Arizona was a difficult one. I loved the team and felt guilty over even testing Free Agency, but I just needed a change of scenery. I had only spent time with two teams in my ISFL career, the Wraiths and the Outlaws. As the next article would highlight, once I settled on a top 3, it was clear I would be adding a third team to that list. Tenth Article: Baby Yoda Goes to Chicago Following the last article, this would be a look at Free Agency from Yoda’s perspective. This was a bittersweet article to write. I loved my experience in Arizona and had grown close with my teammates, but I had been there a long time, something like 12 or 13 seasons if memory serves me right. Obviously, the natural thing would be for Yoda to just stay with his friends, so exploring the idea of him choosing to leave was tough. I dropped the narrative of an agent and that was a big thing going on at that time in the league, but in actuality, I represented myself. But it did give the motivation for Yoda to try talking to different teams. The Butchers, Hawks, and Libertty were the teams that I felt pursued me the hardest and I wanted the article to reflect that. So, I took a deep dive into each team’s pitch, mixing in real behind the scenes discussions and in-character shenanigans. Ultimately, the meme did play a big part, especially after I dubbed the Butchers as the “Chicago Chicken Nugget Makers”. However, the Locker Room made a great impression on me and I did thoroughly enjoy my time there. This, unfortunately, would be the last article for me. Even though I had fun as part of their team, burnout was strong and I was looking for a break. But it was a nice capstone to a cute series of articles that I had a lot of fun writing. Retirement: Baby Yoda Grows Up Almost a year had passed since the last article and I’m certain I was inactive for the vast majority of it. I think Yoda hit 1000 TPE pre-regression, at which point I was content to let him coast and just hang around as a high TPE inactive. However, even in retirement, I tried to keep it fun, noting that it was time for Yoda to go off to preschool and eventually become an adult. Officially, this was in jest as we established the miniature guy as a fully grown adult with stunted growth, but I thought it was a fitting farewell to his career. Ultimately, as much as I enjoyed it, it feels like there was a lot left on the table given how far apart the media was, but perhaps that kept the joke from overstaying its welcome. That said, it has been something like 20 seasons, plenty of time for a preschooler to grow up and attend college before starting a career… maybe in journalism? For the people that clicked on the links to read the old articles and the ones that remember them during Baby Yoda’s original run, did you enjoy them? Is there a future for Baby Yoda as a journalist now that life on the field is over? It’s certainly a thought. And, if my newest player is going to hit that 1000+ TPE range, I’m going to need the money. 1550 Words RE: A (Meme) Career Retrospective: Baby Yoda - lemonoppy - 10-28-2024 RIP baby yoda