The Long Slump

This article documents a current event. Details may change rapidly as the event progresses, and the last updates to this page may not reflect the most current information.

The Long Slump is a long running period of lessened activity within The WIDEVERSE extending from early 2021 to the present.

History

End of The 7th Golden Age

The exact beginning of The Long Slump is highly debated, but many agree that it at least had its roots with the end of The 7th Golden Age. Despite optimism in the early parts of 2020 and then many successful ventures in the early part of the year, by the time 2021 had begun to approach, there was little on the horizon for WIDEBOYS.

The primary hope laid in the new World of Warcraft expansion, Shadowlands. WIDEBOYS had joined up with ATB, Capri Sun Tzu's former raiding guild, in Battle for Azeroth, By January of 2021, WIDEFORCE had begun, and experienced very early success in raiding Castle Nathria. Using some of ATB's raiders, the fledgling raid group was full clearing within a month and moving into Heroics.

Death of WIDEFORCE

However, by March the raid group had begun to die down, with little effort being put in by CST or Taylor. A second attempt to revive the group came with the release of the raid Sanctum of Domination, but this lasted only for one shortly lived Pug raid.

The Fedi Project & Apex Legends

Prude announced a mystery project on May 1st of 2021, eventually revealing it to be BEEFYBOYS.club, a Fediverse instance run by the WIDEVERSE. It received little fanfare, outside of him and Taylor, despite the many antics that is provided over the next year. it became a rallying point for Taylors frustration after that, pointing out to many who complained that things were happening, they were just unwilling to participate.

June 5th saw a brief burst of life breathed into WIDEBOYS, when Taylor, Bear, and many others briefly became addicted to Apex. It provided constant activity in the group, with voice active most every day. However, this too faded by August, with only Taylor still actively playing.

WIDEBOYS Community & WMG Gambit

In November of 2021, Taylor began planning a comeback for The COMMIECAST, The WIDEVERSE's earlier attempt at a podcast. The unofficial debut was for the Virginia Gubernatorial race on November 2nd of 2021, broadcasted on Dlive. It received high praise and viewership.

The actual show, named The BEEF STREAM, debut don January 7th of 2022. Along with it, it was announced that the community would be moving from the original BMW Discord to a brand new Discord named The WIDEBOYS Community. The vision of this was to create a more marketable fresh slate Discord that anyone from any of the upcoming ventures could join. This somewhat served its purpose, as many from the shows chat as well as The Fediverse soon joined.

In addition to the new podcast, a second property was announced: WIDEVANIA, a Vtuber company. The idea was well received, as Coathanger had already successfully debuted. Taylor Rahn and Evie were hired soon after, though the latter was long delayed due to their model taking forever.

Another breath of life came in April of 2022, when many of the Biggers became unhealthily addicted to Fortnite. Much like Apex it gave the group a renewed activity level, but soon fell off.

A very shortly lived reboot of WIDEFORCE was discussed after World of Warcraft: Dragonflight came out. However, after the departure of DizzyEevee, CST was unwilling to lead the raid. This began the eventual rift between Taylor and CST.

Taylor Ultimatum & The Game Night Reboot

2023 came with little good news in the future. Taylor issued an ultimatum in the early months of the year, stating that if nothing changed over the next year, he would give up and leave WIDEBOYS. In the meantime, he set out to reboot Game Nights, and while initially successful, like everything else, eventually lost steam.

Taylor would fulfill his promise earlier than expected in March of 2023, leaving because of frustrations with some of the members. He would eventually return to kick Tato and other undesirables, sending them to SCEMA.

The End of WIDE

Taylor would remain true to his world on New Years Eve 2023, when at midnight he left WIDEBOYS for good. Soon after, the community was rebranded to SIDEBOYS, stripping it of the WIDE name.