The Clique Page O' Random Stuff

The Clique consisted of generally geeky people in Wisconsin who got together occasionally for parties and things. It began as a D&D group at the 1998 WCATY ALP summer program at Lawrence University and continued as a loose network of socially awkward people who weren't used to having these sorts of friends. These days it is probably most correctly spoken of in the past tense, but, well, such is life.

At no point did it include Augustus Egg; you may be thinking of a different Clique.

"Clique" is pronounced, in this setting, as "cleeck", not "click". This has its roots in the following dialog, which may or may not have ever been said and was originally (I believe) related by piman:

"Am I too dumb to be in your clique [said as cleeck]?"
"It's clique [said as click], and yes."

This dialog works better when spoken aloud.

Anyway, the point of the pronunciation that the Clique was not intended to be an exclusive organization that kept people out; rather, it was meant to consist solely of those who want to be associated with it. (Assuming that this desire came from an honest enjoyment of what we did, of course, rather than, for example, a desire to stalk a Clique member.) The community interest list should give you some idea of what it is that we did, even if it primarily conveys a fondness for in-jokes. (It should be stressed that, at least in this case, in-jokes are meant to be explained. It should also be stressed that the community maintainer overuses disclaimers.)

In a more general sense, the Clique was about being comfortable with one's geekiness and silliness, realizing that there are people like you, and not conforming to the world. It was about rediscovering the joys of childhood and realizing that they shouldn't have been lost in the first place. It was about pie and bad movies, staying up late and sleeping on floors. It was about bringing our pointy, awkward, and uncomfortable sides together, and closeness even when in pain. It was about shorts, and the fact that they make your knees stick out.

This community was used primarily for contact information updates and party organization; it never got much traffic, and it certainly doesn't now. If you feel that you should be a member for whatever reason, though, feel free to poke luinied about it.

Incidentally, "clique" is also pronounced this way in the context of cliques in graphs. This is a fortuitous coincidence, as the vertices of a graph lack the human flaws that are often associated with people in "normal" cliques, and thus serve as inspiration for all of us to do better. On the other hand, the problem of finding cliques in a graph is pretty hard - and even hard to approximate - but, you know, finding something like the Clique isn't exactly easy either, as many of us have discovered.