Micronational community

The micronational community or intermicronational community, colloquially and historically the micronational world, is the community or subculture of micronationalists—individuals involved in a micronation.

Sectors

The intermicronational community is separated into sectors. In sectorology, there are three principal types of sectors—linguistic sectors, those defined by language; geographic sectors, those defined by geographical location; and media sectors, those defined by an online forum such as a social media. Sectors may also have sub-sectors within them. Linguistic sectors do, however, differ from regular sectors in that they are often not necessarily a single community; for instance, a micronation which has Portuguese as its official language is part of the Lusophone sector, regardless of whether or not said micronation holds any diplomatic relations with other Portuguese-speaking micronations.

Geographic sectors range from localities, cities to countries, and sometimes even regions. Areas with a high density of micronations are more likely to form conceptualised, named sectors, such as the London Sector or Metropolitan sector in New York. The largest national sectors by number of micronations are the Australian, Brazilian, French and Czech sectors. Media sectors are also decentralised and have many subsectors within them. The largest media sectors include the Facebook sector, Reddit sector, micronationalist Twitter and the MicroWiki sector. A sudden increase of micronations and micronational activity in a particular area—whether physical or online—is known as a micronations boom.

History

Prior to the advent of the Internet, there was no micronational community, and diplomacy between micronations was scarce.

Early community: League of Secessionist States and early micronational websites

The earliest known micronation to launch a national web page was the Kingdom of Talossa in November 1995. Designed by Robert B. Madison, King of Talossa, he also launched the Micronations Page that same year, which was the first web page dedicated to micronationalism as a whole. Additionally, Madison coined bug and bug nation in 1995 to describe micronationalists and micronations respectively whose only purpose is being a source of annoyance. In April 1996, Madison reformed the previously dormant intermicronational organisation the League of Secessionist States (LoSS)—launched a web page for it—and accepted two member states. Madison claims that Talossa was featured in several North American newspapers during this time which resulted in newer micronations contacting him for diplomacy via e-mail.

The emerging popularity and commercialisation of the Internet made creating state-like entities possible with relative ease via an entirely electronic medium—GeoCities, Tripod.com (both launched in 1995) and Angelfire (1996), early web hosting services, allowed any Internet user to create their own web pages. As a result, micronationalism lost much of its traditionally eccentric anti-establishment sentiment in favour of more hobbyist perspectives, and the number of exclusively online or merely simulation-based micronations—and the number of micronations in general—expanded dramatically, with entirely fictional states (geofiction) erroneously claiming to be micronations.

It was Pedro Aguiar, King of the Kingdom of Porto Claro, that from September 1996 onwards would develop the LoSS into the most prominent intermicronational organisation. Many short-lived and simulationist micronations which privately conducted diplomacy via GeoCities and e-mail remained outside it, and almost no archives of them nor their activities remain. Aguiar, with later approval from Madison, claimed the Usenet newsgroup alt.talk.hypothetical on 16 September as the league's official discussion forum, which later became a de facto forum for all micronational discussion in 1997. As Secretary-General of the LoSS between early October 1996 and July 1997, Aguiar oversaw the organisation's growth from five to 15 member states, the creation of the Micronations DataBase of 574 micronations, and established many of the main procedures of the LoSS. Meanwhile, the French Institute of Micropatrology was founded in 1996 by Swiss academic Fabrice O'Driscoll.

Expansion

Late 1996 and 1997 saw the initial developments of the French, Portuguese (particularly in Brazil), Spanish and German linguistic sectors, though the latter two were often multilingual and much less centralised. Influenced by Madison and other Talossans, the ideas of secessionism and seriousness as a key factor of micronationalism were developed during 1996 and 1997. Claudio I of the Holy Empire of Reunion dominated intermicronational diplomacy in 1997 through a controversial ardent foreign policy, with Reunion becoming one of the earliest examples of a community micronation. Words such as macronation, egonation, new country project and one man micronation entered micronational parlance during this year.

Porto Claro was briefly affected by the papal scandal between mid-January and early February 1997; as a result of the scandal, paper doll became a micronational slang term for a sock puppet account. The apolitical and strictly diplomatic United Micronations (UM) was founded in March, and several micronations became members of both the UM and the LoSS. This would be the first of many intermicronational organisations to be named in emulation of the macronational United Nations. Another micronational newsgroup, alt.politics.micronations, was created on 15 June 1997 as the first legitimately-established micronational newsgroup, while many micronations in the Portuguese sector began establishing national forums from June onwards.

Lusophone sector, forums and web directories

The Lusophone sector was at its epoch in 1998, with Porto Claro, the Commonwealth of Port Colice, Viceroyship of O País (both established in 1996), Reunion, the Republic of Orange, Free Commonwealth of Penguinea (1997) and Nova Roma (1998) at the forefront of community diplomacy and influence. The Republic of Porto Claro, declared in mid-1998 by rebels against Aguiar, resulted in micronations and intermicronational organisations having to pick between recognising the Kingdom or Republic as the legitimate "Porto Claro". The Latin American Institute of Micropatriology, founded by Aguiar, Filipe Oliveira and Vicente Câmara Arruda, likely conceived the idea of derivatism (secessionism) in the Portuguese-speaking community in October 1998. Meanwhile, the LoSS experienced a brief period of stagnation during the first half of 1998 before being brought back to activity in May by Secretary-General David Kendall of Port Colice. By 1998, mailing lists commonly hosted on Yahoo! Clubs or eGroups.com began to reach popularity in the sector, overtaking micronational activity on Usenet. The English and German sectors remained most active on Usenet and similar forums until later into the year.

In January 1998, Thomas Leys founded MicroWorld as a "central hub" of micronationalism, which included a message board, intermicronational ventures and the MicroWorld Monthly magazine. An English-language forum, "Micronationalism" hosted on Yahoo! Clubs, was created on 30 September 1998 and averaged 200 messages per month. Due to diplomacy being conducted principally via e-mail, web directories listing the national websites of micronations were created for convenience; Reunion created a directory of national websites, news outlets and organisations of varying purpose by 1998; Joseph Bloch's Micronations on the Web index was created on 21 April 1998; and Steven F. Scharff's Micronation and Sovereignty Website Index (later Microfreedom Index) was created on 19 January 1999. Words that entered the micronational vocabulary in 1998 included micropatriology (spelled with an i), YAMO, IML and virtualism.

Decline of the LoSS and rise of geofiction

The March 1999 LoSS election polarised the organisation and foreshadowed its downfall; the bitter election process saw Talossa's Matt Dabrowski fail to assert Talossan influence over the LoSS as Leys was elected Secretary-General in April. Despite Leys winning with seven out of eleven votes, several member states left the organisation in protest against the heated election process and Talossa formally denounced the organisation. Additionally, Leys became inactive shortly after being elected. As a result, the influence of the LoSS began to wane and the 1999 incarnation of the United Micronations—unrelated to the 1997 organisation—briefly became a competitor to the LoSS before dissolving in October 2000.

Between mid- to late 1999, several geofiction micronations (though they had existed since 1996) had started to become soft powers in the community, especially Morovia, the Rasinate of Q'Attera Macusia'a and the Audentior Independent Nation. The establishment of the nation of Apolyton on 6 August 1999 marked the de facto foundation of what was dubbed the Apolyton Sector (later Apollo Sector in November 2000) in late 1999, from which the word sector arose to describe a micronational community. The Portuguese-language Enciclopédia Jéssica—the first ever micronational encyclopaedia—was launched by Aguiar on 22 November 1999, and had 561 articles.

Intermicronational ventures, decline of the Lusophone sector and creation of micronations.net

Kevin Baugh of the Republic of Molossia became extremely influential in 2000 through his activity on various forums, creation of Emperor Norton Day—the first intermicronational holiday—on 8 January, the first Intermicronational Olympic Games held between 15 September and 1 October, and the Norton Awards, inaugurated on 8 January 2001. Baugh began the association of Emperor Norton with micronationalism despite their lack of relatedness. On 1 March 2000, O'Driscoll authored the 287-page Ils ne siègent pas à l'ONU, which documents over 600 micronations and micronational organisations. By September, the League of Micronations (LoM), which encouraged geofiction micronationalism, had started to become a viable alternative to the greatly weakened LoSS. Alongside Morovia, the geofictionist Imperial Republic of Shireroth and Republic of Eslo proved influential over wider micronational affairs.

By 2001, the Lusophone sector had lost much of its influence in the intermicronational community to that of English-speaking micronationalists like Baugh, prominent micropatriologist writer Peter Ravn Rasmussen of the Sovereign Principality of Corvinia and geofiction micronations. The first micronational dictionary, Rasmussen's A glossary of micronational terms, went online by 24 April 2001, and his The Ten Commandments of Micronational Discussion Board Etiquette became an accepted rule in several forums. Meanwhile, Bruno Cava of the Free Community of Pasargada became increasingly prominent in Lusophone micronationalism throughout the first half of the 2000s. The Portuguese-language Yahoo! Group "Impresna Livre" was created in June 2001 by the Micronational Press Association (Associação Micronacional de Impresna) and consistently received over 110 posts per day.

In 2002, the Apollo Sector became known as the fictional world of Micras upon the engagement of the Micronational Cartography Society. The Micronational News Network, founded by Iain de Vembri on 29 January 2002, established the micronations.net website that same year which quickly became the focal point of the English-speaking community, and Scott Alexander created the FNORD Awards for the community that same year. Geofiction micronations dominated micronations.net as activity elsewhere dwindled. The Intermicronational Economic Summit, regarded as the definitive forum on micronational economics, was hosted on micronations.net between 11 May and 29 July 2002. Meanwhile, eccentric micropatriologist Cesidio Tallini founded the Fifth World Council on 13 July and formulated the concept of the Fifth World. Tallini eventually expanded this into the Sixth World by December.

Early summits, wikis and new forums

The artistic-based First Summit of Micronations occurred in Helsinki, Finland between 29–31 August 2003 and saw six micronations attend. Micronational wikis began to be established from 2003 onwards, and many became online sectors themselves, such as the unsuccessful but historically-significant Portuguese-language Micropédia—the first of several wikis to bear the name "Micropédia"—in 2003 and the German-language and geofiction-friendly MNwiki on 25 October 2004. The 2004 Vardey Gallery Summit occurred on 25 November during a micronational exhibition at the University of Sunderland in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, North England. Moderated by Danny Wallace, six micronations attended. The follow-up 2005 New School Summit occurred on 15 July at The New School in New York City, United States between three micronations and the macronation of Switzerland.

The airing of the BBC's How to Start Your Own Country—hosted by Wallace—between 3 August and 6 September 2005 resulted in an influx of individuals starting their own countries, although most of them migrated to the Micras Sector where they were known as the Lovely Sector after the Kingdom of Lovely. In September, Tallini created the Cesidian Root—an intranet intended for micronationalists. Wallace was intermittently active in the micronational community during 2006, where the forums for Lovely received 100,000s of posts. The Open Micronational forum was launched in December and became popular throughout 2007, receiving over 7,600 posts by 77 registered members as of January 2008. The forums micronations.eu and MicroHub were also prominent throughout 2008; the latter of which had over 2,000 posts from 277 registered users that year.

On 21 January 2008, Micropedia—originally a wiki for the Second Kingdom of Batavia (Batavië)—was converted into the principal micronational wiki of the Dutch sector. Statistics are difficult to obtain, but the dedicated Micropedia thread in the Batavia forums had 1,189 posts by 19 March and 1,824 by 5 October. In late 2008, technical issues arose on micronations.net which caused the wiki attached to the website to become corrupted, causing many users to migrate to the micronational wiki and encyclopaedia MicroWiki (which had been founded in 2005) in October. The wiki rejects geofiction. Thereafter, the MicroWiki sector has become the principal intermicronational community of the English-speaking world. In March 2009, the Listofmicronations.com index and an associated forums were launched by George Cruickshank of the Empire of Atlantium. Its micronational index was received highly-positively, and the forums saw over 7,100 posts made from 120 registered members by August 2011.

International summits, the MicroWiki sector, wikis and social media

PoliNation 2010 occurred on 17 April in Dangar Island near Sydney, Australia, and had some 40 micronations in attendance—a record that would not be beaten until MicroCon 2017. In December, the MicroWiki forums were launched and immediately became a focal point of the eponymous micronational community, receiving over 60,000 posts in 3,000 threads by December 2012. On 31 August 2010, the first Microball comics were created. The Organisation of Active Micronations briefly became the largest intermicronational organisation in history throughout 2010 and 2011 before dissolving on 29 December; it peaked at 91 member states but many were inactive.

From about 2011 onwards, the growing popularity of social networking services made it easier to host a micronational presence online without the need of a web hosting service; self-contained sectors first began to emerge on Skype and Facebook. The Facebook groups Micronations and Alternative Polities was created in December 2011 followed by the Micronational Forum in September 2012, both of which gained hundreds of members. The first summit of the MicroWiki sector, the 2011 Intermicronational Summit, occurred on 24 August in London and had 14 attendees, followed by PoliNation 2012 on 14 July in the same city with 32 attendees. The first had been planned on the MicroWiki forums and the latter on Facebook.

On 12 April 2012, MicroWikia was created as a rival community to MicroWiki. The first summit in the Indonesian sector, the 2012 LIR Union Summit, occurred on 10 August between four micronationalists representing three micronations. The death of Paddy Roy Bates, founder of the Principality of Sealand and one of the "Big Three" micronationalists, on 29 August resulted in an outpouring of grief and memorials from the community. On 7 October, the Czech-language Mikronárody Wiki was created and quickly became the principal wiki and community of the Czech sector. The 2013 Intermicronational Summit between 15–20 July was the first micronational summit held in France, and had nine attendees.

Throughout 2013 and 2014, micronational activity on Twitter and Instagram began to heavily increase, coinciding with the continued growth of said social medias. Micropedia, created on 18 March 2013, became the largest Russian-language micronational wiki by 2014. On 11 April 2015, the first convention of the biannual MicroCon was held in Anaheim, California and had 36 attendees. It was conceived and hosted by Baugh. MicroFrancophonie was founded on 20 May and became the principal intermicronational organisation of the French-language community. Meanwhile, PoliNation 2015 between 4–5 July with 18 attendees was the first intermicronational summit to occur in Italy. The 2016 Micronational Summit of São Paulo on 25 June between four micronationalists was the first summit to be held in Brazil, and MicroFrancophonie hosted its first summit in France between 23–24 September.

Discord, Reddit and larger summits

Micronational activity on the instant messaging social platform Discord has flourished since late 2016 and early 2017, particularly because of the service's ability to create personal customisable chatrooms (called "servers") which has allowed for the existence of heavily online-based Discord nations. MicroCon 2017 occurred in Tucker, Georgia between 23–25 June and saw over 70 micronationalists attend. In November, Reddit's r/micronations—created in June 2009—reached 1,000 members and gradually became its own sector. The 2018 MicroFrancophonie Summit occurred in Paris on 21 July and had 15 attendees. MicroWiki@Discord was created on 17 September and reached 167 members by 8 December, making it the largest micronational Discord server, a title it would retain until being destroyed on 30 January 2022.

On 23 March 2019, Podskalský Congress occurred, the first summit of the Czech sector, and had eight attendees. In June, r/micronations reached 2,000 members, after which the subreddit would see a yearly growth rate of approximately one thousand users. MicroCon 2019 held in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada between 19–21 July became the largest intermicronational summit ever held with 113 attendees representing 43 micronations. The COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020 has resulted in decreased summit attendance, although many inactive Internet-based micronations returned to activity as people were commanded to stay home and quarantine. MicroWiki saw record numbers of activity as the website's readership in 2020 was 1.8 million individual readers and 4.7 million total views in 2021.

The Indonesian micronations shock in January 2020 indirectly affected many Indonesian micronations ws concerns were raised regarding their safety. The first edition of the annual Micro-Euro Summit occurred in the Czech Republic on 25 June 2022 and had 11 attendees. MicroCon 2022, delayed by the pandemic, took place between 4–7 August in Las Vegas, Nevada and saw 100 attendees representing 30 micronations. MicroCon 2023 consisted of two separate events; an American summit held between 30 June–2 July in Joliet, Illinois with 110 attendees from 43 micronations, and a second summit held between 11–13 August in Ypres, Belgium that received 66 attendees.