I prefer Reddit highlander scrubs to most of the people I end up playing against/talking to here. You have overenthusiastic people who spend half their day on the comp subreddit and on discords, writing novels based on 2 lobby experiences, and then some 4-year veteran scout who never uttered more words to anyone than "mid off pls" between keybinds.
HuckAnyone who complains about circlejerks in tf2 are probably just socially autistic and don't understand the concept of having friends
The problem is it's not about friendship. It's selective catering to people of influence at the off-chance you get to mix with them, only to add more people. Suddenly you're mixing several levels above you, do decent and just accept that you "got good" over the summer and the 20 new friends on your list isn't to do with it. This is the case in all games but 1v1 ones, sure but it's still stupid to imply it doesn't happen often.
kevShooshAlso, getting to high levels in TF2 is no longer about how good you are (to an extent) but rather who you know and what circlejerk you're in.
this is basically life though i can't really back this up
networking IS a skill
I played with some high/prem players +5 years ago, and returning to see all these blatantly hopeless people suddenly be in the top worries me. Sure they could've had an epiphany and busted their balls on DM 4 hours a day but I'm almost convinced they didn't.
Sucking it up to big boys to get places is heaps easier than becoming some sort of DM god. And even then, that just becomes your rep. "Oh yeah he kills shit good that's why he's high".