The BINMEN have come to Insomnia 69 for a good time and a good cause – the team of light-hearted jokesters are raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital and are doing forfeits when they raise a certain amount of money. Casters Dweg, Retr00 and BDog sat down with UKCSGO’s Dafydd Gwynn in a fun interview to discuss why they came to LAN, the BINMEN and the charity they are raising money for. Be sure to check out their streams as they continue to raise money.
How does it feel to get double grouped?
Retr00: It is very bitter for us this time. We have come very close twice, both in the actual event and then in inters. But overall not that bad, we are streaming for charity and now that the event is done we can focus on what we came for originally and that is to make money for a good cause.
For viewers at home, why would someone donate to you guys and what are you doing?
Dweg: This is my third LAN for The BINMEN, and the core tries to stay the same for as long as possible even with most of us having full time jobs and even within esports, so the line-up does keep on changing, but the core and the whole values try to stay the same. We now have a discord server and are getting a lot more people involved, we are getting more noticed at LAN and so we wanted to do more than just show up and have good time, and raising money for charity was something we wanted to do. One of our of players have had experiences with Great Ormond Street and we thought what better way to use them for the target charity.
How much have you raised right now?
Retr00: Between 500-600
What is the next forfeit for you?
Retr00: Since we have been playing the actual event we have not wanted to be doing the forfeits until we had finished the event in its entirety so it doesn’t interfere with us, as we are still here to have fun and play some Counter-Strike.
We are now going to be doing all of the forfeits under £500 which I don’t think should take too long, the more expensive donation goals will take a bit more time, and with people donating a fair bit individually I assume we will have to get some eggs or hot sauce out
How much to shave your hair Ryan?
10k flat.
Dweg: Massive shout to EKO, Coalesce who we have been friendly with before, and we just messaged Biscu “can you help us out”, we are going to get a match worn jersey from them after the final (if they make it) and they will sign it and we will give it away. Coalesce are helping us out and even some of the guys at the LAN have been super interested to get involved, so going into the next one we will maybe find out that we have more things to giveaway and more forfeits to do.
Bdog: We have just laid the foundations really well at this event, and then going forward we can build it into something more and be more established.
Is this going to be your staple?
Dweg: I would say so, it is really nice to have these weekends away, where we are separating our casting and can go and have a laugh, we are not trying to win the event, we are going to have a good time and going into this event we realised we had not played as a 5 ever before, so being one win away from playoffs in the main tournament and playoffs in the inters tournament we are happy with too. Â Even out side the game, we are London based mostly and are going out to watch football games and creating a really nice community.
Retr00: The whole BINMEN joke started with Banda collecting 3p skins of the steam market off everyone and sold them all, made enough money to actually buy a knife, I think it was shadow dangers tiger tooth and so since then, the meme has turned into this. The team was originally called kebab, and now we have a major watch party for Antwerp, ESEA Advanced streams, 10 mans. Originally this was just a joke with mates online, and now it is 100s of people in a discord, constantly meeting new people getting 10 mans together, we are showing that people can come and have a good laugh.
What is the origin of the BINMEN group?
Dweg: For me I was looking for a plus one for Epic 34, and so I reached out to the boys and that is how I started it originally. I knew Ryan through casting, and then turns out Ryan knew all the guys before even I did, and that is how the circle just kept on growing.
Retr00: For me joining in Epic 35 and then with Brandon coming in this event first time, it is just constantly growing.
Who is the next big caster for next LAN then?
Dweg: Not necessarily looking for a caster, but we do want to be sending two teams. think about Legates at Epic 35 they had like four teams. It would just be cool and we have nine players confirmed to get next Epic. If we can send two teams to every LAN that would be great.
How big do you guys you think you will grow?
Retr00: I don’t think we can put a number on it, I don’t think we can sit here and say we want 1000 members. Our goals as The BINMEN are not to get numbers, we are not wanting to look like a business, we are here for a laugh but at the end of the day if we can get 10,000 members in the next month it doesn’t matter, we are always going to be a group of friends in matching jerseys having fun. This is what matters for us.
Where did the jersey idea come from?
Retr00: We wanted them for this event, and we wanted something at least. The original plan was to get hi vis jackets for Epic but was too expensive, getting logos on them plus names on the back was looking at £50 per jersey. As much as we love what we do, that is expensive.
Dweg: We got a printing company to sort them out, we asked about and got a lot of help from people. We got them designed, printed and shipped to me, I then just brought them up in the car and we have two each between five players and we gave out a few so brought around 30 for the event which are all in the hands of people right now. We have one left for the giveaway as a spare.
Retr00: LAN is about having fun, I think people need to realise that for the teams that are at the top it is taken very seriously, and it shouldn’t be taken as a joke. But I cannot see why a group of mates like us cannot come together and play a LAN. Sure it is a big expense, but it is the same as going on nights out or a weekend away. For us you get to network a little bit, socialise with people that have similar interests and it is just as we have said before, very good fun.
Dweg: Talking about content too, a lot of teams are here and not doing any content. Sash from our perspective is the content king, he is entertaining and it is great to watch him. Meffew has the post LAN videos that he produces which I assume we are featured on the lowlights part. Yesterday we had 80 viewers fairly consistent across the whole day, and I know some people where streaming at the event, for the UK teams, put more content ups, a few tweets, a few videos and a stream.
So you would encourage people to do what you are doing?
Dweg: To a select group
Retr00: If you guys are coming here and you know that inside the game even if you lose, you are coming away as mates and there will be no internal arguments in the server then there is no reason why you shouldn’t come.
Dweg: Arguments will happen, you want to win and it is very high pressure situation. You have the instant head in hands moment, but then after you can reflect and from our perspective we can hold our head high with raising £600. We now have the rest of the weekend to chill out, watch other teams play and get some 10 mans going.
Brandon: It is really nice to meet people, putting face to a name, makes you feel a little bit more involved in the community which is key.
