”It's not as if we don’t like him. We love Joakim. He’s just a pain in the ass. Like, all the time.”

The larp Joakim is about a group of people who meet once a year. They studied theatre at Oslo Kunsthögskole and graduated in 2006, but still keep in contact. They are a thight knitted group with a lot of jargon, in-jokes and friendly bullying among themselves. The annual meet-up is a kind of vacation for some of them, an opportunity to relax and have a laugh with old friends - while for some the occasion brings a churning ache to the stomach, provocing nervous laughter which is pitched just a little to high. Some smile all night, while crying in the taxi home.

This story is about Joakim, the clown. The punching bag. The really annoying member of the group. The one everybody loves to hate. Last year the group did something the don't want to talk about. Something unforgivable, and they did it to Joakim.

The larp focuses on groups, and how people behave in them. Sometimes, belonging to a group forces us to become a person we don't want to be. If we refuse to address the issue and call it "fun," we can get away with all kinds of horrible behaviour. Joakim isn't a larp about intrinsically evil people. In fact, most of them would never see themselves as bullies. And some one has to be the target. It’s just how it is.

But this year, Joakim isn't coming.

Grownups – Joke Culture – Bullying

Joakim is a game about a person and his name is Joakim. Every year the class of the prestigious theatre school meet to eat and reconnect. They have their own jokes, their own way to speak, and they have Joakim, their clown and punching bag. But this year, Joakim isn’t here. And everybody knows it’s because of what the group did last year. But nobody wants to talk about it. And nobody wants to be the new Joakim.

Joakim explores grownup bullying and how it can be that a group that doesn’t feel evil or oppressive can be really mean. It’s a game about how a group can force you to become someone you don’t want to be at all.

Joakim is a 360° larp with a few meta techniques used to enhance the theme of group pressure and not daring to say what you really feel.