[TheFluff]

In a somewhat annoying twist, group names are like clothing brand names and usually carry a certain reputation with them, which is probably the reason for reusing old group names (building a reputation from scratch takes a while after all). Some people (OK, actually a lot of people) will only download something if they recognize the group name as "good" and will ignore other groups' releases completely. In a similar fashion, once a group gets a bad reputation for some reason, it can be incredibly hard to get rid of. This phenomenon tends to cause surprising amounts of both drama and cirklejerking on forums as well as elsewhere, and I know at least one fansubber who has gone from a well-established group with a pretty good reputation to doing almost completely anonymous releases just because he got sick of dealing with fansubber peers and leechers alike.