As was brilliantly put here:
B473850 14 on Comet Catcher Redux v3.1Clans evolve around shared principles, which vary widely from clan to clan.
MC is built around the principle that talking to your peers during a game is fun.
TheGBC is built around two main principles. First, a shared competitive mindset. Second, the notion that interacting with your peers not during a game should also be fun.
This partially explains why
TheGBC exists even though it is inactive, and why I consider myself
TheGBC even when playing under the
MC flag.
Clans aren't just constructs to skew balance, they're a way for players to express their identity, and I believe that this also answers the one-player-clans question.