I’ve been gaming for most of my life. What that means is that I started gaming when trying to talk about it was bound to get you in trouble. You know, like back in the day:
“What’s this…’D&D’ thing you’re doing?”
“It’s Dungeons & Dragons – it’s a kind of shared storytelling, where the players get to be the heroes of the story and the referee is in charge of the story setting.”
“Um, sure. That sounds… (pick one or more:) like its for kids/satanic/a complete waste of time/etc.”
…which was about as close as I had gotten to explaining it all in a thumbnail to outsiders. But I’ve never really gotten past the sense that talking about it marks me as different, less socially adept, yeah, a nerd. All of which is funny, since I have little difficulty talking about being bisexual or multiracial or really a whole bunch of things that might be more problematic. It’s just another coming out process, right?
It’s made even more weird by the fact that the nerds have won, big-time, in the culture wars. So what’s holding me back from talking about it, especially when Stephen Colbert, Vin Diesel, Tim Duncan, heck, even Judi Dench are all D&D players? I’m still pondering this. As a younger friend of mine pointed out the other day, “The burning issue for your generation of science fiction fans is feeling socially not accepted. But that’s not the issue for younger fans.”
Of course, none of this has prevented me from reading a RPG book in public. Or talking to people about it – or even getting people excited about it as something new to them.
Guess I should dig up a few rulebooks and go outside and play.
I have a good friend who has hidden the fact he plays D&D for years. He refuses to talk about it in public, and still has not come out and explained to his wife of two years what he does when he comes over to game with us. It's quite humorous at times.
Being a "nerd" is a lifestyle choice and very much puts us into a "minority" of sorts, I even find that the popularity of Nerdom of late in entertainment at time offensive. Wannabe Gamers and psuedo-nerds spring up everywhere but could never name a single game they played outside of a Facebook Farmville clone.
The culture shifts and not to compare the blight of the nerd to the civil rights movement at all, but I find some similarities. Much like the rich whites of the 50's "slummed" in the Blues Clubs, it would seem that certain elements want to grasp on to the popularity of "cool" factor of Nerdom or general geekery.
My oldest comes home often from 8th Grade complaining that her "nerd" friends have no clue who the Flash's enemies the Rouges are nor can they name any of the Doctor's companions, sure they spout out the general geekery they pick up at this or that TV show, but they lack any true passion.
Anyway, sorry for the post, but like any good post it got me thinking…Be Brave and GAME ON!
ERIC!
makes me think of the meme floating about quoting Simon Pegg on being a Geek..