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Pipe Smokers vs. Lawn Crappers
beejazz:
--- Quote from: RPGPundit ---Dude, you have no idea. The debates you can have about the qualities of Italian vs. English pipe craftsmanship, the "slow smoking" contests, the discussion about the best blends; and of course it is very much a collector's hobby. There can be all kinds of nerdiness and obession in pipe collecting.
So its not about a lack of obsession. And unlike roleplayers, pipe smokers really ARE a persecuted minority, as are all smokers these days.
But what there really is that might mark the difference is that pipe smokers did not fall for the "geek social fallacy" of having to tolerate just anyone with a pipe in their mouth as "one of theirs" and permit him to air his social dysfunction and crap all over our lawns.
RPGPundit
--- End quote ---
Granted. I just see it as a diferrent kind of obsession. Like how there don't appear to be lawncrappers amongst culinary geeks... Whereas Catholics (not to single out Catholics, I'm sure this is true of all religions, including atheism) have lawncrappers aplenty. I guess the distionction comes from a split between theory and doctrine? Or between passive enjoyment and active (and especially highly technical) entertainment? I'm not saying that a person can't be highly involved. Just that you don't have to be, and that being such doesn't allow anyone to be holier-than-thou (religion as ordained by God, RPGs as "art", or atheism bolstered by irrefutable science).
As for the persecuted minority thing, alot of that depends on locale. In Delaware there were LGSs, but smoking in public resturants was banned. In Georgia, I've been... patronized to say the least. Dragon Con both helps and hurts our image. On the one hand, we're seen as harmless. On the other hand we're seen as harmless. But everybody smokes.
Just not pipes... not so much persecuted as fallen by the wayside I guess.
Dominus Nox
BANNED:
Hey, want to bet if we could find a lawn crapper who'se also a pipe smoker we could maky pundy's head explode from internal conflict?:D
RPGPundit:
In the pipe world, the issue is something that is dealt with earlier, at the "club" level, rather than the "convention" level.
Its remarkably simple, we just don't give any indication that behaving like less than a civilized human being would somehow be "ok" to us, and no one does so; those who would like to either clean up their act or go away immediately.
The problem is, in gaming people have come to believe that its "ok" in gaming to act like less than a civilized human being; so they do, and others come into gaming as a hobby specifically because that's the attraction to them.
RPGPundit
fonkaygarry:
I think you have to look at the socialization of gamers. Many gamers have a shared history of bullying in their childhoods. Many of these bullied children began to rely on gaming as a shorthand for "I can trust this person. He will not beat me in the men's room." See also the hardcore scene in the early 80s.
Once you begin to assign this vital characteristic to someone because of a shared hobby you get the Geek Social Fallacy.
Pipegeekery (or shavegeekery or anything else that fetishizes an adult diversion) is unlikely to be a uniting condition among unpopular schoolchildren. Therefore, as a hobby it is unlikely to collect the social baggage something like roleplaying does. There just aren't the emotional connotations.
Looking back on my own childhood, I spent a lot of time with potsmoking shitheads who were a terrible influence on me simply because we were all Magic- and roleplayers. It never occured to me to judge these people on their merits because we were all gamers and that was all that mattered to me.
Thankfully, I shed my "geek against the world" outlook in high school. I was too busy playing football and pining after a succession of lesbians. :)
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