f13.net

I am pretty sure we cover all of these here in some for or another, except perhaps vampirism (those fuckers are extra weird). I bet we even have some closet scrapbookers here.  'Fess up, nerdsters!

Linkage (http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=24184)

The comments are great-




I have a passing familiarity with probably 4-5/10.

I only have 1 and it's collectibe card games, and only on the net. I stopped playing Magic back in high school for da' poon.

Of course, now I have the added bonus of:

"So do you have a website"
"why, yes, I do, it's about online games!"
"Riiiiight, so what do you do for a living?"
"I make computer games!"
"K, bye."

I tried the internet dating thing recently. Match.com, to be specific.

I always struggle with the question of when it's appropriate to reveal certain ... truths.

2 out 10 -- I scored 10% on the "Geek Test" too. Yay me.

1) Comic Books. And that's only a recent interest. I picked up Preacher one day and got stoked about seeing what else was out there. Interest has since died down a bit. The last time I read comics though, I was like 11 or 12.

2) Everquest -- Well, I hate Everquest, but I'll include it because I like MMO's in general (actually, I hate those too. I think).

RPG's are pretty interesting. At least the literature is. I also tried to play Warhammer a few times with some people a while back. Problem is, not only are the guys who play them huge dorks, they're also the biggest assholes on the face of the earth. No thx, I'll pass.

I used to hang out with the goth crowd, and the whole "vampire" thing etc.. But seriously, it was only because of the chicks. They eventually figured that out and called me "estranged", heh.

LARP -- Well, I'm an actor. Believe me, that can be every bit as weird and stupid at times. Yet, I could never LARP. I'm not even comfortable rp'ing in online games.

Star Wars and Star Trek are not that great IMO. I'll choose Dune instead (does that make me a bigger geek?)

OMG. My only saving grace is that my....factor has dropped considerably since my early 90s fresh out of high school days.

Then: 80%

Now: 40% (if you count EQ as all MMOs)

I've noticed the roleplayers who game in public venues tend to be at the more extreme end of the spectrum. I'm pretty geekish myself, and enjoyed RPG's when I had the time, but they freak me out a little.

I did vampire based live roleplaying for long enough to explore it, which seems to overload the scale they have. Left when I realised the game implicitly encouraged elitism and a terrible game experience for new players... and they wonder why their group is so small.

Anime didn't make it on the list, I feel my geek credentials have been impugned.

Yeah, I'm pretty geeky, and gaming conventions and all are fine - but card game/D&D/Anime cons are a little much for me. My limits are far out there, but they are most certainly there.

Yeah, I'm at 20% with EQ and Roleplaying. The problem is, is that I actually want to be a Trekkie or Star Wars super-fan, and maybe some card playing. All the others are either too expensive, or just generally ghey. But since I had a life before EQ and RP (which can be hidden unlike the others), I can't take up the challenge without advertising for a new group of friends and girlfriend. BUT! I can still envy those that do have the freedom.

Hmm, just realized that it's possible that I'm 30% solely based off the fact that I wish I could do those others.

Great, now I'm all sad and depressed. Off to play EQ and drown my sorrows in AA grinding.

Woot!!! Have zero of those hobbies!!

Guess, I'm getting laid tonight...or not...

Kicked my UO habit about 2 months ago, and Magic Online doesn't count as either EQ or trading card games IMO so I score a nice 0 too.

Plushies are funny. I don't know why exactly, but somehow someone who likes screwing stuffed toys makes me want to laugh, whereas furries just make me go "eeeewww".

Funny?

Damn. I had no idea what "furries" and "plushies" meant before this, though I've heard some people around here use the word before. I guess there are worse fetishes, but it's shocking to me that there's actually enough people out there doing this for it to be even be deemed a "fetish".

Furries are not the people who dress up as animals to have sex; those are fursuiters.  Furry is a more general term that encompasses both fursuiters and plushies, and generally means anyone who is attracted to or identifies with anthropomorphic animals.  While there is a strong sexualized element in much of the community, there are plenty of people who are furry fans, enjoying the comics, the cartoons, etc. who do not spend their time thinking how hot it would be to watch Chip and Dale double-team Gadget.

I'd also say that unlike a lot of other fetishers (like leather, S&M, etc.) most sexual furries do not require furrydom to be a part of their sexual routine.  Indeed, absent doing it in a fursuit, there's not a paraphenalia one can use to make the other person look more like an antropomorphic fox or whatever.  Partners can still pretend and fantasize, though, but otherwise seem perfectly capable of having "normal" sex like most people.

Bruce

Selling spooge and urine stained/smelling stuffed animals to each other strikes me as more then just a bit weird.

Click on at your own risk (http://velocity.net/~vortex_k/plushiesale)

I didn't know plushies were also considered furries. I am undecided as to whether to thank you for enlightening me or not, since it's not really important information.


EDIT: A comment about the urine-smelling plushies... someone should do a study into people with multiple/combined fetishes. I may be the only one but I'd be curious to know if there is a connection between having one fetish and being more likely to have another, or even a specific other fetish. And whether that is influenced by how you came to have the first fetish (ie. environment, trauma, evolved, inborn).

S&M I understand.  Wife swapping I understand.  Orgies I understand.  Dressing up like chipmunks and dry humping each other?  I don't understand.

Pray that I never become absolute ruler, Bruce, because a cleansing rain will sweep down on you deviant motherfuckers.

*tickles Big Gulp's feet with a 12 inch purple dildo*

Ok folks, we're dipping WAYYYYYY too much into the descriptions of furrydom for me. Stop it. I realize it's related to the topic, but my fear-shrunken genitalia would thank you to shut the fuck up now.

Oh and I'm about 4/10 on that chart for my entire life.

BigGulp - you have a way with words lol.

Am I the only one a little weirded out by how much knowledge of this furry stuff that SirBruce has? Am I the only one that finds themselves not all that surprised as well?

Some people spend their Sundays watching football. I spend my Sundays playing D&D. It's social, creative, fun, and I get to spend quality time with my friends. Why, again, is that worse than being parked on the couch watching millionaire felons bash against each other?

Whatever you want to do, as long as you're not hurting anybody ... hey, if you enjoy it, do it. And everyone else and their prejudices can seriously just fuck off and die.

I agree Ardent. DnD is frowned on because of sleazy defense lawyers. That and your Joe Average American doesn't like past times that require you to use your brain.

The only reason you're somewhat surprised is you haven't been here long enough to have experienced previous threads on the topic. Bruce knows because he's a member of that community.

America, Fuck Ya!, lick my ass and suck on my balls.

God damn I love football.

Because it's a bunch of guys throwing dice and pretending to be elves?  Really, I DnD'd some in college, and it's by far the geekiest, nerdiest thing I've ever done in my entire life (and I'm counting academic summer camps in this and being part of the school show choir in middle school).   But yah, it's fun (when guys can avoid trying to roleplay romance between characters) and a decent way to make the time fly by, so, have your hobby and have fun.  Just don't expect people not to consider it socially objectionable.  

I mean fuck.. elves man, elves.

Edit: No one take this too seriously. I mean shit, it's not LARPing.

I personally find Seanbaby an annoying dipshit....one of the few gaming industry geeks that seriously fancies himself some sort of gaming rockstar rebel.

I'm 0-for-10 at the moment, and I hit 1 of 10 within the past decade, if you count EQ as all MMOGs. 2 of 10 within my lifetime with roleplaying games.

Although lifetime, I'm looking at 3 of 10 if thinking that good looking goth chicks are hotter than the sun make me guilty of vampirism.

Bring the noise.
Cheers..............

Oh, come on.  His Superfriends page hilarious.

My DM hates elves. If you try to play an elf in his campaign, you will die. Horribly. And so will the rest of the party, for daring to consort with elves.

Actually, I think it's pretty cool. And you're right. It is more productive than sitting around watching sports. If I met some cool people who played, I could probably spend a Sunday doing it too (LARP'ing is still out of the question though).

Problem is (and I know this is only my experience), the people I've met who play them are all geeks. And in general, I find geeks to be the most mean, argumentative, judgemental, and self-absorbed type of people around. If not that, then they are at the very least, dirty.

The only funny thing about all that is that they take pride in it.

RPG's will always be tied to that "culture" though (or whatever it is). At least with video games or comic books, as geekish as they are, I don't necessarily have to deal with these people to appreciate those things. At least not face to face.

You've never dated a catholic schoolgirl cheerleader have you? Oh, you didn't mean that kind of dirty. Well, they still make geeks look like humble concentrate in comparison.

Don't try to get into an RPG with people you don't previously know and like from other contexts.  It's guaranteed to suck.  RPGs are incredibly fun only if you can find a good group of people to play with.

Simple answer:

Chicks understand brainless jocks watching football. It's an acceptable male activity that re-affrims manlyness (In girls minds at least)

CHICKS THINK GUYS WHO PRETEND TO BE ELVES AND DWARFS ARE LOOSERS!!!!!

Yes, it's a generalzation, but if you don't believe me post two personal ads; one with "Likes to watch sports" as a hobby and the other one with "Likes to play DnD!" and see which one gets any kind of repsonse.

The real reason is it's easy to make sweeping generalisations and fix stereotypes into the minds of the populous. For all the normal, well adjusted RPG gamers there's the flaming weirdos who hardly wash, wear shirts that are way, way too tight for a man without a six-pack (seriously, wtf is with that?), and love to play female elves, and I mean ONLY female elves. You can meet well-adjusted people everywhere, doing everything, but it's very rare to find a grown man who acts like a female elf all the time OUTSIDE of RPGs. One sticks in the mind, the other doesn't. Unfortunately for RPGs it's not the former.

It's also like videogames. Ten years ago it was geeky, now look at it. If everyone started getting into RPGs the stereotype would go away as the weirdos fade into the crowd. As it stands, female-elf-man sticks out too easily.

I play DnD.

I have sex with women.

The real losers are idiots who spell "losers" with 2 "o"s.

I'd like to step in and recommend anime cons to anyone who has the opportunity to attend them.  Here (http://spazioinwind.libero.it/gliabitantidellastellauru/Cosplayer/lumcosplayer.jpg) is one reason.  This (http://www.hyperpolice.net/images/kairi07.jpg) is another.  Nyah!

You're missing the pictures of the 35 year old, heavyset guy with a bad case of eczema in the same outfits.

Damn, beat me to it. :P

Oh, and I have acquaintences who are into anime (I see them at lan parties I go to), and they are the weirdest people I know. When you have to state multiple times that no, you will not be using someone's "digi-name" to address them, you know something fucked up is going on. When the first one told me that he prefers "Mikkimon" I thought it was some kind of joke but, alas, it was not.

Your focus dictates your reality folks.  Can't stress that enough ;?>

I used to have 30%, but I quit Magic midway through high school when I pulled my head out of the sand.

Star Wars - Have been and always will be a whore for this. I love the Empire, they've got style.

MMO's - It's like that abusive relationship I keeping coming back to because the loving is good for the first couple of weeks. Then I remember why I left.

As for DnD I don't mock people that do it unless they try and bring it out into the public eye as normal. It's not normal, its a fantasy. Trying to make it seem mainstream means you are putting yourself in the crosshairs, so don't expect me to pull any punches. There's a fine line there between computer games and rolling dice in a room with a bunch of dudes.

Oh and football = good, I'm a serious Saturday afternoon college addict. The NFL I like because of fantasy leagues and beers.

It's called drawing out the word. I guess I should've spelled it "looooosers" then it would have been clear. Hmmmphf.

You're missing the point anyway.  It's not that people who play DnD don't have sex, it's that there is a perceived loserness associated with that activity.  If you ask single women what they find attractive in a man, you'll get very few responses of: "Plays DnD." It's not an activity most women look for. If you don't believe me then go anywhere there are women and start chatting them up. As soon as you can turn the conversation to DnD and see what happens. You're not going to get too far.

Hence, the point of the originally linked story.

Try the same with with sports, or drinking, or fights. Anything that's seen as really male dominated regardless of where it fits on the nerdy scale doesn't make for great female conversation on the whole. That shouldn't be the yardstick for why playing DnD is nerdy. I think most of the dumbass stuff that women prattle on about on a daily basis is ten times stupider than the average DnD banter.

Chick at bar: "what do you do?"

Dude 1: "I am the most successful Dungeons and Dragons module writer in history"

Dude 2: "I am a starting wide reciever for the Steelers"

Agreed on the fightin' though.

Hmmm, I was thinking more, "I am the leader of the Steelers fanclub". Playing pro or college sports is a different game altogether because it = big $$$ or big muscles.

No. Drawing it out is doing as you demonstrated above. Using two O's is misspelling and stupidity. It's a byproduct of our modern chat-client learning culture where people talk about luv, seks, loosers and kkthxbye. Where your, you're and yore are often used interchangeably as are their, there and they're. Wanna, gotta, should of, could of, would of learned proper spelling and grammar if I wasn't so busy trying to get "sum hawt cyber luvin" online.

Ah, that makes sense.

Also, if Curt Schilling wears his EverQuest hat to his WOrld Series postgame interviews, will that make us cool?

LOL yeah I'm with ya.  I'm pretty much 5%, with my half-time participation in various MMO games that I cancel pretty quickly.

I guess I was 30% at some point, but stopped playing DnD freshman year in college.  That's when, like the other guy above, I realized that my fellow college DnD players brought geekdom to a league beyond my own.  I mean, the "WARP" (Williams assoc. of role players) guys had their own permanent table at the dining hall with a distinct odor, forcing women to take alternate routes to the salad bar.

"Star Wars" only counts if you have a Chewbacca costume and visit fan conventions.  About 90% of kids from the 70's loved those movies, and about 90% of those see the new series as complete schlock.

OK, a quick check of Yahoo Personals

Women seeking Men within 25 miles of me who:

Like sports: 148

Play DnD: 0  (serched for DnD, D&D, Dungeons, Dragons, RPG, Role Playing)

In Texas the women are easily as likely to be as avid as men.  I think that's becoming true in general actually.

I lived in Dallas, now I live in Atlanta. Southern women are a different breed in that a good amount like sports, especially football. "Sports" may have been too general I suppose. DnD will just always be a male dorky thing. Talking about soap operas will be a female dorky thing. Nobody is going to be putting either on the Yahoo file.

Because people like this (http://www.dungeonmajesty.com/) have decided they want to fly their freak flag high.

GodDAMN you for enticing me to click that link, you bastard! You have been sitting on that one awhile, haven't you?

My only hope is that they never reproduce.

Hey this is a tangent I know, but who the hell is funding "Dungeon Majesty????"

Yeah it's got the worst production values outside of a Peoria high school film project, but it has to cost some money. This is a question that keeps me up at night.

I'll see your Dungeon Majesty and raise you a pair of Raiders fans.

(http://www.detnews.com/pix/2000/04/16/d8raidersdraft.jpg)

Dude, that's Gwar.

Dungeon Majesty surfaced at Corpnews. But I guarantee they got that link from somewhere else as it's floating around game dev forums and got passed around last week at BHG. Anyway. Yea, that's some fucking awful video.

[philosophical tangent]

I actually think that the social stigma attached to geekdom and its associated activities flows directly from the abhorrance of intelligence in American culture.

Anything involving thought or logic in the United States is frowned upon as a cultural rule. And no, I'm not talking about LARPers ... I'm talking about science, reading books, and anything remotely connected to intellectualism in general is heavily frowned upon in America. People are far more likely to believe bullshit like astrology or fung shui than anything resembling science, because we have degenerated to the point that people who use logic and a scientific method to come to conclusions are distrusted as infidels. I mean, look who our President is, for Crissakes.

In our culture, we worship vapidity. Our heroes are Paris Hilton and Terrell Owens. Getting shitfaced at the sports bar every weekend is perfectly acceptable, but reading some award-winning science fiction is frowned upon as "geeky" and for "social losers". Forget about Star Wars or DnD, you should be neutered and exiled, for how dare you have interests that deviate from the slobbering masses.

And if you don't believe that America is a culture that worships teh stoopid, all I need to say is this: 75% of the people in this country think angels exist. Nuff said.

[/philosophical tangent]

That should stir the pot, hopefully.

I saw it as an awful link of the day on SA awhile ago, so thats probably where alot of people got it from.

/Disagree

It flows from an abhorrance of "ugliness". I'm not just saying ugly as in "appearance" either. I'm talking about behavior as well.

Geekdom doesn't equal intelligence. "Nerds" on the other hand, might be a certain type of geek with some range of intelligence, but geeks in general are simply the hapless burnouts of society. Well...barring the homeless, of course.

Think of Revenge of the Nerds for instance. All were geeks, but only some were the typical "smart" nerd. There was one guy who represents the type I'm mainly talking about: Booger. Also worth mentioning is the "Comic Book Guy" from the Simpsons. Those are the kind of geeks I'm criticizing here...And as far as I know, there are more geeks like that than from the nerd variety.

It has nothing to do with intelligence. Most of them are ignorant, loadmouthed dumbasses, actually.

Also, most geeks are just as enamored as others with some of the most stupid shit in media and culture, if not moreso. The fact that there are even "fanbois" of certain franchises or whatnot, tells me that they are just mindless consumers, no different than the average soap opera viewing, People magizine reading, housewife. Swap Guiding Light for Star Trek, and People magazine for Fangoria, or whatever, and you have roughly the same thing.

I'm sure plenty of them are jerking off to Paris Hilton as well.

I most definitely agree that American culture doesn't encourage intelligence and all that, and it is vapid, as you say...But geeks aren't necessarily excluded. Sometimes they're even worse. Fucking teddy bears or believing you're one of the undead aren't exactly "logical", wouldn't you agree?



Two points against the Boogers of the world: They're doing both. Except they drink alone.

Wait. That's three.



So did Einstein and Newton. And I'm sure you could find more than enough interesting, intelligent conversation with a lot of priests, rabbis, or Buddhist monks, whether you believed in the religion or not. Just because people believe in God doesn't make them "stoopid". Writing off the most enduring legacy of the human race, just like that, is what I'd qualify as "stoopid".

Then again, what I should have said is: Don't even go there, dude.

I really goddamn hate what some of you can do to a thread.

Disclaimer: I haven't watched whatever's at the link.

You should watch Trekkies 2 sometimes.  There are a lot of fan films being made out there and their production values vary, actually quite widely, between abysmal and "surprisingly not too bad".

The acting pretty much sucks across the board though.

Why don't you just admit that you're still hung up on the daily beatings and scorn you received from those mean old jocks in high school?

Oh Angels exist my friend...

(http://www.sports-memorabilia-collectibles-autographed.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/2002%20Anaheim%20Angels%20Plq%20Ema.jpg)

I think of it more as evolution of a thread than as highjacking.

I have qualified on about 5 of those 10 listed items.  Sad thing is, I find I get labeled as a geek more for things like my knowledge of computers, enjoyment of sci-fi, enjoyment of Jeopardy...

You make a lot of good points, stray. Well done.

One clarification:



I never said, and would never say, that people who believe in God are stupid. I'm an idiot, but I'm not that dumb. I just think that it's possible to have a deep faith without buying into the ancillary nonsense (like angels and devils) that sometimes accompanies it.



You may now return to your fascinating discussion of people who fuck Big Bird dolls.

I guess I'm confused as to what you mean by this. There are numerous references to angels and the devil in the Bible. Angels speak to the Virgin Mary, angels deliver the wrath of God, angels protect Daniel in the Lion's den, angels meet Lot in the city of Soddom, etc.

Are you saying that they don't exist and are just a literary device in the Bible, or that the Bible is on the whole unreliable?

Paelos, nobody reading this cares about my beliefs. I can PM you if you're really interested.

But you're a Yankee fan, you have to believe in the Devil, right?

RIGHT?

Yeah don't worry about the PM, I just wanted to see what you meant. If it's a long drawn out philosophical debate over the existence of God or the validity of the Bible, then you're probably right not to derail the thread further.

Heh. Coming from the guy who wrote on the CoH board:



In the Breakfast Club of life, something tells me you lean towards the Anthony Michael Hall end of the scale yourself, friend.

If you really wanted to hit this point home, you would have said 75% watch and like Friends. Now that's some good, mainstream stoopid.

Angels, however, just invites retardation in a thread. It's like mentioning any subject on abortion or gun control. It brings out the unreasoning emotion in just about everyone.

Heh.  Obviously you really don't know me very well.

As to being a nerd, yep I'll freely admit it, and have never tried to hide it.  The difference between me and you is that I don't have a hate on for jocks, I don't look down on anyone who doesn't engage in "intellectual" activities (and here's a hint for you; if you call yourself an intellectual, most likely you're not) and have left high school behind me.

Guess you haven't.  No problem, you'll grow up someday.

Time to recycle an oldie but goodie...

(http://homepage1.nifty.com/shootingstar/slap_titleani.gif)

See, you think that makes you into Judd Nelson, but you're wrong. You're Ally Sheedy.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

What the hell ever happened to her, anyway?  She was up there with Phoebe Cates as an object of lust and then just dropped off the radar.  Was Short Circuit really that big of a nail in her coffin?

She went from this:
(http://www.binaryfusion.net/images/ally.jpg)

To this:
(http://www.tvtome.com/images/people/68/4/53-6963-sm.jpg)

Ally Sheedy was, IMO, at her all-time pinnacle of hawtness in 1983's War Games. As she was born in 1962, that would make her about 21.....which, in my experience is about the right range for a young woman to reach her hawtness peak.

Though her portrayal of Allison Reynolds in The Breakfast Club, along with Ringwald's Claire Standish, may have subconciously conditioned me from a young age to lust after goth chicks and preppy redheads.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............