I was reading my once-and-future guidie Psia's blog, when I came across this little admission:
And so I came to the clothing section. And here’s where I get to the nub of this post (I know, I take a long time to make a point!). I wasn’t prepared to buy any clothing because I am ashamed to publicly declare my love for the game. There, I said it. Ashamed of something that I spend hours on. That I enjoy in a social context with a lot of my friends.
Psia is ashamed of WoW? For shame!
Are you? I'm not.
Now, I wouldn't wear a WoW t-shirt, but that's not through any feeling of shame at being a WoW player - it's just because I think they look faintly ridiculous on a guy in his mid-30s. I don't wear t-shirts at all anymore - I'm strictly a shirt or structured top kinda guy. But, if I did, I'd more happily wear something like one of Phae's t-shirts, which are much less in your face about the WoW connection. To those who know nothing about the game, they're just an odd design, to those who do, they're a point of common conversation. The default Blizz designs are just a little too much like paying to wear advertising…
But I'm certainly not ashamed of my WoW-playing. A substantial number of my collegues at work know that I play, and there will be a small aknowledgement on my main blog when I post here. I've often interlinked between the two. MMoRPGs feel like they're in the same place blogging was in a few years back - many people were ashamed to admit that they were involved, but they were rapidly becoming part of the mainstream. Just as with blogging, I treat WoW like something ordinary and mainstream, and that makes it a non-issue for others.
Does that match everyone's experiences?
