(11-13-2014, 11:10 PM)Mae Wrote: ... I wish for one month, we could switch places with the crazy sports fans. Trading card game tournaments, conventions, LARP events, marathon RP competitions, documentaries on the Great Fantasy Writers, wonderfully-horrible and cheesy superhero movies/TV series/cartoons, anime, and sci-fi classics all getting the Prime Time TV slots and news coverage, while all the sports fans have to hide in their basements to watch their games, endure weird looks for wearing their sports-related clothes/fandom trinkets, and feel judged whenever they go to a game/go tailgating.I don't really see how this would benefit anyone, only serve to cause a fandom that isn't yours the same kind of negative sentiment you seem to think that ours--those with 'nerdy' interests--have. Not trying to pick a fight with you or anything, but it sounds incredibly petty to want another group to feel "judged" and have to "hide in their basements," because that might have been something others experienced for their hobbies.
In the past several years video games, superhero movies and shows, anime, and sci-fi have been getting attention and are filtering into--if not dominating--the mainstream. Look at movies and television lately: it's mainly capes, even in primetime, with shows like Arrow, Flash, SHIELD; movies like Avengers, GotG, and the upcoming Batman vs. Superman are all really in the public consciousness right now. Entertainment Weekly covered SDCC. SyFy is going back to being The Sci-Fi Channel specifically because they want to tap their alienated demographic, but also the burgeoning demographic of people who are becoming interested in these types of shows. And while we're not quite at the level where we are televising roleplaying games, it's not a terrible stretch of the imagination to believe it could happen within the next few years, given this whole 'geek is chic' thing. We are, after all, already televising eSports.
Back to 'traditional' sports, personally, many of the people whom I know are sportsfans also happen to be fans of tabletop RPGs and boardgames, CCGs, video games, and all manner of other 'nerdy' hobbies. Some people I know were not initially fans of sports, but got into them through fantasy leagues, which is all about management and stats. And I see absolutely no reason to want to shame these people about it simply because at some point someone who enjoyed football might have thought something I enjoy was weird or reclusive.
On the question in the topic itself, "what if roleplaying went mainstream," well...there would never be a reason to ask which server is the RP server when joining a new MMO.
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