Different cultures online

[scottahill]

There's this webcomic called Geebas on Parade (http://geebasonparade.keenspot.com/) which is all about Live-Action Role-Playing; I restumble across it every few months. Not particularly well-drawn and the spelling is atrocious, and it's obviously intended for people who actually LARP, filled with inside jokes and so forth, but the fun of it is that, by the time I've read through the whole archive, I've got a great picture into the LARP culture, and I start to get all the inside jokes. I have a couple of regular reads that are like that, websites about cultures I don't really belong to, but I read anyway because I understand just enough to get a feel about what they're talking about. One example is The Daily WTF (http://thedailywtf.com/), which is meant for professional programmers and sysadmins and so forth: I do write computer simulations but I'm not really in the same league, but I think the programmer culture is pretty interesting. I also enjoy reading about Dungeons & Dragons etc-- although I've never played a real game of it, I used to love reading the manuals when I was a kid, and I know enough of the lingo that I will, e.g., mumble to myself "successful saving throw" when I don't eat that last donut. Order of the Stick (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/ootslatest.html) and the (since-ended) DM of the Rings (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612) are examples of webcomics which wouldn't make nearly as much sense to someone with no knowledge of D&D.

I suppose that I get a feeling of satisfaction (probably exaggerated) that I am able to understand the jargon of a group I don't really belong to, but part of it is peering longingly into the window: I don't really want to be a professional programmer, mind you, but D&D's something I've always wanted to do and never did, LARP sounds kinda fun from what I've seen in Geebas, and just in general I miss being part of a community. I have all my physicist jargon of course, but physics doesn't really have a clubby atmosphere, not that I've seen; although it certainly sounds like it DID when I read books by Feynman and others.