20181108.0430

I've not made anything resembling a secret of playing role-playing games. I started doing so not long after I started my undergraduate program, and I've continued in the hobby with more and less intensity since. Sometimes, it's been weekly evening meetings with several outside readings. Sometimes, it's been asynchronous online interactions. Sometimes, it's been synchronous and distributed across the world--or at least across what gets called the Western world, problematic as that term and its associations are. And in the latter two capacities, it's been on my mind as I've started another session of teaching a couple of classes, online and in a nearby city.
In the online class, the commonplace topic of social media has come up again--which I expected. Similarly, I expected the reaction I see from many of the students in the class, the assertion that "social media is making children worse at talking to each other." (Somehow, it's always kids that bear the brunt of the opprobrium, not those who afford them access to social media--and who are themselves often on it.) There are some who are making the case that social media does more to foster understanding than to diminish social skills--as if social skills were so common as all that in the first place--and one made the comment that gaming online has served as a connection to others, which surprised me. It has been my experience, certainly, but I do not often see students make the assertion. It warmed my cockles. I'm sure I'm going to hear about it later, though.
The on-site class brought it up differently. For it, as for the version of the online class I taught previously, I am drafting samples of the required assignments. (I'm using previous samples for the current online class. The assignments are the same, so the samples should still be good.) For the first couple of those, beginning here, I opted to write about a recent RPG experience. During class, I showed the first sample to my students; several expressed surprise that such a thing could be done, and they asked after the subject of the work. It was flattering to find my interests of interest, and it was useful to be reminded that my students come to me with preconceived notions of academic writing as being removed from life and joy.
It is a thing I remember knowing, and from experience; I remember being amazed that scholars could write scholarly work about comic books and video games and cartoons that I had watched. I remember being amazed again that scholars before me had written of RPGs already (Gary Alan Fine comes to mind). I remember being amazed yet again that bullshit studies--excuse me, taurascatology--is a thing. I should not be surprised that those less immured in The Work than I have had cause to be are as surprised now as I was on those several thens; I should instead celebrate that they have wonder yet and that I have helped them to find it, as I often have, through rolling dice and telling lies.