Are you fluffy bunnies feeling united?

[Grabula]

First of all, let me apologize if this seems out of place in the 40K forums. There doesn't seem to be a forum for discussing BoLs articles. I know you can make comments below the articles but I have a lot to say and that process is sort of ham-handed. I chose to post under 40K since it's my overall game of choice.

I get it, the internet allows a lot of free communication. Anyone can set up a blog, hit a forum or any other of the types of social media sites out there and express their opinion, whether they should or not. BoLs is on that list and sometimes, there’s a real diamond in the rough. A lot of them are repetitive, but not bad, some are obvious and at least for myself, not all that interesting. However recently there seems to be a series of writers busting through the BoLs front page with articles that are ill conceived and often crossing the line into offensive. I have some pretty thick skin so while I don’t feel personally attacked, I feel embarrassed for BoLs for allowing these abominations to percolate through to the top of the heap. Maybe it’s just slow news days, or maybe whoever is responsible doesn’t really care?
This is going to be a long one kiddies so strap in or move along. For the sake of honest discourse and full disclosure: I’m a near 40 yr old gamer who’s been playing since I was 11. I’m half native American, male, college educated and serving in our military currently.
I play games for all sorts of reasons. It’s a sweet HOBBY (key word there, keep it in mind, it’s going to come back kiddies) that allows for all sorts of people to come together over a common love. At my local gaming store the core player is 18-35, occasionally paints, sometimes can be bothered to assemble his models, loves to talk about background, but more importantly shows up to play games and have fun. There’s of course the fringe…super competitive types who spend every waking hour digging through rules trying in vane to re-interpret something they read to help them out on the table top. There are those guys who always seem to be painting or converting but you rarely if ever see them actually bother to play the game. There’s the extremely rare but usually entertaining individual who wears a cape, or lace up renaissance style shirt, spends most of his time discussing his larping or rpg adventures but occasionally whips out his motley collection of miniatures to play a game he almost always seems to barely understand!
Starting to get the picture? I’m sure most gamers did early on in their gaming adventures. I know I picked up pretty quickly that we’re a diverse and often interesting crew. We’re nerds, geeks, jocks, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, pagans, Christians, Buddhists, whites, blacks, browns and a whole plethora of other adjectives that are united by our passion for the hobby.
Today, this article was posted:
[url]http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2012/10/40k-editioral-fluff-bunnies-unite.html[/url]
Ok, I can sometimes be called a “fluff bunny” whatever that’s supposed to mean. I enjoy the backgrounds for many games and in a moment of honesty, can admit I got sucked into the game through Battletech, where I spent a great deal of time as a young kid imagining myself and my friends in the cockpits of our mechs. I still most often play armies where I can in some way identify with the leader in some way, or at least put together a small background story that makes him or her more interesting in my opinion. That creativity often drives me come up with paint schemes, creative and sometimes disastrous basing plans and so on. Some of my army builds could be considered ‘fluffy’ because they’re not competitively strong, but still fun to play, for me. I also have plenty of models to create competitive builds, play in tournemants and occasionally win a game or two. This all culminates in what is hopefully an understanding that this HOBBY (Pay attention here Mr. Mercer because here’s the little egg of knowledge I’m going to crack on your head) allows and encourages all types of people to enjoy the hobby in the way they choose, AND you can choose to enjoy some or all of these aspects. I get that, I got that years ago, way before I was 29. This HOBBY has a lot of depth, and I abhor the intolerance we sometimes get, often disguised in articles with misleading titles that end up insulting and condescending as someone “struggles” to understand why a certain type of hobbyist does what he or she does. I love that these games have some real depth, and challenge me mentally. I also love that I can spend hours expressing my creative side. I can flex my mental muscles in creating backgrounds and reasons for why my merry band of brothers has come together to close with and destroy the enemy in anyway possible.
You know what really gets me excited though? A good, challenging game on a table covered in beautiful terrain, and models that have been lovingly assembled and painted. THAT to me is the apex of this hobby. Not 3 color minimum, bought on ebay, netdecked to win. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging, if that’s your style more power to you.
Mr. Mercer, I have to assume you’re just naïve. It’s hard to assume otherwise after you’ve posted an article such as that. I don’t want to delve into why you don’t “get it” ie fluffy bunnies and somehow, why their interest in the hobby is more childish than your interest in the very same hobby. All I’m going to ask is that the next time you think it’s a good idea to write an article, type it up in word, or whatever you’re chosen word processor is, read it a couple of times, and ask yourself if 1) it makes any sense. 2) the title expresses the intent of the article. 3) That it’s worth posting up for all to see. This last article was shallow and at the very least just condescending to those who enjoy the more creative side of the hobby. It’s brought absolutely nothing to BoLs or the hobby and it should be your sincere hope that it dies an quiet but quick death and is forgotten.
To the rest of you gamers who bothered to read this far into my rant. Hopefully you understand that our hobby is diverse, and we’re all motivated differently to enjoy something we can all share. I don’t expect us all to get along, but I know I at least would appreciate less articles written by people who haven’t bothered to really understand what they’re writing to include, others motivations for playing games, their cultural background, sex or any other quality one might thing could make an interesting article. I only beg that if you decide to write in a location that is extremely public, such as BoLs front page, you think through what it is you want to write about, proofread it, have a friend read and or proofread it for you and then finally, before clicking save, and forever showing your true colors for all to see, decide if what you’ve written is coherent and expressed in such a way so as to do credit to your love of the hobby.

[Montpup]

To grabula

I read your post and thought about what you said, I went and reread the article and broke it down. I then started to write a reply to this post agreeing with you. I then thought about it some more and deleted the entire thing. I agree with you, mr mercer's article is a passive aggressive load of crap, the fact that he starts off insulting people in the title and doesn't try to make any points that aren't insulting is quite interesting and sayes a lot about what type of person he is. The reason I deleted my post was I came back to my first thought having read his article the first time. "I don't care".

See I don't care what mr mercer sayes or thinks or does. He is just another bitter voice on the Internet and another reason not to become involved in any form of descussion. So I deleted my post because he wasn't worth the time or thought.

But back to you mr grabula. Why have I decided to post this reply instead. Because your post is is trying to do something. You are trying to call out mr mercer on his bull****, and you are trying to express your anger. The problem is mr mercer is trolling you. The point of his article is to Mae people like you and me angry so we post something like your reply and he can get off on it. It is just another chance for him and his friends to bash some "fluff bunnies" and you fell into his trap. Soon this post will disappear or be full of people shouting you at you. It's sad but that really sums up the state of the Internet, voices of reason don't apply here.

So please know I agree with you over the content of mr mercer's article but please take my advice for next time, see the article for what it is and simply ignore it. Nothing on the Internet is EVER worth getting upset about. And mr mercer and people like him are simply just not worth the time.

[dirkspair]

In my own personal, vehemently defended but ultimately non-educated opinion Mr. Mercer is just afraid to embrace his inner geek. He is trying to defend his love to the hobby by pointing out that it is just a matter of numbers and calculations to him even though he is secretly yearning to yell: For the Emprah! and make "pew pew pew" sounds when he rolls dice.

[The Sovereign]

In my own personal, vehemently defended but ultimately non-educated opinion Mr. Mercer is just afraid to embrace his inner geek. He is trying to defend his love to the hobby by pointing out that it is just a matter of numbers and calculations to him even though he is secretly yearning to yell: For the Emprah! and make "pew pew pew" sounds when he rolls dice.

Well played.

While I am considered to be a very fluff-centric player, I think my fellow fluff bunnies may be taking this a little too personally. No sense getting too worked up about it.

[ElectricPaladin]

My two cents:

I don't like this and I have something to say about it =/= I am all upset and worked up about it!

If you have something to say, that's fine. If you think that someone's post in the wild world of the internet was stupid or in poor taste, there's no reason not to share that. It's unfair and self-defeating to demand that we say nothing if we aren't "all worked up," or to accuse anyone with anything to say of being "all worked up."

Personally, I thought the article was condescending and a little insulting. I'm not about to scream for Mercer's head, but I'm not likely to follow him elsewhere in the Internet and read what he has to say. I'm just not interested.

In order to understand my point, of view, you need to know the meaning of the word "[URL="http://neologisms.livejournal.com/16687.html"]maturismo[/URL]." For more information, check out [URL="http://www.newstatesman.com/node/155157"]the original article[/URL]. Basically, for those disinclined to follow my links, maturismo is like machismo for nerd stuff rather than masculinity. It's that anxious feeling when you think your maturity is being impinged. People who are strongly dedicated to maturismo tend to frown upon childish pursuits, because deep down inside, they fear that they are actually childish.

It's sad, but maturismo is alive and well in the geek community. You'd think that as people united by our continued interest in play and fantasy, we wouldn't subject each other to this kind of bullsh*t, but that's not so. There are lots of people who are willing to say "well, I play with these toys in this way and it's very grownup, but that other guy who plays with toys in that way? He's childish."

So, Mercer is a bit maturismoed. He thinks his way of playing with tiny plastic spacemen is superior to and more adult than our way. I probably could care less, but not by a lot. Let him act that way. He's missing out.

[Psychosplodge]

I'd have probably put it in background....

Seriously though? So what, it's his loss. You can't look dignified when you're having fun.

[Nightwolf]

What I would like to know is this: Why is it that stories is childish? Human beings of all ages, cultures, and societies enjoyed stories. They still do. I know many adults that enjoy writing. I know far more that enjoy reading. Once upon a time storytelling was record keeping, religion, an entertaining endeavor, a way to earn your keep, and far more. It is ingrained into the species and enhances all of our activities from sports (remember when... or ...what if Taylor had...), to drinking with buddies, to going to church.

So what if a child likes stories? Does a child not also like food? Does that make food childish? By his logic our species is naturally childish. That would make him, in his vain attempt to disconnect with that, the deluded one.

[Shotgun Justice]

It was poorly written, grasping article and simply said, "I'm ignorant of this, please create the original content relating to it that I was unable to below the line."
However that's all there is too it, there's plenty of opprobrium thrown from the fluffy camp at the competitive camp and now there's a little going the other way.

[Learn2Eel]

It was a boring article and didn't even make me think deeply about the message the author was trying to convey. As much as the author said he has no fascination with stories, his ultimate failing was that he was wasting everyone else's time with a poorly written tale of his own personal preferences.

[daboarder]

Honestly,

There hasn't been anything really worth reading on the front page in a long long time.

I just come here to chat/argue with you guys in the forums these days.