Orphans & Orcs

You know how when you roleplay, what yer really doing is writing this big-ass background story for your character that explains why he hates orcs because they attacked his village and killed his parents?

And then you post it in a forum somewhere.

And then when nobody reads it you gotta go around reading other people's background stories about how they were orphaned by orcs and saying how awesome they are so they'll feel guilty enough to read your background story and say its awesome too?

That's really all there is to it.

But then the cool kids start making fun of you for doing it and they tell you that you gotta make up something better than being an orphan who hates orcs.

So you do that and you suddenly get more popular because background stories without orphans and orc attacks really are cooler!

They were right!

And now you don't have to go around reading anybody else's background stories, heck, it'd be mean for a consummate roleplayer such as yourself to say what you really think when somebody writes one of those amateur-ass "I was orphaned by orcs stories" anyways, y'know, and you are a benevolent god who doesn't wanna discourage people who are just starting out, 'cause everybody was a newb with one of those goddam orc-orphan stories in their trembling hands with their hearts on their sleeves and watery eyes and the sniffles and everything at some point.

Maybe you even condescend to offer them a little encouraging comment, where people would least expect it, if you are feeling generous.

And time goes on like that for a while, and everything is great from the throne of your roleplaying empire, the creativity is flowing, your people are merry.

But then the news arrives that roleplaying, no matter how you do it, isn't cool at all.

Quite a shock!

And so you finally join all the really cool people, y'know, by roleplaying that you are a cool guy who is totally not into stupid stuff like roleplaying.

And time goes on like that for a while, and everything is great, you make fun of all the life forms of lesser coolness levels and you laugh about how pathetic their existences are.

But then you learn that it actually isn't cool to go around caring about how cool you look all the time.

The really cool cats don't give a shit what other people think, their isn't any such thing as self-esteem or ego for them, they know that every single human on this planet has to squat like a monkey and wipe the shit off their asses every day, even super models.

And those dudes just go around looking for laughs all the time, doing anything they want and not worrying about what anybody thinks, and they still get to be cool.

Yah, that's the ultimate evolution of cool, like that "baby in a bubble" thing that the dude in 2001 turned into at the end, you can just go anywhere and do anything.

Yah, anything.

Well, actually, no.

Roleplaying on a forum is still just a bunch of circle-jerking, so really cool people don't do that heh.

And you can't write one of those orphan-by-orc thingies and still be cool.

And you can't go around explaining how cool you are to people and be cool.

Yah, you just gotta, I dunno, sit there and not say anything or do anything, I guess.

Yah, that kinda sucks.

Or you could do really goofy shit just to prove to everybody that you don't care what people think.

Well, whatever, I thought your background story was awesome.

Yah, I hate those damn dirty orcs for what they did to my family too!