Experiences growing up a fan of Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Roleplaying games, etc.

[Raduin711]

Today it seems like Fantasy and Sci-Fi are "in." Probably starting around the time the Lord of the Rings movies came out, a lot of that changed. But growing up, somewhere along the way I learned that my love for fantasy was weird... maybe even a bit shameful. I remember being young in the 90's (I was born in 1980) and struggling to tell people when they asked what I had been reading, or what these RPG books were. I was extremely shy as a child (I still am in a lot of ways.)

I am trying to figure out where I picked up the idea that my love for fantasy, sci-fi and RPG's were somehow shameful. Maybe this was particular to me and my upbringing, or maybe it was a more universal, cultural thing. So I was wondering if anyone else here has had that experience?

 

[TerraDave]

Was the early 90s a low point in mainstream fantasy fandom? Maybe, though it could still be cool to be into vampires, certain comic books, jrpgs annd 40k in certain circles …and the geeky subcultures were always there.

But then things really did change.

 

[Raduin711]

Was the early 90s a low point in mainstream fantasy fandom? Maybe, though it could still be cool to be into vampires, certain comic books, jrpgs annd 40k in certain circles …and the geeky subcultures were always there.

But then things really did change.

I'm not sure. I certainly felt that way. But it occurred to me today that maybe my circumstances were unique. I know the geeky subcultures were always out there but I always felt cut off from them.

 

[payn]

I grew up in a city, then moved to hicksville for high school. It was a pretty big culture shock. As a kid, I watched a ton of Dr Who. I also enjoyed Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers. Plus Fall guy and Hulk. I watched a lot of those old shows with my old man. He was a huge sports guy, but he got a kick out of sci-fi shows. Most kids I grew up with were also very into sports. I didnt have any friends that liked gaming, sci-fi (outside Star Wars), etc... I did find some sports nerds and started playing fantasy football. That was as close to RPG I got other than solo video games.

In high school there was an RPG group. They were pretty isolated. Didnt play sports, hang with the cool kids, or socialize much. I tried to befriend them, but I think because of my other friends and playing sports, I was never allowed in. It wouldn't be until college and later that I would actually get to play a TTRPG. I also found friends that liked Sci-fi more and would like to talk about it. I dont know if it was so much as too geeky/nerdy to be shameful, as much as it was just not appreciated by many folks in my vicinity. Even as an adult at work I dont mention it much. There was a time it did not go over well with the ladies I tried to date. I'm kinda tired of playing crouching cougar hidden gamer at this point so I wear it with pride now.

 

[Ryujin]

I was born in the early '60s. SciFi and Fantasy have never really been considered "serious literature" despite the existence of Mary Shelly and Jules Verne, as lauded authors. The general public has always looked down their noses at such things. The contemporaneousness (Is that a word?) of the original Star Trek and the Apollo Programme were key in sparking my interest in SciFi. Fantasy followed shortly afterwards. They were definitely something that I kept to myself, however, as they were looked down upon. If I read "The Time Machine" then my parents were pleased, because I was reading classic literature. If I read "First Lensman" then I was wasting my time. Hypocrisy, but they didn't know that. It all went to developing language skills that they celebrated.

When it came to RPGs.... Let's just say that I came to them in the early days of The Satanic Panic. I went to high school and college in the region just to the south of the town that became infamous because of one of the "D&D murder cases." The so-called expert in D&D, Thomas Radecki, testified at the trial in 1985. D&D was banned in that region and we were afraid that it would be banned where I lived, also. Even before that, in the late '70s, we had to call our high school RPG club the "War Games Club" in order to have it sanctioned by the school, because RPGs were "dangerous."

Even today I would say that it's only the mainstream Fantasy and SciFi that's popular. The stuff that's most easy to consume. I don't think it's necessarily that SciFi and Fantasy have become popular, but rather that popular media is taking the form of them. Semantics, perhaps, but a distinction none the less.

 

[J.Quondam]

I've always been into sci-fi and fantasy, and never really felt particular shy about that. I always had nerdy friends to share it with.

D&D is a little different for some reason, though. I come to that as a kid in the early 1980s, but never had a steady group that played it, just a couple friends who only played occasionally. The Satanic Panic was still a thing, too, though that impacted me directly only a few times. Overall, RPGing was mostly a frustratingly solitary pursuit for me until I found a group in college in the early/mid 90s.

For that reason, i guess, I was pretty shy about D&D, if not fantasy in general. And that has stuck even to this day: though I've known, for exmaple, several co-workers who play, I'm still reflexively reticent about it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Born in 67.

My Dad read history, westerns, detective stories, comics, mythology and sci-fi. Maybe a little horror and fantasy.

I started reading early, and started grabbing his comics, sci-fi and mythology books. One of my 2nd grade readers had excerpts from The Hobbit and a Dragonriders of Pern book, a short Robert Bloch horror story, and so forth.

So as soon as I heard of D&D, I was looking into it as a natural outgrowth of my reading habits.

Over the years, my circle of friends were largely of similar interests.

And there were bullies who took exception to my interests. But by the time I was being bullied for playing D&D, I was already used to being bullied for a bunch of other reasons.

 

[MNblockhead]

Not sure where I picked up the hobby. I guess it is less about picking it up as liking it since being a small child and never growing out of it, whereas the expectation in the 70s and 80s was that by the time you entered high school you should have grown out of fantasy, sci fi, superheros, games, toys, etc.

In the 80s even being into, which meant even using, computers was considered nerdy. Mine was probably the last generation where the majority of people came of age not using computers or really learning to type. Fantasy, sci fi, and superhero books, comics, and shows were quite niche. Movies were somewhat the exception with a number of classic fantasy and sci fi movies that were generally popular, but beyond that anyone into fantasy books and RPGs were looked at sidewise.

While the Satanic Panic didn't have as harmful an impact in my area (Twin Cities, Minnesota) as many other areas of the country, it didn't help and many in the hobby ended up leaning into it, often crossing over with the Heavy Metal crowd creating a kind of heavy metal gaming clique. My Kids thought that the last season of Stranger Things with the Hellfire Club and Eddie Munson was an over-the-top exaggeration, I tried to explain to them it was darn near a documentary.

I drifted away from gaming and sci-fi/fantasy literature in college and for a long time thereafter, pursuing other interests and my career. In my mid 40s I got back into it and found that the world has changed greatly. For me, the biggest generational shock is how mainstream Anime has become. That was a very small niche when I was in high school in the 80s. Even for most of us gaming geeks, anime was a step too far.

I still keep my TTRPG hobby very separate from my professional life. I find that the board gaming hobby is hugely popular with many of my colleagues, so I don't imagine most would think much of my playing D&D. But I still keep it on the down low out of habit.

 

[bloodtide]

Before roughly 2000 Fantasy and Sci Fi were Weird and Shamefull according to society.

So it starts in the 1920s: Fantasy and Sci-Fi are BAD, WEIRD and SHAMEFULL to a huge degree. This is the pulp era. Stort stories, comics and magazines are printed on cheap pulp paper. There are couple hidden gems in here, but the VAST majority is beyond utter silly trash. Only kids "that don't know any better yet" and weirdos read this sort of stuff. And, objectify, most of it is beyond bad.

Things get no better in the 30s and but by the 40s you have movies and 50s TV shows....and again most are beyond bad. Sci-Fi here digs in deep to wear the badge of "silly stuff for kids". Again, couple gems, but most is just made bad...they don't even slightly try and hide it.

The 60s are mostly the same....until near the end when a movie called 2001 comes out......and a little show called Star Trek. So the whole stigma is still there....but the first cracks start. You also stared getting some good novels, out on the fringes.

Moving into the 70s, Star Trek slowly changed a lot of minds about sci fi. Even today, the best Star Trek episodes still work and stand the test of time. And Star Trek really highlighted sci fi's power for social commentary. And then came Star Wars. And it had a huge impact. Nearly every kid loved it...and some adults (my dad would endless say how he was blown away watching the first couple seconds of the over head shot of the corvette and the star destroyer...something he had never seen before in a movie). Though plenty of adults saw Star Wars a "just more silly stuff for kids". Still there was a small, but growing, sicf fantasy fan base.

The 80s! Enter me! Born a couple years before, I'm now old enough to read! And lucky for me yard sales/flea markets are full of 10 cent books: all that 'pulp' stuff written decades ago put into cheep books. I read a lot, but love the fantasy and sci fi ones the most. D&D and RPGs soon follow, as they picked up in the 80s. And there was a sprinkle of such movies and tv shows. Except the Star Wars original trilogy did not really bring many kids over to sci fi fantasy. Sure, they loved Star Wars, but that was it. But then there was not much content anyway... A typical 70s teen liked Star Wars, but then likely grew up into an 80's adult that considered sic fi fantasy weird and shamefull and though Star Wars was a good kids movie.

Until the TV shows picked up the idea that many (like me) born around and after Star Wars really liked sci fi fantasy. So they started making such cartoons: He-Man, G.I Joe(technically military sci fi), Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles, Robotech, and of course Transformers. Now, a kid that liked sci fi and fantasy could find a lot to watch...

......and that was not all as Star Trek the Next Generation came out. A bit rocky at first, and ignored as more "silly kids sic fi", it made a name for itself after a couple years. Then you had the 80s movies...Alien(s), Terminator, Predator, and more not only caught peoples attention, but really go notices as "not silly".

And in novels there was quite a break away hit with a single character: Rastilan from Dragonlance. The Dragonlance novels were a huge hit. And then, right at the end of the 80's with another character: Drizzt.

The 90s brought more Star Trek DS9 and Bablyon 5 to start and then into Hercules, Xena, Buffy, Charmed, Sliders and more. Suddenly there was a lot of fantasy sci fi TV. More movies too, and more cartoons.

As the 90s moved on, all the kids that grew up on sci fi and fantasy became adults. And unlike older generations they did not toss sic fi and fantasy away. They stayed fans into adulthood. and they had a steady diet of TV shows, movies, books, and more. And that fan base, going back to the teens that saw Star Wars, started having kids in the 90s....

......and as a kid in the 90s they had a ton of sci fi fantasy content, and were exposed to lots of it by their parents.

Right about to 2000....when a large chunk of people, age 5 to 35(more or less), were sci fi fantasy fans. Well, this is the "buying block of people": the ones that buy the most stuff. And they wanted Sci fi and fantasy.

And companies wanted money...... So suddenly the age old Weirdness, Silliness, and Shamefullness was just Gone. After all, a huge number of people like it now....how could they be wrong?

Enter Today....

 

[Retreater]

I grew up in the 1980s, basically in the Southern US, in an extremely conservative and religious community. The Satanic Panic was strong in my household. Mom forbade us from listening to certain kinds of music, banned movies made from certain studios, and even raided our bathrooms for "Devil toothpaste" (not kidding).
Just to be a bully, my older brother encouraged my mom to take away all my fantasy novels, movies, video games, expressly for the reason because he knew I loved them and they were my escape from a world of abuse.
At school it was the usual: spitballs, wedgies, name calling, getting punched (taking a basketball to the face was a good memory), pretending to send "love letters" to me from the popular girls just to crush my heart, teachers telling me I was going to hell, my car getting defaced, my dad telling me he was ashamed of me and didn't consider me his "real son" because I wasn't into sports.
Yeah, so being nerdy made me an outcast. But this treatment later helped shape me into a more compassionate person.