I recall ~10-20 years back there was a rebirth of everything old is new again, that was tied by a number of writers at the time to generation. There was a lot of rediscovery by younger ppls in particular fashion styles, retrowave & synthwave in music, ppl learning again that they liked vinyl records, reading actual books, new video games being done in 8/16-bit format, etc.
I feel some of the interest in TTRPGs we see now came along with this, though maybe less prominently.
There is also a trend where the media finds ways to market nostalgia. In the 1930s through the 50s comic strips like Li'l Abner, Prince Valient, and Flash Gordon saw compilation reprints targeting older readers. I wonder if the older parents of the silent generation found it strange for their adult children to be reading comics. You see this a lot in movies and TV shows targeting adults with IP from their childhoods. I am curious if there have been similar cycles with toys and games. I assume there must be. The best examples I can find information on (with some lazy internet searching) are:
1. Model Railroading (peak childhood popularity = 1950; which by the 1970s-80s lead to a revival among adults resulting in a major collector market)
2. Slot Cars (popular in the 1960s, revival among adults in the 1990s-2000s. Nolstalgic hobby for men in their 40s-60s)
3. Board game revivals, classic games gaining adult attention in the 1980s and 1990s, paving the way for the Eurogame Boom which normalized adult board-gaming.
Honorable mentions for model building, tin toy collecting, arcade and console gaming, lego for adults.
No Ive never ran into people finding my playing RPGs odd, at least that I can recall, and if they did they never said anything.
I always found it kind of odd why RPGs were given such a bad rap, and looked down on, while other hobbies like bird watching and scrapbooking for example were considered perfectly acceptable.
Bird watching probably got less side eye than playing TTRPGs, but as someone who likes bird watching I've noticed that portrayals of bird watching enthusiasts are often the butt of jokes in TV shows and movies. Scrapbooking is interesting in that I think until recently (and probably still), nobody would think anything of a woman scrapbooking, but a man would get side eyed and ribbed by other guys.
My main takeaway is that if you are thick-skinned and take any teasing with a shrug and a smile and go on enjoying what you enjoy, you'll be a much happier person.
