[jackal59mo2]

I understand that people are embarrassed, and I think that embarrassment leads to such things as applying pretentious labels like "collaborative storytelling" to RPing even though trying to play from such a perspective is usually disastrous. If I have to say anything about it, I might say that I like interacting with other people on-line through text, and that doing that while acting as a character and trying to consciously create a fictional scene is fun. It's more fun than, say, wallowing in the vomitus that is television or going to a club and yelling back and forth to others over loud, bad music or compulsively refreshing your Facebook page so that you don't miss someone saying "I just had a sandwich yum!", though it's not as good as reading a good book or going for a walk or volunteering at the humane society.

Really, though, who cares what others think? It's not like you're raping crack-addicted baby seals as a hobby, and unless you spend six or seven hours every night RPing (or playing WoW or compulsively reading and commenting on blogs - go outside, people!) it's not that big a deal. Just smiling, shrugging, and saying, "Hey, people waste time doing all sorts of trivial things. This is one I enjoy," seems good enough for me.