As popular culture becomes more presentist, we move away from entertainment as the vicarious experience of a narrative - as watching someone else's story - and much more toward enacting one's own story. Moving away from myths and toward fantasy role-playing games, away from movies and toward videogames.
When I was a kid I'd swing imaginary light sabers around, and now I've had the opportunity to get paid for it.
I was heavily into AD&D in my teens (late 1970s-early 1980s) but fell off the RPG habit in the mid-80s and have never gone back to it; my lifestyle today isn't very compatible with having a regular gaming group (too much travel).
When you play the king of elves and alien warlords, little me is very uninteresting. But, at the same time, actors feel this obligation to be transparent, and I truly don't understand the point.
I played everything, but the games that kept me up and night and tickled my fancy were the larger role-playing games like 'Ultima.'
These people that dress up in spandex trousers with all the extraordinary makeup - I find it incredibly repulsive, always have.
What twelve year old wouldn't want to play an evil wizard?
I'm a luddite in comparison with some of the people I follow on Twitter, but a nerd in comparison with many people. But I was always a nerd in other terms - always a big Dungeons & Dragons fan, stuff like that.
I'd love to play someone who's insane or something, just so I can go flake out. I like a superhero. I know that's ironic. That's where we are, but seriously, it'd be really cool to play a superhero.
I'm not smart enough to play 'Dungeons & Dragons.' Maybe if someone were to take me by the hand and slowly and carefully walk me through.
It's interesting that in searching for monsters to play you often end up playing leaders.
The web presents an opportunity to showcase any character your sick mind desires. Want to create a cross-dressing, deaf/mute, corrupt politician who has a soft spot for saving children? Go for it!
It's not so much the dressing up, but I love the idea of moving and existing in a different time.
I enjoy getting dressed as a Barbie doll.
When you're that age - that middle-school age, early high school - you're changing. You're going crazy. So I put all of my energy into pretending I was someone else, battling and screaming and all that stuff - casting spells and getting into a whole fantasy world. It was really healthy for me.
It's fun to play the vixen.
I mean, I feel like I've been pretending I was a werewolf since I was a little kid.
I used to go to the supermarket dressed as Peter Pan when I was about five years old.
In high school, I was so obsessed with the movie that I started an actual 'Highlander' club with my two best friends, Mike Levy and David Sirota. What began as a few geeks hitting each other with swords we made in woodshop soon became a school-wide game with 20 people playing. It became so disruptive that the administration had to shut it down.
