I should have done this social experiment long ago.

If you know me, you know I hate video games, but I love Warcraft.

And yet though I consider myself of relative intelligence, I still maintain a poorly-veiled condescension for the players around me in the world, the world of warcraft, that is. Until I started trying.

Sometimes now, when I’m done killing things for the evening but not ready to go back to the real world, I’ll just start talking. Either I’ll speak in a way that characters in my immediate vicinity can hear me, or I’ll blurt out a thought or two on the general talk channel for the area. I bring up a social consideration. A theme. A theory.

I expected, initially, that I would be rejected like a rancid body organ. The 12-year-olds would rally together in some sort of unified, virtual, preteen sort of way (everyone knows who plays Warcraft that the gaping illiterates you see chatting away blissfully unaware of spelling and grammar conventions are ALWAYS TWELVE). The losers, the insipid, the obese, the obsessive, the over-fed college kids–that is, my idea of the demographic–they would all hate me.

I’m so stupid.

As it turns out, you can log in to Warcraft, start spouting about arcane and intellectual ruminations, and, depending on your luck, time of day, and the general mood of the area, you’ll get a considered response. You can use words like ‘conflagration’ and ‘altimeter’ and it’s not lost.

Please hate me; I’ve been so unfair. The world is a brave and smart place. It’s the sense of groups that ruins my outlook. So, come, you masses of beauty, get your $14.99/month Warcraft subscription. Put down your books, your projects, your thoughts. Log in. Fall into it. It’s okay. You’re not less of a person.

And even I understand that now.