On the Bearded, White Guy Syndrome

An offhand comment by Courtney Campbell during a recent podcast caught my attention. I cannot recall the exact statement but it was something to the effect of “A bunch of white males with beards probably should not…”. His point was relevant. At least to me.

At one point, I had a pretty diverse set of people of people I followed on Google+. The number of folks I saw posts from was far less bearded than it is today. I’ve not trimmed the RPG audience on the platform. Instead, many people have chosen to depart or no longer participate on G+.

On the artist front, the community is thriving, learning and leaning upon one another. Doing crazy, strange, and often awesome things together. Little drama happens among the artists I follow. Plausibly it is just an artifact of who I follow on that front. Likely, it is because they are competing on a differing front.

The RPG world is the complete opposite. It’s filled with nonsense, drama, and a whole lot of stupidity. None of which is particularly interesting — many people just choose to latch onto the latest scandal for something to write about.

I am of the curmudgeon, get off my lawn era. I do not and cannot sport a beard. However, I implore the RPG world to embrace, advertise, and support anyone producing in our community. Criticize on merit; not the sex, race, relationship with Cthulu/English druids or other choices. \

There are far too many white guys with beards in this community and far too few other inputs. Glance around your social media circles or your gaming table, and encourage alternate thoughts to flow forth.