[Sca-cooks] OT Authenticity Police: since we're castigating extremists anyway...

[Tara]

> think. It's a fairly long article or I would copy it here. Maybe one of
> our librarians can find it online someplace?

Somebody posted a url for it to our shire list over a week ago, so the
article is fairly old.  The url didn't work for the first few days, then
apparantly the article rolled off and was no longer available :(  But, I
hope someone can find it again!

> Not to necessarily start another huge thread on this, and I'm not really
> asking for a show of hands, but how real are these people perceived to be?

I've never experienced anybody walking up and being rude about
period-ness.  It's often a topic of discussion, but generally in an
appropriate context.

I always got the impression that those dubbed "authenticity police" are
the people who strive to be as authentic as possible themselves, thus
named by the people who don't want to try to be period at all.  It has
little or nothing to do with that person's actual attitude or way of
approaching people.  Usually, these folks are asked questions, and when
answering in a way that impresses periodness, people who don't care turn
off.  Like, when asked why they don't take the easy way out and do
something differently, they say "because it's not period."  The people
who prefer to take the easy way out then say "Oh, she's a snob."  Or,
they go to her with a new piece of renn-faire garb and say, is this
period?  When she says, "Well, it's nice, but no," they say, "Oh, she's
a snob."  Basically, those called "authenticity police" are the people
who aim to be very period, regardless of their actual attitudes; And,
those who name them are the people who're determined to make this more
fantasy game than history and feel guilty in the presence of those who
at least try.

I think that the bulk of people are somewhere in the middle - they don't
snub the more authentic people, and they try to learn and be more
period, but they don't knock themselves out about it.  At the same time,
they're a bit more accepting of the "fantasy gamers."  It's the people
on the two extremes who tilt at each other.  That's where the nasty
nicknames come from.

-Magdalena
who hopes to be called an authenticity police officer some day,
and unfortunately used to date a "fantasy gamer" and remembers his bad
attitudes all too well.