Shrines and The Outside World

[dubiousdisc]

I am curious about the relationship your shrines have with the mystical world of The Real Life. Do people in your life outside fandom know about this hobby of yours? If yes, are you embarrassed or cool with your sites when you show them to people who aren't into fandom? If no, would you show them at all?

[Emma]

The only friends of mine who know are people who do participate in fandom. So even if they don't make shrines, they still get it without needing explanations. Aside from that...my mother knows, but frankly, the whole idea of it is something that interests her so little that she doesn't even care to look them up. She just likes to see stuff I've done in Photoshop.

I'm not embarrassed about my sites, but I like to keep them separate from places a bunch of non-fandom friends and family know about, like my twitter or my photoblog. I just couldn't be arsed trying to explain it, because I know it would just baffle them. Fandom itself would baffle them. Hell, the internet beyond Facebook and Twitter baffles them. Generally speaking, they're the kind of people who will type "facebook" into the google search bar instead of just going to facebook.com. It's actually just not worth the conversation, although if they found them somehow and asked (in a non-mocking way - I know some jackasses), I'd be happy enough to answer. Some of them have seen some stuff I've done in Photoshop, though, and they're usually easily impressed. It's great for the ego.

One of my best friends I actually met through the fanlistings community. It was strange talking face to face with someone about shrines and fanlistings, tbh.

[Eden]

I don't have shrines just yet, but I'll talk about any web designs I do and fandoms... I don't have anyone in real life (friends, family, etc) except my boyfriend who knows about my habits online and what I do. He encourages me to do all of these things as a creative outlet and is very supportive of my domain, my designs, and my online pursuits (he even helps me work on them when he can!) My parents know I do web design, but like Emma, it's a thing that doesn't interest them so they don't bother looking me up. I've shown them a few of my designs before and they were impressed I could do something like that on a computer.

Otherwise, I'd like to keep my online life separate if I ever DID have any friends, but this would only be the case if they didn't participate in the things I do (fanlistings, shrines, fandom). If they did, then I'd tell them or they'd already know about it. I feel like having to explain the things I like or something strange to someone is a little suffocating and I think of online as an escape from whatever is around me. Involving outside sources would only complicate things. At least that's how I'd imagine.

[Todd]

Some of my friends know about them, and make fun of me for them, lol. I was discussing FFIV with another store manager at a party, though, and he brought up Edward, so I showed him my Edward site, and he thought it was cool as hell. I was like, "Yes, I wrote ten essays on the guy..." lol

Generally though, the outside world doesn't understand why I make shrines.

[Kiel]

Ugh yeah, it's hard describing shrines to someone, especially if you know they're going to think you're weird because they have no interest in it themselves.

I don't talk about my shrines to people who aren't familiar with the idea too often either, but if it does come up I just say that I do personal web design and "make fansites that are kinda like really colorful book reports" and leave it at that. It usually results in the typical "Ahh.. I see. It sounds kind of like *something completely different*" response, but then I can just be like "oh yeah, totally" and then change the subject myself.

[anon]

I think one or two people know. I'm not very open about it because I've been through the feeling of being made fun of for essentially wasting my time with something so unproductive. But yeah, like a lot of people, I do want to keep my online and offline activities separate, and eventually since I got bored of shrines, I did away with them for the most.

[Crystal]

Unless asked about what I do as a hobby I generally won't tell people about it. It's just a me thing. Although those whom I have shown my sites to thought they were very well done (well at least the layouts anyway, I doubt any of them have actually read my shrines lol).

[Puppeteer]

There are some select friends that know about my past and current shrine efforts, which took a lot of trust-building to begin with. Nowadays, I'm quite comfortable mentioning that I have a personal domain when the topic seems relevant, but no one has really expressed interest in seeing it or hearing more about it, so I just leave it at that. Kinda makes me wonder what people think in regards to how, why, and for what purpose did I nurture a web design hobby. *nod*

[Destinie]

I usually tell people who have made fansites or visit them themselves. I have a friend who is really cool and she thinks that making fansites is a really neat hobby. >3 My Fiance knows and am not really sure what he thinks about them. He thinks it's cool that I can do html/css and I'm good at design, but I think he finds the shrine community in general kind of weird. To each their own.

I usually don't go out of my way to show people. If people find out, some people think it's cool, others are kind of weirded out. I just go "YOU DON'T KNOW ME." Then they usually forget about it. Ha.

[Aku]

Honestly, the only person who I know "IRL" that knows about my shrining hobby is my brother! XD I tend to keep it to myself, admittedly out of shame... and even if they asked, I'm not sure I could tell many people that I go home and waste hours upon hours waxing philosophical about Gintoki. (I mean, maybe it's cooler for you guys, but Gintoki is just embarrassing.) To be honest, even most of my fandoms I'm quite quiet about. I wouldn't be ashamed to admit I liked animanga/games if someone asked, but I guess in general I'm just not a person who actively parades around her nerdy hobbies lol.

I think when it gets difficult though, is when people ask how I got into design, or coding, and I don't want to say "WELL, I SPENT A GOOD PORTION OF MY YOUTH MAKING A FANSITE TO DUO MAXWELL..." I don't want to be ashamed about my hobby, but lol, sometimes it's easier to just not have to explain things. Like writing a page about a comic book character's bottom half. Yeahhhh.