http://theclassical.org/articles/its-all-fake-my-life-in-virtual-wrestlingI wrote this article about e-fedding for The Classical. It's one of my favorite things I've ever written and explains why I stuck with a very shameful hobby I started at the age of 12. It goes beyond just the whole "the only thing I still do that I did when I was a kid" thing and having grown up (virtually) with a lot of these people. It's a collaborative process where you have to come up with stories for your characters. I wanted to be a screenwriter or a comedian or the like when I was younger. My career took me in a different route -- journalism. I also met my wife and am very pragmatic and never wanted to live in New York, so I decided to make comedy a hobby and not an avocation. (My brother, also a former e-fedder, went all-in with that goal when he was in high school. He's more of a risk-taker than I am.)
But this hobby lets me create characters and tell stories and the like. I've used some of these characters since I was in high school. They have fully formed backstories. I also think my characters can be really funny. (Troy Windham went from the slacker younger brother of a wrestling legend into becoming an entertainment industry star. He thinks he's a huge deal but he's relegated to being a celebrity judge on B-grade reality shows or playing recurring roles on USA dramas and/or Lifetime originals with Tiffany Amber Thiessen.) And I mostly perform as characters in my comedy so they're all really the same thing I've done my whole life.
But the world also gets very competitive and people's egos get in the way -- just like "real" wrestling. Some people want their characters to have titles, and that can get heated. Also, one person's story might interfere with another, and whoever is the booker of that league has to try and juggle all of that and it doesn't work out. I got tied into some of that and got burnt out.
It gets all confusing and maddening but it's really fun if you're willing to engage in a silly hobby.
