I've always loved fantasy. In middle school, I worked my way through Dragonlance, Dealing with Dragons, and Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern. (There was a definite uniting trend to all of these. See if you can guess what it was.) I gobbled up books by Philip Pullman and Garth Nix and Tamora Pierce. I wrote my own fantasy series, and handed it in to my poor fourth-grade teacher to read. I think she gave me a gold star sticker, which I assumed meant that she wanted to read more. So sorry, Mrs. Brock.
So, when my brother started playing World of Warcraft when I was in high school, I thought it would be a natural continuation, an exploration further into the wilds of one of my preferred genres, And it was! Right up until the moment that I left the land of computer-controlled non-playable characters ("NPCs") and had to interact with other players.
It was just a different side of the same internet-world I encountered during my foray onto music fan forums: when I signed up for the Dandy Warhols board, I made the requisite introductory post, and was immediately greeted by a "Tits or GTFO" reply. Since my screen name was "BlueCanary," I posted a picture of a blue bird, with a big red arrow pointing to the bird's chest. Then I never logged in again.