The accusation of LARPing is ubiquitous these days. Men LARPing as women, Trads LARPing as people from times gone by, Commies LARPing as Stalinists, the only tribe that seems to stand free of the accusation of LARPing is the Moderate Conservatives who lack a sense of aesthetic.
So what is LARPing? In general, it means pretending that you’re something you’re not. The worst case is Transgenderism, and there’s no real defense of it, since Trans people essentially LARP as something they can never actually be. To be a man or a woman isn’t a set of behavioral traits that one can merely adopt. This is the first sort of LARPIng, to pretend you’re something that you aren’t and you can never be in the hopes that by pretending, you can become it. This sort of thing is always unhealthy because it’s futile, whether it’s Trans people pretending to be the opposite gender or impersonators trying to lose themselves in the identity of a celebrity. Identity cannot replace who you are, it can only guide it. The problem with the first form of LARPing is lack of respect for oneself.
The second form of LARPing is nearly the reverse. Some time ago I heard of a man who wore Edwardian suits and fashion all the time, talked in Edwardian mannerisms yet did so holding entirely ironic postmodern attitudes. He didn’t really care for the past, its attitudes or its values, he had merely flayed it and was now wearing its skin as a trophy. If the first sort of LARPing lacks self-respect, the second form of LARPing lacks respect for the identity it’s wearing. It’s the LARP of Steampunk, of the various Renaissance Fairs, and of a Halloween Costume. Harmless for a night, but used for any longer it becomes vain, hollow, and self-centred. The problem with this second form of LARPIng is a lack of respect for the thing imitated.
So let’s move to the third form of LARPing, the kind we see on the internet with Trad and Communists, who shout “DEUS VULT” or “Down with the Capitalist Pigs” or whatnot. Of course, the relative health of these movements depends somewhat on the thing imitated. Those who imitate the Saints are in a better place than those who imitate Hitler and Stalin. But whether good or bad, I think there’s a general trend that all these share. Hero worship, of the blind and naive sort. It stands a step above the first, since it has self-respect, it simply wants to acquire traits from its cult of heroes. It has respect for what it venerates, though not always a deep understanding of what it does. This is usually the form of LARPing that everyone attacks because its the most common, vocal, and cringey… but really I think it’s one of the healthier kinds. It’s simply a normal stage of teenage development, especially for young men. It only starts to rot when it endures into the late twenties, or worse, into the forties or fifties. It is not bad, but it ought to lead into something more mature.
The last form of LARPing is entirely theoretical on my part, since I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered it, but I do perhaps believe its something that might exist. For the most part, the third form of LARPing tends to mature into something that can’t be called LARPing at all… a serious opinion, and the person sets down their romantic fantasies and lives in the real world. But I do think it’s possible that a person could instead take their larping as a sort of code. A way to live life. One that they could keep going deeper into. The Edwardian Gentleman wouldn’t merely put on Edwardian clothes (as in the second case), or idolize Edwardian values (as in the third), but instead read, meditate and think constantly about what it meant to be Edwardian. At this point, it would approximate something like a religion. But I think this form is what a LARP would actually become somewhat real. Though still a hair’s breadth away. Real Edwardians didn’t have to think constantly about being Edwardian. All that said it'd almost be a monastic discipline since much like the Monk, it would lack connection to the world around us.
The fifth case of LARPing is just a sneering insult. Thrown at High Church Anglicans, or Latin Mass Catholics, or anyone who wants something old. At that point, the term ‘LARP’ is vapid. ‘Everyone who doesn’t share my theology is a LARPer’ or ‘Everyone who wants anything from the past is a LARPer’. Except this is just silly. Whatever you might think of Anglican Holy Orders, Anglicans do think they have them. Whatever you think of the Latin Mass Trad Catholics do believe they have it.
The real takeaway is not that LARPing is bad, but all exercises in LARPing ought to show respect for ourselves, who we are, and what we’re imitating. LARPing as an insult is essentially an accusation of inauthenticity. The first is the word because it’s inauthentic without realizing it. The second is better since it knows its inauthentic but provides nothing. The third is cringey because it has an authentic core but inauthentic expression. The fourth is an attempt to bring something lost back, an attempt to regain authenticity. The fifth is merely a slur against authentic practices.