This is a term that is bandied about in various (usually rather geeky) fandoms: “Hiding Your Power Level”. Hiding one’s Power Level involves not letting anyone know about your chosen hobby, or at least not letting on that you’re so, well… fluent in it. It means not wearing that anime/My Little Pony/furry/whatever shirt out in public. It means downplaying your involvement in said hobby when people ask.

People seem to have different motivations for this. For some, it goes back to feeling a sense of shame. For many others, it’s because they don’t want to be associated with “the fandom”, either because it’s gotten a bad rap or because their taste for the fandom has soured (or both). And still others just like the idea of having a “personal” hobby which is their own personal space which they don’t share with other people.

For me, it’s social anxiety.

You don’t see this on the internet. On the internet, I’m very out and proud about my love of games and the fact that I spend a lot of time playing them, as anyone who follows me on Twitter can attest. There is no closet because I smashed my way out of that a heck of a long time ago.

Real life is different. Nobody at my current job knows about my love of games. Partially it’s because I never talk to begin with, but mostly it’s because my anxiety likes to kick in at full speed when someone brings it up. I always beat myself up for it. When someone asks “So Pike, what are you going to do on your day off?” I want to say “I’m going to play a minor country in Europa Universailis 3 and take over the entire continent.” But I don’t.

It’s not always this way. At one of my last jobs about 75% of the employees played World of Warcraft so everyone talked about it all the time, and I very eagerly joined in. This was back when I still played and two of my coworkers, including my department supervisor, rerolled on my server and joined my raiding guild. I was literally raiding with my boss. That was fun.

But now I’m at a new job and nobody seems to play anything and certainly nobody knows that I do. It’s not that I’m not fiercely proud of my hobby– I am– but my mind certainly likes to trip me up when it comes time to actually bring it up. It’s something I’d like to get over at some point, but until then, it’s a struggle.

I do, however, wear my Steampunk My Little Pony shirt all the time. There are some things you’re just not gonna take from me.

Do you guys hide your power level?