Striking a balance between enthusiast and GP.

[Suicide Seats]

I've noticed a lot of GP bashing on the forums and on Youtube among coaster enthusiasts. The GP comments vary in degrees from ignorant to stupid to just flat out lies. I don't really mind the ignorant. You can enjoy a roller coaster and not know the difference between a Dive turn and an Immelmann loop. To be honest, if you made a set of roller coaster element flash cards, I would probably not even match half of them. Stupid is just an advanced form of ignorant. The difference between ignorant and just plain stupid is the stupid seem to take great pride in their ignorance. Then there are the liars. Liars aren't exclusive to GP. There are plenty of liars among enthusiasts as well. I have seen coaster enthusiasts tell GP in the queue about the death and destruction a particular ride causes. It's not just a case of the GP saying stupid things among themselves.
Also, we have some enthusiasts among us that are way to happy to nerd out to everyone in the park. My wife and I ran into a couple of them at Kings Dominion this past year. We were on Dominator and the two guys in front of us are talking B&M. OK, these are my people, or so I thought, so I join in.
Yeah, I knew Dominator came from Geauga Lake.
No I didn't know it used to be a Batman ride.
No I didn't know that not all Batman: The Ride coasters are not identical.
and on and on and on...
We saw the same guy again in the Grizzly station. My wife steered me to the front of the train rather than have another back seat discussion with "Batboy" as she called him. My wife loves roller coasters but she is still quite the GP about it. I think she enjoys it when I show my 4-year-old POV's of InvadR and Woodstock Express because she knows I am raising the next generation of coaster nerds. But there are things that make her uncomfortable not just about the rides but the ones who geek out on them as well.
I typically take my wife to BGW and KD every year at least once. So when I am in a queue line with her, I will just have to fold my hands and not get sucked in. But I go to Carowinds by myself. When I am alone, I can nerd out all I want to. It's all about finding a balance between coaster life and married life...enthusiast and GP.

 

[gavin]

Was there supposed to be a question in there, or did you just want to get that off your chest?

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[Suicide Seats]

Was there supposed to be a question in there, or did you just want to get that off your chest?

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It was just a personal epiphany I wanted to share. Is a question required? I haven't been on this forum that long so I may not be as familiar with the rules as I should be.

 

[gavin]

No rules. Just questioning the reason/point.

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[Suicide Seats]

If there is a point, I think we look at the world too often like its US vs. THEM. Perhaps we use the term GP to make fun of people that aren't like us.

 

[gavin]

Yep. I actually hate the expression "GP". Enthusiasts can very often come across as very entitled and like to elevate themselves above most other guests by using the GP tag, as if they're somehow more important and valuable.

The fact is, parks don't give a s**t if you're an enthusiast. In fact, you're probably spending less money and potentially being more difficult.

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