Step in gaming, an immersive form of entertainment where you don't have to be the cheerleader or football player to do well. With the rise of online gaming in recent years, this is even more prevalent, as those who feel left out can feel part of a massive community online.
There is also a level of achievement that can be found and a feeling of honing skills, a great boost for any adolescent. Success in these two cultures, be it knowing your Sabbath from your Slipknot or reaching that illusive level 80, often leads to desires to create something on your own. This might be picking up a guitar and learning how to play with sound engineering equipment or it might mean creating the perfect PC or developing the perfect game.
The opportunity to be creative and belong to a group who feel the same as you could be considered intoxicating. The traits you have in your youth may not be deemed fitting to the society in which we live, but they are perfect for the world of alternative music and technology.
As we grow older and more confident in ourselves and the use of our abilities, many of us then transition into making careers out of it. OK, few of us become Trent Reznor, but many of us go into technology, knowing full well we can keep up our passion of fiddling with IT, do something we know we are good at and also be likely to fall in with a group of similar minded souls.
There are still the stereotypes to contend with working in IT but, again, having the escapism into our musical and gaming subculture, we can sit back relaxed that it doesn't matter what "those out there" think as we know we are still part of something big. Through gaming, gigs and festivals, we still have our escapism from the day-to-day.
