Type 2 fun
Type 2 fun describes an experience that is challenging while it's happening, but fun in retrospect.
Apparently first used in a larp by Markus Montola on the Facebook group Larpers BFF in 2016, the term appears to have originated from the rock climbing community to describe an experience that was objectively awful (cold, dangerous, uncomfortable) at the time, but which the climber enjoyed in retrospect.
Taken from Three Types of Fun
"Type 2 is a strange beast, because it isn’t actually fun at the moment. In fact, it feels much like suffering. It’s only after the event, and in reflection, that you come to realize you actually had fun. Wading through chest-deep snow, dirty and loose rock, sketchy approaches, hikes that never seem to end, and anything that offers an overriding sense of doom and despair are clear indications you’re having a Type 2 experience."
Using "Type" to describe larps
A Type 2 larp seems to be a larp that deals with difficult themes, or which offers physical challenges such as extremes of temperature, lack of food, intentional sleep deprivation etc (also commonly referred to as misery larps or sometimes hardcore larps). Increasingly it is used as a synonym for cathartic bleed. By extension a type 1 larp is just plain fun, and a type 3 larp suggests either a specific design choice (in which the experience is not at all intended to be "fun", either in the moment or after), or a design failure.
Sources
- https://kellycordes.com/2009/11/02/the-fun-scale/ (Discusses origins of the term)
