everything but the girl

So I was reading today's New York Times' ESCAPES section and I came across this sentence:

Nearly 400 players took sides for Dark Angel, a 26-hour “scenario” paintball game based, in part, on the television show of the same name and set in a part of Virginia known more for Civil War battles than the war between the Transgenics and the Breeding Cult.

Huh, well, that's a little different than making icons or writing fics, isn't it?

The article is here and it doesn't delve deeply into the plot of DA and doesn't even mention any of the actors from the show even though last week you couldn't turn around without seeing some Fantastic Four promotion with Jessica Alba on it.

It got me to wondering how many of the 400 participants are actually fans of the tv show itself, or if this is just another justification for them to go into the woods and shoot at other people with paint-balls. But I guess one could be interested in playing Quidditch without having read all the Harry Potter books?

Henry Jenkins has been hosting a debate in his blog about the ways men and women may consume media and create user-generated content relating to media, and this article certainly paints the "scenario paintball" activities as a "guy" thing, quoting the guy who's the producer of the battle, and not his wife.

Patrick McKinnon — he and his wife, Diane Howe, are producers of the Dark Angel battle — puts it another way: “It’s big boys and their toys, a real American thing.”

I'd love to know her take on it, but she isn't quoted in the article at all. Alas.

There's a Deadwood battle coming up that's mentioned in the article, though:

On Aug. 11 and 12, Deadwood will be staged by Strategy Plus Paintball - Bear Swamp Road, East Hampton, Conn. (www.strategyplus.com). The citizens of Deadwood will be split between those backing the saloon owner, Al Swearengen, against those aligned with his rival, Cy Tolliver.

Reading this article leaves me with a few questions:
1. Do things like this bring fandom more into the eye of the mainstream of America?
2. Did some of you read this article and thing, well, I may be in the middle of writing my Epic Fanfic Of D00M but at least I don't spend a thousand dollars on a paintball gun thus proving the *I may be bonkers but at least I'm not as crazy as those people over there axiom*?
3. Sponsored teams? Sales of high-end equipment to scenario paintballers? Doesn't that mean that someone is kinda sorta making money off of fandom? Huh.

What do y'all think?

And after DH will there be any paintball scenario games based on the Final Battle Between Harry & Voldemort that we're all expecting, where the "guns" are actually "wands"? Because (meep) thatwouldbecool. As would Daleks v Cybermen v The Doctor.