10 Signs That Give Away the Fact That You Own a 3D Printer (Humor)

With the increasing popularity of certain movies, books, video games, and other technologies, comes the increasing awareness of new groups of individuals who relate to each other by a common interest which they share. We see this with Apple iPhone owners, Android smartphone users and the like. We also see this with fans of movies and TV shows; i.e. Star Trek (Trekkies). With the increasing awareness of 3D printing, comes a new group of people who are keen on learning all they can about the futuristic technology, and while they like it or not, they may just be becoming part of a new sort of subculture. This subculture has not yet reached a point where others take a disliking towards it, such as what we see between iOS and Android users, nor have 3D printing fans earned a nickname quite yet, like Star Trek fans. However, we are beginning to see jokes, and memes start to emerge, as more and more people are beginning to fall into a “3D printing enthusiast, hobbyist, nerd” (or whatever else you would like to call them) category.

One 3DPB forum member, curius aardvark, recently went ahead and created a comical, yet surprisingly accurate top 10 list of signs that point to an individual being an owner of a 3D printer. That list is as follow:

1. Whenever anyone mentions something to you – your reply is: “I can make that!”
2. Your house/workshop is overrun with little plastic models, doodads and fiddle widgets.
3. Your friends see you coming and run before you give them another useless piece of plastic.
4. Your Christmas gift list consists entirely of weird filament types.
5. You only intend on giving gifts this year that you’ve actually ‘made’ yourself (for ‘made’ read mostly downloaded from Thingiverse)
6. Even your anorack has 3D printed plastic toggles.
7. You spend your life hoping household items will break, so you can make your own.
8. You sincerely believe that you will invent and print something that will make you a fortune.
9. You believe that self-replicating printers (rep-rap) is a real concept because you can make a few plastic parts. While ignoring the fact that you have to buy all the metal, motors, electronics and actual printheads.
10. One day you hope to be able to print your own replacement body parts and become a truly self-made man.

Now our question to you is, “How many of these 10 statements do you fit into?”

• If you fit only between one and three of these statements, you are just a mere 3D printing enthusiast wannabe.
• If you fit between four and six of these statements, you are a 3D printing enthusiast amateur.
• If you fit between seven and nine of these statements, you are a 3D Printing Nerd. Congratulations!
• If you fit all ten of these statements, you are the Ultimate 3D Printing Nerd, and should probably think about taking it easy from slicers and extruders for a while.

Let us know where you fit in. Discuss in the 3DPB forum thread.