Ahh what an interesting question!

As for my family, my sister and my mom both enjoy it, though my sister has a rather limited attention span for playing it. My mom, on the other hand, isn't very tech-savvy so she likes the fact that there isn't any typing involved and enjoys the relaxing atmosphere.
My dad is a huge first person shooter fan, though, so he obviously has no interest hehe ;;

As for friends... I don't share my internet life with them so I doubt they would understand the forest either.

My whole family think I'm nuts. I don't care.

My mom thinks that tef is a total waste of time, and tells me I need to grew up. Other than that, I try to keep my online interesting to myself in Real Life.

My mom doesn't really know anything about the game, but when I play it and she hears the moos she's like "Is that the deer game again??" xD

My best friend really used to like it, but her computer can't handle it, so she kinda forgot about it.

My other best friend used to play it, but lost his PC. He really wants to play it again.

One of my other close friends used to play it too, but got bored of it.

He and my other friends now think it's a stupid, boring and meaningless game.

Yeah, they play things like Counter Strike and Left for Dead, and they say that TEF is the stupid and meaningless one. Go figure C:

my family think im nutts.... simple's

When I first started playing a few years ago, my sister saw me playing on it. She was just like "Why does that deer have a human head?" And I could only reply "It's a game. My deer, right?"

When my friend came round, I was just about to turn TEF off, when she asked me what it was. I explained it to her (deer with human heads, interacting with other deer with human heads, running round a forest blah blah blah. Oh, and how it's fun and hint-free-hint) and all she could say was "Sounds pretty boring."

It's basically all the same. People either think it's weird or boring or stupid or pointless.

But that's all right I suppose. That way only the special and important people can enter the forest ;D

My family doesn't care much, my two sisters played it but not anymore, and I wish I had never told my friends about it (except one, but she stopped playing too). There was a time when one of my friends crashed me down for it, it was the worst day of my life. It's a wonder I'm still here, or even more a wonder that she's still... a 'friend'. She behaves like that a lot, but I forgive way too easily.

My mom accepts it. It's no wonder, what with no true things to do. I love spending every living second on my comp. I'm such a comp hogger. And I like creepy music. Figures ;;.

I told a few of my friends about it... They seem to like games that have structure and goals, but I insisted that the forest really is magical.

They all went home, installed it, and gave it a go.. and to my surprise, they all had positive responses!

Wahaha, my Dad, on the otherhand... He loves Call of Duty. He likes the excitement and violence, I guess. He'd find the forest ridiculous!

Ohh, I love the forest. It's audience is so specific that all the players are filtered down to the people who really love it.. They're the nicest players.

I don´t really raise much of commotion of it... though I do not hide that I play either. I just don´t talk to irl-people a lot of it. As I do not talk about my rp-characters and games with people I don´t rp with... though, if someone asks, I don´t lie, but I probably won´t try to convise them to try it, since I´m pretty sure that they wouldn´t be interested of it. My family has noticed the weird deer-creatures appearing in drawings and the "moo-sounds", but they don´t really care unless they think I sit too much on the computer. My sister tried TEF when I first installed it, but got bored almost instantly and now plays probably something like IMVU, in which I myself do not see the appeal. I used to play games a lot and tried even Wow, but TEF is the only game I still play and haven´t gotten bored with. I´m weird like that. =)

My family doesn't really know about TEF so heh. Though I think they wouldn't even care. : D
I've showed TEF for two of my RL friends, they played it for few days and grew bored. I think TEF kinda requires a bit of your own imagination to stay interesting.
TEF gives the players a lot of space for their own imagination and freedom which I personally like very much. But it doesn't suit everyone. 8P