On Details, Rants, Fun, and Fandom
So there’s a little bit of a discussion over on Winzler’s blog re: whether we as fans get too into over-analyzing the things we love, and what that says about us.
Lord knows, I am a notorious offender when it comes to this, as anyone who knows me IRL (or takes a casual stroll through my blog) can tell you. When it comes to fandom, and by this I mean ALL my fandoms big and small, I am totally an “overthink ALL the things” “discuss ALL the details” sort of nerd. Part of that is five years of film school, but mostly it’s really just my personality as a geek. And you know what? It’s all in fun.
Getting more into the things I love than is healthy for a grown woman of 31 is half the fun of fandom for me. Sure, I rant and snark and nitpick and criticize and make derpy MSPaint diagrams attempting to figure out wtf is going on in a scene, but really, I kid because I love. I may have gone on for 4 paragraphs about everything that’s already giving me a headache about Uprising (which doesn’t even technically exist yet), but you can bet I’m still gonna watch it when it comes out. If it’s good, I will squee excitedly over details. If it’s bad, I will go off on rant tangents. But no matter what, I’m still going to have fun either way, because I’ve found a whole little community of incredibly clever, funny, talented new friends here that I can share this shit with, and that, to me, is the best part of being a nerd.
So in conclusion: yes, my friends, we should ALL heed the words of Joel and the Bots and follow the MST3K Mantra, for it is wisdom. But at the same time, all you lovely fan people out there, don’t ever stop being enthusiastic about the things you love. Squee. Rant. Break it all down into its component molecules.
Have fun.
