I know I said this week I'd be talking about
social media, but I have to take a step back and explain how I came to embrace
Facebook (again), Twitter (I'm obsessed), Instagram (always liked) and Periscope
(hadn't heard of it).
Fangirl: Obsession with a TV show/movie
franchise, an actor, a song, an artist, a director, a model…you get the
picture.
My first experience with being a Fangirl (didn't know the definition then) was
when I was 8:
The Bionic Woman, Jamie Sommers. It was on Wednesday nights at
8pm and I looked forward to Wednesdays with gleeful abandon, I even convinced
my mom to let me stay up until 9pm on a school night. I was a card carrying
member of the fan club, I had the action figure, the board game,
t-shirts, I even had an autographed (in ink, not a stamp) photograph. I was infatuated, enthralled, can you say obsessed? In my defense I was only 8 and experiencing my first baby girl crush. How could I not:
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| 1976 |
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| 2008 |
Eventually I lost my infatuation with Jamie Sommers, figured
out I really, really liked girls and went on to other things and no longer was
a Fangirl of well, anything really.
Then the L Word happened.
Like any other red-blooded, gay,
American chick I was caught up in the world of Bette, Tina and all of their
really cool and dysfunctional friends. I hosted and attended Sunday night L
Word parties where my friends and I would watch the show together, commenting,
yelling, throwing things at the screen (much like Mystery Science Theater 3000)
as a group.
We had plenty of discussions where we analyzed every scene looking
for clues as to what would happen to Bette, Tina and the rest of the gang.
Would they survive Bette’s indiscretion? Would Shane eventually settle down
with one chick, what about Alice and Dana? And of course the question of the
century, what the hell was up with Jenny? Let’s face it, there weren’t that
many lesbians on TV or in the movies in 2004, at least not ones that were the
focus. There were the gay besties and sidekicks, but as main characters with
real storylines, hardly visible at all. Ellen said “Yep, I’m gay” in 1997, but
after that, there was very little for gay ladies to kick up our heels about and
really watch.
But my obsession never reached the heights it did when I was
8 and I was in love with the Bionic Woman. Yes I read the Fanfiction, yes I
cried when Dana died, yes I cheered when Bette and Tina finally realized they
were inevitable, but the adult me didn’t throw caution to the wind and jump
head first into being a Fangirl. If you look at the 14 levels of Fangirling, I
was at about a 3 a self-aware Fangirl, but that's where it stayed.
14 Levels of Fangirling
If you remember, the L
Word premiered in 2004 and ran until 2009. Facebook was born the same year
(2004), Instagram did not happen until 2010, Twitter was launched in 2006 but
who remembers it before 2012? Smart phones were in their infancy, Google was launched
in 1998 but did not gain a majority market share until 2009 and “Googling”
wasn’t a verb until 2006. By now you may be asking, what is the point of this
trip down memory lane?
In 1976 and 2004 in order to connect with the object of
your Fangirlism you had to read a ton of magazines, write a ton of letters (by
hand), watch a lot of entertainment TV shows, join a fan club, hang out in Los Angeles (hard to do for an East Coast girl), watch the highway for a tour bus and so on and so
on….. all in the hopes of catching a story about or seeing a picture of……. or
the pinnacle of a true fan: receiving a
letter with an autographed picture of your favorite star!
The birth of Social Media changed all of this, at least for me.
I did dive in head first for this little Canadian
science-fictiony show called Lost Girl, but it took a minute for me to take that leap. It was described as a grown-up’s version of Buffy and hey, who doesn’t
love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, right? By the time I actually began watching it I felt
like I was the only gay chick on the planet who hadn’t seen it.
All 4 seasons
were and still are (in case you want to check it out) on Netlfix .
I binge watched 2 seasons in like a month
and….. that was it. It was a good show, the main character Bo Dennis, played by Anna
Silk, is a bi-sexual succubus, she uses sexual energy or chi to sustain her
life force and has no qualms about it. Quite refreshing in a sense, there is no
angst about her sexual preference (she has none) man, woman, human, Fae, all
are equal partners in her eyes, but my last semester of college started and I was pushing it by carrying 15 credits and working full time, so Lost Girl and Bo were put on the back burner.
But every now and then I'd think about Bo and what happened in those last 2 seasons. Then it was Christmas break and I had some time on my hands. I binge watched the last 2 seasons in a week and BAM!! I leapt from a casual watcher to a level 9 when I discovered the Lost Girl Fangirl Community. There were message boards, Facebook pages, You Tube videos, FanFiction, Instagram and the mother of everything a Fangril could want......Twitter!
Did I mention there is this human Doctor, Lauren Lewis played by Zoie Plamer who is one part of the main love triangle? No? Well there is and suddenly I could watch, read and appreciate Anna Silk and Zoie Palmer as Bo and Lauren anytime I wanted. On my laptop, on my iPhone and my Smart TV. It was like I was suddenly in gay chick heaven. I mean really who wouldn't be:
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| Anna Silk and Seth Cooperman |
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| Zoie Palmer |
The first celebrities I followed on Twitter were Anna Silk and Zoie Palmer, of course. I sent my first ever Tweet to Zoie Palmer. I sent a picture of a bathroom hook from a rest stop in Virginia, she had been Tweeting about why there are no hooks for your purse in public restrooms. I thought the pic was funny, so I gathered the courage to Tweet the picture.........and she FAVORITED it! What?!?! She read my Tweet and liked it! She read my name, saw my words and photo and liked them! I had successfully interacted with a person in a hit TV show that has 75,000+ followers on Twitter, someone famous and I was noticed. What a rush! Now I understand adrenaline junkies, I was hooked on Twitter with one Tweet.
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| My first Tweet |
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What I enjoyed the most about The L Word was the sense of community, even though it was amongst my friends, we had something to bond over, we could see our community presented in a positive way, we had something in common, we belonged to a group where everyone understood the passion you felt for those characters and they felt the same. That's what you find when you become part of a Fandom: a community of people who get your fascination and obsession and share it, you belong to something. Now that is what Social Media is all about.
Next week I'll take you on my journey to obsession with all things Social Media.
