No seriously. I feel like I’ve done nothing but write papers for the past two weeks. I’m burned out. My Anglo-Saxon art paper is total shit right now just because I cannot get it going, or get myself to care. This is terrible. Luckily these are only supposed to be rough drafts, because this shit is certainly rough.
Also, the posts on TopIdol about this woman named Holly (latest post here) are really fucking disturbing. I know people, including myself, enjoy learning about the insane things people do and getting a good laugh out of it (because if I didn’t laugh I’d probably curl up into a ball in a corner and cry that people like this exist). However, when you think about it, and read about women like this who are even more unstable than most, it really is cause for concern.
For instance, this Holly stalks every woman seen with David Cook, calling them a bitch, whore, skank, etc. Just because they are seen with him and happen to have a vagina. Seriously, what the fuck. Furthermore, this woman uses a shit ton of sockpuppet accounts to make it seem like there are more people involved in these shenanigans other than just her. It’s obvious that they’re sockpuppets too, because the writing style is the same, the same spelling errors are made, and when she posts of TopIdol she doesn’t bother to change her IP address. So basically it’s a woman, a ton of accounts on a message board she started, and a helluva lot of free time.
BUT WHY? Does she think she’s trying to protect David Cook? This is what it sounds like from one of her comments on TopIdol. Can’t remember the exact quote, but it was something to the extent of “we’re trying to protect him from himself.” That just raises more questions for me. Why does this woman think that David Cook needs protection? (She’s probably insane.) What is he doing that is hurting himself? (Nothing.) Does she really think there’s a “we” involved in this? (I wouldn’t be surprised.)
This brings up more points about rabid fans, not just Holly. Why do so many people get so emotionally attached to celebrities? They don’t know them personally. Do they just need something to latch onto, and something about a particular person appeals to them? Are there issues in their own lives that they’re trying to escape from, and therefore try to live their lives vicariously through these stars? I really just don’t understand. Hell, even at my lowest point I was never like, “I MUST MAKE SURE RADIOHEAD IS SUCCESSFUL IN EVERYTHING THEY ARE REMOTELY INVOLVED IN.” (Nevermind the fact that they’ve been successful for like, 17 years now with little help from me.) Fuck, the only Radiohead merch I have other than their music is a poster. I see pictures of women with every magazine Adam Lambert or Clay Aiken or David Cook ever appeared on, dolls they’ve made, t-shirts they’ve bought or made themselves, etc. You can be a legit fan without completely losing your shit and dignity, people.
And another thing: why come the really off the wall people seem to be older women attached to American Idol contestants? WTF. In high school, and even now as a college senior, I only know a few people who actually give a shit about this show. And those few usually forget about the show once it’s over, though they may still enjoy the music of one or two of the contestants. Is it the personal light that the show puts on the contestants? Does that make them more relatable to people who may need a connection such as that? Still though, it’s not healthy. This phenomenon also seems to have become more rampant in the past few years, with the exception of Clay Aiken. Or maybe I just haven’t been paying attention. I mean, I do feel like there is something happening culturally that affects this, because you can find insane fans of about anyone, but those that stick out the most seem to be AI fans.
But the age thing. Completely baffling to me. Why the fuck are so many of these women grown and often with families of their own? And why are they spending so much time and energy on a celebrity instead of their families, who are right there and may actually need them? I remember reading on VFTW or Idletard about a woman whose son who was becoming an alcoholic among other problems, blew up at her over her intense Clay Aiken fandom. She seemed baffled as to why in her post. It makes me wonder if his problems could have been amplified by the fact that she wasn’t paying much attention to him because she was busy scouring the Internet about Clay. And many of the husbands have to feel like shit if they don’t like the same person or want to join the fandom. How many more families are screwed up by this? I tend to give younger fans a break, because we do tend to latch onto things more as we’re younger, but these obsessive like states usually don’t last too long. Also, many of them become busy with school or other activities. They don’t have families to support. These older women should know better.
If I were a psychology major, this would be the most epic senior thesis ever. There’s so much weird shit within these fandoms that it’s just mind-boggling. I’ll probably never be able to understand. I’ve never known anyone to be so obsessed with something (except maybe Ben and Halo, but he grew out of that 2 years ago because he finally realized that there are much better FPSs out there, thank God). It’s like a whole different dimension of people for whom these activities are normal, and they cross over into whatever the fuck dimension I’m living in like some Stargate shit and give me epic mind fucks. That is the only explanation I can come up with. Stargate.
Damn my mom completely ruined me for life with the Star Trek/Stargate/MST3K triforce. Time for class.
