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Measuring Fandom

Shining Raichu

Shining Raichu

Expect me like you expect Jesus.
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    When somebody gets involved in any sort of film, book or TV franchise, they feel in themselves that they are the biggest fan, and that nobody else can quite understand how much they love it, no matter how much they love it. Your own love of it feels deeper somehow, in a way nobody else could ever match. That's how it is with me, anyway.

    So my question is: is there a way to measure how big a fan someone is of something? Does the fact that somebody owns an entire set of collector's edition signed Harry Potter books mean that they were more moved by the story than somebody else? Does the fact that somebody can remember and obnoxiously recite the lines of a movie mean that they loved it more than somebody who can't?

    What makes you a bigger fan than somebody else?
     
    I don't think you can measure it at all. I'm sure there are a LOT of people that can recite a load of quotes from Harry Potter, or any franchise, it doesn't mean they all love it as much as each other.

    I can quote a lot of lines from Star Wars because I used to watch it all the time when I was about 8. I still remember those lines, but that doesn't make me a big fan, because I don't even care for Star Wars any more.

    I mean there are some things I LOVE, and I mean really love. It's not music, and I'm not telling you what they are, I don't own any memorabilia because I don't have money I can just waste on novelty items, I don't know any quotes because I have bad memory, and only about two people know how much I can obsess over some things. It doesn't make me less of a fan than anyone else just because I'm not mentioning it every 10 seconds or plastering my walls in posters.
     
    How do you measure love? You can't. You just have to take someone at their word when they say "I'm a big fan of _____." You're a bigger fan of something when you feel you're a bigger fan of something than someone else. That's what I think it breaks down to, a feeling.

    Though there are the really obsessive fans who make something into their entire lives. I guess you could say they're bigger fans on account of how much they ruin devote their lives in the name of their fandom.
     
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