Oh come now. If you’re a fan and you’ve been a fan since you were in your teens, you KNOW why.
It’s FUNNY! I’m in my 42nd year on this planet, and I am writing a blog – a serious blog, mind you – that is at least in part centered around the band I’ve admired since I was ten years old. I’m writing about a being a fan of a band and I’m in my forties. That’s funny!
I think sometimes it’s very easy to take ourselves much too seriously. I’ll get into reading all of my RSS feed articles, thinking about things I want to write about, address on the blog, or investigate further, and then suddenly I’ll come across a photo of the band or read an interview from them and I’ll smile. Sometimes I might even giggle, which we all know is gross behavior for someone of our age, right?
Who cares?!?
Sure, we all want to spend time figuring out how the band could be better. We all want them to play near our house or in our country. We want them on radio stations, on TV, in magazines. We want them playing 3 hour concerts with no sign of the “hits”in sight, and they need to be in really good venues. We take all of that very seriously, and we are prepared to argue and defend our causes with good reason. During all of that serious discussion, we start to forget why we’re even here to begin with. We forget that in the end, none of it really matters. We love the band purely because of who they are and the music they bring. We enjoy being fans. It’s our escape, and it’s fun.
There are nearly one zillion items that we could dissect and discuss as fans with utter seriousness that would cause other people (aka “normal people”) to sit, stare at us and whisper about our lack of sanity (or lives). I beat them to that by laughing at myself, and you should too.
Yes, we take it all too seriously sometimes. We do need to take a moment and laugh while we’re telling the band to play Secret Oktober again, visit New Zealand for a change, or provide more bang for our VIP fan club buck. The fact is that we love it or we wouldn’t be here.
In the meantime I’m chuckling at the idea of a new book I’m reading. It’s about taking your hobbies or obsessions and making them into a career. Gee….
-R
Those who can laugh at themselves are the happiest of all. Hmm… I'm generally a pretty happy person, does that mean there's just lots for me to laugh at myself about? Yeah, probably!
Now, about turning this obsession we all share into a business… 😉 Are you planning on self-publishing your book or are you going to go traditional and find a publisher?
I think both Amanda and I are hoping to find a publisher that we can continue on with even after this book is finished. That said, if we must change plans, we certainly will. I've been doing some research and it certainly seems that there are publishers out there that might be interested in the genre of book we're writing, so we're hopeful! -R