Episode 150: Post-Pandemic Fandom
In Episode 150, “Post-Pandemic Fandom,” Flourish and Elizabeth reflect on the way the pandemic has changed fandom in the past 18 months—and speculate about what that might mean for fans in the coming months and years. Topics discussed include delayed film and television production and release dates, potentially returning to tours and cons, changes in fandom participation and fanfic habits, and the way the global nature of both the pandemic and of fandom means fans will continue to have very different experiences depending on their life circumstances.
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:03:71] Fact check: SVU actually started shooting in September. It was still hot! But not really summer.
[00:06:20] An example of how Marvel reveals release dates going forward several years, reported on by Den of Geek.
[00:24:20] Flourish was dazzled.
[00:27:22]
[00:33:23] The radio segment Elizabeth heard on exposure therapy was Dr. Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco on The Brian Lehrer Show. DiMarco also wrote a piece in the Washington Post entitled “Dreading Post-pandemic Crowds and Social Situations? Exposure Therapy Can Help.”
[00:35:28]
[00:38:09]
[00:40:48] We talked to Toast in Episode 138, “2020 By the Numbers.”
[00:55:39]
[01:02:30] Our outro music is “The Secret to Growing Up” by Lee Rosevere, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi Elizabeth!
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is Episode #150—
FK: Aah!
ELM: [laughs] All right. And it is entitled “Post-Pandemic Fandom.”
FK: Now obviously the pandemic is not over, but we are coming… at least I think Elizabeth and I are coming to a point where I think it feels like there’s an inflection. We’ve both been vaccinated. Some other people have too. Other people haven’t, but things feel like they’re changing, and so maybe it’s a time when we can think about like, what has happened so far, and what we expect to happen over the next several years that it will take before the pandemic has finally fully left us.
ELM: Yeah, so we’ve talked about some of this throughout the last year and few months. Especially in our, like, kind of reflection episodes, like our anniversary and our Year In Fandom. But yeah, it seemed like a good kind of moment to look back over the last year and a half and maybe look forward towards the next year or two, just to see. Because I think that the pandemic has fundamentally altered a lot of fandom and, I mean, whatever. Like, we’re not gonna be able to accurately predict what’s gonna happen. But we can kind of talk through some stuff, right? I don’t know. I dunno.
FK: [laughs] Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. I mean I don’t even know if I’m able to accurately talk about what has happened, because it’s sort of like a frog being boiled or whatever, like “Oh, hasn’t it always been this way?” But…
ELM: You know that’s not true.
FK: Yeah, we’ll try.
ELM: All right.
FK: So where are we getting started?
ELM: OK. So I think there’s kind of an arc here. I mean it’s obviously an arc that we use to talk about fandom a lot, that kind of runs from the creator side over to the fan side. Imagine a kind of a swooping—I’m doing the arc with my hand.
FK: You’re drawing—yeah.
ELM: But, uh…
FK: Which, podcasts…can’t see it. There’s a swoop. Big swoopy gesture.
ELM: So if you think about, I think that we should start with the creator side, to talk about the things that—the way the pandemic has affected a lot of the things that fans are into. And then maybe we could move towards the kind of intersections, our favorite space, the fan-creator interactions. And then wrap up with the kind of purely fandom stuff.
FK: That sounds like the right pattern to take. So. Creator side. Things—it’s funny because I feel like when the pandemic started, I thought that things were going…things have been really disrupted a lot, but I actually thought that it might even be more disruptive than it was. So that’s been really interesting.
ELM: Right, OK. So I think this is, in this part I’m gonna have some questions and maybe you’re gonna have some answers, as our representative from the entertainment industry.
FK: Maybe. We’ll see.
ELM: So obviously film and television are not the only objects of fandom, but that is a big part of what we talk about, obviously. I think initially it seemed like the biggest disruption was going to be the inability to shoot new or continued things.
FK: Yeah. Yeah.
ELM: I don’t know how—seems like they started, resumed filming awhile ago. I know, I mean, I’m selfishly—I was pleased that Succession went back to filming in the fall. I think they may have had to pause that when we had another wave, but. Also, they were just filming Billions around the corner from my house, and I walked through to try to see Paul Giamatti.
FK: No?
ELM: I missed it. I think they must have been doing it really—you know when they book the entire day and then like, oh, you all got here at five in the morning. [laughs] I’m not getting up to look at a film set.
FK: No.
ELM: So…
FK: Yeah, you know, yeah, originally I thought too that—I mean, and everything did have to shut down, right? Which is like, that’s a huge deal when you have to stop shooting or, like, there’s a lot of money. Like, every day is a massive amount of money when you’re shooting, right? But that also means that there was like, a huge incentive to get shooting again and to find, like, any way that you could possibly continue this stuff, because there’s so much, there’s so much money on the line. And so people got back to it really really quickly.
I was shocked, like, SVU was shooting in—they were shooting in the summer, I’m pretty sure, you know? I think they were. And things like, there’s been like five different things shooting on my block in the past like three months in New York. And people in L.A. were the same, and they have like a complicated system whereby, you know, everybody is in bubbles and they have marked off the area that you and your bubble are allowed to be in, and everybody is tested and so then if someone comes up—and everybody’s wearing masks, obviously—and then if someone comes up as, you know, being infected, then you and the other people in your bubble are the only ones who have to, you know, who have to take off work, because everybody else has been kept socially distanced. Not just like, a little socially distanced, but like, really socially distanced from you. And then obviously the actors are super super isolated, because they’re the only people—they’re the people who if they get it, like, you can’t replace them. You know?
ELM: Right.
FK: You can replace every other role, but not an actor.
ELM: I guess this is funny cause we’re both talking about seeing outdoor shooting, but do you know what it’s been like—are they shooting less indoors, or have they been, or…?
FK: I would imagine. I don’t know for sure. But I would imagine that they have been. But then there’s also like, you know, if you’re on a really big—if you’re in a big space, right? Like, on a big sound stage…
ELM: Yeah.
FK: There’s plenty of space to socially distance. In any case, my point being that I think at the beginning of the pandemic, when everything shut down, it felt like all of this was going to be shut down forever, and then it was like “Oh, only the people who are shooting in New Zealand are going to be able to get back,” and admittedly I think it’s been a lot easier if you’re shooting in New Zealand. But the disruption has not been as big as I thought it would be.
I think the place where the real biggest disruption is happening is in film, because of all the movie theaters being shut down.
ELM: Right.
FK: And trying to determine what you’re gonna do with your movie and how you’re going to deal with the pipeline of movies, right? Because it’s not just that‚ you know, there’s one movie that’s being screwed up. It’s that then like, that has knock-on effects for every project.
ELM: Right. And as your average—not your average fan. But more fans than in the past seem aware of the surface-level machinations of some of these companies, you know. [FK laughs] I’m thinking particularly of Disney, you know, they pass around these charts with the big calendar of releases or whatever. Right? And it’s like, knowing that actually, since they own all the media, there are huge knock-on effects, right? You know?
FK: Yeah!
ELM: Or they have to worry about like—what other studios are gonna, you don’t wanna put your biggest blockbuster against the other studios’ biggest blockbuster on the same weekend, right?
FK: Yeah. You’re literally fighting for screens. Right?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Like—you know, this is like, I mean, this is the, this is the truth is that when a movie opens, one of the limiting factors on how much money it makes is how many physical screens can it be shown on? Because that’s what creates your, like, upper limit. Right?
ELM: Right.
FK: There is an upper limit of number of people who can see a movie on opening weekend, and that’s determined by the number of seats in the number of theaters that are open, and then that becomes really obvious why this is a problem when you have a blockbuster that’s trying to open now or in six months, right? Who knows what that situation is?
ELM: Right.
FK: Who knows what it is in the U.S., who knows what it is everywhere? So in China there have been a lot more movies that have been coming out, doing rereleases of things and so forth, because the movie theaters there have been open for a long time now. It’s interesting, because no one was going to open a movie if you could possibly avoid it at a time when most theaters were closed. It just isn’t, you know—you can’t do it.
ELM: Right. Well, so here’s my question: it seemed like throughout 2020, when entertainment industry analysts talked about the direct-to-video…you know, taking these big movies that cost a lot and ostensibly they would like to make a lot, and just sticking them on streaming services—people trying to speculate, kind of, with seemingly very little sense of…you know, I mean, whatever! They didn’t have any data, right? They were like “We don’t know how consumers are gonna respond to this,” right?
But now it’s been more than a year and I’m curious if you have heard people starting to, like, draw some conclusions. I think it’s hard too, because the circumstances of the last year are not normal ones, you know. So it’s not like—aside from lots and lots of people being trapped in their homes, there’s also the idea of—I know, including myself, a lot of people who don’t really want to watch any new movies right now, like, just not interested, right? You know? Like—
FK: Yeah, or don’t want to pay 20 bucks to watch a movie on a little screen.
ELM: Tons of people have been unemployed throughout this, as well, or had a lot of trouble with money, so it’s like, I think it is a little bit of a—maybe drawing big long-term conclusions of whether consumers even like this is a litlte tricky.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. It’s hard to do. I will say I don’t think that…I don’t think that it has been a story of untrammeled success. [ELM laughs] I don’t follow this that closely, so please take anything I say with a grain of salt, but I get the impression that kids’ movies have done better than movies for adults, and I also get the impression that some of the movies that have been put out have been frankly, like, as a—there’s no other, there’s no better way to do it, so we may as well do it this way kind of way of thinking.
Cause here’s the problem, right: if you don’t release Wonder Woman 1984, right, and you hold onto it, there’s two things that happen. One is you’d already spent money and there’s been a trailer out and so it feels old and stale. Right?
ELM: Sure.
FK: Cause people saw the trailer a long time ago, so then if you hold that until the theaters are open, like—no one cares at that point, right?
ELM: I mean, you see this debacle with a bunch of the like, follow-on, all the broader X-Men stuff with, like, New Mutants and stuff like that.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, exactly! It’s the New Mutants problem. It becomes a joke. Then the other problem is if you do hold it, then there’s been a bunch of movies that have been made, right? Like, over the pandemic, or things that were in post-production when the pandemic started, or whatever, and especially because I don’t think that production was as disrupted—then if you hold onto it, then you’ve got a problem where you’ve got too many movies in too few theaters, right?
Particularly since there’s a lot of things to do with rights and so forth where you have to start filming at different times. So you can have an option on something with, you know, it has to reach a certain point in the development of the project by X date, or else you lose the opportunity to make it. Right? And so there’s, there’s a lot of stuff—I mean, again, I’m not an expert in these contracts, but I see it all the time. There’s a lot of stuff where there’s actually like a time limit on when you have to make the movie.
ELM: Interesting.
FK: And so—and so then it’s not just about getting it into theaters, which is obviously important, but then you’ve also got things like advertiser deals, right? So like, if you made a deal with, you know, McDonald’s to have like, the Wonder Woman stuff in Happy Meals—I don’t know that they did this, they probably did not do this, but whatever—in Happy Meals, and they’ve already got all the toys and shit, right?
ELM: Yeah yeah.
FK: Remember, you’re McDonalds, so six months ahead of time you’ve already got the toys sorted out, right? You can’t un-diddle that. You have to release a movie to match up with the toys, cause the toys are gonna be in there regardless. So it’s this whole intricate puzzle. So yeah, what else are you gonna do? It has to go out, so you may as well make some money back on it for a streaming service, and then you’re preserving the later movies’ ability—like movies that are actually going to come out at the end of the pandemic, right? You’re preserving their ability to make as much money as they possibly can.
ELM: That’s interesting. I feel like a lot of this stuff is not known by fans. Or even just general consumers. Right? You know, and I’ve even seen some people—not really in fandom, but just people maybe that I know on my feed—being like “I don’t understand why they wouldn’t just release all these movies! I’d watch them!”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And it’s like, [laughs] OK, you know? I don’t know, you gonna pay $20 to watch each and every one of them? Probably not. You want them to go up on your streaming service that you already subscribe to. So.
FK: Yeah. But there’s so much confusion about all of this stuff, right? I mean I—I can’t tell you how often I see fans say things like “Where’s the trailer already!?” And I’m like, “Dude! They’re like still in the middle of filming! And you just don’t know when anything is happening!” Because it’s like—because, you know, there’s so much effort put into not having that be crystal clear to people, for a variety of reasons. Right? For security reasons, also for like, movie magic reasons. We don’t want everybody to know every detail about how the sausage gets made.
ELM: Sure.
FK: So usually when people react to this stuff, they have no idea where the production is. I don’t think I’ve ever had a situation where I saw fans begging for a trailer, or something like that, where that was even remotely a possibility. [laughs] You know? Like—for one reason or the other. I’m not saying people should know. They’re purposely being kept in the dark. But this is complicated, you know?
ELM: Yeah yeah yeah, it’s just really interesting. I mean the idea of, like, I didn’t know that there were these kind of timelines built into like—with the optioning stuff. That’s interesting to know.
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: I, too, am learning today.
FK: Well but then the other thing I think is interesting about this is like, how the pandemic has altered fans’ interactions with movies coming out, right? Because when I think about pre-pandemic life and think about anticipating a big movie release in particular—TV obviously has been more similar, because you always were watching TV in your house. But anticipating a big movie release, it was like, this is going to be a thing! You know? I’m gonna go at midnight! I’m gonna get my Junior Mints and my popcorn and my Diet Coke and I’m gonna sit there in the theater, you know—
ELM: Go back, go back. You buy candy and popcorn?
FK: Uh, I love to eat.
ELM: I’ve been to many movies with you, I have never seen you—no. But that’s two wildly different vibes. I’ve never seen you do this.
FK: I have done this more than once. I don’t know that I do it every time. Sometimes I pick one or the other, but if I’m going to a movie and I’m hungry? Definitely both.
ELM: Actually honestly when I think back to us going to the movies together, unless we go to a place that serves food and drink, like my beloved Alamo Drafthouse, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you purchase concessions from the concessions.
FK: Really?! Cause I usually get concessions! That’s funny. [ELM laughing] This is wild. We need to go see more movies together, man.
ELM: Oh…
FK: I have a very dedicated concession order. I need my Junior Mints and I need my like, I get the popcorn with a lot of the butter on it.
ELM: No memory of this.
FK: Either a Diet Coke or like, a Diet Dr. Pepper if they’ve got that? Although now I’m not drinking caffeine so I guess it’ll have to be a caffeine-free Coke.
ELM: I will say that the two times that we’ve gone to get pummelled in the head by our own chairs you didn’t buy any concessions, probably because you—
FK: [laughing] Because we’re going to be like—
ELM: Didn’t want that.
FK: Getting like a roller-coaster experience, right?! [ELM laughing]
ELM: No one else can see you jostling right now.
FK: I don’t, I don’t—[both laughing] I don’t want to be sprayed in the face with water while I’m trying to eat like, a Junior Mint, and get some of the weird water that they spray in my mouth—
ELM: Ew, where does that water come from?!
FK: Where does it come from? It’s rat piss! It’s probably rat piss, it’s New York City! It’s Times Square! A rat definitely pissed in that water, I don’t want it in my mouth!! [both laughing]
ELM: Yeah, I do think about this whenever I go to an amusement park of some kind and some water comes out of, like, a chair or a wall, and I’m like “Where has that water been sitting? I don’t know!”
FK: I, look, I don’t worry about it generally, but I’m also not gonna eat concessions while—
ELM: Yeah, yeah. Just a little sprinkle of chair water on your—
FK: And especially not when it’s like rolling around, right? I’m just envisioning, I’m trying to take a sip of my drink and then the chair goes whoomp and I’m like “Motherfucker!”
ELM: You know, here, I’m gonna say something stupid and then I’m gonna commit to it: What if our first movie back was a 4DX movie?
FK: [laughing] Oh. Well that would be, that would be, I will tell you this: I like this idea because it would be embracing the things the pandemic took from us.
ELM: Being hit in the head with your own chair.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: To be fair, you probably can do that in your own house, somehow.
FK: I would require—it would require, I could sit in like, I have a big office chair and I could make Nick, like…
ELM: Yeah. That’s so true.
FK: Move it.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: While we watched a movie.
ELM: That’s the benefit of quarantining with another person. They can—
FK: Yeah, you know, he’s—yeah. He’s really into like, a cinematic experience for movies, only like, he likes to rewatch movies, right? And so he’ll be like “I want a cinematic experience!” And I’m like “Yeah, for like Heathers, which we’ve all seen like 15 times? We have to turn out all the lights and shit?”
ELM: I’ve never seen Heathers.
FK: What.
ELM: Just haven’t seen it!
FK: Really?
ELM: Yeah!
FK: All right, sometime you’re gonna come over and watch Heathers cause it’s a great movie.
ELM: Oh my God, you just said you’d seen it 15 times, you don’t need to see it again.
FK: I haven’t literally seen it 15 times. I think I’ve literally seen it like three times. But we own it!
ELM: All right.
FK: Anyway. So it’s like, we’re gonna have a cinematic experience, so what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna tell him we can have a cinematic experience, but only if it is a 4DX experience.
ELM: 4DX, you’ll be like “You want cinematic? Hit me with the chair!”
FK: Anyway, obviously we’re both excited about getting back into a movie theater. I wonder if everybody else is too!
ELM: Right! I will say, from my own personal level of comfort, I was—even though I was fully vaccinated for a few weeks, I was still really hesitant to do indoor things at all, and I’ve just started, you know, moving in that direction. I did have a meal inside.
FK: Uh-huh!
ELM: So now I would totally, I mean, I’m guessing a theater—ostensibly well—now maybe you’re not gonna have masks? I thought that we would just have masks in there, but… [FK laughs] Then they changed the rules.
FK: How am I gonna eat my Junior Mints?
ELM: Right. That was always the loophole there. It’s just I don’t know what’s even out there right now. I don’t wanna waste my cautious pandemic re-entry steps on a movie I hate.
FK: Yeah, no, well—I mean, The Fast and the Furious I guess is out and if I were a Fast and the Furious person that would be the perfect movie.
ELM: Yeah, I agree. I am not. I love the franchise conceptually and I love its fans and its creators.
FK: Right.
ELM: And I don’t like action movies, so I will not watch those films.
FK: Yeah, but I hope they’ve all had the greatest first post-vax movie they could wish for. You know.
ELM: So OK. This reminds me though—
FK: Coming back into places.
ELM: I do have to wonder, too, like—I don’t know. Just talking about Wonder Woman, it’s interesting, which for the record I did not watch: I do feel like one of the effects of the pandemic, of releasing some of these big blockbusters on home video—that’s not the right word. You know what I mean.
FK: Streaming.
ELM: For home consumption. It does seem to be a little bit of an emperor’s new clothes kind of situation, to me, a very critical moviegoer. Because sometimes I go to these blockbusters and I’m like, “This is bad,” and everyone seems really enraptured, and I’m like “What is going on here?!” And afterwards they’re like “That was great!” And I’m like “Was it? I don’t think that script was good at all. Were you just dazzled by the booming sound effects or whatever?” And I have noticed that every blockbustery thing that did go straight to streaming, most of them got panned, right?
And I was curious to know, like, I mean—it’s really hard to say, right? Maybe these were the ones that people were like, “Well…” You know?
FK: Yeah, I do think that if you had a movie that you thought was really great, you might try and hold it. If you possibly could.
ELM: Right, right, yeah.
FK: Because you don’t—you know, if you think that, like, whatever. If you think that Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is gonna be amazing—which I hope it will be!—then you, I mean, you particularly, that’s a weird one because he kicked up a storm and stuff. But you really wanna hold it, because like, you want people to go to the theater and pay the money and do the thing and have it be a thing.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: But no, I agree with you though. I think that there’s—this is a fandom thing too, right? Like, one of the things about, at least for me, when I watch stuff that I’m a fan of, I—especially if it’s a movie and it feels really immersive—I’m like, I’m gonna do everything I can to turn off my critic. I know you don’t do this. [ELM laughs] But I’m gonna do everything I can to turn off my critic brain and just enjoy it, and that’s a lot easier in a movie theater, where everything is loud and everything’s around you and you’re forced to just focus on the film and like, all of this, right?
And so then, like, I can love a movie and then like, you know, three days later be like, “That really kinda sucked, didn’t it?” You know?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I can enjoy it in the moment and then be like, ehh, afterwards. And I think that maybe other people are experiencing that too, where you don’t get that like, little honeymoon period of “I just turned my brain off and it was great!”
ELM: Yeah.
FK: But it wasn’t great. But that’s OK.
ELM: I think I’m talking more about a general audiences thing, but I think there is a fan element to it too, and like—when I think back to going to see each Harry Potter film in the theaters, it was like, “It’s happening! Today’s the day!” Like…
FK: Exactly, exactly!
ELM: And none of those movies—
FK: I get to see their faces again!
ELM: Yeah. And none of those movies are without sin.
FK: No. No.
ELM: But it was still, you know, like, just a kind of a joyful experience, and like, I don’t know. I mean, whatever. I have been in television fandoms, so you could have that experience with something in your own home, obviously. But there is something about the big, the bigness of it. You know?
FK: Yeah, I don’t know. I also don’t know whether…there’s also a question of what people are used to and what they want to do and so forth, right? And I know everybody’s like, everybody has different takes on this, but I keep wondering about any physical thing, like, I wonder about cons. Right? And like, what it will feel like in the future. Like, I don’t think I know anybody who is a big huge fan of the Zoom con. The digital con. Comic-Con at Home. Whatever. I mean—but there are some benefits to it. And I don’t think there’s that many, but there are some. And…you know…
ELM: Well hold on. Let’s talk about the benefits. So obviously it is more, way more accessible.
FK: Way way way way more accessible.
ELM: Whether you don’t have the financial means to travel or the physical ability…
FK: Right.
ELM: Or the mental ability. You know. For me, personally, the idea of going on a Zoom and not being paid for it makes me wanna curl up in a ball and weep. [FK laughs] So that’s just me. But not everyone has a job that requires them to be on Zoom meetings six hours a day, right? So maybe…
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. If I had an essential worker job and I was physically interacting with people all day long, then I would probably be very happy to lie on my couch and watch something on a Zoom that was cool that I couldn’t otherwise see.
ELM: Right. Maybe, more power to you if you also have to go to Zoom meetings all day and…
FK: And you still want to do this!
ELM: Oh, God. I just, I did a Zoom for—I have friends, you have friends who do this too, we have mutual friends who do this: attending classes on Zoom and stuff.
FK: Yes. I have friends who do that.
ELM: Not students, but like, you know what I mean.
FK: No, fun classes.
ELM: A hobby class.
FK: Early in the pandemic I tried it once or twice.
ELM: No.
FK: Never.
ELM: No. Sorry, not for me. I did go to, I went to virtual choir rehearsal so I could do an outdoor sing. You had to like, kind of just do the brush-up to walk through it. And it was on the day when I had my most meetings, and I literally—I felt like, cause no one turned their screen off, cause you wanna see each other, and we’re doing some movements and stuff, and like—you know, you wanna see that you’re engaged. And it was just like looking at this Zoom for the eighth hour and having to look at music, I felt like my eyes were gonna fall out of my head.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. Right! And that’s the problem with—you put your finger on my problem with virtual cons! Right? But on the other hand like, you know, like you were saying, they’re so much more accessible—it is hard for me to like, on the one hand, do I think I’m likely to go back to Comic-Con? Probably realistically! Life is long and I will. But—
ELM: Yes! But?!
FK: “Yes,” you say! But on the other hand, it is, I envision spending all this money and going and doing the thing and it just seems like so elaborate and like, lots of it—was it really that great? I don’t remember, you know what I mean?
ELM: Yes!!
FK: It was, wasn’t it.
ELM: It was great!! It was truly fun!! What are you talking about?! Like, this is like—I’m sorry! Was it not fun to go have, like, four bonkers days in San Diego, California, just drink fruity drinks and go in the small hotel pool and like…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: See—
FK: [laughing] And then get deathly ill.
ELM: Well don’t worry about that. See James McAvoy from afar!? Yes!
FK: Yeah, that’s cause you saw James McAvoy from afar!
ELM: You got to go to the Star Trek thing! You were truly—
FK: That’s true, I did love that.
ELM: —dazzled by that.
FK: I was truly dazzled by the Star Trek panel.
ELM: So don’t erase these magical memories! Like, these were—these were wonderful, and I am, it’s, you know, I’m like “Oh yeah, I saved a lot of money in the last year, cause I was gratefully, thankfully employed and I had nowhere to go,” but I was just thinking like, “Oh, I spent a lot of my extra money in 2019 cause I went on trips that were truly fun!” And I would like to do that again! I’m not like—I don’t wanna like, go buy a house! Like, I wanna go fun places! You know? That’s me, a millennial. [FK laughing] So yeah. I’m gonna go back to cons.
Yeah, I’m not gonna lie: I got a virus from you at that con. I’m not gonna let you forget it. I’m gonna be on my deathbed being like “Flourish!”
FK: “Flourish gave me a flu—!”
ELM: And I went to a, you know, a specialist literally two days ago for the chronic, painful condition that it left me with.
FK: [laughing] That it left you with.
ELM: Almost two years later. Was it worth it? Yeah! I still would’ve gone to that!!
FK: [laughing] Oh my God.
ELM: No actually, with this specific one—
FK: I don’t believe it was worth it for you, Elizabeth!
ELM: If I had a time machine, I probably would, I don’t know, like, spend a bunch of money and get my own hotel room or something, or make you go somewhere else. And make you wear a mask while you sleep. [FK laughing]
FK: I mean, I would too, for that! I didn’t know I was sick probably for the time that I was getting you sick!
ELM: Yeah, if we had a time machine we would make sure you didn’t get sick first.
FK: I was gonna say, realistically if I had a time machine I probably would not have gone, because I wouldn’t get sick then.
ELM: Ideal. So I still would have gotten to see James McAvoy and drink fruity drinks and you wouldn’t have gotten me sick.
FK: Yeah. Yeah. Although you probably wouldn’t have gotten into all the same parties.
ELM: Wow, I got invited to that party myself.
FK: Just saying— [laughs] All right. Anyway, anyway. So we think that cons are coming back. I think it’s interesting. I mean, it’s interesting, right, they’re already coming back. There are cons that are doing the proof of vaccination, whatever, and with things supposedly being totally open, like—I don’t know. It’s gonna be interesting to see how cons navigate that, because obviously they’re allowed to have more restrictions, I guess. Like, obviously, like—so it’s not, you know…
ELM: Yeah, I think too, I mean, it’s just interesting. Part of the like, fracturing of the blockbuster schedules and kinda these big anticipatory rhythms and stuff is this kind of crashing and burning of celebrity culture in the last year, too, right? You know, we talked—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: —early on about how bad so many of these celebrities were, with their like, “We’re all in lockdown together! And I’m gonna sing you a song!”
FK: Yes. “Imagine.” Seared onto my brain. [laughing]
ELM: Yeah, it’s not just her fault. So many of them had so many bad—and there’s been a lot of—
FK: That was multiple people! It’s not just one person who did “Imagine.”
ELM: I know. But it’s not just that video’s fault. I feel like that’s the one people choose to hate on, but so many people were like, you know, even Arnold Schwarzenegger in his hot tub being like “Stay inside, California!” It’s like “OK, cool, can I have a hot tub which is the size of my apartment?”
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. To be fair, Arnold Schwarzenegger with his, like, pet donkey really did—and like, the Conan sword? I feel like he really pulled it off towards the end of things. He figured it out. I’ll watch his pet donkey forever.
ELM: I think it’s hard though, because I think that—you know, yeah. I’ve kind of enjoyed celebrities I like. I like seeing that most of their content is about their, inside of their house. And I get it: they’re really rich so they have really nice houses. And now that we’re not deep in lockdown, and I don’t feel totally trapped inside my tiny apartment, I’m not like “You have so many rooms, I’m so resentful!” I’ve gotten past that, right? [FK laughs]
And I like seeing the inside of their house! But there is something about when they get to do their normal things and you mostly see them on the red carpet or doing press for their films where it feels like they’re like, the times you see them they’re like, kind of doing their jobs. You know? And like—I feel like that kind of makes it better. That’s what I want out of celebrities: I want to see them on the red carpet. Like, in a nice outfit. No offense to them, but I’m not just—they’re not influencers, I’m not just following them to see their curated personal lives, you know what I mean?
FK: Right. Right. And there’s a few of them whose curated personal lives work. Like, there are a few. But it’s not everyone.
ELM: Yeah! I mean, I’m speaking very broadly here because I’m talking about like, actors who are in—I’m sure this applies to musicians too—but obviously there are tons of people in celebrity fandom who are literally fans of people who have curated personal lives, right, like the Kardashians, you know. Or whatever. Any—
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: I don’t know why I immediately went in that direction. Real Housewives fandom. You know what I mean?
FK: Yeah, yeah!
ELM: So like, maybe that’s not a huge difference, right? You know? For people for whom most of the time you see them is when they’re promoting a movie or touring, if they’re musicians, right—like, I think this has kind of fractured that kind of fandom experience as well. And it feels like that is something that can bounce back relatively quickly. It’s very clear that many of these celebrities got vaxed perhaps before they were eligible. So they’re ready to go! Right? Like…
FK: Yeah! [laughs]
ELM: And they seem ready to go! Like, you know, they—the places they were allowed to do these awards shows, they were all there and they like, did a little theater of the mask-wearing or whatever. Clearly that wasn’t an issue for them.
FK: Yeah, no one was— [laughs]
ELM: Yeah. So like, I think that that is an element that’s gonna come back, and I honestly think that despite this somewhat of a backlash around some of their like, pandemic content, I think once people start going out to premieres and doing press tours, everyone’s just gonna turn off their brains again and be like “I love him!” Like “Oh, he’s petting a puppy for Buzzfeed! I love it!” You know? Like—I can’t see any like, lingering resentment over that. You know what I mean?
FK: Yeah, yeah. Although I do think it is gonna be a little weird, so like, with music in particular, you know, you were mentioning musicians touring and so forth—I think that part’s gonna be a little weird, because at this point I have tickets for things that like, I have no idea when they’re actually gonna happen. Is Harryween this year? It was supposed to be last year, like, what—I don’t know. You know? Like—
ELM: That word makes me uncomfortable, I just wanna say that.
FK: Harryween? [laughs]
ELM: Sounds like you’ve gotta wean him.
FK: It’s a Halloween event!
ELM: I figured it out, I figured it out.
FK: And in some cases, the tours have been, like, canceled, and people have been given things—so it’s just like—
ELM: Yeah, I got refunds. Like, I—not for music, but for theater. And there was no…
FK: Yeah.
ELM: They were not like, “Maybe someday you’ll, we’ll do it again!” They’re just like “Here’s your money back, goodbye.”
FK: Right. So there’s different things that are happening within that, and I do kind of wonder how that’s gonna be, because it’s been…it’s been a long time! And like, just like with blockbusters, the rhythm of that stuff has been interrupted, right? Like—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: What was the rhythm of expectation, what was the rhythm of what was going to happen, right? Particularly for stuff that you had to get in a long line—like, I’m not giving up my pit tickets for Harry Styles stuff. I’m gonna hold on to those until they either make me take the money back or… [laughing] You know? Tell me it’s not happening or whatever, but like…
ELM: Sure.
FK: I don’t know what I’m gonna do with that. I don’t even know how emotionally I’m gonna relate to that. And I kinda wonder, I don’t know. It will be interesting to see how that happens when those tours finally happen. Those that are going to, like, what that feels like, you know.
ELM: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s different for different people. I think knowing how you feel about re-entering the world, cautious optimism, and like, science-backed, but I know so many people who are… [FK laughs] are much more anxious and moving at a much slower pace, and it’s like: you do you! Absolutely no rush. But in a year I can definitely see some of these people saying “I’m not ready to go to a concert,” right?
FK: Particularly in a pit, right? I have to say that there is—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —still some part of my body that’s like, “I’m gonna do it, but also I’m going to be smashed up against people and we are going to have bodily fluid interchange that I didn’t think about, you know, two years ago, but we are breathing in each other’s faces!”
ELM: I think that’s gonna take a long time for most people to get over. But I also, like, knowing you, I suspect that by the fall…
FK: Yeah, I’m gonna be all right.
ELM: You’re gonna be up for it.
FK: It’s gonna be fine.
ELM: Yeah, you might think, you know, you might think about it in a way that you didn’t ever think about it before, right? But like…
FK: But.
ELM: But I think that this is a really different timescale for different people and that’s hard, and I don’t know. I, I see—I feel like some of the anxiety that I’m seeing, I get the sense that it might not…without like active therapy, for some folks, it may not…
FK: Yeah, it may not go away.
ELM: May not go away ever, right? You know? If you’re, if you’ve developed true agoraphobia, which I think a lot of people have! You know? That doesn’t magically retreat.
FK: Yeah, I really think so. I mean I don’t know what they’re like physically, but I know a lot of people who—yeah, there’s, yeah.
ELM: Maybe people will go to therapy. I heard a therapist talking on the radio yesterday about exposure therapy, and it was very good and very accessible, and—exposure therapy, for anyone who doesn’t know, if you’re trying to get over a phobia it’s about introducing you to it incrementally, and the important thing is like, the introduction, and the continuing to try.
FK: Right.
ELM: You know, and she was talking about this in the context of agoraphobia and you know, fear of social interaction, not just being out in a crowd.
FK: Right.
ELM: She said if you’re nervous to go to a thing, the most important thing when you’re starting out is to just go and come back. I don’t care, it doesn’t matter if you have a terrible time while you’re there, but like, if you’re nervous to go to a party or whatever, to see other people, the important thing is that you try going and returning. Those are the things you should focus on.
FK: Right. You can look at people and you can leave, but you gotta go. [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, which is interesting, cause I feel like so often people will really fixate on what will happen while you’re there, and it’s like well—what’s the worst that happens? You’re like “I don’t feel comfortable and I wanna leave.”
FK: And then you leave.
ELM: Or you’re like “I feel tired’ and then you leave, but the important thing is that you try. So that was really interesting advice and I thought pretty accessible advice.
FK: That’s good advice for all sorts of things actually, right? Like…
ELM: Just go. Just try.
FK: Yeah, just try it and then if you don’t like it, you can say no. And go back. And then you can try again maybe, if it matters to you.
ELM: Anyway, that’s not fandom-specific, obviously, but I think there are a lot of fan things that in the IRL space…it’s a very, it’s a crowd-oriented kind of thing, right? Because you’re with groups of, fandom is a group of people who all like a thing, right?
FK: Yeah, and some of the joy of it, right? Like, it’s like—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: One of the many pleasures of fandom, there’s lots of very individual pleasures of fandom, right? Obviously. But there are some pleasures of fandom that are about, like, collective effervescence, right? We’re all together! And we’re all, you know, we’re all in Hall H, or we’re all at this concert! Or we’re all waiting for the movie to start! And there’s this buzz and you can feel the other people, and you know, maybe you’re like, you know, look at somebody and you know—you don’t know them but you know that you’re both obsessed with the same thing and you’re like “Yeah!” You know? It’s just—it’s a beautiful feeling and it’s something that we haven’t had for, you know, over a year, and I don’t know. It would be sad to me if that feeling went away, and I don’t think it’s going to. I mean, people are gonna come back. But I think that there are a lot of people, like you said, who aren’t gonna be ready for it, which I get.
ELM: Yeah. It’s funny, I, you know, so that Marvel— “trailer” isn’t the right word. That Marvel video came out where they were like “Hey! We’re still here and we still emotionally manipulate you.” [FK laughs] If anyone didn’t see, we’ll put it in the show notes. And I thought it was very very smart of them to put the clip of…it was a clip of, must have been the opening weekend for Avengers: Endgame, of an audience—movie audience—reacting. Right? And it was just like, whooping and it was the scene at the very end, where they all like, show up one by one, right? You know? To do the big battle.
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, yeah.
ELM: And just people just losing their minds when every person came, and it was just such a smart thing to include, cause it wasn’t just like “you love Black Panther, you love,” I don’t know, who else do people love? Doctor Strange? I don’t know. [FK laughs] There are ones—you love Iron Man. Ones people actually love! [laughs] It was like, “You love this experience,” right? And it was funny because I was like, “You guys are extremely good at this, so congrats,” but I also thought about when I saw Avengers: Endgame in a theater with like—
FK: Yeah, you saw it like after— [laughs]
ELM: I saw it like eight weeks after it came out or whatever, in a theater with maybe 20 people max, of like, 20 stone-faced people, like, I was stone-faced, my friend was stone-faced, I couldn’t see everyone else but like, barely a peep. Literally I didn’t think any of the jokes were funny. But also, no one was laughing, right? And so like maybe—
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, whereas I saw it early on and I did not—I did not like that movie, but I did like the experience of being in a theater with a bunch of people going “Whaaaaaat! Whaaaaat? Whaaaaat! Aaaa!” You know? Like, it was fun! That last scene was the perfect example of a scene that whenever I look at it, if I just look at that scene without anybody around I’m like “OK, a bunch of people fuckin’ showed up out of some fuckin’ portals, I don’t care.” But when people around you are going “Aaaaaah it’s DOCTOR STRANGE!” and their face is melting, it’s a fun time, you know? And that’s what the purpose of that scene was! They made that scene, like—
ELM: Yeah!
FK: In order for you to be in a movie theater and have everyone’s face melt for like, you know, whatever, the five minutes it takes for all the different people to show up.
ELM: [laughing] To see the characters you knew were gonna come back cause they all have more movies scheduled! It’s like “Ah, I can’t wait for your sequel!”
FK: Right, but to see them in that collective moment, you know what I mean?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: I mean, I think that—I even felt like we experienced this in 4DX, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, a movie that’s bad in a different way. [FK laughs] Because obviously I would have, I mean, “enjoy” is the wrong word. I had complicated feelings about watching that film. But there is like a big battle scene at the end where I think that they do some of the greatest Magneto moves in the entirety of the X-Men film franchise. Right? Like, they just—
FK: Uh-huh!
ELM: They just, like, went to town on his moves.
FK: Magneto bein’—
ELM: Just, just beautiful. And like, the people in our relatively small audience, after they got hit in the head with their chairs, were just like “Whoa yeah!! All right!!” Right? And I imagine…
FK: Well that’s part of what’s fun about 4DX! When you’re getting moved around by your chair, it’s hard not to have, like, a reaction. You know how they say that when you, if you’re sad you should just smile with your face? And then you start feeling better because you made your mouth smile?
ELM: That’s funny.
FK: It’s like that! 4DX is like that! It’s like— [ELM laughs] It’s gonna physically force you to move around, and then you’re gonna start feeling exhilarated, cause like…
ELM: I think outside of 4DX, that scene would have still warranted some cheers. Cause it was just like, it’s the kinda thing where you watch and you’re like “Sick, man!” [laughter] We were in Union Square and that was the reaction, it was like “Bitchin’!” You know? So like…
FK: Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: And so like, I imagine watching, you know, what if I just watched it at home alone? I would have been like “God, this movie is not good and I’m disappointed,” but instead I got to have a moment of levity, where as a collective we could be like “Yeah! That was cool!” Right? And it’s really interesting how that works. And so like, yeah, I miss that. I don’t—we’re just on a tangent about…
FK: No, but OK, but let’s go back to being at home alone, though. Because there are some things that I wanted to talk about related to that, that I wanted to ask about.
ELM: The film starring Macaulay Culkin? I rewatched it at Christmas time, at Thanksgiving time, with my parents.
FK: No. Not that movie. Although I, too, rewatched it this year, and it held up better than I remembered.
ELM: Oh, it’s a very well-made movie and the second one is well-made as well, except for you know, the Donald Trump cameo.
FK: No, but—so early in the pandemic, we talked about some like, fic trends and like, other trends of like, people like—things people were doing…
ELM: OK, so wait, you wanna pivot in our final segment here to talking about—
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: Fandom things.
FK: We’ve been talking so far about things that are, like, out of your house, right? It’s not even about fandom things, we’ve been talking about things that are like, in the world, that are either, you know—but there’s also a lot of stuff that’s like, before the pandemic, we were all reading fanfic. And like, there were some changes to people’s fic-reading, people think, anyway. We’ve talked about that. During the pandemic. And like, what’s that? Is that gonna—like, are those changes permanent changes, right? So like…
ELM: Yeah, well, OK, hold on: I wanna say this first. I don’t know—I think without actual research, like, surveys, which actually could be an interesting survey, I don’t know if we can really say that people’s fic reading habits changed.
FK: Yeah, I don’t know that we can say that.
ELM: The Archive Of Our Own in particular has seen year-over-year huge traffic jumps, and that predated the pandemic as we like, investigated with Toast at the end of last year. You have these archive-breaking fics or whatever, they’re not actually breaking the archive, people joke about it, from people who’ve never engaged with fic before. Like, they, you know, the Mandalorian stuff and the Minecraft stuff—not Minecraft. Minecraft YouTuber stuff!
FK: Yeah yeah yeah. Minecraft YouTuber. It’s not even Minecraft itself.
ELM: So you, yeah, so you have these massive feral fandom kind of experiences coming in, and so I think it’s really hard, because anecdotally, I—I haven’t read any new fic since the pandemic started. I am tired.
FK: Wow.
ELM: The only new fic I’ve read is the fic that I have written during the pandemic, which is ironic. I did read it over multiple times, just to make sure. But I know—and I’ve seen other people say, “Oh, I haven’t really been able to read anything.” Any fic. Right? And I’ve also seen tons of people saying, “Oh, I’m reading more than ever,” et cetera, et cetera. So I think it’s really hard to draw conclusions. I think we’ve all had kind of different reactions.
FK: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I do think that there have been people who have been saying things about this, right. People saying “Everyone’s just doing comfort reading.” Whatever that means to you. So whether that means like, you’re reading new fic but only in your tropes, or whether that means “I’m not reading any new fic, only things I’ve read before” or whatever, right—
ELM: I have reread fic. I will say that.
FK: Right. So there was this—so there was this idea, especially early in the pandemic, that everybody was just doing comfort something.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And we had talked about this at that time, because I was like—for a long time I too was like, “I haven’t read anything, I’ve crafted a lot, and I’ve watched a lot of really bad TV, but like…I haven’t been doing anything creative or anything like that either.” And that changed for me over time.
So I mean like, I guess I’m curious about like—is that…I guess we can’t even really say if that was a trend. There’s a lot of stuff like this where it feels like everybody sort of thinks that something is true, and if it’s true or not I don’t know.
ELM: Who is everybody? Yeah, I think with this kind of thing too it’s like, you know, I think a lot of people who are extremely extremely online right now, like—maybe they would’ve described themselves as extremely online before, but now they’re just like… [FK laughs] Extra online.
FK: This is the only—I wake up and just Twitter comes into my eyeballs.
ELM: Right, right. I think there’s a perception amongst those people that people are doing extra online stuff right now, but I also think there’s a lot of people who, you know, maybe are disengaged. There are people that I know from my fandom pseud who seem to have vanished entirely, and I don’t know what the deal is. Did they leave this fandom? Did they leave fandom? Are they, like, nurses and they are working 16-hour days and then, you know, like, are they taking care of their five children and trying to work from home at the same time and can’t engage with fandom in any way?
And the flip side of that is, I see people who are extremely online talking about how maybe they lost their jobs or because they’re students and all they can do is go to class and do homework and they can’t do anything else, then they just have a lot more time. And so those people are kind of stewing in the awfulness of, of the digital world right now, right?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And then a lot of other people seem to be totally absent in a way that feels very unbalanced. It all feels unbalanced to me basically. And this is not just in fandom, but I feel it strongly in fandom.
FK: I think you’re right. It is interesting. So I’ve been observing, I don’t know, it was in a fandom that I won’t name, but like—observing—
ELM: Is it your new fandom?
FK: No. [ELM laughs] It’s not. No.
ELM: Everyone knows Flourish has a new fandom, right? I just wanna point that out. Yeah!!
FK: This may be like a burning hot and quick situation, I’m afraid.
ELM: Really? You’re already losing interest?!
FK: I don’t know! I haven’t figured it out yet. I might be.
ELM: Why are you so fickle.
FK: I don’t know. I might—I might not have lost interest. I just, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know where I’m at right now with this.
ELM: All right, we’ll save the fandom therapy session for a future episode.
FK: We’ll save the fandom therapy session for later. What I was trying to say was in this fandom I was observing, I realized oh, there’s this person who’s like, really obsessed with—like a spy account trying to figure out all the stuff that’s happening with this production. It’s something that’s currently in production. And I realized after a little while that this person is a kid from the U.K. who isn’t, like, classes were shut down for them. They were like, you know, not going to class, so they had all the time in the world to do all of this stuff. It’s like—OK! This makes, suddenly this makes sense. You just, this was your hobby. This was your pandemic hobby that you fell into.
ELM: Right.
FK: You know? Gossip account, basically. Like, that’s how you showed up from nowhere and suddenly had 16 hours every day to obsess about this!
ELM: Yeah, yeah!
FK: And it was kinda cool. I was like, I get it now. Like, you have—you have gone on a journey, my friend. [laughs]
ELM: That’s interesting. I wonder, I mean, it’s really hard, it’s totally anecdotal, but just in a speculative way, like—I’ve heard a lot of reporting on the people who are, have graduated in the last year, or have just, you know. Not, from high school as well, maybe delaying college. Or—but mostly college, people graduating from college and it’s like, you know, if you are lucky enough to be able to live with your parents, like if they have a room for you still and don’t mind feeding you—
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And you know, obviously hiring is like, completely up in the air right now and it’s shifting like, you know, very quickly. But like, up until the last couple of months, we had bazillions of unemployed people, right?
FK: Right.
ELM: And in previous times, you might’ve then gotten, like, a low-wage job just to start making some money, but like, are you gonna go take a restaurant—you know? First of all, lots of people aren’t hiring, but then even if they are, are you gonna go take a job where you actually have to face the, you know, would you actively choose that right now? If you didn’t have to.
FK: Right.
ELM: So I think there’s a lot of people who are kind of stuck in limbo just waiting. And that gives them a lot of time to do online stuff, and that’s not necessarily bad, it doesn’t mean that like, everyone who doesn’t have anything else to do is gonna go be like a terrible doxxing troll or something— [FK laughs] I think that there’s probably been a lot of people who have been creating beautiful things and you know, really engaging—engaging positively with fandom, because they have a lot of free time. Right?
FK: Yeah, totally.
ELM: But it’s a full spectrum. If you have a lot of time. Basically. [FK laughs]
FK: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know. I mean, it will be interesting to see how this like, does it come back into balance? Or is there a new balance in the future? I mean obviously, like, people are gonna be getting jobs. You know what I mean? Like—we’re not gonna be in a situation where people are like, unemployment is this high forever and everything sucks. I don’t think that that’s true.
ELM: Flourish! People just don’t wanna work anymore! [FK groans extensively] Actually I will say, jobless, jobless unemployment claims—is that the official term?—declining quickly! I heard on the radio. I listen to Marketplace.
FK: Right!
ELM: I know about the economy!
FK: Great!
ELM: The yield on the…10-year T-note is…down…two-and-a-half percent?
FK: Wow. Well, anyway… [ELM laughing] My point being, you know, uh—obviously those aspects of the world are gonna change, but I do wonder whether, you know, I wonder how people are going to get back—like, will some of those people who have disappeared show back up as things ease?
ELM: It’s interesting because I feel like one of the things we’ve talked about a fair amount over the years, for people who are not…and I don’t wanna frame it to say like “Everyone is, fandom is, fandom is like brightest when you’re a teenager, and then it’s just—” cause that’s not how it works at all, right. We’ve talked a lot about how different people’s life circumstances mean that they are more or less drawn to fandom, and it’s an intersection of that and whether there’s things that you’re into, right?
And we just spent like half an hour talking about how a lot of stuff is delayed, so maybe you’re in Star Wars fandom and The Mandalorian isn’t your jam, and when is the next Star Wars movie gonna come out, you know what I mean? And like, you’re tired of interacting with the canon of the previous movies—do you know what I mean? I think some people really do need new stuff to keep going. Star Wars is a weird example cause I don’t think that there was a Star Wars movie planned, but just think of something that was.
FK: Not immediately.
ELM: Think of something that was supposed to come out this past year, and so like, you may say like “Ah, that’s not really enough for me to kind of hang on to,” right? I think that the difference here—but then a lot of it is like, pure life circumstances and not related to the object of fandom, right? It’s like, I was really depressed and so I got really into fandom, or I was really depressed so I couldn’t engage with fandom, or I had a baby. [laughs] You know?
FK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ELM: Or my job was demanding, or just wasn’t clicking with me. Et cetera et cetera. I think that one of the things that often makes that hard is it’s an individual circumstance, you know. The fandom may be really vibrant, but you’re going through something, and…
FK: Right, right.
ELM: You can’t engage, and then you can’t align with the people who are there and wanna talk at that moment.
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: Whereas this is like, a big collective thing that’s affecting people in really different ways, and so I think that—I understand our impulse to try to like, draw conclusions, but it’s hard, because—
FK: Right.
ELM: You know?
FK: Yeah, and there’s so many different locations that—right? I think about, for instance, our experiences in the very beginning of the pandemic, where there were like literally mobile morgues set up.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: We were like, in fear for our lives, in a very very very tangible way. Right? And in a way that was not overblown, I don’t think. Right? At that moment.
ELM: Sure.
FK: And people, people we knew were dying. And things like this. And then I think about how that is compared to now, when I think we’re both feeling really relaxed—but people we know in India are in a far worse situation than we were.
ELM: Right.
FK: Even at the peak of the pandemic then. And I think about how, you know, that’s…you know, fandom is also not just one place, right?
ELM: Absolutely.
FK: So it’s not, there’s individual and there’s collective, but then there’s also local context that’s really hugely different for people depending on where they are and it’s really hard to talk through that. You know? Like, I’m sure that just as disconnected and stressed out and freaked out as we were, I’m sure that that’s even five times worse for the people we know in India right now.
ELM: Absolutely.
FK: Who are like “what the fuck,” you know.
ELM: And I remember this in the very start of the pandemic, before I kind of dropped out of engaging with fandom for a while. You know, interacting with different people in the U.S. who were like—because it just hit New York first and so hard, well, and you know, even outside of fandom, I have a good friend who lives in Seattle, and they were the first ones. And so for the beginning of the pandemic, we were very—we had a kind of a close sort of connection in that way.
FK: You were in sync. Yeah.
ELM: Yeah. Whereas I felt somewhat disconnected when I would talk to people in other parts of the country who were not experiencing these circumstances, right? And then like, New York continued to get bad, and they started to get a little better, and then I felt a little more disconnected actually! Right? And I started to feel like—
FK: Right.
ELM: “Only the people who live in my city really get this experience!” And it’s like, well, yeah: only the people who live where I live get the experience that I’m having, because…
FK: Right.
ELM: That’s a very localized experience. Right? And so like…
FK: But I think that’s going to continue for the next, you know, who knows how long. Right? Because especially as the, the global recovery from this, right—the global, like, being in the midst of it in some places, leaning towards recovery, because we do know at least there are vaccines.
ELM: Right.
FK: Even if a lot of people can’t get them. It’s gonna be a long time where people are pretty disconnected. And where people are having really disconnected experiences. And I mean, we could, there could be an entire other episode in this about, you know, obviously rich countries and poor countries and the way that inequity exists within this. But I think that it would be…that’s one of the many reasons why it’s sort of hard to make a prescription about “What is fandom gonna be like?” Because the answer is like—
ELM: Right.
FK: You know, right? [laughs]
ELM: It’s interesting, cause it’s like—on the fandom side itself, it feels more open in that way.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: But the, back to the beginning of the arc, the other side feels a little more closed to me. Hollywood is gonna do what Hollywood needs to do and if Hollywood can plough forward and doesn’t need the—
FK: Right.
ELM: —the markets from the countries that are, have very little access to vaccines…
FK: Right.
ELM: They’re not gonna feel bad about it, right?
FK: Yeah, cause Hollywood is a corporation, so the only question is “do we have enough screens to open this on, and do people feel confident enough to go back to a movie theater?” And if that’s the case, it doesn’t matter if there’s inequity, it doesn’t matter if, you know, you can’t see it, because your country doesn’t have any vaccines. They’re still gonna open the movie, because…
ELM: Right.
FK: The only thing that matters there is money.
ELM: Which I, I think that’s really hard, because I think that when we’re talking about fandom—beyond just plain old audiences—like, there’s already big feelings about like, it’s not just about like, “Oh, I wanted to go see that movie.”
FK: Right.
ELM: “And it’s available to me.” It’s also there’s this kind of depth of feeling to it, right?
FK: Yeah yeah.
ELM: And Hollywood doesn’t actually care about that depth of feeling, right, they care about the depth of dollars, you know what I mean?
FK: Right, right right. And to a lesser extent, other stuff too, right, like—touring, touring musicians and so forth making decisions like that, you know.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Even though the musician themselves may care about their fans emotionally, personally, ultimately the decision of what’s going to happen on that tour is not going to be about what they feel like emotionally, personally.
ELM: Right. Like—
FK: That’s, you know? [laughs]
ELM: Yeah. If you’re starting, I mean, this is already happening to some extent. There are, there have been live shows and things like that in Australia and New Zealand for months, right? You know? Because you can.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: Right? And that’s not necessarily just because people who are performing there love the people of New Zealand. [laughs] It’s just like, they would like to be able to continue to do their jobs! And unfortunately, right now, if you’re setting up a tour, you may not—and you were like, say, Brazil is still in really rough shape. You probably wouldn’t, I mean, legally, you know, in a lot of places, you can’t, right?
FK: Exactly! Legally—
ELM: It’s not just whether people feel comfortable, it’s whether you can even have a, you know. Have people in a venue, right? So, like, that’s really hard, because I think that those kind of just pure rational decisions kind of break…
FK: Right.
ELM: Break down when it actually comes to how fans feel about them.
FK: Right.
ELM: Cause that sucks. You know?
FK: Yeah. Completely. Well, I will say this: I think that we’re both on the cautiously-optimistic side of this in the long term, meaning that I think both of us don’t feel like things are going to be like this forever. So I wanna know, Elizabeth, as we close out, what is the thing that you’re most excited about getting to, like—the experience you’re most excited about getting to have on that fine day when it is possible to have the experience? Whatever that day is. What’s the thing you wanna do?
ELM: Well, you know, like a month ago I did say—this isn’t about fandom—but I said “you know, for me I’ll really feel like I’ve moved past the pandemic when I could just go to an Applebee’s and sit inside and not think about it.” [FK laughs] And you know, I could go to an Applebee’s right now. I would think about it though. It’s the not thinking about it. That is not a fandom thing.
FK: You could make it a fandom thing. Make it about fandom and say that you’re going to be in a weird, like, in a city and meeting somebody from fandom that you didn’t previously know, and you happened to go to Applebee’s, because that’s what you do sometimes in those circumstances.
ELM: No. You’re ruining my narrative about Applebee’s. This is not—there’s gotta be no particular reason why I’m going to Applebee’s.
FK: All right.
ELM: But actual fandom things—talking about Comic-Con really made me feel nostalgic. I really love it! I love most cons. Like, I—I like, I like hangin’ and I like parties and I like seeing people, and like, I would really like to go back to GeekGirlCon. I had a wonderful time. That was one of the last things we did before everything locked down, right? Like, that was November 2019.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: I’d love to be able to see people and just have a kind of, I guess a less—it just feels like it’s not, it’s not spontaneous at all, but in a way it feels a little spontaneous. Like…
FK: Right.
ELM: “We’re just gonna go over to the convention hall, walk around,” just at any con, you know?
FK: But we’ll see people there because—
ELM: “Hey!” right? And not “We are going to meet at this specific time,” you know. I don’t know. I think that that’s the thing that I am really looking forward to. You know, in terms of like actual—my actual fandom, like, nothing’s changed. [FK laughs] And there’s been like, no new content. But I continue to have a lot of fic ideas and I feel great about that, and I’m really grateful that I regained the ability to write last summer, because if that continued past…for more than a few months, I think I would have been very sad. It’s brought me a lot of comfort to be able to continue writing. So that’s my fandom take. What’s yours?
FK: So, one of—I mean I already talked about this, but one of the great things that I did prior to the pandemic was buy a lot of Harry Styles concert tickets and in one case in particular, you know, the expensive concert tickets that involve like, you know, being in the pit and like, getting a free drink or whatever.
ELM: This is more money than a Hamilton ticket or less?
FK: Uh, the…more expensive one, I think, is more.
ELM: [gasps] I just wanted to get a sense.
FK: Mostly less. Mostly less. Mostly less. [ELM laughs] But I am looking forward to going to Madison Square Garden and getting like, a tequila.
ELM: Sure.
FK: And like, going to the pit, and being like, crushed against other people, and like, losing my mind when Harry comes out wearing some kind of like, fabulous outfit. And just, you know, letting it wash over me. That’s what I’m looking forward to.
ELM: You know what, I really feel like—I gotta say: you’re talkin’ about your fandoms like, burning fast and bright or whatever. I really like that you barely mention Harry Styles to me, cause there’s… [FK laughs] What information are you gonna share with me that I haven’t already heard? But I like to know that this, like, exists in your brain, this switch that will get flipped on when you see him, right?
FK: Oh, yeah!
ELM: You know?
FK: No, it exists. I know that the moment that I am in that space it’s gonna be like, whoomp. Like a tidal wave.
ELM: Honestly I feel like if I were to go to a Buffalo Bills game I would feel this way.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: That actually is one fandom thing that happened during the pandemic: the Bills went farther in the playoffs than they’ve gone in years, and it was miserable. [FK laughs] It was, it was the purest—what I think of as true sports fandom, true Bills fandom.
FK: It was stressful?
ELM: “I hope they lose so I don’t have to do this again next weekend.” Yeah. Like, that’s—that’s like, “Oh no. If they win this then they’re gonna go to the Super Bowl and I have to watch them lose a Super Bowl, and that’s awful.” Right? Like, this immediate pessimism while you’re rooting for them. There’s so much, there’s so much to unpack there! But that was nice. And I paid for CBS, CBS All Access, to watch it, and then I forgot to cancel it, so I’ve been paying like—I’ve paid like $20 to watch that game now.
FK: And yet you didn’t watch Star Trek.
ELM: Not yet! I’m still getting it, so I could.
FK: You could, that’s what I’m saying! All right, well, I’m looking forward to seeing you in-person sometime soon…
ELM: Well that’s literally gonna happen. We’ve also seen each other in person.
FK: Which is literally gonna happen. And then I’m looking forward to going to a con with you sometime in the next several years, whenever that happens again, and uh…
ELM: We should really, no, we should go to the movies. We should look at what’s coming out, I don’t wanna waste—
FK: And then do a special episode about going to the movies!
ELM: —our first movie! I don’t want to waste my movie vibes on a movie I hate.
FK: All right. All right, we’ll figure out the right one.
ELM: Cool, I don’t know what’s coming out. I have no idea.
FK: We’re gonna find out. All right. But before we go we need to remind people about Patreon.
ELM: Yes, because we didn’t talk about it in the middle, so we should talk about it at the end.
FK: Yeah. As you guys know, we are supported by listeners and readers like you. So in order to help us keep making this podcast, go to patreon.com/fansplaining, and pledge, and we’ve got a lot of great prizes…I like to call them “prizes”...for people who pledge!
ELM: Yeah! Like the special episodes you just mentioned. That’s a prize.
FK: A good prize!
ELM: From a dollar a month, which gets you access to a special episode that we did with Javier Grillo-Marxuach, all the way up to infinite dollars. [FK laughs] I guess you can’t have infinite dollars, because that’s not how money works.
FK: No.
ELM: Right? They do—I listen to Marketplace, so I know how money works.
FK: [laughs] I don’t.
ELM: I don’t really. Know how. I listen to Marketplace, but I don’t know how money works. Um, [laughs] but, uh, you know, ostensibly $10, but higher if you have the means. We would absolutely more than welcome it. At $3 a month you get all of our Special Episodes. $5 a month in addition to that you get an enamel pin and your name right in the credits, or if you listen to the credits, you can dedicate it to your object of fandom.
FK: You can! You can. Which has led us to many great objects of fandom listed in our credits.
ELM: Yes! Yes.
FK: It’s a real potpourri!
ELM: And then at $10 a month you get our Tiny Zines, and I think it’s time for another Tiny Zine, so we should probably put one together!
FK: Yeah, we gotta put one together! And if you cannot or don’t want to chip in any money, you can also support us in other ways. The best ways to do that are by spreading the word about the podcast, telling your friends, you can also write in or call in 1-401-526-FANS. You’ll get a voicemail and you can leave us a message. Or you can write us at fansplaining at gmail dot com, or find us as “fansplaining” on basically, you know, most of the social networks you might consider. And when you do that, we might read or play your, your question or your comment on the podcast! We love getting those and they really help us come up with new stuff to talk about. And respond to. So we really appreciate that for everybody who does those things.
ELM: Yes. I say yes.
FK: Great.
ELM: I also, I also say: I know, you know, it’s an arbitrary number, but 150!
FK: Lotta episodes!
ELM: Pretty exciting! That’s pretty exciting. I mean technically it’s our 152nd episode, cause we had two double episodes, right? No! Three double episodes.
FK: Yeah, we’ve had some double episodes.
ELM: Right?
FK: But whatever, it says #150, I’m sticking with that.
ELM: Episode 150. So you know…
FK: There’s also the special episodes! If we were gonna count those then we’re at like—but we’re not.
ELM: Way past it. All right.
FK: It says it’s #150.
ELM: So that’s pretty exciting. So thanks for making this podcast with me, Flourish.
FK: Aww. Thanks, Elizabeth! Guess I’ll see ya soon!
ELM: [laughs] OK! Goodbye!
FK: Bye!
[Outro music, thank-yous and credits]