My nephew is obsessed. He is a fanboy of the highest order. Anything Star Wars related and he is totally there. I believe he has watched all of the movies at least 10 times over and that is in the last month alone. He can quote dialogue and knows the action sequences to the smallest details. He even knows the music. He can hum the score, not just the theme songs, all the music, all the incidental music that is played in the background throughout the movies. It is incredible, the first time I heard him do that I think I stared at him with open mouthed disbelief. My sister laughed at me I think.

My nephew is four years old.

He has also had the movies (which I gave to him for Christmas, I am such an enabler) taken away from him, because he was over obsessed. His light sabre is being withheld from him too, it is hidden away with the movies (also banned, to get him away from being so Star Wars focused). It doesn’t really matter, he drew two little light sabres with markers on paper (they are about three inches long) and he had my sister cut them out (she isn’t his mom, she’s an aunt, that’s what aunt’s do best, enable their nephews in their obsessions). When my brother-in-law (my sister’s husband, an uncle, therefore another enabler) doesn’t battle with him, he is recreating the light sabre fights on his own.

He is obsessed. Twenty four seven. All the time, making shooting noises and light sabre clashing together noises, chattering about the colour of various character’s light sabres, humming the music…

It can be exhausting, ask his sister and his aunts and his dad.

But he is four.

So I laugh at him for being a kid and so involved with his obsession. Something only children do, right?

I say this as I have taken my fifth book out of the library on astronauts and the space programme of the 60′s in the last month (I have read two already, “The Lost Moon” and “Carrying the Fire” ). I also requested and watched a documentary called “In the Shadow of the Moon” (very good, I should do a review). I ordered and received an HBO mini series called “From the Earth to the Moon” (I’m halfway through it, also quite good). I am re-reading a Japanese Manga series I bought years ago called “Planetes”, it’s about, you guessed it, astronauts.

I am obsessed.

I am not four. So what is my excuse? And what is the difference, should some one take my mini series or my copy of “Apollo 13″ away from me? Or hide my library card? What’s the difference?

Maturity. I do not make rocket blast off noises and hum the type of heroic music that accompanies the space shows I watch. If people ask what I am reading, I sheepishly say what I am reading and feel a bit weird (I am aware that I am indulging in overkill). I do not go on and on about the topic (except for the time my friend asked what I was reading and I said “Carrying the Fire” by Mike Collins, and she asked who Mike Collins was, I gave a rather long answer, mercifully this does not happen often).

But it is an obsession. My nephew has the excuse of his age. What is my excuse, I ask again?

In past years I have had several obsessions. A few years ago it was dinosaurs (sheesh, I really am a four year old at heart, eh), before that ancient civilizations, Mount Everest and the list goes on and on. With television shows I am most recently a fiend for “The Amazing Race” and “Lost”. Certain movies (“Singing in the Rain” anyone? ), I will watch over and over. Geez, kind of like my little nephew.

And what about music?

Ah music. Oh yes, I have my favourites. Since the late 70s I have absolutely loved a particular band (no, I will not name them). I own all of their CDs, I wore out record albums, and had to buy some multiple times. I would buy stuff without having heard anything by them. I have bought many versions of the same songs, because some are live, hey that makes them different. And how many times do I scour Youtube to find just another performance/video.

Sigh. I love them. A lot.

Oh my word! Am I a fangirl?

Often at this site, we mock the obsessiveness of fangirls. This is something I love to contribute to. But am I a hypocrite? Can I call myself innocent? Should I cease and desist with my mocking?

After much thought and examining of various fan sites, web sites, various articles, and just talking with people, I think I have figured it out.

I figure the differences between normal healthy interest/obsession/and being a psycho crazy lunatic are as follows.

Healthy interest and desire for entertainment is good. Learning is a good thing, to quote an enabler here on this blog, “Do it! Do it!”. We all need to be entertained. Pretty simple.

Obsession (for an adult) can get weird. Being an uber fan can get weird. But I believe the difference, is knowledge. Yes I have watched “Singing in the Rain” more than I have watched any other movie. Like my nephew, I know all the dance routines and music and dialogue off by heart. But unlike my nephew, I do not re-enact the scenes. I quote Lena’s lines for comic relief at parties, it makes people laugh. I KNOW I do this. I am AWARE that it is weird.

With my favourite band, once again I am AWARE of how odd this is. My friends know that they are my favourite and that I am goofy about it. They mock me and make jokes. You know what? I deserve them and I laugh at the jokes. BECAUSE THEY ARE TRUE AND I AM TOTALLY COGNIZANT OF THIS.

And I feel suitably embarrassed, the jokes never go over my head, I know it is me that is being mocked (and I laugh, because it is ridiculous), there is no denial of this. But they are still my favourite band. I will listen to them forever. BUT, you want to know something? I don’t know what the band members favourite colours are. I don’t know any personal tidbits, I don’t want to.

Also, I will never buy multiple albums to bump up sales (only to replace my own worn out copies, not so important with CDs now). I have made a gift of their albums three times in my life, because they were on the recipient’s request list.

If you told me you hated them, I would say, “Yes, I can see why one might”. Because I can. I won’t lash out and say, “Oh ya, well your band sucks more you human loser, and my guy is hot”. My favourites aren’t hot, they are average, you’ll never hear me say otherwise (Sayid is hot though, to me he is, but that is television and I am talking about music right now).

You won’t hear me say that my band is better than the Beatles. They aren’t, they are different, and if you examine everything from song writing, performance abilities, relevance for their time, very few bands can compete with Beatles (I think the Clash can, Bob Dylan excels in song writing ability and David Bowie is a hell of a performer, but please, I have the ability to recognize greatness when I see it, I am not prone to hyperbole in this respect).

Let’s use another example, some one who posts at this blog loves Bruce Springsteen a lot (gee I wonder who? Hee hee). Obsessed? As an obsessive kind of person I would say yes, ridiculous fantard? No. Because she laughs at her obsession and sees it, she makes jokes about it. She never claims that he is the best thing that ever graced the music world. She does say he is hot (well, hell in this case, I concur, he is, especially in his youth). I am not aware of her gifting his CDs to people, just to spread the word and to boost sales (he does not need it, that is what talent is for, hello). And when I first met her I told her that at that point in time I was not fond of his voice (I worked in a record store when “Born in the U.S.A.” came out, it has taken awhile for that eye tick to fade away). She never said, “You human loser, you wouldn’t know good music if it stood up and bit you in the ass”. No she said, “Too bad” and then we talked about food (it’s a chat thing, all chat roads lead to food talk, seriously). Also, she has no idea what his kids’ names are and does not know all the lyrics to his songs.

We have a fan here, not a fantard.

So when do you need to worry about becoming a fantard vs a fan? Well if you worry and are aware of it, you have already solved most of your problem. You are an honest to goodness fan. You might be obsessive but you recognize the potential for it all to go bad.

I am an astronaut obsessive, and a “Singing in the Rain” obsessive, and an “XTC” uber fan. But if you say you have no interest in any of these things, we can still be friends (hell, most of my friends and family say this all the time).

kimkac wrote this and does indeed have an obsessive personality.