When the only story that the evening news can cover is the release of the new Harry Potter novel, you know life must be pretty good right now.
Throughout my bus ride experiences, which pretty much started back in fall of 2000, I have only gotten off the bus (due to something else rather than my destination arriving) three times. Two of those being a panic attack I experienced due to overcrowding. The third time was Thursday evening when I was going home from work. My reason was due to Harry Potter fans behind me.
The moment they step foot on the bus, I knew I was going to be annoyed by them. I think it was due to the sounds of their laughter and that they looked like they attended Crown College (UCSC graduates will probably get this). I will save you the details of their conversation but basically it revolved around their experience of waiting in line for “Book Six.” Knowing that the conversation was nowhere near an end (nor their laughter), I immediately pulled the cord and found myself at the Science Hill stop (I was hoping for my gravitational angel to save me but no such luck). I patiently waited for the next bus.
Fan bases are probably one of the most amusing things to analyze and critique. I’m sure sociologists have a field day with these kinds of people. The quintessential fan base is probably the trekkies. Of course, Star Trek is sort of at a halt right now, and has been for some time now, so the trekkies cult is more of a historical aspect now.
However, the fan base cults that linger in the shadows of contemporary society are broken down into a few: Star Wars zealots, Lord of the Rings fascists, and Harry Potter extremists.
The Star Wars zealots are intriguing because they remind me of some kind of terrorist cell unit. They seem like ordinary people, just like you and me, but when the release of the latest Star Wars movie comes, suddenly this average person you knew becomes some kind of monster, he becomes… a geek! Gasp! You see him do things you never knew a human being could do like swirl a stick around and make high pitch noises, or breakout in some deep Kermit the Frog voice and have the syntax of the English language go completely out of order. The even more amusing part is to watch Star Wars zealots try to tell you that the most recent trilogy isn’t all that bad.
The Lord of the Rings fascists came out of nowhere. I call this group the surprise attack. Prior to the fall of 2001, I don’t think I knew a single person who had read anything by JRR Tolkien. However, by winter time, many people suddenly went out and bought the entire LOTR trilogy and plowed through them. Everyone lined up for the first feature and then halfway through the following year, friends of mine are telling me that they can’t wait for the next LOTR because it’s a tradition for their family to see the LOTR movies. Um, there’s only been one, how’s that a tradition?
The LOTR fascists become really insane about the overall story. When one says that he did not like the movies then the fascists will ask if he read the books to which he replies with a confident no then the follow up from the fascists is, “oh god, well, of course, you just wouldn’t understand because you never read the books.” Although, secretly the LOTR fascists didn’t understand 75% of the writing of the books and skipped about 60% of what they actually understood, and they slept through 40% of each of the films, but when they bought the original DVDs, they only slept through 30% of them , but when they wasted their money and bought the Extended Editions, they gained an extra 20% of slumber due to the countless hours of footage that they claimed they liked but deep down, actually despised.
There are many debates in life that will never have a final answer like abortion, stem cell research, and the existence of God. But the one that takes the cake is “which trilogy is better: the original Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings?” Below is a clip from Clerks II where this discussion takes place.
So, in the late 90s some pre-pubic English boy named Harry Potter won the hearts of many people: young children, adolescents, middle-aged women, and mid-life crisis men. By the time book four (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) was released, this is when the Harry Potter series was like a widespread zombie epidemic. One would get bit by a Harry Potter novel and then that person would go bite somebody else and that person would become infected, and so forth.
Harry Potter fans became incredibly in-your-face about reading the novels. I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine from college about the books (at this point, there were only four).
Friend: Come on, when I was home for Christmas break, I read all four in a week.
Me: Why should I read those when I got a whole shelf of books that I either haven’t read or haven’t finished?
Friend: They’re really easy books and actually really good stories.
Me: Well, maybe my books are good and really easy to read.
Friend: No, seriously, these are good and incredibly easy to read.
Me: Aren’t they in some kind of series. Why don’t I wait until the seventh book comes out and then I’ll read all of them.
Friend: Oh, I don’t know, that’s a lot of reading.
Me: According to you, they’re an easy read. Four of them took you a week.
All I got was a middle finger back at me.
Every other summer, a book gets released and everyone gathers in line the night before the release and patiently awaits their book. I find the whole midnight release event highly amusing. Someone I know decided to completely rearrange her Friday evening tonight so she can wait in line for book 7. I told her that the book will be the same book tomorrow. She responded back with two responses: one was that she will need a new book to read when she arrives home. I noted that she will probably go asleep when she arrives home. Her second response was that if she doesn’t read it first thing then she will somehow find out about the ending before she finishes it. I told her to go into hiding until she finishes it.
The hype leading up to book seven is pretty insane. The nightly news has been showing countless features on people taking work off, leaving their loved ones, and killing others to take their spot in line so they can be sure to get their hands on those deathly hallows. I love reading about the person who got his hands on a copy and took a picture of each page and put them on the Internet to download. Authorities are doing their best to find out who did it. I’ve got money that this person will be taken in as a terrorist and sent to Guantánamo Bay.
I’m sure by Sunday morning, nearly half the world will have finished the book and there will be countless Internet forums where people will talk about who dies and what they predicted or what they did not see coming. The big debate is on who dies: Harry or Voldemort? I’m anticipating some kind of twist ending.
Here are some predictions:
Harry Potter is actually a woman.
Hogwartz is an imaginary place Harry Potter escapes in order to avoid a beating from his crazy stepfather.
Harry Potter is Keyser Soze
All the students of Hogwartz are just personalities in some serial killer’s mind, and they all will have to kill each other off and the survivor will be the dominant personality.
Harry Potter is helping his fellow students who encounter supernatural things, little behold, Harry Potter is dead all along.
Voldemort is Harry Potter’s father.
Voldemort is actually the sled that Dumbledorf loved as a child.
I got my money that one of these conclusions will be in the newest book, so you Harry Potter extremists, keep your eyes open.
So, now I wonder what will happen to all the Harry Potter extremists now that the series is at an end. Will they wind up like the Matrix fans who held strong while the movies were being released, but knew deep down that the films truly got shittier as they came, and therefore vanished off the face of the earth. Or will they transition into something else like fans of the new upcoming series Harold Clay, Boy Republican, the adventures of a poor conservative who has to survive in a liberal media dominated society and fight off feminists, atheists, terrorists, and animal rights activists. Of course, his entire buildup is to a showdown between himself and Hilary Clinton. Yeah… that will be the next craze.
For future reading:
Harold Clay and the Demons of Planned Parenthood
Harold Clay and the American Muslims
Harold Clay and the Prisoners of Guantanamo
Harold Clay and the Global Warmers
Harold Clay and the Giant Wall for Immigration
Harold Clay and the Destruction of the Constitution
Harold Clay and the Feminazis of Tomorrow
Throughout my bus ride experiences, which pretty much started back in fall of 2000, I have only gotten off the bus (due to something else rather than my destination arriving) three times. Two of those being a panic attack I experienced due to overcrowding. The third time was Thursday evening when I was going home from work. My reason was due to Harry Potter fans behind me.
The moment they step foot on the bus, I knew I was going to be annoyed by them. I think it was due to the sounds of their laughter and that they looked like they attended Crown College (UCSC graduates will probably get this). I will save you the details of their conversation but basically it revolved around their experience of waiting in line for “Book Six.” Knowing that the conversation was nowhere near an end (nor their laughter), I immediately pulled the cord and found myself at the Science Hill stop (I was hoping for my gravitational angel to save me but no such luck). I patiently waited for the next bus.
Fan bases are probably one of the most amusing things to analyze and critique. I’m sure sociologists have a field day with these kinds of people. The quintessential fan base is probably the trekkies. Of course, Star Trek is sort of at a halt right now, and has been for some time now, so the trekkies cult is more of a historical aspect now.
However, the fan base cults that linger in the shadows of contemporary society are broken down into a few: Star Wars zealots, Lord of the Rings fascists, and Harry Potter extremists.
The Star Wars zealots are intriguing because they remind me of some kind of terrorist cell unit. They seem like ordinary people, just like you and me, but when the release of the latest Star Wars movie comes, suddenly this average person you knew becomes some kind of monster, he becomes… a geek! Gasp! You see him do things you never knew a human being could do like swirl a stick around and make high pitch noises, or breakout in some deep Kermit the Frog voice and have the syntax of the English language go completely out of order. The even more amusing part is to watch Star Wars zealots try to tell you that the most recent trilogy isn’t all that bad.
The Lord of the Rings fascists came out of nowhere. I call this group the surprise attack. Prior to the fall of 2001, I don’t think I knew a single person who had read anything by JRR Tolkien. However, by winter time, many people suddenly went out and bought the entire LOTR trilogy and plowed through them. Everyone lined up for the first feature and then halfway through the following year, friends of mine are telling me that they can’t wait for the next LOTR because it’s a tradition for their family to see the LOTR movies. Um, there’s only been one, how’s that a tradition?
The LOTR fascists become really insane about the overall story. When one says that he did not like the movies then the fascists will ask if he read the books to which he replies with a confident no then the follow up from the fascists is, “oh god, well, of course, you just wouldn’t understand because you never read the books.” Although, secretly the LOTR fascists didn’t understand 75% of the writing of the books and skipped about 60% of what they actually understood, and they slept through 40% of each of the films, but when they bought the original DVDs, they only slept through 30% of them , but when they wasted their money and bought the Extended Editions, they gained an extra 20% of slumber due to the countless hours of footage that they claimed they liked but deep down, actually despised.
There are many debates in life that will never have a final answer like abortion, stem cell research, and the existence of God. But the one that takes the cake is “which trilogy is better: the original Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings?” Below is a clip from Clerks II where this discussion takes place.
So, in the late 90s some pre-pubic English boy named Harry Potter won the hearts of many people: young children, adolescents, middle-aged women, and mid-life crisis men. By the time book four (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) was released, this is when the Harry Potter series was like a widespread zombie epidemic. One would get bit by a Harry Potter novel and then that person would go bite somebody else and that person would become infected, and so forth.
Harry Potter fans became incredibly in-your-face about reading the novels. I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine from college about the books (at this point, there were only four).
Friend: Come on, when I was home for Christmas break, I read all four in a week.
Me: Why should I read those when I got a whole shelf of books that I either haven’t read or haven’t finished?
Friend: They’re really easy books and actually really good stories.
Me: Well, maybe my books are good and really easy to read.
Friend: No, seriously, these are good and incredibly easy to read.
Me: Aren’t they in some kind of series. Why don’t I wait until the seventh book comes out and then I’ll read all of them.
Friend: Oh, I don’t know, that’s a lot of reading.
Me: According to you, they’re an easy read. Four of them took you a week.
All I got was a middle finger back at me.
Every other summer, a book gets released and everyone gathers in line the night before the release and patiently awaits their book. I find the whole midnight release event highly amusing. Someone I know decided to completely rearrange her Friday evening tonight so she can wait in line for book 7. I told her that the book will be the same book tomorrow. She responded back with two responses: one was that she will need a new book to read when she arrives home. I noted that she will probably go asleep when she arrives home. Her second response was that if she doesn’t read it first thing then she will somehow find out about the ending before she finishes it. I told her to go into hiding until she finishes it.
The hype leading up to book seven is pretty insane. The nightly news has been showing countless features on people taking work off, leaving their loved ones, and killing others to take their spot in line so they can be sure to get their hands on those deathly hallows. I love reading about the person who got his hands on a copy and took a picture of each page and put them on the Internet to download. Authorities are doing their best to find out who did it. I’ve got money that this person will be taken in as a terrorist and sent to Guantánamo Bay.
I’m sure by Sunday morning, nearly half the world will have finished the book and there will be countless Internet forums where people will talk about who dies and what they predicted or what they did not see coming. The big debate is on who dies: Harry or Voldemort? I’m anticipating some kind of twist ending.
Here are some predictions:
Harry Potter is actually a woman.
Hogwartz is an imaginary place Harry Potter escapes in order to avoid a beating from his crazy stepfather.
Harry Potter is Keyser Soze
All the students of Hogwartz are just personalities in some serial killer’s mind, and they all will have to kill each other off and the survivor will be the dominant personality.
Harry Potter is helping his fellow students who encounter supernatural things, little behold, Harry Potter is dead all along.
Voldemort is Harry Potter’s father.
Voldemort is actually the sled that Dumbledorf loved as a child.
I got my money that one of these conclusions will be in the newest book, so you Harry Potter extremists, keep your eyes open.
So, now I wonder what will happen to all the Harry Potter extremists now that the series is at an end. Will they wind up like the Matrix fans who held strong while the movies were being released, but knew deep down that the films truly got shittier as they came, and therefore vanished off the face of the earth. Or will they transition into something else like fans of the new upcoming series Harold Clay, Boy Republican, the adventures of a poor conservative who has to survive in a liberal media dominated society and fight off feminists, atheists, terrorists, and animal rights activists. Of course, his entire buildup is to a showdown between himself and Hilary Clinton. Yeah… that will be the next craze.
For future reading:
Harold Clay and the Demons of Planned Parenthood
Harold Clay and the American Muslims
Harold Clay and the Prisoners of Guantanamo
Harold Clay and the Global Warmers
Harold Clay and the Giant Wall for Immigration
Harold Clay and the Destruction of the Constitution
Harold Clay and the Feminazis of Tomorrow
1 comment:
1. I hate crownies, and I know EXACTLY what you're talking about.
2. That reference to 'The Usual Suspects' - Hilarious. I was laughing inappropriately behind my cubicle for a good 10 seconds. The jig is up. I don't work at work.
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