I think pretty much all of you reading this know that I'm a huge fan of celebrities of all kinds: actors, actresses, musicians, authors, etc. You probably also know that I'm not much of a sports fan. I said in another post that I'd tried sports in all forms--watching them on TV, as well as playing both physical and digital versions of them--and found them uninteresting. That right there puts me at odds with most of America, including at least ninety percent of Yanks with Y chromosomes. A public speaker could use a sports analogy during a speech to a crowd of 200+ people, and I'd probably be the only one among them who didn't understand it.
I've talked more than once about my experiences with sports and why I'm not a fan, so this post won't be about that. Instead, what I will talk about is something I realized earlier today while taking a break from my family's yard sale: My love for celebrities such as Victoria Justice, Kevin Max, or Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens isn't all that different than many people's love for their favorite athletes or sports teams.
First reason why: I keep track of my favorite celebrities' stats just like sports fans do with their favorite players. Some of you Facebook friends of mine may have seen statuses such as, "Happy birthday, Patrick Stewart!" or "Annie, it's your birthday, it's your birthday, it's your birthday, Annie!" (Yes, the latter is a partial parody of "Smooth Criminal".) You may wonder how I keep up with that. Simply put, I have a Google Calendar account that reminds me, and I've synced it with iCal on my Mac and the Calendar app on my iPad. I do have the birthdays of people I actually know on there as well; my entire immediate family, as well as my close friends, all have their "big days" listed on there. I also use such sites as IMDb and Plugged In, not to mention the countless fan pages on Facebook, to keep tabs on what my favorite famous people are doing. When a new Victorious episode or Siobhan Magnus single is announced, I get excited. I've noticed sports fans do the same thing: they keep track of the scores of every game, even if they're unable to watch it, and they also stay on top of whether their team makes it to the championship or not. Sports nuts get excited when good things happen to their favorite team(s)/player(s), just like I get excited when I hear good news about my favorite celebrities.
That brings me to my second point: Sports fans are upset by their favorite team(s)/player(s) losing, just like it hurts me when my favorite celebrities "lose." I may not be a sports fan, but one thing I know about professional league games is that, every time, there must be a loser and a winner. Sports fans probably have experienced their favorite team or player losing countless times, and I used to mock people who were bothered by that. I couldn't understand why it bothered them; was there really anything they could have done about it? Of course, as a long-time celebrity fan, I have seen cases where my favorite stars have "lost" as well. I'm not talking about scandals, although they've happened to both sports and movie stars; I'm talking about when one of my favorite celebrities just disappoints me big-time. One such example happened about two months ago. Most of you know that Jennifer Stone is my number two celebrity crush, numero uno being Victoria Justice. Well, I had waited for several weeks to see Mean Girls 2, a direct-to-video sequel that Jennifer starred in. Most of the reviews I'd read were negative, but that was also the case with the Amy Adams romcom Leap Year, and I thought that was great, so I just ignored them. When I finally saw MG2, I was quite disappointed. Yes, there was some crude content in it, but the movie would have been terrible even without that. I sat there throughout the film thinking, This is what I spent all these weeks waiting for?!! In that case, I thought the entire cast and crew of the movie, including Miss Stone, lost. It's not the only time that's happened; celebrities such as Patrick Stewart (when he starred in that abysmal The Mysterious Island), Anne Hathaway (Love and Other Drugs; need I say more?), Siobhan Magnus (her elimination from American Idol was QUITE unfair!), and even Kevin Max (some of the things he said in his autobiography Unfinished Work were quite shocking, and not in a good way) have done the same to me as well. You may think it'd be easier to be a celebrity fan, because there's a chance that the entire cast of a movie or show could win, but I disagree. Why? Well, in sports, there's always a loser, but there's also always a winner. In the case of Mean Girls 2, though, everyone lost, including me while I was watching it.
In conclusion, let me say this: On a comment on my note "The Disabled Vs. The Rest of the World," my friend Melissa said, "I find that human beings are afraid of what they don't understand." That's quite true, and it probably explains why my celebrity addiction has caused several people to remove/block me on Facebook. However, even though I have numerous sports fans on my friends list, repeated statuses on that topic have not led to me doing the same to them. I get that most of you don't quite understand why I love Victoria Justice and friends the way I do. Maybe, if you think of it being the same as you being a huge fan of the Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Donovan McNabb, Yao Ming, or whatever sports team(s)/player(s) you adore, that might help a bit.
Any comments?
No comments:
Post a Comment