I spent a weekend completely binging a show on Apple TV that it seemed everyone was talking about: Widow’s Bay starring Matthew Rhys. Unlike his terrifying character in The Beast in Me, Rhys plays the almost deliberately aloof mayor of a small island town who, like the mayor of Amity in Jaws, is choosing to ignore some particularly troublesome mysterious truths about his home and the people that inhabit it.

I watched Widow’s Bay the way I watch most thrillers: with one hand over my face and the other on my remote, compulsively skipping the credits to get to the next episode. I simply could not stop watching, even opting to stop an episode halfway through to go to sleep and picking it right up with my coffee the next morning. It is about a New England town on a secluded island that has a truly mysterious and checkered past. From the first settlers reporting of evil happenings, to modern local fishermen fearing a certain point in the ocean, and a community still reeling from a killing spree of young girls, there’s a lot to be nervous about. It’s described as comedy-horror, and I agree that it is: the townies are delightfully quirky and deliver deadpan lines, briefly providing relief from the stress of the tension. The comedy helped me enjoy the series on one level, but the jokes also provided what I would call a Twin Peaksification to the dialog, contributing to the overall uneasiness I felt.

I am not a horror movie fan. I don’t do well with being scared, and I certainly don’t like blood and gore. Slasher films? I’m out. Zombies and monsters? Nope. As a self-proclaimed Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), certain images on screen stick with me and disturb my waking and sleeping moments for years. So, I avoid certain content for my own peace of mind.

But as a kid I realized the appeal of action thrillers, like Speed or The Fugitive. And psychological thrillers became intoxicating to me. I started to crave that not-knowing feeling about what might happen to the characters I grew attached to, and watching them wrestle with their own perceptions was a fun exercise that got me thinking about my own life and decision-making. I recognized this as an appreciation for suspense over horror. Shows like Lost and other narratives that dealt with more of a puzzle or mysterious happenings versus a serial killer on the loose were interesting to me.

It comes down to how my own imagination fills in details: what could be happening versus what we might find out is happening. And this imagination is cultivated on both a personal and collective level. Considering the runaway success of the movie Backrooms, collective imagination provides the scaffold around which thrillers can be built, and the audience becomes a collaborator in the storytelling. A slasher film might tell you exactly what to be afraid of, but good suspense–like hearing that eerie signature John Williams score in Jaws–has the viewer creating all kinds of things to be afraid of in their own mind.

Why the Imagination Scares Better Than the Screen

I viscerally remember the scariest book I ever read as a kid. I was a fan of the Sweet Valley Kids and Sweet Valley Twins book series by Francine Pascal, and all of the Sweet Valley franchises had a thriller series attached to the main one. Sweet Valley Twins had the Super Chiller special editions: these were longer books that had stylistically different covers, and something about them tempted me.

The one I read was The Curse of the Ruby Necklace, a thriller where Jessica finds a ruby necklace while filming a movie about a girl’s mysterious death at an old mansion. After finding it, Jessica experiences nightmares and supernatural activity. When her twin sister Elizabeth procures the necklace from her, she starts having the same nightmares and does some investigating, eventually discovering that the necklace belonged to the dead girl. It freaked me out considerably. I was about 11 or 12, and I still remember what I imagined in my mind’s eye as I read it. If they made a movie of this book, it would never live up to my experience of the read.

As an adult, the scariest book I ever read was Simone St. James’ The Broken Girls. A journalist is on the scene at an abandoned girls’ boarding school investigating the murder of her sister, when she uncovers a connection to the school’s past and a story of a lingering ghost that haunts it. The narrative jumps in time from the 1950s to 2014, and in the back and forth the reader learns about the students and what might have happened there. But the storytelling is gothic in nature, and St. James managed to scare the bejeezus out of me with supernatural elements, such as music turning on at random moments, and other ghostly activities. She did it again with her novel The Sun Down Motel, about a woman working as a night clerk who vanishes from a motel in the early 1980s and her niece who investigates the disappearance decades later. St. James has a knack for atmospheric storytelling that would keep me away from roadside motels for the rest of my life.

One of my favorite bits from the show Friends is when Joey keeps his copy of The Shining by Stephen King in the freezer. Why? So it can’t haunt him. It’s hilarious because it feels so relatable: a book is just a book, but sometimes the imagery it evokes in our own minds is so real that we can’t have it in the same room as us.

When we read, we conjure images and settings from the written page, and I believe we think up the scariest versions of those things that our minds will allow because we are effectively in a safe space. Research suggests that we might willingly dabble with suspense, horror, and thriller genres because it’s a way to experience fear about certain things in a “protected frame” or controlled environment. We feel physically safe (in a theater or in front of a screen, or on our couch reading a book), detached (knowing that the horrors on screen are fake, or characters in a book are made up), and confident in the controlled environment (a haunted house monster won’t outrun us).

Novels and other fictional spaces that we visit are collaborative between us and the authors and creators. We fill the blanks they leave with our personal fears, making the imagined threat more specific and potent than anything a creator could invent. When the story unfolds without showing us much–which happens naturally while we read since we can only go on the author’s descriptions, and more practically when we watch suspense that leaves a lot to the imagination through suggestion–our brains do the heavy lifting of manufacturing the scariest thing possible.

Backrooms took this concept and ran with it–all the way to box office millions. What started as a photo on a 4chan message board grew into a phenomenon of storytelling. When a user asked for “disquieting images,” someone posted a creepypasta of an abandoned office space. The image was an example of kenopsia, the idea that something ordinary could feel off in a particular context, like an empty, abandoned mall. The photo projects a liminal space, a transitionary place caught in between what may have happened in it and what happens next. A collective fandom grew around the phenomenon of “backrooms,” and YouTuber Kane Parsons built a series, called The Backrooms, around it. From there, YouTuber Kane Parsons built a celebrated series around the concept, which eventually inspired a full theatrical film drawing on the “found footage” genre of horror. The audience’s imagination does the rest.

Suspense Through Sustained Uncertainty

What I loved about Lost when it aired in the 2000s was the very fact that I had absolutely no idea what was going on. When I hear criticisms today about the show, the prevailing one is that certain plot points didn’t make sense, or never answered certain questions. But for me and other fans, that was the appeal. Every season introduced more questions than answers, and that left a lot of room for fans to discuss and theorize in between episodes and seasons. That was the most fun part, more than actually watching it. It’s what I remember most from the experience.

As I sat down to watch Widow’s Bay (and I promise no spoilers here!), I was confronted with some expected accoutrements of suspense: an isolated town, folks murmuring about mysterious happenings, kooky townies with weird stories. But episode to episode, I truly had no idea what “big bad” I was looking for; I just had a bunch of random puzzle pieces. The series bills itself as comedy horror, and while there are horror elements, the absurdity of these events and character one-liners are comical. Perhaps that’s what made it all the more creepy: the genuine moments for laughter almost felt misplaced.

The effect is a viewer not knowing how to hold information, which is in itself unsettling. It’s also so unclear what’s going on: is the island haunted? Was there a serial killer? Are these ancient mysteries or is there something still happening now? When a story proposes many options, the viewer has to hold all of these possibilities at the same time, which sustains uncertainty and their need to use their imaginations to fill in obvious blanks. Episode to episode, it feels like you’re writing along with the creators because your brain keeps asking new questions and providing possible answers.

Widow’s Bay also heavily references other horror and suspense movies, like Stephen King’s It and Carrie, etc. as well as Jaws, The Fog, and more. These visual references help the viewer fill in the blanks as well by using the familiarity; cognitively we pull up memories of those stories and write the ending to this one. For example, we know what happened to Carrie, so maybe for a moment we expect this story to go the same way because we see familiar imagery that relates to that classic story.

In perhaps a mimicry of what it feels like to watch the entire series, one episode features a drug trip with periods of blackout that skip time. Imagining what happens in the interim is all the viewer has to go on. And in a way, the entire series is about learning to live with everyday horrors and uncertainties, and doing your best to move forward.

Community of Imaginations Fuel Suspense Narratives

Suspense stories that withhold information don’t just scare and perplex individual viewers, but it generates community as people gather to compare and contrast what they imagined or think is actually happening.

This is where audiences really get to work. At the end of every episode of Lost, fans would talk to each other in person and online and wonder their fan theories aloud; there was no need for this to end when there were no more episodes. Upon the ending of Widow’s Bay (again, no spoilers!), I thought about the questions the series posed. There is a second season coming, but even if there wasn’t one, I think I’d still be having as much fun as I am now discussing the possibilities with friends who have watched. Suspense and thrillers work because of collective imagination.

The Backrooms, both the online urban legend and the film Backrooms, are the ultimate proof of this in action. The original 4chan question asked for a photo and relatively nothing else, and the anonymously posted office photo prompted fans to fill in more blanks collectively. A user responded that you could “noclip” (a video game term for cheat code to bypass limits of the game) and the storytelling went viral from there. Soon various subreddits and creators expanded on the idea, even creating a split in the fandom between “true” backrooms and new levels. The phenomenon was so popular and widespread, even Severance creator Dan Erikson said he was inspired by the Backrooms for his series. This is reminiscent of the Goncharov phenomenon, where fans created a myth around a fake film.

The power of unanswered questions

As humans, we crave endings that tie up loose ends. I always hear complaints from fans when an ending is abrupt, or ambiguous (cue Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’s “final four words”). Unanswered questions leave audiences desperate for more information. The sustained ambiguity throughout the content up until the end has held their rapt attention precisely because they feel they’re getting close to a conclusion. Uncertainty is unsettling.

But our imaginations come in to help us make sense of the world. It’s why we turn to stories in the first place. We are brought up on narratives that have beginnings, middles, and endings. “Once upon a times” are followed by “happily ever afters” because we like to make meaning out of life’s events. Clean endings, regardless of whether they’re happy or not, are hard to come by in the real world.

When we engage with suspense stories, our imaginations get a good workout. We exercise problem solving, look for clues, consider wild possibilities, and build community. As children, we engage in imaginative play all the time, preparing us for future activities as adults. But as adults, we don’t use that muscle in everyday life as much as we probably could. So the next time you’re sucked into a thriller, think about how your brain is activated, and how this might help you in your very real endeavors. You just might imagine something unexpected.

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The moment it came up on my Instagram feed, I laughed out loud and immediately pushed the share button. I could not believe what I was looking at. I was with my cousin at a concert, chatting before the show started and checking up on Game 4 of the NBA Finals. We are New Yorkers, so of course we were concerned about whether the New York Knicks would win this game.

Even if you’re not from either of the teams’ hometowns, it was hard to escape the news that Taylor Swift showed up at the game with her best friends Alana and Este Haim of the band Haim. Basketball fans might have questioned their right to be on what is known as “celebrity row” courtside at the game, sitting next to longtime Knicks fans like Ben Stiller, Mariska Hargitay, Timothée Chalamet, and the king of them all, Spike Lee. But Taylor, Alana and Este didn’t show up in branded team merch to cosplay as fans for the night. They came in homemade shirts that only a craft girlie would know were fresh off the at-home press: blue tees with orange lettering with the following names: STEVIE KNICKS, KNICKELBACK, KNICKOLE KIDMAN. They brought a STEVIE KNICKS tee for Mariska, too. The joke was immediately understood, and coverage of them took over social media and traditional media alike.

After the NBA Finals Knicks win a few nights later, the streets of New York were flooded with people (I was one of them). In the days prior, I saw Knicks tees being sold on the sidewalk: homemade graffiti tees, tie dye, screen prints of players’ faces front and back. “FINALS 2026!” plastered all over. These are fun tee shirts, better than anything I’ve seen in a store or the official NBA website. And as I walked around Manhattan after the win, I saw people selling them on the street to commemorate the moment, and even more fans wearing unofficial merch they clearly either bought off the street or made themselves.

Bootleg merch has long been a part of fandom. While it’s fair that rights holders want to protect their images and don’t want to see individual creators copy their branding and sell it for less, when it comes to wearing one’s fandom, the experience is a bit more complicated. Fans usually know their fandoms better than the creatives who produce the content, and so their interpretations are what catch on and influence what they buy to wear and display. When brands get more creative with merch, and play into inside jokes of the fandom or produce niche items, fans are more likely to embrace them. We look at bootleg culture as something akin to stealing, but what if bootleggers and fandom-inspired merch creators are tapping into something more authentic about fandom itself?

How fandom finds us

Fandom is a journey. It is personal to each individual and usually starts with something small: a song you heard on the radio that made you pay attention, your dad renting the movie he loved as a kid to introduce you to it, a library book discovered at school that made you feel seen. We enter fandoms for personal reasons, because some piece of content spoke to us on some level.

We feel inclined to own a piece of that fandom. A t-shirt, a keychain, a mug. As a kid, my family went to Disney World every couple of years. Every time we went, I bought a keychain with my saved-up pennies. I had all kinds of keychains from Walt Disney World: character-themed ones, plastic logos from each of the Disney Parks, special keychains that were from the gift shops of different rides I loved. I even had one that was a little coin purse shaped like a backpack with Mickey ears all over it. I loved the keychains because they were individual to me; they represented each trip--and now their inherent kitsch is vintage.

Merchandise has to speak to a fan for them to purchase it. It’s not really enough to buy something featuring a logo from our favorite show. I have a t-shirt bought from the Warner Brothers official store brandishing the Luke’s Diner logo from Gilmore Girls. On the side of the logo, it says “Gilmore Girls” on it. I remember thinking, “well that kinda ruins it.” I want a shirt that looks like it came off the set, as if Luke’s Diner itself sold it to me. I don’t want something plastered with the franchise name on it. Why is that?

As fans, we tend to want to walk around in our favorite fictional worlds as a local, like an insider. Official merch is overly brand-safe: logos and slogans are approved by a team unrelated to the content. Fans have no way of knowing if the team who conceived of the merch are fans too, but fans know when something reads as inauthentic. Fan-made merch often passes the authenticity test with other fans: the more niche, the better.

And while maybe it isn’t easy to spot a true fan next to someone who simply donned a corporate-approved shirt, it’s definitely easy to identify a fan through niche merch. So it’s ironic that merch made by fans could be classified as inauthentic, counterfeit, bootleg. I would argue that the person wearing something original is the person who really “gets” the fandom more than anything else. But homemade merch can also create a sense of inclusion for a new fan, someone who is not trying to act like they’ve been there the whole time but wants to get in on the fun too.

Taylor Swift and the Haim sisters aren’t known as lifelong Knicks fans like the other celebrities they were seated with. Instead of putting on Knicks merch that a stylist handed them, they opted for a more authentic approach. They didn’t pretend to be diehard fans in jerseys with player names on the back, but showed up in garb that included them amongst fans in a different way. As a fellow (proud) Knicks bandwagoner for the most exciting sports moment in my city’s recent history, I felt directly spoken to, and included in the celebration even though many sports fandoms would say I haven’t earned it. The shirt they made gave many a perfect way in. And both Knicks fans and bandwagoners like me showed up to watch parties for Game 5 in copycat merch, even coming up with new ways to emulate the idea. Actress Cynthia Nixon posted a picture on her own Instagram, sporting a Cynthia Knickson shirt.

“Inspired by” vs “infringing on”

Printing a logo on a tee or mug without legal clearance or a licensing agreement is a real bootleg. And typically, isn’t legally allowed. Fan creators on Etsy and Redbubble often get in trouble for doing this, and it makes sense from a franchise’s perspective. But fans tend to crave more creative interpretations of their fandoms anyway.

Fandoms thrive on collective inclusion. One way they do this is through inside jokes, memes, and knowledge of the latest happenings inside the fandom. I have frequented brands like Cornelia Street Shirts and Girl Tribe for Taylor Swift-inspired merch, and last fall we interviewed Dragonfly Merch Co. about their fandom-inspired merch business for Gilmore Girls. A quick search online will yield many results for fandom-inspired merch companies. The site for The Subtle Nerd shop presents a real reason for why fans love these kinds of companies. In their About section, they write, “Tired of walking through endless shops, looking for just the right item? Enter The Subtle Nerd, where you’ll find a curated section of shirts, hoodies, hats, and accessories for the nerd at heart, geek on the street, and gamer in his or her element.”

The Subtle Nerd is getting at something fans are always looking to express: a nuance, an insider perspective, something that makes them highly visible to other fans but maybe not others outside the fandom. A logo is an advertisement, but an inside joke is a social cue. Wearing a branded shirt with movie poster artwork certainly can identify you as a fan or just aware of a film’s existence, but a quote from that film or niche fandom inside joke on that tee signals real belonging to a group. You could sport a Titanic movie poster tee, or a “There was room for Jack on that door” tee, and the latter might give you a bit more street credibility as a fan.

Another factor when it comes to authentic merch is speed. Sometimes things happen within a fandom and independent creators have the agility to whip up a merchandising opportunity in response faster than an official brand can. When a brand catches up, often it feels forced, and that they’re late because the moment has passed. For years, ever since the exact episode aired, I wanted a black tee that said “babette ate oatmeal” from a classic Gilmore Girls episode. In the storyline, Kirk is starting a new business to capitalize on the speed at which people want fandom merch: he creates shirts right after something has happened for members of the town to buy. The only unfortunate thing for him is that, nothing that exciting happens in Stars Hollow; it’s all very mundane. But therein lies the joke. I saw creators making the shirt all over the internet in various fonts and styles. But I wanted the exact shirt that the character Kirk tries to sell: no logos, just Kirk’s creation. Recently, I saw an official version on the Warner Brothers website, which feels extremely late and inauthentic to the moment.

The fan-made merch economy

Simply put, personal economics are a barrier to merch-buying. The concert ticket is expensive enough, and a concert tee might start at $50 for something generic, a logo or name on an itchy tee. Especially when fans are newer, or younger, disposable income that they can spend on souvenirs is tough to come by. Even when fans are eager to spend on merch, consider access: the Eras Tour made the news for incredibly long lines and selling out of some of the hottest merch items, even several days before a concert in any given city on the tour. Facebook groups had fans helping each other out, buying on site and mailing to out of state fans, and resell sites were lit up with popular merch items that were impossible to find otherwise.

Bootlegs, fan-made merch, and companies that make fandom inspired merch democratize access by offering something for everyone. When fans can’t get the merch they want from an official source, they turn to other platforms: Etsy, Amazon, Redbubble, or their own craft store. And, while they love a hot item that is going viral amongst fans, they also create their own phenomena.

One of the biggest fan-made merch stories in recent years is the making of friendship bracelets during the Eras Tour. Making this kind of merch was a totally fan-led operation that Taylor Swift herself never capitalized on; she even joked on “The Graham Norton Show” that she should have invested in beads, had she known what would happen.

Fans seized on a line from her song “You’re On Your Own, Kid” that says, “Make the friendship bracelets/take the moment and taste it” which dovetails beautifully with the experience of going to a once-in-a-lifetime concert with friends and family. So fans made bracelets, all kinds of them. And because they were handmade, they were personal. And what did we all learn as kids that you do with a friendship bracelet? You trade them, which fans did at shows and all around stadiums. The tradition even spread to many other fandoms, and fans have been trading bracelets at other shows and conventions outside of the Swift fandom.

Making friendship bracelets isn’t a new tradition; Taylor Swift mentioned it in a song because it’s something people have done for decades. But making the bracelet itself into Taylor Swift-inspired fan-created merch that is recognizable across every demographic of the fandom and beyond was a revelation. Most importantly? They were cheap. Sure, you could buy friendship bracelets someone else made online, or you can purchase a fancy bead kit to make them. But most fans could purchase a kit for a few bucks, turn making bracelets into an activity shared with friends, and the bracelets themselves became their own memory of the tour and the consumption of it–even if you only watched the movie release in theaters or consumed videos from the concerts at home.

The psychology of the souvenir

I knew as a kid why I wanted those Disney World keychains. It was a souvenir, one I could afford on limited allowance. Apparel and larger items were so expensive, and my parents were very strict about buying stuff for my brother and me while we vacationed. They always prioritized the experience of going over the cost of buying “junk” I probably wouldn’t care about much longer after we returned home. The keychains were more personal, because I bought them myself. They were economically available because they didn’t cost that much, and they were small and didn’t take up a ton of room in my luggage. But they meant a lot to me: they were my souvenirs of the experience, not meaningless pieces of plastic. I used to spend the week at Disney World hunting for the perfect encapsulation of my trip. You can walk into any gift shop and see hundreds of keychains all over the resorts and parks. So picking just one was a vacation-long challenge. And I did it every time.

There is a key difference between the souvenir of the experience vs. a souvenir of the brand. A bootleg tee sold on the street outside of a concert belongs to the fan community, not the corporation–so it represents the fan and the experience (like, say, the thrill of buying a tee on your way out of the venue from a guy selling them out of a box). My best friend and I bought tees from a guy in the parking lot after a New Kids on the Block concert with opener Jesse McCartney while giggling about buying “crappy” shirts with the last bit of cash we had. I still have it, and I’ve never worn it; the hilarious memory of the purchase is stronger than even my memory of the concert. I was with my friend, we were laughing, we’d just had a fantastic time scream-singing “Hangin’ Tough” with the boys and thousands of other fans. And the bootleg tee is proof of it.

A souvenir that represents an experience rather than a brand is inherently more significant to a fan. You could buy merch at a concert, or a few weeks later online. But there’s something special about procuring a merch item during the event itself–or making something niche to wear to it. In 2011 psychology researchers coined the term the IKEA Effect, meaning that we place more value on items that we partially make ourselves. So making a tee shirt, costume, or bracelet for a fandom event might be more valuable to us as a souvenir from the experience than anything we might buy.

You’ve likely heard the phrase “you are what you own.” The phrase comes from consumer psychologist Dr. Russell Belk, whose 1988 theory of the Extended Self states that our identity is extended to the things we collect. Souvenirs fall into this category; even if we don’t use them, we tend to hold onto objects whose value is symbolic to us. Souvenirs help tell a story about who we are, both to ourselves and others.

Supporting other fans

Fandom is a collective activity, and inside of it, we build community. This support extends to how and why we purchase merch. When I’ve been shopping for fandom items to wear to events, I have always found the most interesting products from individuals and companies that are fans themselves. They always carry the most unique and niche goods, because they care about the content like I do. I treasure my “I Am An Autumn” sweatshirt from Dragonfly Merch Co., which I wore to the Smells Like Snow and Coffee Festival in Akron, OH last fall. I ordered it ahead of time, but I made sure to stop by their booth at the festival. I definitely didn’t need another Gilmore-inspired tee, but it just feels so great to support other fans by buying their items and so, I walked away with one more.

What do bootlegs reveal about fan culture?

Bootleg merch speaks to a fandom prioritizing their interests over straight branding. Fans value accuracy, speed and community-understood signifiers. They would much rather show others that they get the inside joke or niche understanding of the fandom over sporting its official logos. This understanding shows others that they are legitimate; their fandom is real and they have earned the right to be included in the group.

Bootlegs also expose holes in the market for engaged fans. The Click Clack Show, which describes itself as “a women’s sports podcast about more than the game” pointed out in an Instagram post that Taylor Swift and Haim’s homemade Knicks shirts weren’t just clever and fun, but actually revealed a lot about how men’s sports organizations like the NFL, MLB, and NBA don’t make merch that caters to what women actually want to wear. They are forced to wear shapeless unisex tees and jerseys, or the dreaded pink merch that all teams seem to make (what’s the point of wearing team merch if it’s not in the team color?). The caption reads, “Women don’t just want shrunk-down men’s jerseys; we want style, culture, and humor mixed into our fandom.” Women want to be included, and if they can’t buy official merch, they will make their own.

But even if brands catch up and provide niche-specific items that fans really want, fans will always create their own fandom-inspired merch. And as long as they don’t infringe on copyright, these items will always feel more personal and exist as one-of-a-kind pieces that feel like wearable fan art. Merch will always be a part of fan expression, and how original it is will always be up to the fan.

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If you were a kid in the 90s like me, you might remember a movie starring Sinbad about a genie granting wishes called Shazaam. I remember when the music-finding app Shazam came out, I recalled the movie title. And while I’d never watched it, I remembered ads for it, maybe a still photo from promotions. I had the distinct memory of it being on TV, not in theaters. And I just never got around to watching it. But, we had a genie-forward culture in the 90s thanks to Disney’s Aladdin, so I was probably a little tired of the genre.

If you also remember this movie, you also have likely experienced the shock and awe of an entire generation when we recently learned that… this movie never existed. It is a figment of our collective millennial imagination. This is a Mandela Effect: when a group remembers something incorrectly but are sure of it based on the community experience. Shazaam is so strongly “remembered” that Sinbad even poked fun at it in this episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out. Perhaps we’re confusing it with the (very real) movie Kazaam, starring Shaquille O’Neal in the genie role. Or the superhero movie Shazam! based on a comic book series. Or maybe because Sinbad was everywhere back then, hosting Sinbad the Sailor movies on TNT where he wore baggy “genie” pants (thanks to MC Hammer and also Aladdin, the 90s was all about baggy genie pants). Or maybe it’s because he played a genie called Sinboo on Nickelodeon’s All That.

Regardless of the reason, the movie never existed and yet, it’s so strong in our collective memory that even writing this, I have to keep double checking to make sure of the facts. I remember it so, so clearly. And knowing it doesn’t exist makes me feel particularly unsettled about everything I think I remember. But the Mandela Effect also speaks to the power of fandom and collective consumption. An incorrect collective memory reveals how fans engage with stories: through emotions and cultural osmosis rather than a careful close reading of the text. While some fans are really into details, groups of fans might rely more on the collective experience of a story rather than the story itself. A Mandela Effect might tell us what fans want to remember or draw meaning from rather than what is actually presented. Fandom cultures are born through community adventure.

Cognition and collective memory

Where does the term “Mandela Effect” come from? In 2009, a researcher named Fiona Broome discovered that she–along with many others–had vividly “remembered” South African president Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s. I myself can admit this: I “remember” his “death” too. But actually, Mandela was very much alive at the time and died much later in 2013. Broome coined the phenomenon, and looked into the ways a group of people might remember an event so incorrectly.

An article from VeryWellMind plainly explains some of the cognitive reasons a Mandela Effect occurs. Neuroscience states that the brain produces a schema, and false memories can occur when the brain places similar things together. VeryWellMind uses this example: lots of people mistakenly believe Alexander Hamilton was an American president when he never won an election (and could not be, as an immigrant). But because he was an influential founding father and his face is on the ten dollar bill, our brains might associate him with other U.S. presidents.

Our brains fill in blanks when there are holes in a story; this is called confabulation. And information we receive after an event can actually influence our memory of it; we know this if we watch a lot of true crime documentaries where eyewitness testimony is unreliable (*raises hand*). Priming is a brain function by which our memory is influenced with a preceding word or idea before we experience it. So in an investigation, a witness might be led with a very small tweak to a question like “Did you see a bicycle?” vs. “When did you see the bicycle?”

Social media also exacerbates this: one major fandom event covered by many different angles can influence your memory of the same event. I personally feel this when I remember attending the Eras Tour: I watched so many videos and snapshots from Taylor Swift’s massive show in different cities that the memories I have are conflated with my own experience of being in the stadium I was in. That feeling is shared, making it more powerful. And, it’s tied to emotion: elation, happiness, excitement. Emotion tied to memory is extremely strong. It’s why hearing a song you loved with an ex can make you sad, or a scent you loved in high school can bring back a flood of memories.

And if you’re a fan of reality bending narratives this might appeal to you: quantum physics suggests there could be alternate realities and dimensions where things are happening and we “remember” them in this one. If you’re a skeptic, it seems unlikely. But hey, we can’t rule anything out!

Fandom and memory distortion

I’ve already mentioned this, but social media–and all kinds of experiences of fandom–contribute to memory distortion. When we engage with source material and stories, it’s often both intensely and indirectly. We watch our favorite shows, sometimes over and over, but we spend more time talking about them with friends, other fans, or consuming content about them online or in other places.

Fandom content is derivative, and repeated exposure with anything can overwrite memories we have of the original. We experience fandom through memes, fanfiction, parody and discussions–all which have the capability of shaping our memories. And since fandom is a collective experience, we create echo chambers of community that can scale a misremembered piece of content into a widely held belief.

Examples in Fandom

The Shazaam Mandela Effect is just my favorite one, but there are many well-known Mandela Effects in fandom. One big one is from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Disney animated film from 1937. A pop culture phrase we feel we know is “Mirror mirror, on the wall: who is the fairest of them all?” The evil queen is jealous of Snow White’s beauty, and the man in the mirror tells her so. But the quote is actually, “Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”

A quick search on Reddit provided me some fun answers for why we might remember it this way, and Disney perhaps is a bit at fault. The Disney Channel Original Movie Descendants, a franchise about the children of all the heroes, heroines and villains of Disney classics, is known for a song called “Rotten to the Core” in which the lyric is: “Mirror, mirror on the wall/Who’s the baddest of them all?”. This movie premiered in 2015, and the misremembered quote predates it for sure. But the lyrics may be indicative of how strong this Mandela Effect is in our collective culture.

Another explanation suggested that maybe we remember it alongside other fairytale lines, like “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair” and that repetition fits with our cognitive understanding of fairytale language, or, schema (as mentioned earlier). But keep in mind: because these fairytales come from Brothers Grimm, original versions said “mirror mirror.” The original German text indeed says,

„Spieglein, Spieglein an der Wand:

wer iſt die ſchoͤnſte Frau in dem ganzen Land?“

So, perhaps it’s not a misremembrance at all, just a conflation with the extremely commodified Disney version that exists in mainstream culture. And that makes it a Mandela Effect, because the fandom is piecing different memories together collectively.

Another great Mandela Effect is from Star Wars. The biggest twist of the original trilogy is the reveal that (spoiler alert!) Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father (though, in Pitch Perfect, Beca is unimpressed with the “twist” and thinks we all should have seen it coming). The line, “Luke, I am your father” was known to me as a touchstone of pop culture long before I ever saw the movies or knew what it was from. But actually, the line is different. Darth Vader actually says, “No, I am your father.”

A third great example, for my fellow millennials, is the Berenstain Bears children’s book series. Didn’t everyone remember it as “Berenstein”? I was absolutely obsessed with these books as a child; every time we went to the library we came home with at least four or five editions from the series. And I probably couldn’t read that well when my mom started reading them to us, so if I heard “Berenstein,” that’s how I remembered it. But I also remember putting together those letters on the cover with the sound of the name, learning that “stein” sounds like “steen” or “stine” depending on the word. So in my twenties, when someone posted the news online that in actuality, it was “Berenstain,” my jaw dropped. I stared at those covers for hours as a child and remembered them incorrectly.

Emotions and fandom

Why does the Mandela Effect make us so uneasy? For one thing, fandom is intertwined with identity. Our deeply personal connections to our fandoms and content we love help us define who we are. So, when we realize that we remembered something wrong or incorrectly, especially about something we love so much, it can shake that foundation of identity. It’s all the more unsettling when there’s a contingent of sticklers in the fandom who are more particular about details and point out that we’re wrong about deeply held memories. That’s when fandoms can fracture, when the individuals involved aren’t aware that there are all types of fans–some that are more analytical, some that are more imaginative. If you’ve ever proclaimed that you’re a fan of a band but can’t name five songs they put out at the request of another devotee, you know the feeling that comes with being labeled a “bad” fan. The reality is, there is no one way to be a fan.

Another way to look at the effect of the Mandela Effect, though, is that fans can be united in their incorrect memories. I have felt a particular kinship to strangers in my general age range on a nostalgic level who remember Shazaam as much as I did. There’s no feeling quite like being wrong as a community; it’s a unifying mistake on the part of an entire generation, and we can laugh about it together.

Fandom is an interpretive space

The Mandela Effect exposes the gap between canon and “fanon,” the canon that fans decide exist, regardless of what the creators intended. In a way, it is collaborative fan fiction: fans are writing the story they wish happened versus the one that did, even if subconsciously.

I’m not really a big sports fan, but I am a New Yorker. And recently, the New York Knicks have gotten themselves into a historic run for the NBA title. The last time they won was before I was born. I have never been to a Knicks game, and only watched a handful on TV over the years. But as the Knicks draw closer to a championship win, I find myself wrapped up in the frenzy taking over the city. It almost feels like I’ve been watching with everyone all season, even though I absolutely have not. But I am swept up in the feelings of comradery, joy, and excitement of the moment. I find myself telling others the story of what it means to be a New Yorker, that this is what it’s all about, watching and cheering with strangers on a shut down street or on the subway. I, along with millions of others, have assigned a story to the events of what is actually happening, which, to be honest, are just basketball games. The players are doing their jobs; New Yorkers and Knicks fans are writing an emotional narrative about what’s happening, and participating in collective memory-making together.

We do the same thing with all of our fandoms; we extract meaning from a text that might not actually be there. We create mythologies because they help us believe in something bigger than ourselves. If we remember the line as “Luke, I am your father” vs. “No, I am your father” the meaning changes slightly. Maybe fans want Darth Vader to have said his name, Luke, in a fatherly way instead of with a detached sense of villainous energy to get him to do what he wants.

Being part of a fandom itself implies that we are active participants, engaging with stories in a way that makes us feel seen, not only for ourselves but in community with others. Remembering something wrong together tells us so much more about how fandom functions in society as a communal ecosystem than it does about our abilities as humans to get things right all the time. The Mandela Effect shows us how we rely on one another in community, and how much each of us can affect a collective vibe.

So, what are some Mandela Effects in fandom that you were shocked by? Tell me in the comments!

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School’s out for summer! It’s June, and that means soon we’ll be heading on summer vacations, spending more time outside, and getting opportunities to tap into creative endeavors. When we were young, we longed for summer to get away from routines and spend the next few months following our whims if we could. Summer blockbuster movie-going on hot afternoons, playing make-believe with friends, discovering new places on trips that inspired us to build new stories. Into adulthood, even if we don’t get a specific summer vacation per se, we still feel that pull towards a bit more freedom to explore when the season changes.

Before we get into what June has in store here at rmrk*st Magazine, let’s take a look back at what you missed in May.

Our theme was Curiosity, and we explored the analytical spirit that can come with being a fan. We did a deep dive on plot holes and what they really mean for fans who love the stories that occasionally gloss over some details that we notice. We took a look at what happens when we obsessively rewatch old favorite series’ and movies that we’ve seen multiple times before, and how this practice deepens our appreciation of the stories we love. We published a defense of unpopular opinions. And we examined the role of pop culture in academia from the 1980s to today.

In June, we are looking forward to that summer vacation spirit: our theme is Imagination! We are excited to think about some of the ways imagination fuels creativity and informs fandoms. Our topics include the Mandela effect in fandom (like when an entire fandom remembers a line in a movie incorrectly), and we’ll look at stories where the author has inserted themselves into the fiction. We’ll examine why horror and suspense thrill us when our imagination of what we aren’t seeing scares us more than what we do see on screen. And finally, we’ll talk about imagined languages and invented communication in the stories we love.

So come on the journey with us! We look forward to examining the role of fantasy when it comes to creative pursuits.

Our Table of Contents is below. Follow us on Instagram, and also make sure to give John Cabrera a follow to make sure you don’t miss special announcements and reflections. Find more information about the Remarkist ecosystem at our website and on our Discord, where we post regular updates!

1. Fandom and the Mandela Effect: Finding Joy in Remembering It Wrong

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2. Bootleg Merch: Why Fans Make Better Stuff Than Brands

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3. How Suspense Thrillers Hijack Your Imagination-And Why You Love It

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4. What Does an Alien Rock Sound Like? And Other Imagined Languages

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I think most of us grow up feeling like schoolwork is the opposite of a fun, leisure time activity. Even if we enjoy school. I always loved reading as a kid, and school never felt boring, but there was a huge difference between reading Sweet Valley Kids and The Babysitter’s Club under my covers with a flashlight past my bedtime vs. reading Fahrenheit 451 and To Kill a Mockingbird for school. Obviously, the former assigned titles are important novels I appreciate much more as an adult, but reading them for school? Not a fan. For many, leisure reading and assigned texts feel like they exist on separate planes.

In college, I had an English professor who spoke with a classic 90s-era west coast valley girl accent, like Cher Horowitz in Clueless, but at 2x speed. In that accent, she pontificated about Faulkner and other modern academic canon literature in a way that made me feel utterly unintelligent by comparison. She was the smartest person I’d encountered in my collegiate journey, and she casually dropped complicated words I didn’t know the meaning of into her discourse.

One day she let it slip that she was planning a new class for the next semester: a feminist literature course focused on…Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As in, the TV show. This was around the year 2000, so Buffy was a huge part of pop culture. When a few of my classmates scoffed–yes, they actually audibly scoffed–she looked them dead in the eyes with pity and said, “You’re English majors. You’ll never be able to watch anything in peace ever again.” Reader, this former undergraduate English major confirms that she was correct.

Years later, I can’t watch anything without analyzing the text. A close treading of popular culture artifacts is what I would consider a wild and exciting Friday night. And I know I’m not alone. There is a growing trend of fandom-based academic courses in higher education that I wish was the norm when I was getting my degree. Pop culture courses offer new entry points into critical thinking, cultural theory, and interdisciplinary studies, whether it’s the study of fandom itself, or bringing unexpected texts–like a hit TV show about a vampire slayer–into a literature class. Pop culture has become both a legitimate and valuable academic pursuit, and this raises questions about how we measure the quality of a work in order to study it from an academic perspective.

The old literary canon and introduction of culture studies

Up until the 1980s, English and American Literature departments across colleges and universities studied a particular canon. In a 2015 interview with Literary Hub, Jane Gallop, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee stated, “The canon as it was…in the 70s was really gone by the 90s; it is a completely different canon…there’s also a lot more reading of various kinds of non-high-literary texts. It moved in every direction…We started reading women. We started reading men of color. We started reading people from outside of Europe. We started reading things that nobody thought of as literature.” The rise of Literary Theory changed the way academics studied texts, and the definition of what constituted as academically worthy transformed.

During the 1960s and 1970s, as literature studies were changing in response to modern cultural shifts, institutions in academia began to develop Cultural Studies as a discipline. The field officially can be traced back to British literature scholars Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart, who recognized the importance of studying everyday life. According to this piece on the British Academy blog, “Each of these thinkers knew there was a minor tradition of studying culture ‘from below’; that is, the cultural practices and rituals of everyday life associated with ordinary people, or with groups and populations who did not belong to the powerful social classes or to the political elites.” In other words, they asserted that studying, for example, a modern ladies’ fashion magazine had the same academic weight as studying the established classics.

When a third founder of the discipline, Jamaican-British literature scholar Stuart Hall, became the director of the Center for Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in the UK, he continued the work of Williams and Hoggart. The “Birmingham School” as it came to be known signaled an academic paradigm shift: the interdisciplinary study of culture began to gain legitimacy, though definitely not overnight. Communications Professor at Goldsmiths, University of London Angela McRobbie writes,

“When I graduated from my first degree in English Literature and Sociology in 1974, few literature departments would have considered a thesis on the subject of girls’ magazines as legitimate. And in sociology the topic of young women and their leisure activities could only be filed, absurdly, under the idea of ‘deviance’. But in Birmingham, it made complete sense as a subject for investigation.”

Today, it is widely accepted that film, TV, and music can be studied as scholarly texts, but there will always be a disconnect between what is considered “high” and “low” art worthy of inspection on a higher education level. However, as McRobbie concludes, “perhaps this constant questioning of the grounds of validity continues to tell us a story about the place and value of culture in society.”

While in graduate school, I wandered into a specialized library for media studies one day. I browsed the shelves, which were mostly filled with bound dissertations from former students. One caught my eye: it was a psychological study of the effect of daytime soap-opera viewing. My mom had watched soap operas when I was growing up, and I came to love them too. I always thought of soaps as lacking in deep storytelling but they were fun, like candy. Junk food for the brain. How exciting to find something so deeply pop cultural inside a prestigious university library.

I checked it out for extracurricular (read: fun) reading, as it wasn’t related to any of my coursework. The conclusion of the paper was that women who watched soap operas weren’t just consuming what we might collectively regard as mindless TV. While the storylines were fantastical, they were able to project their own real life anxieties onto the characters, psychologically finding catharsis in their busy lives as mothers and homemakers. The study made me realize that consuming pop culture is never a “guilty pleasure” or devoid of meaning; it was right there in this dissertation that pop culture could heal your brain in a real way, especially if the text in question spoke directly to your particular demographic. And that is worth studying.

Fandom across academic disciplines

I love this particular 90s sitcom trope: the setting is high school, and instead of a stuffy academic (think: Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World), the new teacher rides a motorcycle to school and sits on the desk (think: Mr. Turner), asking students to throw out their textbooks and read a comic book as homework. Yes, this is a real Boy Meets World storyline from an episode that results in a debate between educators: should students read what the old canon of academia expects them to (that they find utterly boring) or is it a teacher’s responsibility to engage young minds with literature that they find more accessible? This “cool teacher” trope of encouraging alternative reading and finding knowledge outside of classroom redundancy is so popular that it occurred at least once on every TV show I watched as a teen.

Pop culture is a mirror of society, but often course reading is not, or it doesn’t seem like it could be. Especially if students don’t see themselves in a text, and struggle to find a thread of relatability. One argument for fandom in academia via fannish content is that it meets students where they are in their everyday lives. When the content is engaging, accessible, and feels familiar to their lived experience, it lowers the barrier to critical thinking.

In a scene in the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, feminist Kat (Julia Stiles) argues in her English class that reading Hemingway feels incomplete at best and a celebration of misogyny at worst. She argues that they could be opening the syllabus to read Sylvia Plath, Charlotte Bronte, Simone de Beauvoir—figures that speak to her experience as a woman instead of always reading texts by white men. It’s a poignant (and hilarious) scene because the students all hail from different backgrounds, but it speaks to the lack of intersectionality in the course reading. In another scene, Kat is seen reading The Bell Jar for fun and Heath Ledger’s Patrick famously gets her attention in a bookstore by asking her about Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique.

The irony here is that 10 Things I Hate About You, an iconic popular movie from 1999, is a modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare’s works are studied in high schools and universities all over the world and exist in the upper echelon of canonical literature. But at the time he lived, William Shakespeare’s plays were considered pop culture, and he didn’t even publish them. He was considered an entertainer, and theater was generally thought of as low brow, for the masses. Shakespeare met audiences where they were: his work reflected their own lives back at them, much like a modern limited series drama that drops on one of our streaming platforms is a mirror to our lived experience. At some point, the works of Shakespeare transcended into the literary canon of Western literature, probably because his well established tropes provide timeless insight into the human condition. But in his own time, he was just providing entertainment.

Case studies: pop culture in the classroom

There is an almost endless list of college courses that have introduced fandom and pop culture into their curriculum. And fandom itself has been carved into its own discipline, like this DePaul University minor program, Fandom Cult Media and Subculture, out of their College of Communications. As fandom evolves, it deserves expanded courses of study across both the humanities and sciences. Star Trek has long been studied across both literature and science over several disciplines, like media studies, STEM fields, and even language.

At New York University in 2022, The Clive Davis Institute introduced a course on Taylor Swift, the first of its kind. Taught by Rolling Stone’s , it focused on themes in Swift’s work as well as her evolution as an artist and the greater topic of pop singer/songwriters. From there, other universities, including Harvard, offered courses across disciplines from cultural studies like close reading Swift’s lyrics as novels and examining queer subtexts, to sociology and media studies, examining branding and the effects of her fandom on communities.

As evidenced by my own collegiate experience, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the most popular fandom topics at universities. In 2012, Slate set out to find the fandoms that were most studied in academia and found that more than double the papers, essays and books could be attributed to the study of Buffy (or, Buffyology) than any other franchise at the time. Even today, fans come back to Buffy as a rich text that can be studied in terms of gender conversations, feminist studies, masculinity, family dynamics, sociology, ethics and spirituality, media studies, and more. I have to wonder what that Slate study would glean today! But other franchises in their results in 2012 included Alien, This Simpsons, The Wire, and The Matrix.

Colleges have also embraced Beyoncé. In 2010, Rutgers offered a course entitled “Politicizing Beyoncé” examining race, gender, and politics through the lens of her career. Other universities followed suit. In 2025, a new course was introduced at Yale: “Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition, Culture, Theory & Politics Through Music” taught by African American Studies professor Daphne Brooks, covering the artist’s career as a study on Black history and social movements. Even the University of Copenhagen offered “Beyoncé, Gender and Race,” with Professor Erik Steinskog who expressed that their goal was to introduce Black feminist thought, a topic that isn’t well known in Scandinavia.

As a student, I took a class for my English degree called “Writing New York” at New York University. Most of us don’t remember every syllabus, or every book we read in school. But I remember so much of that course many years later. We studied the iconic poetry of Walt Whitman alongside the lyrics of Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy.” There was a whole unit on the punk scene of CBGB, the legendary bar that sat on the ground floor of a building just blocks away from our classroom, and examined lyrics written by The Ramones and Patti Smith.

We read the beat poets: Ginsberg and Kerouac, who famously hung out at the bars all around our campus like White Horse Tavern (where Dylan Thomas allegedly consumed 18 shots of whiskey just before his death) and the West End by Columbia University where I spent many hours as a graduate student. We dug pretty deep into Pete Seeger and his activism through folk music, and of course, Bob Dylan. What I realized in that class was that pop culture is literature; it is history. The musicians and poets we studied were tied directly to massive social movements and significant historical events.

Anything can be elevated to an academic pursuit

Ask any college student or take a look at a course catalog, and you’ll find that there is a natural tension between classical canon and cultural relevance that shifts over time. What would Shakespeare’s peers have been reading if they were attending college the way we know it at the time of his popularity? And had they known that the entertainer that they loved would be regarded as one of the most important voices in literature for hundreds of years, would that have changed their experience of his work as pop culture?

One thing I loved to do at school was go to the research library and pull copies of Cosmopolitan and Ladies’ Home Journal from the 1920s through the 1950s. Those old magazines could tell me what readers of the past cared about: the ads for vacuum cleaners were just as relevant to me as the interviews with famous actors of the day. It made me wonder if those pages served as an actual mirror to their societies, or portrayed an idealized one? It made me think about how a scholar from the next generation might pull issues of Seventeen Magazine from the 1990s to try to learn about what my generation cared about as teens, considering both what exists on those pages and what is glaringly absent. The very act of looking back and examining the meaning and context of a piece of literature, popular or not, makes it an academic pursuit.

Fans who analyze their fandoms in real time are indeed elevating the content to something worthy of study. It’s not necessarily the content that matters, but the critical framework and structure through which it is examined. I am a firm believer in that there are no guilty pleasures: only content that you enjoy for no other reason than you enjoy it. And nobody should ever feel guilty for consuming content that they love. But if I can apply an academic framework to a discussion of Bravo’s Summer House scandal and drama-filled reunion, you bet I am going to!

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I remember the first time I heard the question asked: “Team Dean, Team Jess, or Team Logan?” in reference to Gilmore Girls. I was listening to a podcast, and the hosts were asking a guest the question, “What Team are you on?”

I was really struck by this. Were there “teams” of fans who preferred a specific romantic match for Rory? (I realize now that this is a ridiculous question. It was 2017. Go with me here.) In all my years of watching and rewatching the show, I never once–not once!–considered any of these partners significant to the story of Rory’s development beyond what any relationship in one’s life does to further their evolution as a person. In fact, the main reason I had always loved the show was the mother/daughter/granddaughter relationships, and how the writers always centered these dynamics. It seemed so clear to me that the central thesis of the series was about generational bonds. All boyfriends were simply steps on Rory’s journey, nothing more.

When I attended a virtual watch party of the series in 2021 and subsequently attended an in-person fan festival later that year, I realized my opinion on what the show was about was not actually that popular. Fans had formed actual teams around Rory’s boyfriends, had an opinion of which was her best, and discussed them at length. Meanwhile, I was wondering why they were even worth discussing at all.

My unpopular opinion was (and is!) that the show isn’t about romance or partnering up in the slightest, and the three boyfriends serve Rory as one of two main characters of the show whose story we are meant to care about (the other being her mother Lorelai). Her boyfriends’ character arcs aren’t important, but rather they exist to show us how her personal growth ebbs and flows over the course of her young adulthood. Therefore, picking a “team” seems strange to me, at best.

We’ve all been here. We’ve all said the one thing that other fans don’t generally agree with. On social media like TikTok and Reddit, unpopular opinions and hot takes abound. There are countless “unpopular opinions” threads on the Gilmore Girls subreddit. The “unpopular opinions” hashtag on TikTok is extremely, well, popular. Disagreement on social media fuels engagement, making posts go viral, which is why we see more and more of it.

But what exactly is the function of an unpopular opinion? Contrarian statements and hot takes in fandom spaces definitely spark drama, but that’s not all they do. When used in the most productive way, they lead to incredible conversations and deepen our engagement with the stories and franchises we love.

What exactly is an unpopular opinion?

Think about your favorite franchises, books, and movies. What characters, storylines or relationships are beloved within those franchises? Which ones hit you a bit differently? And how does it make you feel?

Fandoms are in-groups. They are distinctive social spaces with their own social norms; writer and fan expert goes so far to call fandom “an altered state.” Whether you participate in them virtually, in person, or both, in any specific community we all want to feel heard and respected. We all know what it feels like to drop a comment we really believe in and get no response. Or worse, a pile-on of negative “no, you’re wrong” arguments and downvotes. Does it make us feel like less a part of the group? Often it does. Or, it feels antithetical to the social contract of being inside a fandom.

Social media has trained us to look for likes and echo chambers; it’s nice when we feel everyone agrees with us. So the unpopular opinion might be a surprise, and it can sting a bit. When your opinion clashes with the majority, it can feel like a rejection of you, not just your take. Fans often tie their identity deeply to the media they love, so rejection of an opinion can feel personal.

This is also why fans might form solidarity around teams (as in: Team Dean, Team Jess, Team Logan). It’s less of a risk to state an opposing opinion if you know you stand with a faction of fans who agree. We are conditioned to align ourselves with others out of psychological safety.

In the 1950s, a social psychology experiment, the Asch Conformity Experiment, proved that in a social situation, you might second-guess a correct answer when inside of a group that disagrees. The 2022 television show Jury Duty proved this experiment to comedic effect; Ronald Gladden knows that his jury duty stint feels unusual, but he goes along with all of it anyway, not realizing that he is part of a giant fictional hoax. In the context of fandom, you might soften or retract genuine opinions under perceived peer pressure so as to not disturb your social standing in the fandom group too much.

In modern society, having a hot take, especially via the internet, can gain you a following. While in the past we had shock jocks on the radio who provoked public sentiment for entertainment value, today we have influencers and commenters who want you to disagree with them for likes and shares. Engagement in the comment section can help that creator make a living.

But is it really fan discourse if the point is the performance of disagreement? And does that then make the opinion itself…popular? There is a difference between contrarianism for clout and genuine disagreement. The latter is what helps us build relationships and media literacy.

Genuine dissent can drive meaningful fan discourse

Fandom is definitely fun when everyone celebrates a franchise together. But inside of a fandom, things get really interesting when fans have genuine debates.

Recently when The Devil Wears Prada 2 hit theaters, there were tons of mixed to negative reviews from major outlets. While every critic seemed thrilled to see the stars of the iconic original back on film together, lots of opinions played down the actual story. Even some of my friends weren’t really into it and had complaints about Miranda being too soft, or Andie not seeming authentic as a journalist. I didn’t agree: the setting of a very different media world than the one we collectively experienced in 2006 would absolutely produce a softer Miranda. New media (websites, blogs, social media, etc.) changed traditional magazine and periodicals culture–and the creative titans that ran them–forever. So one hot take review caught my eye: A PureWow piece entitled “Sorry, You’re Wrong About ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ – That’s All” reflected all of my own unpopular opinions. This excerpt in particular:

This was my “hot take” too, and led to some really interesting conversations with friends about many topics: the state of media (a profession I became part of in the 2000s), aging, professional growth, the way technology changes culture and jobs, and legacy.

A person can make a lot of noise when they hate on content just to hate. Especially when it’s popular. In modern times it’s even rewarded via social media algorithms. And, let’s be honest: we’ve all vocally hated on something without much critical thought; friends in my orbit who unequivocally hate Taylor Swift without engaging with her music in a deep way come to mind. And yes, I do it too: I can think of a time where I said I thought Grey’s Anatomy was a bad show to friends and they all took offense (I watched the first season and never went back). Hot takes without thoughtful critique is common, even within fan communities that turn toxic with infighting. But when both parties come to the conversation in good faith, rather than hating just to criticize, the outcome is a deeper discussion about personal values, experiences, and worldviews. We might even learn something.

, an expert on socializing and author of The Art of Gathering, wrote a piece recently in defense of “skunk guesting.” Drawing on the phrase “the skunk at the garden party,” Parker attempts to name the phenomenon when a guest doesn’t just stay quiet and polite when invited to a gathering, but instead uses their invitation to say something provocative in a room full of people who are the prime audience. She writes, “It’s the choice to use your temporary belonging — your seat at the table, your proximity, your invitation — not just to enjoy the room, but to shape it. To widen the geography of conversation. To interrupt, when necessary, in service of a larger value.” A hot take in a room full of invested parties carries weight; it’s the perfect place to confront a topic that might ruffle some feathers.

If a given fandom is the gathering, the person with the unpopular opinion is, well, the skunk in Parker’s metaphor. And to her argument, that unpopular opinion has the ability to shape the room in a way it might not have been if something went unsaid. And chances are, the person who chooses to voice a hot take is not the only fan who possesses it; they simply might be the bravest to speak it. And being forthcoming can inspire others to join in, resulting in a much more dynamic room.

Furthermore, fan discourse that emanates from one person’s unpopular opinion informs more dialog because the argument itself begs a rewatch. If I hear a hot take I don’t agree with, I might go back to rewatch from that lens and see if I can see the unpopular opinion holder’s point of view. Even if my opinion doesn’t change, if nothing else I at least attempted to see someone else’s point of view (and we can all argue that’s generally a good thing). We are all entitled to change our opinions, too, so discussion after a rewatch is a great way to reexamine our thoughts on any piece of content.

Unpopular opinions challenge stan culture

Mainstream narratives serve a purpose: they get folks interested, help content gain fans, etc. But sometimes blind love goes too far.

In the year 2000, I was in college and “Stan,” by Eminem was an enormous hit. Eminem became famous while I was in high school, and I was extremely aware of his influence. The song was about a fan whose love of an artist turns dark; Eminem named the fan Stan in the song, but we can take it as a portmanteau of the words “stalker” and “fan.” Before “Stan,” we didn’t have a word for a kind of fan like this, and to hear young people use it now in conversation when they love a creator (as in, saying “I stan this musician!”) for some of us, it’s a bit triggering. The concept is hardly new; I’d been a teen when superstar Selena was murdered by the founder of her own fan club. But this new word for it has transformed in the past twenty+ years of fandom culture.

Obsessive and parasocial superfan relationships to actors, musicians, and other famous people have existed as long as I can remember. Social media has amplified the phenomenon, giving fans unprecedented access to the celebrities they admire. But what about superfans of a series or character?

In fandom spaces, ship wars, character assassination, and cancel culture all exist when it comes to fiction. Ship wars, for the unfamiliar, are intense disagreements within fandoms over which characters should be romantically entwined. Fanfiction spaces like AO3 are havens for fans to build their own fiction around the characters they love, but heated debates over which they choose to romantically pair together can erupt all over platforms like Reddit, Twitter/X, and Tumblr. In many fandoms, shippers choose sides and stay pretty loyal, and encounter what one fanfic writer of “Reylo” fanfic (the shipping of the Star Wars franchise characters Rey and Kylo Ren—it’s ok if you didn’t know it; I had to look that one up) called “shipping prejudice” from other fans.

When it comes to cancel culture in a fan community, those who have differing opinions face aggressive call-outs from others who don’t agree with their takes. While disagreements can foster conversation, there’s a fine line between healthy debate and toxic policing of fandoms by others within it. It’s not uncommon for fans who go against the grain inside fandom spaces to face some drama, bullying, or worse. Again, this is tied to identity and belonging: our fandoms are part of who we are, and when others present opinions that don’t align with the ones we believe inside a fandom, it can feel threatening. And the entire reason stan culture and fandom toxicity exists is because of an intense emotional connection to the stories and creators we love.

Unpopular opinions enrich the fan experience

Healthy debate stemming from unpopular opinions are great for fandoms. And maybe the platforms we are used to using just aren’t great for thoughtful fan discourse. Social media favors outrage, and takedowns are swift. So finding a space where all opinions are welcome is key. To reiterate Priya Parker’s thesis, a gathering where one feels free to be the skunk might be the most valuable room.

To take it back to Gilmore Girls, the podcast I was listening to when I first heard about the existence of the boyfriend “teams” was Gilmore Guys, hosted by Kevin T. Porter and Demi Adejuyigbe.

The two guys came to the show from a totally different perspective than I had, so listening to their podcast as it dropped week to week was an exhilarating, frustrating, often screaming-out-loud-to-nobody-about-how-wrong-they-were endeavor. By the end, I had heard all of their hot takes, disagreed with many, and was fascinated by their read on a show I thought I knew well. I walked away from every episode enlightened, realizing my perspective was limited.

The best fandoms aren’t echo chambers. They are fertile ground for conversations that need thoughtful unpopular opinions and hot takes to stay alive. I’ve made some of my best friendships by debating their hot takes. When we embrace diversity of thought, challenge ourselves to find out-of-left-field opinions on the media we love, we stay open to the possibility that an unpopular opinion could lead to deeper engagement with our fandoms, and friendships with others within them.

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about the Remarkist ecosystem including Folkic, our community app! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!

If you’re like me, you have a bunch of streaming platforms with a watchlist a mile long on each. But every time you sit down to enjoy a movie or series, you fire up something you’ve seen not only once, but several times before. And returning to an old fave doesn’t even begin to put a dent in your watchlist.

Here’s the thing about putting on a show for the 15th (or 50th) time: it’s not just a comfort watch, although that may be your initial reason for clicking over to a show you’ve seen before. I spent the better part of my twenties and thirties putting my Gilmore Girls DVDs on in the background while I did everything else: work, reading, putting away laundry, cleaning…even sleeping. At a certain point, I could recite every episode without looking at the screen. The background noise was like music, and we don’t ever judge ourselves for listening to our favorite bands and songs over and over; that’s what music is for!

We live in a culture where there’s always new content, everywhere. Constantly. There are endless queues on our streamers, and believe it or not, cable and network TV still exists and there’s great stuff there too. And social media content, video podcasts, and general internet entertainment can account for hours of viewing time a day. Yet we return to the same stories. Why?

Sometimes I think I’m being lazy, or participating in the equivalent of not trying a new food or getting out of my comfort zone to do something different. But I have come to realize that obsessive rewatching is not a failure of adventurousness or a symptom of comfort-seeking avoidance. Instead, I have come to think of it as one of the most sophisticated forms of engagement with fiction. Am I attempting to forge a valid excuse for firing up Happy Endings, an excellent sitcom from the 2010s, for the 30th time instead of trying out something completely different, like House of the Dragon? Yes. But I also have come to realize that obsessive rewatching is a practice that develops critical thinking, deepens curiosity, and reveals truths about storytelling that a single viewing can never produce.

The limits of the first watch

When you hear a song for the first time, are you tuned to the lyrics or the melody? Is it indeed one or the other? I have always been a melody first, lyrics later gal (unless it’s Taylor Swift). Others might experience the opposite. The point is, it takes a few listens of a song to consume it completely. It’s the same for watching movies and TV shows. The first watch is limited in a variety of ways.

On a first watch, the brain is being hit with a lot. We might just focus on plot, or the overall vibe. The first time I watched The West Wing, I was overwhelmed with the vibe of the show, which I really loved: the fast pacing, the signature Aaron Sorkin walk and talks, the hilarious one-liners from CJ, Josh, Toby and Donna. But a lot of the time, I couldn’t follow the actual plot. It was too much information, and the scripts were dense. On a third rewatch, I finally understood some of the more complicated, nuanced, political dealings that happened on the show. And it was so rewarding to finally absorb it all on subsequent rewatches. But who can focus on the plot when this walk and talk is so great?

On the first watch, we might not have a lot of processing capacity beyond the basic plot-driven facts: the who, what, where, when, or why. And since the story is new, we might miss foreshadowing, or the nuances in the storytelling that sets up the ending. Maybe we miss pieces of the thematic architecture, understanding only at the end that the show was a play within a play, or told in memories, or…told in reverse. Maybe dialog has more meaning than you pick up on during the first time around.

A first watch is an orientation; it can be really exciting on its own. But if you love to dive deeper, it’s a preview to the main event: a second or third viewing. Rewatching once you know the ending can be really rewarding; the scene that looks like one thing in episode one and becomes something completely different when you return to it knowing episode ten. Or, watching a movie like The Sixth Sense knowing the ending becomes a completely different experience than watching it for the first time.

Some works are designed for return, built with layers that reward the attentive rewatcher specifically. A rewatch is where you notice Easter eggs you might not have before, or realize that the last episode featured a pretty good callback to the first. When I finished reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, I immediately turned back to the first page and reread the first 2-3 chapters. I immediately saw snippets I’d forgotten, seemingly insignificant mentions I now knew, knowing the ending of the book, held a ton of weight.

Freeing our attention

On a first watch the brain is fully occupied tracking plot, leaving almost no capacity for anything else. It’s like going on a rollercoaster for the first time: you’re not sure of the ups, downs, twists and turns so you’re taking in what you can and getting surprised along the way. A rewatch eliminates that cognitive burden entirely and the eye is suddenly free to notice everything it missed the first time.

Our brains are also free to engage in anticipation. To further the rollercoaster metaphor, now we can look forward to the best drops, or, the most powerful moments of a series or movie. Whenever I’m watching a movie I love, I am gearing myself up for those rollercoaster-equivalent moments. In May 2026, theaters will show the iconic movie Legally Blonde in honor of its 25th anniversary. I know I’ll be waiting in anticipatory glee to hear “What, like it’s hard?” for the hundredth time–but this time on the big screen again and with other fans.

Humans are also hard-wired to recognize patterns. Neuroscience confirms that the brain is so good at recognizing patterns, that we actually crave it. We like to find structure in unfamiliar territory. So when we are familiar with the content, repeated exposure allows us to see more and more each time because cognitively, our brains have built better maps of what we are watching. This is why fans of shows they’ve watched repeatedly might finally catch something out of place or mistake: a boom mic, a background character doing something strange that they’ve never noticed before, or a continuity error like a misplaced plate or strand of hair scene to scene.

Freeing up attention also can change our emotional reactions. I’m the kind of person that watched Stranger Things with one eye on the screen and my hand over my face just because I was so tense not knowing when a jumpscare was coming. I could barely process the plot because I was nervous. But on the third rewatch, I knew exactly when (spoiler alert!) Barb would disappear. I could watch the scene with two eyes open and just be sad to see her go. Knowing what is coming does not eliminate emotion but transforms it. Dread replaces surprise, dramatic irony replaces shock, a richer and more complex emotional engagement replaces the simpler one of the first watch.

A known narrative as a safe container for genuine emotion; we can feel things fully inside that container. Fans often have comfort shows they return to like Gilmore Girls, Parks & Recreation, The Office or Friends because the characters make them feel safe…like actual friends.

What we’re really doing during a rewatch

I grew up an amateur dancer, and one thing we were trained to do was to get to a point with practice and repetition that the steps felt like second nature. Knowing a routine cold, so well you’d forget you were doing it, allows you to focus on the performance. It’s the same skill set when we know material well: we can focus on other things when we’re not preoccupied with getting from point A to B.

What I really love about a rewatch is the opportunity to develop a skill for what the literature community would call a “close reading.” Close reading is when you don’t just read the text (or watch the content), but you reread, over and over, to analyze it from different angles. Rewatching helps us develop a skill for close reading. As a former English major this is something I get really excited about: attention to structure, sensitivity to pattern and repetition, and awareness of the gap between surface and depth is all on the table in a close reading.

A fan of Gilmore Girls might say that Logan is Rory’s “Christopher,” meaning that when Rory gets into a relationship with a person from the world of the Gilmores (read: upper class, wealthy, lots of society rules), that relationship mimics that of her mother Lorelai’s relationship with her father. Engaging in this world is trepidatious; Lorelai ran from this world (and Christopher) when got pregnant with Rory. Their relationship didn’t survive because it was tied to the upper crust existence where social rules are adhered to. Rory is raised in a very different world, the one of small town Stars Hollow, where a Luke type (read: Jess) could be her romantic destiny.

Picking apart these characters and what they represent, where they fit into the Gilmore women’s lives, and how their existence is related to patterns of identity and individualism in the show is all part of close reading a narrative. In other words, close reading allows us to build critical thinking skills.

Obsessive rewatching of a show we already love helps us watch new things too. When honed, this skill transfers to how we watch new content. A keen eye might notice a continuity pattern error quickly, or catch an Easter egg drop because they’re tuned to noticing details. Taylor Swift fans are so used to her hidden messaging in plain sight that she can’t even appear in a photo going out to dinner without fans taking detailed notice of everything she wears that might be representative of a new project. of Taylor Swift Style breaks down every clothing, jewelry, and accessory item that might tell a bigger story about what the artist is up to. She is keenly aware of how Taylor tells a story, so she—and her followers—are primed to look for specific details. A person who rewatches obsessively begins to watch new things differently. They’re more attentive, more analytical, and more curious up front. They stop taking things for granted and instead are prepared to look for clues or foreshadowing.

Obsessive rewatching generates rather than satisfies curiosity. Returning to the text produces new questions rather than answering old ones. And furthermore, the rewatch acts as a gateway to adjacent curiosity: the show that sent you to the book it was based on, the film that sent you to the director’s entire filmography, the series that sent you to the historical period it was set in or led to more research. Or in the case of Gilmore Girls, the obscure cultural references that led you to learn more about them. For author Matt Browning, curiosity led to writing Gilmore Girls Pop Culture Reference Guide, a book deciphering the many references in the show.

Why we rewatch

These days there is just a lot going on. Our attention spans are at an all time low, constantly being hijacked by news, entertainment content, notifications, etc. The ability to be everywhere and see everything all at once from a small device you can fit in your hand is convenient, sure. But at the same time, it’s more than overwhelming. We binge a new show over a weekend and promptly forget about it two weeks later. We’re always looking for the next thing, and that’s not difficult, because the next thing is popping up on our feeds within seconds.

The choice to return to something known in a culture engineered for distraction is meaningful. In an oversaturated world, rewatching a favorite show or movie is a deliberate act of resistance against the attention economy’s demand for constant novelty. It’s also a conscious choice to slow down and revel in one fandom.

Rewatching also helps us build community. As we feel further disconnected, fandom around a franchise we have loved for many years on end gives us access to rewatch parties, in-person festivals, and conversations.

Rewatch podcasts, anniversary screenings, and even long-awaited sequels that have us rewatching the original content en masse (hello, The Devil Wears Prada!) make us feel more connected than ever. While a solo rewatch can be fantastic, participating in it with other fans exposes us to other opinions, perspectives, and collective intelligence of a group of attentive viewers. Rewatch podcasts, often hosted by superfans or creators of the content themselves, helps us take a look back and reframe content we loved in the past. We confront our opinions with a more evolved lens, which can be rewarding in and of itself.

So next time you feel bad about rewatching an old show when your queue is a mile long, don’t! Find other fans, search around for a rewatch podcast, or simply slow down and enjoy what you love.

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about the Remarkist ecosystem including Folkic, our community app! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!

When I was a preteen, I was obsessed with Boy Meets World from the moment the pilot aired. We had recorded one of the episodes on our trusty family VCR, probably because we had plans on the night it aired. Back then, if you were going to be away from your television when a show was on, you were going to miss it. (The VCR really changed our lives.) I remember when I got my hands on the tape and pressed play. This wasn’t an episode like the first three that had already aired. Season 1, Episode 4 was what would become one of the series’ most iconic: “Cory’s Alternative Friends.” If you’re a fan, you know the one. Cory, a curly haired boy, overhears a couple of girls talking about a classmate’s hair, calling him “a total Brillo head.” Cory assumes they’re talking about him and gets self-conscious, so attempts to straighten his hair with his friend Shawn’s help. Shawn gets the straightening product from his “sister” Stacey, and things go horribly wrong.

Cory’s hair looks ridiculous. And so, because this is middle school, he has to sit with at the “Weirdo Table,” consisting of a group of misfits. In the meantime, he is assigned to work on a project with Topanga, a hippie child who comes on strong and is a bit strange (though I would argue she’s stylish, environmentally conscious, and emotionally intelligent which is pretty cool). The episode culminates with Cory joining the “Weirdo” kids and Topanga, who have all been kind to him while he’s been publicly shunned for his hair, in a meaningful protest to attempt to save the school librarian’s job. At the end, Topanga kisses Cory at the lockers (and 12 yr old me lost her MIND).

Over three decades later, this episode is still a fan favorite. The show went on to have 7 seasons, and its major storylines included Shawn’s family life and Cory and Topanga’s romance. I bring that up because while this episode is iconic, it sets up facts about the characters that are never addressed again: namely, Shawn having a sister, Topanga’s parents’ hippie-ish names, and Topanga and Cory having zero relationship as of the 6th grade. The subsequent seasons go on to focus on these characters and these specific relationships, but these establishing facts are forgotten or overlooked for the duration of the series. It’s a point of fan contention that Cory and Topanga’s origin story changes again and again as the writers insist on their destiny as life partners, having met as babies on the playground.

On their podcast, Pod Meets World, actors Danielle Fishel and Rider Strong, who played these characters, often joke about how ridiculous it is that these plot holes abound. But for this fan, it’s refreshing to hear them talk about it. While plot holes are narrative failures that exist for all sorts of reasons, they are nevertheless invitations for discussion. For Fishel and Strong, they use these plot holes to speak to the realities of showbusiness, what the writer’s room dynamics might have been throughout the seasons, and their own understanding of their characters as the show progressed as they wondered about season renewals every year. All of these topics are insightful for fans to learn about. For regular fans with no personal connection to the production of content, plot holes offer an opportunity for us to question our relationships with fiction. What are we willing to overlook for the sake of story? And what really matters?

What is a plot hole, really?

Inconsistencies plague fiction all the time. Observant fans pick up on continuity mistakes and anachronist errors (or even just production errors) often. Many shows start with a pitch bible that leads the series through at least early seasons. A show bible contains lengthy character outlines and story arcs, defines the rules and facts of the story world, and sketches a progression of how the series will evolve. Writers refer to these documents when breaking new stories or pitching scripts.

Sometimes overall plot is stronger than details, and characters are rewritten either in their history or relationship to others. These plot holes feel almost intentional to serve a greater purpose, as it seems to have happened on Boy Meets World. Or on a soap opera or telenovella, continuity is sacrificed for drama all the time. It’s more compelling to have someone come back from the dead or reappear as a long lost sibling than the more realistic version, or one that adheres closely to past events in the narrative.

And when a series goes on for longer than the original writers intended, plot holes might be inevitable. The X-Files ran for so long that a lot of things didn’t make sense after a while, and not just because it was a sci-fi series where you’d expect unexplained phenomena.

Plot holes might even be subjective: what reads as a plot hole to one viewer might read as intentional ambiguity to another. Did the creators forget something? Or are we meant to clock it and wonder?

Why do plot holes bother us?

As humans, we are wired to try and make sense of everything we see. It’s one of our most native traits: before human civilization even existed, we created language and a means of documenting our observations about our surroundings. Plot holes mess with this innate need.

That nagging feeling that something is off can preoccupy your brain, losing you as an invested participant in the story. Plot holes can be frustrating, confusing, and even take a person out of the narrative experience.

Plot holes can affect our investment too. We might love a movie in spite of its plot holes, maybe even because of them. But an ill-placed plot hole in a series we’ve been enjoying for a while, especially if we’ve been previously impressed with its attention to detail, can really make fans angry. A series like Lost had a lot of dedicated fans in the beginning, fans who were so excited by the fact that it seemed the writers thought of everything, only to lose them when things started to make less sense and come out of left field. There is always a relationship between creator and consumer, and when that trust is broken, it’s hard to come back from.

It’s also possible that plot holes bother us as fans when we really love something, and don’t necessarily want to admit it is flawed. We all form deep connections to the stories we love, and as the saying goes, love is blind. Have you ever loved a movie so much when a friend says, “meh, I thought it was weird when….” and points out an inconsistency? Or when you’re watching something with someone else and their response to something on screen is “yeah, right, that would never happen…” you feel deflated? Plot holes might reveal that we either missed something big because we were too enthralled by the content, or that we are gullible and buy into something without reason. In short, a plot hole might reveal something about ourselves we aren’t too excited to confront.

Some fans are so bothered that they take plot holes into their own hands. They write fanfiction, or complete the story in a way they feel it should be completed, in an effort to correct a mistake, or what they perceive as one.

Why plot holes are great conversation starters

If you’re like me, your idea of a good time is discussing content and really digging into a close reading. But sometimes, a piece of fiction is just really wrapped up, and doesn’t ask, or compel me to ask, any meaningful questions. This actually frustrates me, as someone who loves to pick something apart in all the best ways, for great conversation. A plot hole is a perfect way to get a good conversation started. Shared irritation? That’s just another way to bond with other fans.

Let’s take Boy Meets World and the soulmates issue that drives the last half of the entire series and even inspired a Girl Meets World spinoff. Raising the stakes for Cory and Topanga’s love story might have meant sealing their destiny from the playground. But audiences might disagree. Is it more powerful for them to have met as toddlers knowing they would be together forever immediately (as much as one can know that sort of thing at 5 years old)? Or is it richer storytelling to reference the episode where we meet Topanga and get to know her as Cory does, and follow a linear love story from there? As a fan, I would argue the latter is a way more compelling love story: meeting a person from a totally different social group at 12, befriending them, and finding connection in the process provides endless story opportunities. But others might disagree, and prefer the destiny storyline. Whichever speaks to you as a fan might reveal something about your own thoughts on true love.

Inconsistencies can offer perpetual conversation. In Gilmore Girls, fans are constantly bringing up that the character, Kirk, played by Sean Gunn, shows up a couple of times in the earliest episodes before becoming a regular character on the show.

In one episode, he’s an unnamed swan delivery man. He goes by Mick in another episode, as a DSL installation technician. His name and origin story changes, as in later seasons we are told that other characters have known him his whole life, while earlier versions of the character feel like a stranger to the townies. But we could see Kirk as the DSL installation guy or delivering swans because his series-long bit is that he has many different jobs. There are many explanations given by the creators as to why this unfolded the way it did, but fans are still talking about it.

Entire communities form around plot hole discussion; a quick search on Reddit will show you many conversations devoted to the same writerly mistake. These plot holes sometimes unite and sometimes divide fandoms, but the fact is that they do offer some form of community conversation.

Plot hole? Or literary device?

Like I said, the human brain is wired to pick up on inconsistencies. So when we clock a plot hole, that might be the author or creator’s intent: to grab our attention. A deliberate gap might come back later.

As fans, it’s sometimes important to recognize the difference between an accidental plot hole and a point of mystery. One of my favorite story devices is when an event is glossed over in a narrative, barely noticeable, but the story comes back to it later. Whether seen in flashbacks, revisiting a scene from another perspective from another character’s point of view, etc. Anything that takes the viewer or reader back to fill the plot hole is so satisfying to me; coming back to a moment to explain it further or reveal what was really going on, or what someone saw, often offers a twist that instantly feels exciting. Intentional plot holes can be a lot of fun, especially when you like to be surprised or having your suspicions that something was off confirmed.

There’s also the plot hole that doesn’t resolve: an ending that doesn’t make sense or is open to too much interpretation. While this can be frustrating for fans, it might be the author’s intention to keep them guessing. A plot hole can set up sequels, more storytelling, leave them dissatisfied, or provide opportunities for retconning, which can really get people talking. It’s been decades and to this day fans are still discussing the ending of The Sopranos. Of course, one could argue if an ambiguous ending is a plot hole at all.

Embracing flawed stories

As for Boy Meets World, I can honestly say I was annoyed by the insistence on retconning the facts about characters I’d come to deeply love. But I kept watching all through my teens, until the very last episode aired. When I think of the series, I think of 12 yr old me, rewinding my VHS recording of “Cory’s Alternative Friends” over and over, guarding the cassette so nobody in my family would mistakenly tape over it, and now, I occasionally watch it on Disney Plus as an adult. I’m totally invested in hearing from the actors from the show on their podcast every week. The series meant everything to me because of that episode, and I can accept that future episodes pretty much assume my favorite episode never even happened. At the end of the day, the plot holes were no match for my devotion.

Sometimes we love something so much that plot holes cease to matter. A dedicated fan will notice inconsistencies, but accept them as part of the charm of the content. A gap in narrative is the gap where fans live: we thrive in the space between what the story gave us and what we needed it to give to us. Devotion to the content we love is deep and unconditional, and tracking flaws is evidence of how fully we receive stories.

Noticing a plot hole is the story’s way of telling you that you were attuned to it, that you cared enough to notice. A discussion about inconsistencies is in essence a discussion about our attention and where we focus it. While we watch a lot of content these days with one eye on our phones and our heads in many different places, noticing a plot hole might be a win in and of itself. It signals that we focused our attention on a fictional world for a bit of time, and isn’t that the point?

I want to hear about some of the plot holes that you love, that bug you, that fans discuss a lot or not enough. Share yours in the comments!

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about the Remarkist ecosystem including Folkic, our community app! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!

It’s May, a month full of both beginnings and endings. May always makes me think of season finales and a looming hiatus. Before streaming culture, network television seasons were broken up into two halves. The fall lineups would start in September with new shows and returning favorites, and break just before the holidays. After the new year, the spring would offer mid-season replacement shows and premieres. A season of TV would end, culminating in series cliffhangers and finales. We would have the whole summer to speculate on how our favorite shows would come back in the fall. Three long months to think about future character arcs and plot lines, or speculate about cliffhangers and the mysteries we were left with to wonder about. And that fascination is what kept us sustained.

That feeling has now been democratized to every season; with streaming we are always waiting for one thing while enjoying another and looking forward to something else. And while that’s in a lot of ways more exciting, May still feels like a time to wrap things up as we prepare for the summer and future seasons. With that in mind, we think you’ll love our content topic for this month.

Before we tell you what our May theme is, let’s take a look back at what you may have missed during April. Our content theme was Fanfare, where we took a deeper look at how we build excitement around the stories we love.

Anticipation is an art form when done well, and we took a look at how the waiting period for a movie or TV show to be available is often one of the best parts of fandom. One big movie release that we couldn’t wait for this year? Project Hail Mary, based on the book of the same name by Andy Weir. This led us to ask the question: is the book always better than the movie? The answer is complicated.

Looking at the Gilmore Girls fandom, we tracked the rise of fan festivals, as folks who have found fandom online grow tired of only using social media to connect with other fans. We also considered what happens to a lonely fan that cannot find a fandom community, and how they might find positives and negatives in the solitude.

In May, we’re channeling that vibe of speculation when it comes to season finales that this time of year has been known for in the past. Our topic is…Curiosity! If you participate in fandom by asking questions, analyzing plot details, and looking for clues, this month is for you. We’ll look at how multiple rewatches of TV shows and movies inspire new understandings of content. We’ll investigate why plot holes really stick in our brains and affect how we watch. With fandom making appearances on college campuses, we’ll look at the academic approach to fandom content. And we’ll dig deep on why unpopular opinions can be so fun to have, share, and discuss.

So bring your notebooks and pencils, and get ready to examine storyworld content closely. Sometimes to love something is to investigate it from multiple angles!

Take note of our Table of Contents below. Make sure to follow us on Instagram, and also John Cabrera for special announcements and reflections. You can always find more information on our Discord where we post regular updates about the Remarkist ecosystem. We have some big things coming up, and you won’t want to miss it!

1. What Plot Holes Reveal About How Deeply We Love Fiction

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2. The Rewatch Effect: How Returning to Stories Again and Again Make us More Curious

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3. Unpopular Opinions in Fandom: Why Dissenting Voices Make Fan Communities Better

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4. Fandom vs. The Canon: Why Pop Culture Belongs in School

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In the spring of 2019, I stumbled upon a series on Netflix that hooked me from the first episode and captivated me for a fairly short, intense binge. The show was The Society, a teen drama about a group of high schoolers who go on a field trip, and upon returning everyone in their town has completely vanished. Scared and abandoned, the teens come together to form a new society, and natural leaders and villains emerge while they pool resources and make rules for how they’ll continue living in a new reality. The show pulled me in immediately, forced me to confront questions about what I might do in that situation, gave me quite a few jump scares, and ultimately ended on an incredible cliffhanger. I couldn’t wait for a second season.

I asked friends about it. “Surely, you’ve watched The Society?” Nobody I knew had. More than that, there wasn’t any conversation in my social media feeds or online in any obvious ways. I had had an intense experience, but nobody to share it with. It was genuinely weird, and lonely.

The show was renewed for a second season, but the global pandemic got in the way and it was never filmed. Until recently, I didn’t even know that it was respected or even remembered by others; the recent consensus amongst those who did watch it is that it was a masterful show that ended too soon. So at least now, I can rest easy knowing I wasn’t totally alone in my fandom, and it’s validating to learn it had critical acclaim and enthusiasts despite getting canceled.

When we experience great content, we feel a natural inclination to share it with others. One of my favorite things is when I watch something by myself that blows my mind, then ask a friend if they’ve seen it, and feel that moment of connection when they respond, “YES! I LOVED it! We MUST discuss!” Fans have an inherent urge to debrief and/or celebrate something they’ve discovered. So what do we do when we experience love for something alone? What happens to a fan without a fandom?

Why community around fandom works

Validation is important to the human condition. We want to feel understood, and known, by others. In the very center of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is Love and Belonging, and community around fandom provides a sense of belonging that can also lead to deep friendships and love. We all know how good it feels to be part of something, whether it’s enjoying music with other fans at a concert, going to a book signing and author chat, or attending a fandom convention. It is validating to know that what we choose to engage with is important not only to us, but to others.

There’s also pride in loving something that others love too. When you become a fan of something, and see others are fans too, it feels like a marker of having good taste. When we recommend a book, movie, music group to a friend who in turn loves it, we can feel pride in either knowing what’s “good” or knowing our friend well enough to make a recommendation, or both. For those who love celebrating content, showing others a great time in that celebration is essential.

When community fails to emerge

Do you remember the last time you made a recommendation and it was rejected? Maybe you said to a friend, “I loved this movie–did you see it?” and that friend says “Yeah, I saw it, I didn’t love it” and you feel crushed? A disagreement over liking something can feel like disconnection. While fans within a fandom might debate facets of story or character, the one thing those fans absolutely have in common is the agreement that the content is worth engaging with. Within that fandom, lots of different personalities will emerge, but everyone is essentially on the same page.

It’s worth breaking down why some might not follow your fandom, and examine why that feels like a kind of rejection:

A Genuinely Uninterested person might hear your passion, note it, and say “nope, I don’t think I’d like it” and move on without any drama. While the rejection is not at all personal, this can be deeply frustrating. We are all guilty of this; a friend of mine is often telling me I’ve really missed out not watching Game of Thrones, but I simply am not interested.

A Perpetual Promiser heeded your recommendation and is always meaning to get to it. They heard you, they noted your passion, but something is always getting in the way of them following through. While it’s not usually personal, this rejection feels hollow: you might be so eager to hear what they think of the content, because you’re anticipating a celebratory discussion with them. And if they seem too busy, it doesn’t feel dissimilar to a friend blowing you off.

The Partial Convert has taken your recommendation, watched a couple of episodes, and simply stopped engaging. It’s agonizing because you know deep down they don’t share the same enthusiasm, because if they did they would have completed it. Furthermore, you understand that they didn’t feel the same compulsion to love it as you did.

An Active Resister makes you feel like you’re overselling the content you ride or die for, and that can feel uncomfortable. It also defeats the purpose of the recommendation in the first place. Maybe they would have loved the content on their own if you weren’t pushing it so hard all the time. This paradox is often evident in pop culture; I remember in my college days seeing absolutely everyone on the subway reading The Da Vinci Code. If everyone was reading it, I decided it couldn’t possibly be good, and actively resisted it for years. When I finally did read the book, I had a great time, but I remember flat out resisting it so much. When content has to “live up to the hype,” it might fail with a would-be fan regardless of the predication that they might like it otherwise.

You might have recommended content to The Wrong Audience, which is again a form of rejection in and of itself. Not considering your pitch wouldn’t have worked regardless of how passionate it is feels like a failure of understanding who the content is for, and challenges those relationships. I often find this with content that has a strong point of view on a sociological or political issue; recommending content that makes an overt argument can be polarizing, and isn’t for everyone.

Finally, a Delayed Convert shows up late to a fandom, or the content you recommended. Fandoms tend to treat a Delayed Convert in different ways; they either embrace them outright or impose a hierarchy of who got there first, determining “real fans” from “bandwagoners” the way a band’s fandom might treat others when the band breaks out from indie to commercial popularity. In an interpersonal relationship, you might not have the same passion you did three years ago for a movie you watched then, so the delay impacts how you can celebrate it with a new fan.

The unexpected joy of solo evangelism

We talk a lot about fandom communities and how they can be inclusive or exclusive, healthy or toxic. When fan communities primarily meet online, it can feel like finding one’s tribe for a while. But without a real world element there is a limit to those interactions. Consistently experiencing fandom through a screen can feel lonely, unless you can find meetups and fan fests, or some way to actually meet one another. In the same way, solo fandom can be isolating. But there are some ways it can be fulfilling.

There is something to be said for keeping something for oneself and not sharing it with others, whether that’s because they’re uninterested or you simply want to keep it private. There is one TV show that I am always hesitant to recommend, and it’s because I love it intensely in a way that feels too personal. I once recommended it to a very close friend, and she gave it a lukewarm review. It crushed me; I realized I couldn’t handle any criticism of the show at all, because a part of me needed it to stay as perfect in my mind as it did during my first viewing. I devoured it when it first released in April of 2020, in a time that was extremely isolating and scary, and the show was a lifeline of joy for me.

In an admittedly vulnerable move, I will divulge here that the show is Mindy Kaling’s Netflix series, Never Have I Ever. I have watched the first season, which I deem a perfect season of television, probably more than 30 times, even just to listen to in the background of my waking (or sleeping) hours. I can’t even fathom watching it in the same room as others, much less recommending it to friends whose opinions I care about. (Please go watch it if you haven’t; just don’t tell me your thoughts unless they’re extremely positive!)

When you love something alone but publicly, it can be taxing. You might find yourself in a constant state of defense. But you can choose not to let criticism get in the way of building your own relationship with something you love.

On their podcast, Las Culturistas, hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang always ask their guests one essential question: “What was the culture that made you say that culture was for you?” It’s a revealing question that asks guests to remember their earliest brushes with content that spoke to them. Our early, private fandoms often inform how we interact with content in general.

We were all young once, consuming content by ourselves, often alone, until something resonated with us. The things that captured our attention when we were young are foundational texts that shape our perceptions. These formative experiences set the stage for our future fandoms and participation in fandom communities.

But a private fandom in adulthood helps shape who we are as well. Without the noise of criticism or even blind excitement, we can deeply get to know what we love. When a piece of content is entirely yours, it can be separated from any sense of communal history with an established fandom, or influence from others.

Being alone in your fandom also means you never have to defend it. Any Taylor Swift fan has been through something like this: when the artist says or does something that nonfans don’t understand, or appears “overexposed” in pop culture, there’s a lot of vocal criticism in the ether. Fans of hers not only feel compelled to explain, but they are often asked to defend their fandom in those moments, which is both exhausting and feels unfair. After all, being a fan doesn’t mean standing for everything a piece of art says or everything an artist believes. But if you love something privately, you never have to answer for it.

When you finally find a community

Community exists for everything, somewhere. Chances are you’ll eventually find a Discord server, a Substack article, a social media account, a podcast, or a watch party group at some point. There is a particular joy in finding another fan of something you love and who also felt alone in loving. Recognizing a fan of an obscure show or band builds an immediate bond; you both carried the same private enthusiasm and built strong relationships to the content on your own.

What are some books, movies, or TV shows that you love and are struggling to find other fans like you? Put them in the comments! Not only do we want to know what we might be missing out on, but let’s help you crowdsource some fandom communities!

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about our ecosystem at Remarkist! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!

I was in college in the year 2000 when the trailer dropped. I saw it online, a rare thing at the time, as YouTube didn’t exist yet. If I remember correctly, the trailer was only available to play on the movie’s website in addition to theatrical previews. And I’m sure a good chunk of that website’s traffic was courtesy of me and my ethernet connection inside my dorm room. The movie? Of course, it was the drama Center Stage, a story about a ballerina newly accepted to the most prestigious ballet company in New York and her and her classmates’ struggle with career, passion, skill, and…love.

Just last year, the movie, which became a cult classic and millennial favorite, turned 25 and the internet responded in kind, some even calling it the greatest movie ever made. The movie launched careers, like that of Zoe Saldaña’s, and featured famous actors like Peter Gallagher and Donna Murphy. The most exciting cast of the movie was the dancers, real ballet prodigies from various ballet companies.

When I look back on the film, which is equal parts cheesy and awesome, not to mention a pop cultural touchstone for women of my generation, I don’t think that much about how it became a cult classic over the past two decades. I think about the months before it opened in theaters, and my own relentless, kept-me-up-at-night excitement. I remember the opening notes of the trailer before anyone appears onscreen. I remember the sound of dancers whacking their pointe shoes on the floor to break them in. I remember the song from the trailer which ended up on the soundtrack. And I remember Mandy Moore’s music video for “I Wanna Be With You,” featuring dancer/actor Sascha Radetsky and scenes from the film since it was used in a pivotal moment. Sure, as a young dancer myself, I studied the choreography to the “Higher Ground” sequence when I secured a DVD copy later and performed it for nobody in my living room every other day for years. But I’ve been chasing that anticipatory feeling I felt before the film hit theaters for decades. And I have to admit: I haven’t had a ton of fandom experiences that come close.

Anticipation for something can be as exciting as the thing itself. Do you remember that television commercial for Walt Disney World, the one where the little kids can’t sleep because of her family’s upcoming trip? They’re “too excited to sleep” and it’s adorable. The ad works because we all know that feeling. Even the dad in the commercial can’t sleep.

Anticipation is a natural occurrence. As humans, we look forward to what we believe will be positive experiences. But anticipation can be wielded as well, and there is a certain art to creating, sustaining, and participating in it. Fans appreciate an engaged lead-up to a drop, because the waiting can be almost as fun–if not more–as the thing itself.

Manufacturing anticipation

Before the internet, we had physical advertisements, movie posters, book release dates, album covers, and theatrical trailers. A piece by Will Havens for Brown Film Magazine paints an informative and fascinating overview of the history of movie trailers. The first trailer appeared in 1913 for the Broadway show The Pleasure Seekers, and was filmed by a publicist for Marcus Lowe, the founder of MGM Studios. It was shown after the movie, thus named a “trailer.” The promo was a huge success, and soon became a staple of movie theaters. Founded in 1919, the National Screen Service (NSSS) dominated the trailer industry for the next forty years with their formulaic ads that featured splashy movie stars and boasted outrageous claims about the movies they publicized. These trailers promoted the technological feats of the films themselves, or the shock value. They were often narrated too, speaking directly to the audience about what to expect. Exceptions to the formula were given to filmmakers that were so influential that they could have creative control, like Orson Welles directly introducing Citizen Kane in voiceover to the audience.

When the NSSS was broken up as a monopoly in the 1950s, the industry and audiences were also changing. The rise of the filmmaker/auteur meant that trailers were more artistically grounded and evoked the feeling of the films as much as promoted them. With the onset of the blockbuster film in the 1970s, what started as a single promo in theater exploded into larger multi-level marketing campaigns that included multiple trailers at different lengths. Some trailers included entire plots with overt spoilers or iconic lines from the upcoming film, like Jaws including the line “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Voiceover narration was always important to trailers, and the voices of trailblazers Don LaFontaine and Percy Rodriquez were heard in some one the biggest trailers ever. Rodriquez was renowned for horror films and movies like Jaws. LaFontaine voiced over 5000 trailers, and was well known for his “In a world…” line, inspiring the 2013 comedy In A World… written and directed by Lake Bell, who also starred in the film.

Today, moviegoers still love trailers and arrive at theaters on time to watch 20-30 minutes of them before the feature movie starts. But companies like Marvel have also perfected the post-credit trailer or extra scene, perhaps in a return to form of the original turn of the century era movie trailers. Building anticipation during the movie you’ve come to see is what gets folks talking and excited for what comes next. And the art of the post credit trailer is even making its way to live theater, which is unheard of. The Broadway musical adaptation of The Lost Boys includes a post-curtain call scene that fans speculate teases a sequel to the original movie the show is based on. This post curtain call scene was omitted after a few preview performances, and fan demand was so loud online in Reddit threads and on social media that it returned within a few days. This just confirms that fans love getting excited for what comes next, especially if the method of disseminating that information is unconventional and innovative.

Modern manufacturing of anticipation is multi-layered into massive marketing campaigns. In the 90s and 2000s, you could maybe catch a glimpse of a movie being filmed from a sidewalk photo published in a magazine. Today, because of social media, we now have access to behind the scenes photos up to the minute. The internet nearly broke earlier this year when Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson, former stars of the teen drama Dawson’s Creek, were photographed filming Holmes’ movie, Happy Hours, which will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June of 2026. Those early photos and buzz certainly worked on me; I am itching to snag a ticket.

The same was true of The Devil Wears Prada 2, when on-set photos in the streets of New York City were released to the public in August of 2025. Trailers are fantastic, but there’s a certain excitement to seeing sneak peaks of the actors, costumes, and guessing what might be in store for the film based on the candid photos of the set. Fans now feel part of the content itself: we see part of how the magic happens instead of a curated trailer, edited to clips that make us feel what the filmmakers want us to. Instead, we can use our imaginations to guess what might be going on in the film rather than being told what the plot is. These types of “leaks” (or well-placed PR made to look accidental) create buzz, and it hits particularly hard for nostalgia content. In the case of both Happy Hours and The Devil Wears Prada 2, this especially works as fans dig into what they already love about the stories and players involved–which begets more excitement.

In the waiting, our imaginations take over, and fans act as co-creators of the content way before it arrives. It’s the one true time fans have control over the content itself, if only within our own frenzied conversations. It’s the period in which we can guess what the content will be about, debate with other fans about what we think might happen, and paint the best case scenario in our minds for what we will eventually see. Countdowns also help us create rituals around our fandoms: we mark time together, which builds community and collective identity.

The medium shapes anticipation

Recently I was listening to a podcast where the hosts were discussing how crazy it is to remember that in the 1990s, “TGIF” programming on ABC was a thing, as well as “Must See TV” on NBC. Imagine waiting a whole week to see four to five shows lined up for you, that were so good (or at the very least so popular with everyone you knew) that you simply would never miss them, over the course of three primetime hours every single week. The anticipation of looking forward to those weeknights could get you through a week of boring homework or your office job. And, the ensuing conversation at the proverbial water cooler the next day could sustain you, at least until the shows went on hiatus and you’d have to watch reruns.

A well-placed promotion for a show coming a season away could also get folks riled up. I was counting down the days to the 1998 premiere of Dawson’s Creek for actual months when they aired during episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Lost commercials on ABC in 2004 were so captivating, it was a massive ratings hit from the outset, as 18 million tuned in to watch the pilot–and came back the next week. And the marketing team didn’t stop there. The hiatus between seasons 2 and 3 kept fans engaged by an innovative marketing campaign, the Lost Experience. A commercial that aired during an episode led fans to real websites for Oceanic Airlines and the Hanso Foundation, where they could find clues about the island in an alternate reality game. More games would be introduced between seasons 3 and 4. A new game called the Dharma Initiative Recruiting Project was implemented between seasons 4 and 5 and incorporated San Diego Comic-Con in 2008, and Lost University between 5 and 6.

And the piece that really drove Lost excitement? Waiting week to week for an episode drop. The internet would be ablaze with comments on the official message boards, blogs, and in my case, a week-long email chain with several work friends where we constantly discussed theories and predictions. Fans used the time in between episodes to dig into the content in meaningful and deeply creative ways. One even created a map of the island, inspired to look like a New York City subway map.

Streaming has altered the schedule in which fans can watch the things they love, especially when they drop a series in full on a platform. How many of us have binged a fantastic eight-episode show in a matter of days, only to forget what we saw? And in many cases, we might not have even had any sort of anticipatory excitement for the content; it simply showed up in our feeds and it looked interesting, so we pressed play.

Creating anticipation for a show, a movie, a book or album release takes time, and time is something that helps us build strong connections. If we are confronted with consistent dribbles of content–whether it’s many commercials, trailers, interactive gaming or fan community chats–we form a relationship to that content, even before we’ve seen it. And when we finally do, that relationship has the potential to become stronger: we might feel compelled to deep-dive into discussion with other fans, watch it again if we loved it, and talk about why we didn’t if we were disappointed with a certain amount of gravitas. We simply don’t feel as connected to content when we just found out about it on the home page.

Streaming platforms have been slow to understand this, because having every episode of a show all at once is not only novel as opposed to the old network model, but keeps subscribers on their platform for binge sessions. But as they’ve struggled with keeping subscribers, and in the interest of keeping folks coming back to their platforms, they have implemented some tactics for staggered episode drops. Stranger Things, one of Netflix’s most-watched shows, was a huge hit. But for the most-anticipated Season 5, Netflix teased the final season months early at their spring 2005 Tudum Event, where they announced that it would drop in three parts at the end of 2025: Several episodes at Thanksgiving, several more on Christmas Day, and a series finale airing on New Years Eve both on Netflix and in movie theaters worldwide. The result was a fan frenzy in waves. The anticipation was infectious, and even as the final season itself drew mixed reviews from fans, the excitement around each drop was undeniable.

Anticipation grief and fatigue

In 2023, the heavily anticipated Eras Tour by Taylor Swift got underway, and while fans were showing up in ways that were unprecedented, another phenomenon that nobody saw coming became part of the conversation. Fans started reporting Eras concert “amnesia,” claiming that they’d looked forward to the event for so long and certainly knew they had a wonderful time, but couldn’t remember the details of it. Much like a newly wedded couple will plan their nuptials for months and months, the day flies by so quickly in a whirlwind. It sounded like fans had had a similar experience.

Anticipation is full of possibility and hope, while finally experiencing the thing you’ve been waiting for could go in a variety of ways. It can be so all consuming that you forget you were even there, or you could be disappointed, or your perception of it could change entirely.

Fan theorizing and easter eggs can be a lot of fun, but also can have the opposite effect when overused. Easter eggs work when they’re dropped sparingly and are actually surprises. But when content creators are heavily reliant on these audience tricks, it could frustrate fans who just want to get to the main event. On social media, it’s sometimes hard to be a fan; there are lots of voices and it might be hard to find folks who just want to celebrate amongst many who can’t stop theorizing, responding to opinions they differ with to an exhaustive degree, or coming at every Easter egg with the same level of enthusiasm that it feels rote. Like most things, less is often more.

Anticipation as a precious, unique experience

If I’d ultimately hated the movie Center Stage (I didn’t; I saw it twice in theaters), it wouldn’t have changed my experience of feeling that particular brand of joy watching that trailer approximately 567 times in the months leading up to it. Anticipation is precious and irreplaceable: you can only have it once. I saw Taylor Swift’s Eras tour twice (humblebrag, I know), and while I felt a certain amount of anticipation for both concerts, after I’d seen it once, looking forward to the second was a decidedly different experience. I still had a fabulous time getting jazzed for it, but my anticipation was completely altered with a sense of preparedness I didn’t have the first time.

The same goes for a second viewing of an amazing movie I love: looking forward to it just doesn’t hit quite the same way. Have you ever read a book that was so good you started slowing down to savor it, creating your own anticipatory experience for reaching the end? I have. Sometimes you have to manufacture anticipation for yourself. And rereading a book knowing how it ends changes how we consume a story. Even if it changes it in positive ways.

Fandom doesn’t just happen while we consume content. Fandom happens in the moments when we aren’t consuming it. We love the opportunities where we get a little bit to chew on, discuss, and celebrate. And during the time that we wait, we get to let the idea of the content breathe and take hold of our imaginations.

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about our ecosystem at Remarkist! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!

Prior to 2021, I had never really attended a big fan convention. The one exception was Super Soap Weekend, a Sat/Sun extravaganza of panels, meet and greets and more with the soap opera stars of the ABC network. It happened at Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios on a weekend in November every year from 1996-2008. The event simply happened inside the park without attendees having to buy any extra tickets beyond their theme park entry pass. I was able to attend once or twice which was exciting, but admittedly I was already in Orlando, FL for other reasons and didn’t plan my trip around the event.

Aside from working at BookCon as a professional in the publishing industry, I cannot remember ever buying a ticket to a convention and planning a trip around it prior to attending a Gilmore Girls festival in 2021. Of course I have long been familiar with the convention landscape prior to 2015 like San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic Con, but I also knew these events were all encompassing and huge, attracting hundreds of thousands of fans across many franchises every year.

One thing giant cons have always proven: fandom can be really meaningful when experienced with others. Con attendees don’t just come to see their favorite creators, buy merch and listen to panels; they come to commune with others who love the things they do. But because so many mega brands are present, there are hundreds of activities, panels and autograph sessions. One certainly cannot see or do everything; you need to plan your visit and zero in on the fandoms you want to engage with.

But since 2015, smaller, focused fan festivals have been on the rise. Niche and singular fandoms have converged around specific, in-person events in many markets all over the globe, but in the U.S. in particular. Social media platforms certainly perfected a way for fans to come together online, but is social media also the reason that folks want to get offline and into community with others?

Social media and niche fandom

Social media at its best is a digital meeting place. For years, fans could converge around Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms’ communities. I remember in the earlier days of Facebook, one could collect digital “buttons” for their “flair wall.” I thought I was alone in my Gilmore Girls fandom until I started seeing buttons others had made with some of my favorite Gilmore quotes on them. I remember seeing one with “Oy, with the poodles already!” written on it and gasping; someone else liked that quote as much as I did?! As much as putting it on a digital collectible? I snatched it right up and displayed it on my page proudly. On social media, I found others who liked what I liked. And so did millions of other people on various platforms in various fandoms. Today, a quick search for Gilmore Girls fan groups on Facebook will yield many results with thousands of members. I’m not sure that was the case around 2008.

In 2014, Gilmore Girls began streaming on Netflix. The show, which aired from 2000-2007, had always had a small and dedicated fandom when it aired on the WB and CW networks. It gained new fans in syndication when it aired on the ABC Family Channel. But the Netflix addition changed everything. It was one of the most streamed shows ever on the platform, and led to a Netflix revival show, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.

The same day that Gilmore Girls was released on Netflix, comedians/writers Kevin T. Porter and Demi Adejuyigbe started the podcast, Gilmore Guys, chronicling a watch of the series episode by episode that became very popular–enough to feature interviews with the show’s biggest stars and solidify their roles as extras in the revival series. The ATX TV Festival in Austin, TX in 2015 boasted a reunion of the cast for its 15-year anniversary, and fans all over the world watched in envy. What was once a small, niche fandom was on its way to becoming larger than anyone expected it would be. More podcasts have popped up from rewatches and discussions like Gabbing Gilmore to deep dives into the culture around the show to comparison shows. Every autumn, fans proclaim that it’s Gilmore season, and do a yearly rewatch.

Social media, combined with the show’s addition to Netflix, helped Gilmore Girls become the enormous fandom it is today. And in the fall of 2016, the very first fan festival around Gilmore Girls, hosted by the Fan Fest Society, took place in Washington Depot, CT, the creators’ location inspiration for the show itself. In a weekend complete with cast interactions, panels, and overall small-town fun, the festival made headline news and is still going today in different locations each year.

Fan festivals as resistance to social media

Over the last decade, fandom on social media has changed. Fans still converge online, but the landscape is very different from the 2008 world where I collected digital flair for my Facebook page. With creators and brands having direct access to their fans and vice versa, the social media landscape has increasingly blurred the lines between fandom and fan. This can be really fun, and in many cases new brands and fandoms grow around native web creators as opposed to previous generations where our fandoms were only based on traditionally published content. Now, anyone can make a YouTube show, have a podcast, or become a social media personality that develops an entire community and fandom around their created content.

But this new world has a darker side. Algorithms sort fans into boxes, and the hottest takes and posts with high engagement float to the top. Comment sections on a post containing otherwise exciting updates for a fandom can become quagmires of in-fighting, and arguments over content, characters, creators and more play out online in spaces that were once celebratory.

The 2016 Gilmore Girls themed festival by the Fan Fest Society, now dubbed “The Firelight Event,” in Washington Depot was proof of a new concept: getting folks offline and into the real, actual “world” of Stars Hollow, CT was what fans longed for. The event became annual, and moved to nearby Kent, CT for subsequent years, with a 2019 stint in Unionville, Canada–the location where the pilot of the show was filmed.

When a global pandemic threatened the future of live events, it was unclear how fans would converge in real time and place to capture that community feeling that happens when you get offline and out into the real world. Like many other events, the festival went digital, hosting a weekend long slate of live chats and panels with cast and crew from the show.

In the meantime, social media fan convergence soared online during the pandemic. And while that may have been beneficial in some ways, it also supercharged toxicity in fandom online. A 2022 piece by Melanie McFarland in Salon chronicled the rise of what she called the “Fandom Menace” in the wake of Gamergate in 2014. Fans have been using social media in toxic ways for many years: to flood the internet with bad reviews, to try to deplatform creators they disagree with, and to object to casting decisions especially with big franchises.

Social media took fandom mainstream, and this is partly why it turned toxic. While access to a fandom used to be extremely niche (there’s even a joke in a Gilmore Girls episode where Lorelai teases Luke for being a Trekkie and asks if he goes to conventions), TikTok and Instagram took over where LiveJournal and Tumblr used to be safe havens for fans. Now, anyone can crowd a fandom space online with negativity, and negativity tends to hijack the algorithms on places like X, driving infighting and backlash. So where can fans really go to enjoy their fandom without cynicism and toxicity?

As pandemic protocols lifted and folks were able to venture out into the world again, the fan festival answered that question. Between 2019 and 2021, the phrase “touch grass” became popular online and it was used in conversation to suggest that maybe someone might be spending a little too much time online, getting sucked into all kinds of dramas that maybe only exist there. Getting out into the world and talking to others is profoundly different from typing online, especially when you disagree. And in fandoms, having conversations in person or in live virtual spaces with others as opposed to just text chats proves more emotional and rewarding than text chat alone. And there is no replacement for meeting someone, even someone you’ve chatted with for years virtually, in real life. Conventions and festivals provide that opportunity.

The single event as a fan festival

In the wake of the pandemic, we saw singular fandom festivals and events take over the zeitgeist. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was a festival unto itself, probably rooted in the fact that her 2020 limited live appearance schedule, called Lover Fest, was cancelled. When Swift announced she would be hitting the road in 2023, what followed was a massive quest by fans to score tickets, and the shows themselves were so big that thousands of fans who couldn’t get to the shows partied outside in droves.

Estimates of twenty-thousand fans would gather outside venues where possible, dressing up in Taylor-themed outfits and trading friendship bracelets, a hallmark of the Eras era entirely created by fans and embraced by Taylor herself. Taylor Swift dance parties, where organizers would simply play music for fans to dance to, popped up in bars, clubs, and venues all over the world. Inside stadiums, fans stood, sang, and cried for the entirety of the three-plus hour sets. And online, creators like Tess Bohne facilitated livestreams of every concert, working with fans inside at each event, to create an online presence for those who wanted to participate. Each concert wasn’t just a tour stop for the seventy thousand fans inside a stadium for three nights; it was a major Taylor Swift festival that millions around the world enjoyed.

It’s not new to converge with other fans at a concert, get dressed up, and fully immerse oneself in the event, but Eras set the stage for a unique concert-going experience. Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter tour, Lady Gaga’s Mayhem tour, Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N’ Sweet tour and others encouraged fans to treat a night out for a concert like a major event, complete with costumes and rituals. The Backstreet Boys’ Into the Millennium residency at Sphere Las Vegas is its own mini fan festival. Anyone can attend their pop up shopping and activation experience at the Venetian Resort for free, even if you don’t have tickets to see the concert. The experience is themed around the band’s Millennium album from 1999, and it is set up like a futuristic airport terminal. Fans can come to take pictures at activations, pose on a mock-up of the TRL studio at MTV from 1999, shop almost an entire floor of exclusive merchandise, and generally celebrate nostalgia. A true perk? A Backstreet Boy just might pop in for an hour. And at the concerts themselves, the band asked audiences to “wear white with a touch of blue” to honor the “I Want It That Way” video. The fans responded.

Gilmore Girls as the ultimate festival IP

In the wake of the pandemic, and as popularity for Gilmore Girls only increases every year, several festivals dedicated to the series have been established. While the Fan Fest Society continues to host a weekend-long event every fall and have also hosted cruise outings with Gilmore Girls cast members, Gilmore fans can find different local experiences.

Here’s a list of Gilmore themed fan fests. Some have already announced 2026 dates:

Small Town Convention, A Weekend in the Life

New Milford CT; September

Not your typical convention experience, this event mixes small town charm in New Milford, CT (which served as inspiration for the show) with cast member meet and greets and panels.

Destination Stars Hollow

Brighton, MI; September

A town transforms into Stars Hollow for a weekend! Come for shopping local, small town charm, and meet some cast members from the show.

Gilmore Girls Weekend in Versailles

Versailles, KY; September

Downtown Versailles, KY transforms into a Gilmore-themed small town with local businesses serving up coffee, special menus, and fun for the whole family.

The Fan Fest Society, The Firelight Event

Guilford, CT; October

The well-established Gilmore-themed fan festival has been in operation since 2016 and boasts meet and greets with cast and crew, panels, and a healthy dose of small-town charm. Locations have varied over the years, from Washington Depot, CT, Kent, CT, Ogunquit, ME, Unionville, Canada and Guilford, CT.

Smells Like Snow Coffee Festival

Akron, OH; November

Local coffee shops from all over the Akron and surrounding vicinities set up coffee trucks with special Gilmore-themed menus and tastings, alongside a craft and merch fair for fans and cast member appearances.

Stars Hollow Autumn Festival

Berea, KY; November

Themed snacks and coffee, crafts, and photo-ops hosted by local Madison Public Library.

Stars Hollow Days

Middleton, WI; October

Stone Horse Green hosts a Gilmore-themed event complete with bonfire, s’mores, a lookalike contest, live music and more.

Stars Hollow in Nazareth

Nazareth, PA; November

Downtown Nazareth participating shops offer themed food, drinks, merch and giveaways and as well as a Luke-A-Like contest.

Stars Hollow Saturday

Hartford, CT; October

Pratt Street turns into Stars Hollow with a pedal pub crawl, trivia, a lookalike contest, and live music inspired by Hep Alien.

Stars Hollow Saturday

Ann Arbor, MI; October

Small business Rock Paper Scissors hosts an annual Star Hollow Saturday featuring the Gilmore to Say podcasters, custom merch, trivia, contests, and more.

Strasburg is Stars Hollow

Strasburg, PA; November

This town celebrates Small Business Saturday with a coffee crawl and a retail roundup with local small businesses.

Stars Hollow Snow Festival

Manchester, CT; February

The Lutz Children’s Museum hosts a night of Stars Hollow themed activities like a dance-a-thon, a knit-a-thon, a snowman dressing contest, Doggi Swami, a Bid-a-Basket to benefit the museum, trivia, crafts, and lots of coffee.

Stars Hollow Valentine’s

San Antonio, TX; February

No better way to spend Valentine’s Day than with your favorite cast members from Gilmore Girls at this quirky, fun convention.

A quick search online yields results for many niche fandom festivals and events all over the world. You don’t have to attend a convention in a big city to find others who love what you love. If you can’t make it to Comic-Con in San Diego or NYC, try MarsCon in Bloomington, MN or Sci-Fi Valley Con in Altoona, PA. Whatever your fandom, you’re bound to find a place in the real world to meet with like-minded folks. While sometimes smaller fests without proof of concept can be risky, there is no doubt that fans are craving opportunities to get off of social media and into the real world to celebrate their fandoms in real life. And if you can’t find an event for your fandom? Maybe it’s time to put one on yourself!

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about our ecosystem at Remarkist! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!

About a decade ago, like thousands of other people, I read The Martian by Andy Weir. It was one of the best books I ever read. Not being a sci-fi fan per se, or a fan of math in general, I was struck by how the book was both heavily informative about the intricate calculations and science behind space travel, but not once did I feel lost. Weir has a knack for making actual rocket science feel accessible for a person who studied liberal arts. The experience of reading that novel was unforgettable. And watching the historic voyage of Artemis II orbiting the moon last week, I honestly felt Weir’s writing set me up to understand exactly what was going on.

So when the movie version was announced, I was both trepidatious and excited. Yes, I wanted to see an interpretation of what my mind’s eye imagined for main character Mark Watney as he survives on Mars, but could a film possibly encompass the richness of the novel? Matt Damon as the actor in the lead role calmed my fears a bit; Mark has a deeply funny interior monologue which is a delight for the reader, and I felt that Damon could pull that off easily. But what about the scope of it all? When I finally watched the film, it was both amazing and disappointing. Don’t get me wrong: it’s fantastic. But a fantastic film still couldn’t live up to the experience of reading that novel. It fell short.

I didn’t read Weir’s novel, Project Hail Mary, when it was released. But when the film version starring Ryan Gosling came out late last month and made a bajillion dollars, I was worried I wouldn’t have time to read the book before seeing it in theaters, specifically IMAX. I’m usually a strict “book first, then movie” consumer of film and TV adaptations of novels. I have an almost religious devotion to honor source material, and have a deep veneration for authors. But I decided to break that rule this one time: I knew Gosling had worked on this for years, having bought the film rights before the book was even published. And, early reviews from friends were raves. So, I took myself to the movies, going in completely blind. I was absolutely transfixed for over two hours, which flew by. I started reading the novel a few days later, and the overwhelming feeling that came over me was gratitude: I was so thankful that I hadn’t read it before seeing it, because yes! The book is better! At least to me. Not because the film is a lesser product, but because it’s a different product. One I might not have enjoyed if I was looking to compare it to the written word every minute.

Fans’ sense of ownership

When it comes to a book that is beloved by many fans, the news of a movie or series based on the work is a welcome treat. It ignites new interest in the narrative, boosts sales and publicity, and even inspires movie tie-in editions that the publisher might re-issue with new cover art to match the screen adaptation. In short, it’s a big deal, and fans weigh in immediately about casting choices and fanfare around the event.

But fans–especially early fans, those who loved a book before it became a Hollywood entity–have a sense of ownership over the work. The “wrong” cast might feel like a personal affront since the act of reading is so personal. The “wrong” visuals might feel disorienting. But when a project gets adapted beyond a single author’s vision for the masses, the question of who the story belongs to is evident: is it the author or the readers? The filmmakers or the audience? I would argue it’s all of the above, which is sometimes difficult for fans to grapple with.

When Academy Award nominated actress Jennifer Lawrence was cast as Katniss Everdeen in the film adaptations of The Hunger Games, fans weren’t thrilled, to say the least. The book series was beloved, and it’s hard to imagine now that the film franchise wouldn’t be just as successful. ​​Fans complained that she was too old to play the role, and her physical features didn’t match the character descriptions. But the film franchise was such a commercial success in the 2010s. In the end, the Hunger Games film franchise delighted readers and pulled in many new fans. Book sales surged as well, and now they have sold tens of millions of copies, including the latest, Sunrise on the Reaping. This prequel has also been adapted into a film due out in November 2026, and fans are already buzzing.

Perceived hierarchy

As humans, we become attached to stories. Whether we see them play out on screen, hear them through audio, or read them in a book, we form a relationship with those stories from the minute we experience them in deeply personal ways. We might feel compelled to share a story with others, find more information about it, or even expand on it by analyzing or writing fanfic. The point is, while stories can have millions of fans, each of those fans experiences it in a deeply personal way. So a book I read and constructed in my mind’s eye as I read it will almost never appear identically to that picture onscreen. And that first version of the story may be the one I’m most attached to (see also: sequels that “don’t live up” to the first movie or spinoff series that don’t quite jive with one’s experience of the first).

When I was in high school and college, CliffsNotes was popular. You know the telltale yellow and black primers: CliffsNotes was a shortened cheat sheet of sorts; if you didn’t have time to do assigned reading of say, Wuthering Heights, reading the CliffsNotes was a (somewhat shameful) option. Or, you could watch a movie adaptation and pray to pass a test. Neither would fulfill the experience of reading the book, your teacher might say. And, they might be right. When you read a book, you experience descriptive language, metaphor and simile, and extended internal monologues of the characters. On film these are presented differently in exposition or scenery, or maybe not at all. Perhaps unfairly, we have culturally regarded the literary establishment as superior for this reason. After all, if it takes a few days to read a book, you can’t possibly expect all of it to show up in a film adaptation. Instead, we have to look at films and narratives as completely different art forms, even if they tell the same story.

What film and narrative fiction can do differently

You could watch a movie alone, of course, but often watching a movie is a group activity. Whether it’s plunking down on the couch with loved ones or actually going to the movies, we experience films together. But reading is mostly a solitary experience. You might listen to an audiobook with a partner, but the reading experience tends to be singular. In a way, a reader is building with an author: the narrative inspires a creative picture in the reader’s mind. I’ve often seen online conversations about dream casting a beloved book; authors are frequently asked this question at book talks and signings. We create as we read.

A film has done that creation for us. And our dream casts rarely come to fruition. But film can do what written word cannot, like have actors communicate via tone or inflection of voice, or tell a story about setting with a sweeping visual or music cue. While when we read we can “hear” a character think, on screen we can watch, or simply know what they’re thinking. A movie or screen adaptation also decides the pacing of the story.

Fans of the Bridgerton romance novels eagerly await each Bridgerton sibling’s love story getting their own season, and fans always have a lot to say about which will be coming out next. When Season 5’s central love story for the character of Francesca was announced, some fans weren’t pleased because it puts off another character’s love story that they have been waiting to see for years. This particular Season 5 pairing deviates from the novel as well in a pretty significant way in introducing a queer love story. While that is something to celebrate, and the change from the books sounds rather exciting, even I share exasperation with fans at having to wait another year to see Eloise Bridgerton fall in love! But what the series has been able to do in its on-screen adaptation is tell a beloved set of stories with a modern view by employing diverse casting, a gender swap for Season 5, and the use of current pop music in classical arrangements to make traditional romance novels feel more accessible.

When the movie really is better

Novels can be special in that they offer rich dialogue, atmosphere and plot twists. But sometimes, a film’s literary source material serves as a jumping off point for a truly spectacular work. Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is a powerful early 1980s novella, but the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption is an iconic, critically acclaimed film and beloved by fans for its deep emotional connection between the characters Andy and Reid played by Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.

Peter Benchley’s Jaws was a massive success with millions of copies sold, but Spielberg’s film adaptation is of course one of the greatest movies of all time. It’s also regarded as the very first summer blockbuster. The success of both kept the profits rolling in 1975. The novel is, if you can believe it, darker in tone than the film, and contains some subplots that were omitted from the film. The movie version also dives deep (pun intended) into the relationships between Brody, Hooper and Quint, focusing on their differences but also their likability. Plus, would Jaws be the story it is without that iconic music, only made possible by the film? That music is the reason many people are STILL scared of the beach, 50 years later.

There are countless other examples of screen adaptations that are truly incredible and are at least as good as the source material. The Godfather, for one. I truly loved the 2023 film Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, an adaptation of Judy Blume’s 1970 classic. The book was a Gen X/Millennial generation staple for young women, a novel that made millions of girls feel less alone on the journey of growing up. And the film, starring one of our very own contemporary heroes Rachel McAdams, touched a nerve of nostalgia in the best possible way. The film isn’t set in the present day to pull in a modern audience; it generally stays faithful to the book which is now over 50 years old. Setting the movie in the time in which the book was published made it feel connective across demographics of women; watching girls struggle through puberty in the 1970s made the experience of girlhood feel even more universal.

The eternal question: what is story?

In the Gilmore Girls revival, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Lorelai goes on the Pacific Coast Trail alone in the fourth episode, “Fall.” She announces she’s going to “do Wild” to take a break from her life. She is referencing Wild, the memoir by Cheryl Strayed but also the movie adaptation by Reese Witherspoon, who also starred in it. On the trail, Lorelai meets other women and the resounding question to one another is, “book or movie?” meaning, which was the inspiration for you wanting to do this? It’s a hilarious bit, but perhaps poignant in that it doesn’t matter: they all got there to do the same thing regardless of drawing inspiration from the book or the movie.

I loved Emily Henry’s novel The People We Meet on Vacation, and so I was thrilled to see a Netflix movie adaptation. Once I saw the movie, which I enjoyed, I saw comments online to the effect that it might have been better as a limited series. When I heard that critique, I fully agreed: the book is about two friends who go on an annual adventurous vacation together, so a series–one episode for each vacation–seemed like a brilliant idea and a more advantageous way to tell a rich story.

David Nicholls’ bestselling 2009 novel One Day was made into a film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess in 2011. Fans weren’t impressed. The story is similar to People We Meet on Vacation in that it takes place over the course of many years, where two friends reunite on the same day every year since their meeting as young adults. So when Netflix produced the story as a series–one episode for one yearly meeting–the result was electric. Fans absolutely loved this adaptation. I was one of those fans, and I still haven’t read the book (another personal rule-break for me). But I was struck by the series, and how each episode allowed the relationships between characters develop, ebb, and flow with the passage of time. By the end, I felt I truly had lived a whole adult life with every major character.

What is a story? Is it just a plot where the CliffsNotes version of a classic novel can get you through a pop quiz? Plot can be translated from one medium to another, with or without difficulty depending on the sequence of action (I was very interested to see how The Martian would show how Mark Watney could grow a potato farm on Mars). Or is it a collection of interior monologues, language, and descriptions of scenic beauty? These are harder to translate literally, but can be put on film through photography, emotional beats, an nonverbal cues between actors. The answer is, all of the above. Stories belong to all of us, and we are lucky to get to experience them in as many ways as we want–even create our own interpretations as we do.

So what’s your favorite book-to-movie adaptation? And what movies/screen versions do you think are better than their literary predecessors? Let me know in the comments and let’s discuss!

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about our ecosystem at Remarkist! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!

April is the month of arrivals. The winter is thawing out, spring is underway, and flowers and greenery are returning. The same can be said as we enter a new season of pop culture. We’ve made it through awards season, celebrating the content we loved over the last year. And now we can look ahead to what’s coming next: summer blockbusters, spring music festivals, summer concert tours and the next big beach reads. More than anything, there’s a feeling of anticipation in the air for all that is to come.

Speaking of anticipation, before we get to our April content calendar, let’s take a look back at what you might have missed in March! Our theme for the month was Taste, and how we cultivate it around the content we love. Our taste in fandom and the content we love is a part of our identity, one that evolves from inherited to our own as we build our sense of self around what we like. We also look to tropes and character archetypes when we build a story around our tastes. And finally, did streaming culture kill taste? We looked into how the modern ways we consume pop culture both flattens and expands our horizons.

Looking ahead to April, we are leaning into that feeling of expectant joy when it comes to the content that gets us fired up. Our theme this month is Fanfare! As fans, we know that there is an art to celebration. We get excited about new content, want to share that passion with others, and we find lots of ways to indulge in the stories and ideas that we love. With a new season upon us, we will look ahead to fan festivals and the recent uptick of more and more fan gatherings and activations produced around the world. We’ll take a look at anticipation for content through trailers, easter eggs, and book-to-movie casting announcements, as well as how film and TV adaptations of novels hold up to fan expectations. And we’ll examine what happens when an evangelist for a particular piece of content or franchise stands alone, and struggles to find others to celebrate it with.

So assemble your group chats, channel your enthusiasm, and join us in the conversation around the festivities of fandom. We have nothing but passion for the fandoms you are passionate about!

Our Table of Contents is below! Make sure to follow us on Instagram, and also John Cabrera for special announcements and reflections. You can always find more information on our Discord where we post regular updates about the Remarkist ecosystem.

1. Book vs. Movie: Why We Think the Book Was Better (And What That Really Means)

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2. The Fan Festival Boom: Why Fandom Is Moving Off Social Media and Into Real Life

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3. The Beautiful Agony of Waiting: How Fandom Turned Anticipation Into an Art Form

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4. The Evangelist’s Dilemma: Can One Be A Fan Without a Fandom Community?

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I can credit iTunes Genius for leading me to one of my favorite musicians of all time. It was the late 2000s, and I don’t even remember what I bought on iTunes that day. But I do remember getting a little message on iTunes telling me that I might like a new album by a musician named Sara Bareilles. Her debut major label album, Little Voice, was climbing the charts with the release of “Love Song” on Top 40 radio, but after I previewed a few seconds of the other tracks, I bought it immediately. I probably paid around nine or 10 dollars for that album.

At the time, I was beginning to transition from buying music in hard copy (i.e.: CDs) to digital once I had my trusty iPod and a new work commute via train. And I loved the convenience. I fell in love with Little Voice: “Vegas” was a haunting song about following your dreams, and my home city of New York was name-checked as a place where dreams could come true. (There’s also a lyric in it that says “tattoo my body with every Broadway show” which feels spookily prescient, given Bareilles’ recent success on Broadway.) “Gravity” became my sad girl anthem, a song that I felt was uniquely mine; now I can’t go to a single karaoke night without someone flexing their vocals and giving it a spin. “Love on the Rocks” was undoubtedly my favorite, and I’ll never forget sitting with a friend at lunch who brought up not only Sara but how that song was his favorite too. I could not believe it: didn’t iTunes recommend this album to me and only me? Well, of course not. Still, my affection for this musician felt singular, unique, special. And when friends and I decided to go out to the legendary Webster Hall ballroom for a live show, I was amazed–and so was Sara–that everyone in the room sang her lyrics back to her.

It was both a mainstream and indie cultural moment for me. I remember feeling special, that only this group of people knew this musical genius, but of course it had been recommended to me by a powerful corporation heavily influencing the music industry. In a way, it was monoculture, but in another, it was siloed to suit my specific taste. We were about to enter a media revolution: Netflix had just begun streaming content online (I absolutely still had a DVD queue), MySpace and Twitter were not algorithmic, though Facebook had started dabbling. We had no idea how our tastes might be influenced by, well, influencers in the coming years. Was my discovery an expansion of taste made possible by streaming? Or would this tech eventually limit my options?

Streaming and the expansion of access

You can’t develop a taste for a genre, writer, or filmmaker you’re never exposed to. Before streaming, you’d have to actively look beyond the big marketing dollars of major movie, TV, and book releases to find niche interests. I loved wandering around the small video store in our neighborhood as a kid; I saw cover art on cassette tapes that intrigued me. As a young teen I remember wandering around The Wall, a regional chain music store, and loving the album they were playing inside the store over the speakers. I asked what it was–Crystal Waters, Storyteller–and bought the CD on site. I still have it, and I remember that elated feeling of discovery every time I look at it. In college I spent many Saturdays at the Virgin Megastore in Union Square where one could get lost for hours on its many floors (unfortunately it no longer exists; a bank now sits in its former retail footprint). My friends and I would wander for hours and stumble onto the street as if emerging from a darkened theater in the middle of the day. The sheer amount of offerings was dizzying. I had always felt at home at a library, where I could scan shelves, read flap copy, judge books by their covers, yes, but discover authors that way.

Cable TV expanded our content universe; the fact that we could get more than a few channels with movies, made for TV specials, home improvement shows and cooking shows was a revelation. These days, if there’s something we want to watch it’s nearly impossible not to find it on one of the many streaming platforms. A piece of content has to be truly obscure not to exist anywhere. I have made endless Spotify playlists of music from random tracks I hear while watching a TV show to deep cuts from my childhood. Libby, the free library app, has made ebooks and audiobooks accessible without me having to leave my couch.

The streamers have gotten better and better at serving up content you might like based on previous watching habits. The “if you liked that, you might like this” way of selling to customers isn’t new, especially in the internet age. But if you looked for something obscure and streamed it, chances are the platform will recommend something similar to you, broadening your experience of that kind of thing.

Binge-watching also contributes to access and audience expansion. Some shows that might have lost an audience after one or two episodes airing week to week in a pre-streaming era of network television might keep folks hooked through a few episodes simply because it’s available. I’m not sure I would have held on with a show like Stranger Things past the first episode if I had to wait, and I might have fallen off due to other interests. But the bingeable nature made me a fan of the show, even though sci-fi isn’t usually a genre I go for. In this way, the way the streaming platform itself works helped me carve out a taste for the genre.

Word of mouth also flourishes in the streaming era. If a friend said “I watched this amazing documentary, you have to see it,” it would take you less than 30 seconds to find it on your own and hit play. You’d know within minutes if your friend’s recommendation was to your taste or not, because access and speed of consumption is nearly immediate. We also don’t have to wait for international hits to become accessible; many streaming platforms deliver music and programs from other countries immediately. And finally, representation is easier to find. Network television has always been more homogeneous than not; shows featuring actors who are nonwhite, identify as LBGTQ+, and have various body types are still often seen as outliers. But streaming platforms expand access to all kinds of stories on a larger scale.

Algorithms and feedback loops

When Blockbuster moved in to replace small video stores, something interesting happened to me: the New Releases wall called like a siren. I used to spend most of my time on that wall, and didn’t lurk in the center aisles as much as I had when indie rental stores were smaller and more eclectic. In a Blockbuster, a much larger store with arguably more access to videos and DVDs to rent, I looked for films I was aware of. I found that giant corporate footprint overwhelming, and so I rarely went in without a plan. I feel the same today every time I open up my Netflix app: there are so many choices, I need to be told what to watch via the home screen.

Streaming platforms have a built in system that never existed before: they record data about what you watch, how long you watch it for, and whether you rate it and how. They use this information to recommend more content to you right there on the home page. While this can expand your consumption by showing you content you might not even know existed, it can also limit it. Sometimes this recommendation system pulls you deeper into a rabbit hole of similar content instead of asking you to browse completely different genres. Plus, it’s going to show you what’s new and top rated by others up front: it’s the Blockbuster New Release wall in digital form.

This easy access and feedback loop in the presence of seemingly endless choices might take away some of the joy of discovery. That feeling of walking into a video rental store in the 90s and looking around for something to pique your interest was exciting. Collections were curated of course; the store didn’t have unlimited inventory space. But there was a sense of accomplishment when you stumbled onto content you ended up loving. The serendipity of finding something new that you love can be as exciting as the content itself. Think of the last time you went to a concert and the opening act was a musician you’d never heard of before, or better: one you had but hadn’t engaged with yet. In the early 2000s I went to a Bon Jovi concert with some family and friends, and there were two opening bands. As we roamed around the stadium venue in the daylight, hours before Bon Jovi would perform, a young Jason Mraz and his band took the stage and played for the handful of folks in that cavernous venue. His song, “The Remedy” was on Top 40 radio, so we knew who he was. But his virtuosity as a vocalist and guitarist, on display in a live setting, was hard to ignore. That was the day I became an enormous fan of his; I barely remember the Bon Jovi show. The serendipity of discovering new music was intoxicating.

The algorithm also misses a key component of building one’s taste: the slow burn of absorbing content and acquiring a love for it over time. If your options are data-driven, you might not find that gem amongst other offerings. The algorithm can retain data about what you ultimately viewed and rated, but it isn’t rating your feelings along the journey. There are many ways individuals build affection for stories: they watch and discuss with others, attend fan events in the real world, consume companion content like podcasts or read books about them, etc. Simply watching them all the way through isn’t an accurate measure.

Loss of monoculture and impact on taste

On social media, I’ve seen a lot of nostalgia posts mourning the culture of the 1990s and early 2000s. While I love Hannah Montana and Laguna Beach as much as the next Millennial (both of which had splashy reunions recently), I believe this wistful longing for an earlier time is at least in part about missing a world where major pop culture events were experienced by most: a TV show premiere that blew our minds, a movie whose ending was so shocking it was hard not to spoil it for others, the book everyone seemed to be reading. Before streaming, we lived in a world where channels were mostly limited and we watched a lot of the same things, or at least overheard classmates or coworkers discussing them the next day.

The question is: did we all really love and hate the same things? Or were our tastes dictated by the communal aspect of getting to experience them together? Today, there is no “Must See TV;” we aren’t even watching the same shows on primetime TV every night. That communal experience is one we have to put effort towards seeking out. This is where fan communities fill the gap, with fans converging online and in real world spaces, even if in fragmented siloes.

What’s next?

The paradox is clear: while in the past our options were limited, therefore our tastes were too. Exposure to more content helps us redefine our tastes, but an abundance of content makes curation unwieldy. Collaborating with others has always helped us define taste, but in a fragmented fandom landscape, it’s more important than ever to find your fannish tribes.

Within the current state of fandom culture, finding others whose tastes you admire and who share your appreciation for particular content is a deliberate process. It takes effort. But collaborating with others helps us define and redefine what matters to us. In celebrating what we love, analyzing content, and gathering with others, we can both define our tastes and expand our horizons. Taste has always been an ever-evolving part of our lives, and as media changes, so will our methods of cultivating appreciation for art and popular culture.

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about our ecosystem at Remarkist! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!

It’s possible we all remember the first time we connected with a character that represented a kind of archetype. We might have found representation on screen or something to aspire to. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl, the Cool Girl, the Ingenue, the Tortured Artist, even the Himbo–these are all tropes that help us understand character and plot. But these archetypes aren’t just tropes we see onscreen and in books: they become templates that we build taste around, and our relationship to them reveals our identity formation around them.

Take “The Main Character” or “Main Character Energy” for instance. The term circulated in the late 2010s, but it wasn’t until 2020 that it became an oft-used term on TikTok. But when Ashley Ward put up a video of her and some friends on her feed with her own voiceover saying, “have to start romanticising your life. You have to start thinking of yourself as the main character,” it exploded. Not only did the tone of the archetype change to a more favorable one, the idea became an aesthetic to aspire to, and a guiding principle for many creators on social media. And, at the height of the pandemic, perhaps it was the perfect time for it to talk off. We were all living as though we were the main character in a story; the world in general felt surreal.

Ward claimed her inspiration came from Ferris Buller’s Day Off. In that classic film, Bueller is the main character, and he is iconic because he’s so unapologetic. He speaks directly to the camera with a striking boldness, knowing the audience is there. He arranges an entire day around his own personal agenda, rather than his obligations. He gets his friends into trouble because he persuades them to follow his lead. Ferris Bueller is the ultimate “Main Character,” and for decades, he has been beloved.

A promotional poster from Ferris Bueller hung in my dorm suite my junior year, a decoration put up by one of my younger suitemates. I remember when an older cousin of mine visited me; she saw it and said, “you guys are too young to be fans of that movie! That’s my generation!” signalling her Gen X status over us Xennials and Millennials. But she was wrong. My suitemates had adopted Ferris as a hero, an aspirational figure who represented something that they aspired to be. Irreverent, successful, charming. Archetypes are observed by critics, but adopted by audiences as a form of identity and taste.

From character tropes to aesthetic

There really are so many character archetypes that it would be its own essay collection to get into all of them. But there are a few that we all can recognize and dig a bit deeper into in terms of how popular culture has influenced our collective aesthetics.

Where were you when you heard the term Manic Pixie Dream Girl? It is a cultural event so specific, it’s firmly cemented in pop culture of the mid-aughts in many ways, from movies, to music to fashion. Critic Nathan Rabin coined the term when writing about Kirsten Dunst in the 2007 film Elizabethtown, a term to describe a whimsical female character: sexy, chaotic, bubbly, and a bit magical. Rabin later apologized for the naming of the trope, realizing the archetype existed in many ways only to save depressive male characters from their emotional turmoil, a woman who flits into his life to make him feel special and then right out again, as if she has no agency or innate purpose.

I remember the MPDG era quite well: Zooey Deschanel was (is) charming in everything she touched, from 500 Days of Summer to New Girl. The MPDG was so… “adorkable” (yikes, I hate that word, btw) that I wanted to be like her. My on-screen role models had been Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy (the Chosen One trope), Katie Holmes and Michele Williams as Joey Potter and Jen Lindley respectively (the Ingenue trope), and pretty much any movie whose cast included Judy Greer (the Best Friend trope). Suddenly it felt ok to be a little “weird,” to say the thing you’re thinking but don’t for fear of retribution, the dangers of which Mean Girls had illustrated so well (as if I hadn’t learned that in real life high school).

The MPDG trope was definitely sexist, but at the time, claiming the aesthetic felt powerful. The “not like other girls” feeling so eloquently performed by actresses like Kirsten and Zoey was also echoed in the music of late-aughts Taylor Swift (“You Belong With Me”) and continues with artists like Phoebe Bridgers. I definitely think Weird Barbie in the 2023 Barbie movie was a reclamation of sorts of the MPDG.

In the early 2010s, the MPDG gave way to the Cool Girl–popularized by the release of the book Gone Girl and later the movie adaptation–and the Hysterical Woman. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Fleabag showed us how to empathize with a woman who has a lot more going on than it seems. Currently, the hit FX series Love Story, the fictionalized love story story of JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, has made Cool Girl popular again: a light internet search about the series will render all sorts of positive discourse on Bessette’s effortless 90s “cool girl” style: her wardrobe, hair, clothing–an aesthetic that is coming back into fashion as a result. All of a sudden women on social media are loving 90s era basics in muted colors to echo the Calvin Klein aesthetic of the day, all the way down to plain headbands over long, effortless hair.

There’s also the Girlboss, a trope coined by Sophia Amoruso in 2014, whose memoir of the same name chronicled her rise to corporate prominence with her clothing brand, Nasty Gal. Amoruso’s take on entrepreneurial feminism in the workplace drew on other prominent figures, like Cheryl Sandberg whose book, Lean In, caused a stir amongst the female corporate landscape. But the trope exploded into pop culture: Succession’s Shiv Roy is the epitome of the Girlboss. But it wasn’t entirely new, as a Time Magazine piece from 2021 asserts: movies and TV shows of the 80s and 90s showed us modern shoulder-pads-wearing working women who were the Girlbosses of their day: Working Girl, 9 to 5, Who’s the Boss? and even Sex and the City solidified the idea before the Girlboss trope took hold in the mid-aughts. Hermione Granger (Harry Potter franchise), Olivia Pope (Scandal), Annalise Keating (How to Get Away With Murder) and even Leslie Knope (Parks & Recreation) are all certifiable Girlbosses, and fans absolutely adopted their aesthetics in style and personality. The Limited even produced a line of businesswear inspired by the incredible outfits seen on Scandal.

What became a cultural aesthetic was also true of its downfall. Comedian Caroline Timoney posted a TikTok video in 2021 in which she proclaimed she had “girlbossed a bit too close to the sun,” sparking a viral trend. Even Taylor Swift used the phrase in her 2025 song, CANCELLED!” off of The Life of a Showgirl. Cultural commentary suggests the opposite of Girlboss is the Soft-Girl, as the nature of work shifts from hustle to anti-burnout. On social media and in cultural discourse, we have seen an emphasis on slowing down, making sourdough, pursuing meaningful work where the focus is on making the world better rather than making a lot of money, and generally enjoying life. These are all lifestyle choices that a pandemic and other socio-economic-political realities have influenced alongside character tropes in media.

We already have Soft Girl characters in pop culture to look to: Beth March in Little Women, or Iris in The Holiday. Many male characters in recent pop culture inhabit the Soft Boy trope: Ted Lasso (Ted Lasso), Jimmy Laird (Shrinking), David Rose (Schitt’s Creek), and Kip Grady (Heated Rivalry), just to name a few. And in a time where many are talking about the rise of the Manosphere, the Soft Boy trope is one that I believe many are seeking out, and hoping it seeps into pop culture aesthetic as facets of masculinity is debated in the grander cultural landscape.

The Soft Girl/Boy trope also stands in opposition to the Antihero, and the popular characters of the last couple of decades that inhabit it. Walter White (Breaking Bad), Tony Soprano (The Sopranos) and Severus Snape (Harry Potter franchise) inspired a generation to root for protagonists that we shouldn’t, to find the humanity in a complex character. As kids, we tend to classify characters as good or bad, and certainly the media aimed at children lacks much nuance in this way. But as adults, we learn that people contain multitudes; they aren’t always all good or all bad. We have compassion for an Antihero because we see ourselves in them: some days we are doing our best and falling short, or making choices that are really tough, but get us from point A to B.

Tropes as mood boards

Fans have always had ways of performing aesthetics they adopt from tropes. Before the internet, we had fan zines and Star Trek conventions. In my high school days, my friends built fan pages dedicated to their favorite TV show characters like Buffy the Vampire Slayer on GeoCities. Blogs, tumblr, chatrooms, message boards, and MySpace took over the early aughts, and today we have multiple advanced social media networks that have dominated so much of our consumption, as well as conventions, festivals, and creator tools like Remarkist.

On TikTok and Instagram, there is more opportunity than ever for fans to perform their aesthetic, and lean into tropes. Creators adopt all kinds of trope styles to anchor their content. A creator might perform Main Character Energy if they’re showing the world their incredibly exciting life through cinematic videos on their feed: think solo coffee dates, exploring nature, and travel. Soft Girls are making sourdough and decorating their homes in cottagecore pastels. The Best Friend (male and female) is talking directly to the camera giving life advice and tell-it-like-it-is reality checks. I would argue many influencers fall into the Best Friend category across a spectrum of lifestyle accounts.

We respond to these tropes in content creation and curate our feeds around them because we recognize them from pop culture and storytelling. And we end up performing them ourselves: who hasn’t seen a random person making bread on the internet and thought, “I can do that!”? Of course, this is where we see irony performed as well: the #nailedit trend on social media–where folks would try to make something they saw so effortlessly made on the internet and failed spectacularly–inspired a hit Netflix show.

How archetypes function in our lives

The development of taste and personal identity around tropes in characters we see on screen is inherently flawed, but nevertheless helps us make meaning out of the events of our own lives. Tropes cannot be wholly divorced from race and class; access to certain life experiences or circumstances are often baked into character tropes. For just one example, if your taste leans toward Soft Boy/Girl, access to leisure time and the financial means to create a world around you that is comfortable is often at play.

Taste is a social language, and how we incorporate our aesthetics into our daily lives helps us relate to those around us, and vice versa. To bring it back to Mean Girls, one key point about the movie and the book it was based on, Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, is that every individual in a teenage female friend group plays a role. The same is true for how we show up in our families, friend groups, workplaces, and even as fans. How we perform our fandoms is often governed by taste: do we love to analyze a text or simply celebrate it? Do we want to argue canon or create fanfiction involving the characters we love? Our tastes inform the roles we play in different situations, and socially, these roles play off of one another. We consistently strive to locate ourselves in any story, to make meaning of our own choices and circumstances. And as long as there are tropes, and changing trends in tropes, we will consistently build aesthetics around them even as the world changes around us.

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about our ecosystem at Remarkist! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!

One of my earliest music memories was listening to my mom’s favorite albums in the car. She was a teenager in the 70s, so by the time I was ten, I was intimately familiar with Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. I asked my mom what a “b*tch” was because she was a superfan of Elton John and she particularly loved “The Bitch is Back,” singing it at the top of her lungs while driving. (I was partial to “Honkey Cat”; something about that delightful song just connected with my young ears.) And we are New Yorkers so it would have been sacrilege not to educate me on the music of Billy Joel. I requested “Movin’ Out” and “Allentown” often. Don’t even get me started on the Dirty Dancing and Cocktail soundtracks; I loved the music from movies I wasn’t even allowed to watch. The Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” was a huge hit, so from that movie soundtrack I learned about yet another legendary band whose music predated my existence.

The popular podcast “Las Culturistas,” hosted by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers, hinges on a central question the two ask every guest: “What was the culture that made you say culture was for you?” It’s a hilariously worded inquiry that leads to a great conversation. It pinpoints something we all experience: at a certain moment in our lives, we are exposed to art–a particular song, an episode of a TV show, a movie–that truly speaks to us. I for sure loved the music my mom listened to, but it wasn’t like I had any other choice in her car on my ride to school and various road trips. But when I heard New Kids on the Block’s “Step By Step,” I felt something very different. This music felt like it was just for me, not my mom too (although she did buy me the cassette tape of the album). It was a shift I recognized from something I enjoyed being “hers” to something feeling like “mine.” And that would continue to happen, as it does for all of us as we get older. Taste might begin as inheritance, move through rebellion and experimentation, and eventually solidify itself as an autobiography of preference.

Early imprints and nostalgia

Nostalgia is a funny thing. You can have a fond memory for art you experienced in your youth, but do you consider yourself a fan now? I think the answer can be complicated. I was sitting in a bar recently and Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy” wafted over the speakers. I was transported to another time and place; the song was released when I was a baby and was part of my young life through my mother’s enthusiasm for the band. But, here’s the thing: I LOVE that song. I could listen to it 10 times in a row over the loud speakers of a dark bar and never be sick of it. Conversely, my father introduced my brother and I to Star Wars as teenagers, his favorite movie of all time. I can feel nostalgia for the day he got really excited to pop it into the VCR, and remember the experience of watching as a family fondly. I even finished watching the original trilogy that same week with a boy I liked at the time, who became my first boyfriend; we always credited The Empire Strikes Back for our first date. Star Wars figured to be kind of important in my adolescent life. But, I could never consider myself a fan of the franchise. It simply didn’t stick to me in the same way my mother’s music did.

So what about the art I discovered myself as a child? It’s a bit of a blur, but I know I loved: Sesame Street, Rainbow Brite, Full House. I graduated to New Kids on the Block, musicals like The Secret Garden, Oklahoma!, and Grease, the Sweet Valley Kids and Babysitter’s Club book series’, and the movie Curly Sue was my most-rented from the video store. To this day, I will get really excited about early 90s hits from Color Me Badd and C+C Music Factory (don’t judge!) I have intense, fond nostalgia for all of these things, but as far as my personal taste today, I’d say only a few enthusiastically remain (hint: I saw NKOTB in concert within the last month). So what’s that about?

Nostalgia connects us to earlier versions of ourselves, and of communities we were a part of without knowing it. It’s why a meme account on Instagram like Flashback 90s has almost a million followers; we feel connected to others who experienced the same pop culture we did. Shared experience with strangers is a delight, and drives so much of the nostalgia we see in media today with reboots, rewatch podcasts, and more.

Remembering the parts of ourselves that liked different content as kids helps us connect to the person we are today. We can look back on art we enjoyed as younger versions of ourselves and recognize our current differing opinion as a signifier of growth. We’ve all rewatched a show we loved a long time ago and realized that in a modern context, the messaging of that show might not hold up to our current standards or beliefs. A great example is taking a look at how a sitcom of the 80s or 90s might have covered a serious topic like alcohol abuse for only 22 minutes. It may have really impacted us at the time, but nevertheless as an adult we have more evolved thoughts and understanding of a complex situation.

Rebellion and Experimentation

It happens to all of us: at one moment in our lives, we were maybe told that the thing we liked was “uncool” or even “bad.” In adolescence and young adulthood, we all grapple with whether to conform or forge our own paths, and personal taste is part of that journey.

Recently my niece, a pre-teen, got a bedroom makeover. Along with new furniture and color palette, gone were the trappings of a lot of her childhood interests. American Girl Bitty Baby dolls and strollers and outfits, stuffed animals and a dollhouse that she outgrew…all long gone. I took note of the fandoms I could find traces of, the new books on her shelf and records (yes! records) next to her new turntable. I asked her about the Taylor Swift album she had and she confidently said, “I like Taylor Swift, but I’m not a Swiftie.” The declaration was important: she rebelled against a cult of fandom, but not as a fan entirely. She’s deciding how to present her identity as a fan of this particular artist. I hoped, in the moment, that maybe her anxiety about being labeled a certain kind of fan would dissipate as she got older (though, I’ll let you know if I ever become completely immune myself).

At her age, I had no concept of anything but music I heard on the radio or in dance class, as well as my growing collection of Broadway cast albums. I remember the first time someone said to me “I only listen to ‘indie’ music.” I had absolutely no idea what that even meant. Same for indie films. I did, however, recognize rebellion: those other teens were separating themselves from a mainstream idea of popular culture. From my view, though, I saw all the lovers of “indie” sticking together too in a way that just transferred their loyalty to a new fandom community. I have a love for a particular South Park episode that aired in 2013, long after my teenage years: “Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers.”

In it, the so-called “Goth” kids at school pressure the South Park main characters into becoming “nonconformist,” meaning that they should dress in dark clothing just like they do and speak just like them. The irony is very amusing. Rebellion and experimentation is absolutely necessary for figuring out what you yourself like, but often rebellion just ends up helping you find a new group to find belonging. This is where snobbery, loyalty to genre, etc. can hinder experimentation.

Exploration is possibly one of the most fun parts of developing one’s own taste. Access is key to this phase. It might be a friend lending you an album you never would have picked up yourself, a walk through a public library looking to see what catches your eye, or a plethora of streaming platforms to watch anything and everything at any given moment. In decades past, there were only so many TV channels, movie releases, and access to music for which we shelled out lots of cash. Discoverability was more difficult without gatekeepers in those industries actively marketing to consumers. Recently, Kate Kennedy marveled on her podcast, “Be There in Five,” how crazy it is that we used to have to go to the Virgin Megastore to hear even just a chorus of a song that we weren’t sure we wanted to buy at one of their little listening booths. I remember thinking those listening booths were the absolute height of try-before-you-buy access! My, how things have changed; in two seconds I can find and listen to a full song I didn’t know existed a minute before.

But now, our tastes can develop in siloes because we have so much access to media at any given moment and for a fraction of the cost. Gone are the days where you’d have to scour a record store for an international band’s export; for better or worse, streamers and other places on the internet make discoverability and access so much easier with a few clicks.

I discovered one of my favorite musicians, Sara Bareilles, in the early days of iTunes Genius. I had bought a different piece of music, once I can barely remember now, and I was recommended Little Voice, her debut. Within a year or two I saw her play a live show at Webster Hall, and now she’s an international superstar. But I can count myself amongst one of her earliest fans, because I was willing to experiment with a recommendation based on something else I liked. I wasn’t alone, of course.

Experimentation also leads to some embarrassing phases, or so we might think. Sometimes I’ll rewatch a TV show I loved in the early 2000s and cringe at the horrible dialogue or flimsy storylines, things I can pick apart now as a more experienced consumer. But that’s just part of the process. The earlier version of you was working through content, seeing what you liked and didn’t, growing an appreciation for different work across mediums and constantly reworking the formula. Just as our palate might mature as we age and find different foods more interesting, so do our tastes in art.

Taste as identity

There’s a great scene in the Friends episode, “The One With the Embryos.” If you’re unfamiliar, it’s the episode where Monica and Rachel get into a spat with Joey and Chandler over which duo knows the other more deeply (resulting in the girls losing their apartment to the boys). Ross takes on the challenge of building out a game to see who knows who best. One of the questions is, “Rachel claims this is her favorite movie” and Chandler replies, “Dangerous Liaisons.” The answer is correct, but Ross goes on, “Her actual favorite movie is?” And Joey answers, “Weekend at Bernies.” The joke is funny because our tastes tell a story about our identity, one that we might want to portray versus the truth. Those who know us well might see a more accurate picture.

While we experiment throughout our lives, more and more we return to the things that truly move us, and add to that list when we find new content that similarly generates that feeling. Taste becomes a form of self-knowledge; having a hunch that a movie might be something you would like, or opting not to see a play that you don’t feel will be interesting to you. Expanding taste requires taking risks, and allowing yourself to try something you assume won’t suit you. But nevertheless we both perform taste and have private taste. Have you ever walked around a museum just feeling unmoved? Or heard a song others love that just doesn’t grab you? You might have no real opposition to those things, but saying you like or dislike them could potentially identify your taste one way or another. It can be tough when you’re working out what you want to portray about your identity.

At a certain point, though, when our confidence about our taste wins over a desire to perform, a “guilty pleasure” can turn into an unabashed “pleasure.” Case in point: We decide what fandoms to publicly join based on taste. Being a fan of something could look different person to person, and fandom to fandom. Some fan communities are passionate enough to call themselves something, like the Beyhive for Beyonce fans, Trekkies for Star Trek fans, and the Whovians for Doctor Who. You might wear your fandom on your sleeve, literally, with fan created or official merch. Maybe you’ll attend a convention or activation. Your taste influences fandom, and that fandom can become part of your outward identity, and something you organize your life around. And it can be freeing when you’re not super worried about what your fandom says about you.

Can taste ever really be your own?

While our tastes evolve and solidify over time, it’s hard to imagine that they are ever fully ours, or that they never change. Sometime in my 20s, I heard a cover of a song I somehow, curiously, knew all the words to. I couldn’t even place why, but the song itself moved me almost to tears because it was so beautiful. It was Eva Cassidy’s cover of “Songbird,” a track off of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. It hadn’t been amongst my childhood favorites; it lacked the joy of “Don’t Stop” or the haunting melody of “Gold Dust Woman,” so it never stuck with me. But at a moment in my life when I was ready to hear this version, it found me, and I quickly dug out the original and fell in love with it too. Now, as an adult, “Songbird” might be my favorite of Rumours, and the cover by Cassidy might be one of my favorite recorded tracks of all time. So is this my taste? Or am I still influenced by my mom’s? (I felt similarly when Mandy Moore covered “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” by Elton John on her 2003 album, Coverage.)

We also share our tastes with others, and through mutual introductions, we learn more about what we like. We might have fixed ideas of what our tastes are, but all it takes is one off-brand piece of content to move us into another direction and question what we thought we knew about ourselves. I tend to believe that our tastes center around content pillars rather than genre. For me, I know I like: great dialogue, stories rooted in realism (which doesn’t always root out fantasy or animation), and poignancy. I can find all of those things in a Bravo reality TV show, an epic drama series on HBO, a romance book, or a Taylor Swift song. Taste can have range. And finding meaningful communities around these tastes, as different as they may be, offers joy and mutual understanding with others that is hard not to get excited about.

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about our ecosystem at Remarkist! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!

Did you know that in ancient Rome, the new year officially began in March? Because of spring renewal and religious traditions, March was a time to celebrate a new beginning. I don’t know about you, but between an Olympics hangover and still feeling whiplash from that insane season finale of The Traitors, I’m ready for a refresh. I’m jazzed to add some extra flavors to my content repertoire, if you will. Call it a spring cleaning: I can sense we are all psyched to dig into new stories and topics!

In February, our focus here at rmrk*st was on the concept and power of Play. Play is a core tenet of Remarkist; humans form communities around games and playful interaction. So we wanted to explore some of the fascinating aspects of how play functions in societies. During the month of February, two of the biggest sporting events happened: The Super Bowl and the 2026 Winter Olympics. We took this opportunity to examine how the rules of any game make play meaningful, whether it’s the Big Game or a reality show competition like the Traitors or Survivor. Watching events and games together is an experience that builds a strong sense of community, a prime example being every two years when we collectively watch the Olympics. And finally, we looked into how play is a conversation between both players and players and audiences.

And if you missed it, check out our exclusive interview with Matt Browning, author of Gilmore Girls Pop Culture Reference Guide (on sale March 3, 2026). Browning created the ultimate glossary of pop culture mentions in the reference-heavy show we all love. The show has a fanbase that grows year after year, and in March we will be digging into some reasons why we choose the fandoms we do, and how folks shape their pop culture tastes throughout their lives.

So to that end: this month, we are shaking things up–literally! Our theme in March is Taste: the development of it, how it changes over time, and how we form identity around our tastes. We’ll examine aesthetics in pop culture around character, discuss what we mean by guilty pleasures vs. content we feel proud to enjoy, and how modern methods of consuming stories through streaming affects our development of taste. We’ll look at how proximity to content and access affects this development, and what resonates with us as we grow older and have new experiences.

So join us in the conversation: what seasoning are you adding to your content repertoire? How has your taste changed over the years? We can have affection for all kinds of flavors in storyworlds: bland, spicy, salty, sweet, etc. and variety in our tastes is part of why we love enjoying content. Whatever our choices, the makeup of our varied tastes can be really exciting, especially when we find others that share our interests. So hit that subscribe button to make sure every piece is dropped directly into your inbox–we always want to hear your thoughts!

Below is our table of contents. But before you go, we’d love it if you give us a follow on Instagram, and also to John Cabrera for special announcements, events, and musings. You can always find more information about Remarkist on our Discord where we post regular updates about our entire ecosystem.

1. Why Your Pop Culture Taste Isn’t Random: It’s a Map of Your Identity

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2. Tropes and Pop Culture: How Archetypes Shape Taste and Identity

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3. Did We Kill Taste? How the Streaming Era Gives Us More Choices but Fewer Surprises

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It’s any fan’s dream to turn their fandom into a creative endeavor or service for other fans just like them. For Matt Browning, fan, bookstore owner, and author, that dream is a reality! Browning is the author of 2021’s book, The Definitive “Golden Girls” Reference Guide, a comprehensive glossary of all the pop culture references in the classic, beloved sitcom. There’s at least one other show we know and love that is heavy on cultural deep cuts and mentions, and even the biggest fan of Gilmore Girls needs a primer to help define all the references–even the ones you didn’t catch until your tenth rewatch. Matt is on the case! His new book, Gilmore Girls Pop Culture Reference Guide, hits shelves March 3, 2026.

I was so thrilled to catch up with Matt in an exclusive interview to discuss his thoughts on fandom, love for the franchises he’s written about, and his work as a bookstore owner of Plot Twist Books in Charleston, West Virginia. A dream for any book lover! You can check out Matt’s upcoming book tour on his website (including a launch event with ), and make sure to follow and connect with him on Instagram and Facebook. Check out our conversation below!

Tell me about your fandom origin story: what fandoms do you consider yourself a part of?

I’ve realized that when I become a fan of something, I’m a fan for life, whether it’s TV, music, movies, books—you name it. I was one of those kids raised on television back in the day, so there are plenty of TV show fandoms I consider myself a part of. I’ve been a major fan of The Golden Girls and its spinoff series, Empty Nest, since elementary school—long before I understood half the jokes they were making. In fact, back in 1998, I made a little fan website for Empty Nest simply because no one else had done it. That’s what we did back then, make fan websites. Well, that little site found its audience and still exists today. I’ve ended up becoming friends with members of the cast and crew, interviewing several of them, and hosting a couple reunion panels at conventions. All because of simply being a fan.

What made you want to write about Golden Girls, and now Gilmore Girls?

If there is a show that gives Gilmore Girls a run for its money in the frequency of pop culture references, it’s The Golden Girls. I remember watching it one day, and Bea Arthur has a line in an episode where she mentions The Katzenjammer Kids. I grabbed my phone and was googling that when I thought to myself, “Boy, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a book that explained all these references?” I went to my agent with the idea, and he thought it had potential. We sold it within a few weeks of shopping the proposal. It ended up doing quite well, and Gilmore Girls was the very next show I knew could work in this kind of format. (By the way, The Katzenjammer Kids was a comic strip!)

Gilmore Girls Pop Culture Reference Guide sounds self explanatory, but tell me about why you chose to delve into the fandom from this angle?

When the Golden Girls version of this idea did well, I knew Gilmore Girls would, too. But, I’ll admit, I was hesitant. I’ve loved the show for years, but I knew that the quantity of references was probably three or four times the number from Golden Girls. It was intimidating to think about writing, but there are references all throughout the show that gave me that same vibe as that Katzenjammer Kids reference I mentioned above. In fact, that reference appears in Gilmore Girls, too! But there’s an episode where Jess and Lorelai mention Euell Gibbons that was really the catalyst. My first thought was, “Who?” And my second thought was, “Yeah, fans definitely need this book.”

What’s something surprising you learned about the show, or the fandom, while writing?

I don’t know if it surprised me, because I knew it was a lot, but the volume of references was wild to see all compiled. With Golden Girls, there was space in the manuscript to include the dialogue for context. If we had done that with Gilmore Girls, I’d have been looking at a book as long as the Oxford English Dictionary. Lane has always been one of my favorite characters, but, dang, she and the Hep Alien guys drop so many band names! It got to the point where I would dread seeing John Cabrera’s name in the guest credits, because I knew I was in for a lot of work! (But I love you, John!) As for the fandom, I mean, come on! Talk about devotion! I’ve gone to a couple of Gilmore Girls fan events recently, and the love they have for the show—and for one another—is truly a beautiful thing. Same for Golden Girls, really. There was an event called Golden-Con that happened a couple years around the time that book was released, and it had the same loving, welcoming vibe as the Gilmore fandom. It’s really such a pleasure to be part of it.

You own a bookstore in Charleston, WV: tell me about that journey and what it’s like having any book lover’s dream job?!

I’ve loved books and bookstores since I was a kid. I host a podcast called Bookstore Explorer, where I chat with independent bookstore owners about the business, and I would tell the guests, “I want to do what you’re doing when I retire.” They encouraged me not to wait—to do it while the industry is healthy and while I’m young enough to lug around boxes of heavy books. (My lower back would argue that I’m already past that point!) It’s been a blast, and we’ve done well in our short three years. We have an Airbnb attached to the store where folks can spend the night roaming the stacks, and we encourage aspiring booksellers to come stay with us and learn about the industry—kind of an immersive “behind the shelves” experience. We’ve had a few guests open their own stores since staying with us, and we’re super proud to be a tiny part of other people’s journeys.

You can invite 3 Stars Hollow townies to dinner: who are you picking and why?

Well, I have a soft spot for Lane, so she’s definitely on the guest list. If I’m hosting this dinner, I don’t suppose I can ask her to cook, but I’ll invite Sookie in hopes that she’ll bring along maybe a side dish or a dessert. And I’m going to go with a bit of a deep cut next: Andrew, so we can talk books. (I know I could talk books with Rory, but she’d probably make the evening all about whatever crisis of the week she’s dealing with!)

A followup: which GG character, besides Rory and Jess, would write a book you’d love to sell in your store? Personally, I wanna tell-all memoir from Miss Patty…

Oh, I would definitely read Miss Patty’s memoir! You know who else I imagine would have a page-turning autobiography? The enigmatic Morey!

Make sure to grab your copy of Gilmore Girls Pop Culture Reference Guide for you and your friends! Whether you’re studying for trivia, looking for inspiration for what other media to dig into that the writers snuck into the dialogue, or simply want bragging rights of knowing every single pop culture inside joke, you won’t regret getting your hands on this book!

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about our ecosystem at Remarkist! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!

One of my favorite books that has come out in recent years is Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Published in 2022, the novel connected with audiences and became a massive bestseller. It’s a sweeping coming-of-age story about two friends, Sadie and Sam, who meet as children in a hospital rec room. Later, they become long-term business partners who establish their own video game company as adults, and their friendship is tried over and over again as they navigate business, success, fame, and love. I myself was never really a big video game fan, so on the surface, I wasn’t sure if this book would suit my taste. But I was hooked from the first few pages and I’ve reread them many times.

I promise no spoilers, because it really is a fantastic read. But the book begins with a chance encounter between old friends, when Sadie and Sam run into one another at a T station in Cambridge, MA. She gives him a new video game she’s been designing. It echoes their first encounter as kids which the reader learns about in the next few pages: at a children’s hospital, Sadie finds Sam playing a video game in a rec room. A little while after Sadie enters the room, he asks, “You want to play the rest of this life?” offering the controller to her, which she at first declines. But they play together over the next few weeks, developing a unique friendship.

Growing up in the 90s, I felt video games siloed my friends from social interactions. Their heads were in their GameBoys and Super Nintendos instead of going outside to ride bikes or chat with me. I thought gaming was the opposite of conversation, and took their desire to play through a screen as an escape rather than an interaction. So what struck me about the beginning pages of this book was the open invitation: asking Sadie to play is an open door into Sam’s life and world. Asking anyone to play, whether it’s a game or creating stories together like we do when we play with toys as children, is a gesture for connection and conversation.

An offer to play isn’t necessarily just entertainment or distraction: it is the beginning of a dialogue. Whether you’re on the playground, gamers in a multiplayer saga, or even fans engaging with stories via trivia, play involves call and response as well as mutual understanding. It is an ongoing exchange of signals, rules, and meaning between participants, between player and system, and between audience and story.

Play requires response: the foundation of conversation

“Tag! You’re it!” We learn it as kids early on that play requires a response. You know the feeling when you are abruptly “tagged” on the playground out of nowhere. You have two choices: you start chasing, or stand still, ignore the gesture, and subsequently become the class wet blanket. When someone says “hello” in a casual context, it’s customary to offer a “hello” back; otherwise you come off as rude or aloof. It’s the same with play. In conversation, one person speaks, the other responds. But in play, one person acts, the other reacts.

In any game, every move requires acknowledgment of the last. In a board game, you have to consider the last thing “said” and what your opponent might “say” next to choose your own move. In a game of pool, where the balls land on the table from your opponent’s turn requires you to be spontaneous and react to the situation at hand. It’s an elaborate improvisation where each player builds on what came before and what might come next. It’s not a monologue, but entirely relational.

Rules are the grammar of play

Language has rules and accepted aberrations to those rules; it’s how we communicate. Similarly, play has rules too–and that structure is how we establish conversational connection in a game. When we are all speaking the same language, or, playing by the same rulebook, play is communicative and productive. Some sort of shared understanding is necessary for play; it’s why people who speak different languages can interact effectively through games, like in professional or Olympic sports.

When we speak the same language, it doesn’t mean that we are destined always to understand one another. Surely misunderstandings happen all the time in conversation between those who know the rules of the same language’s grammar, or share dialectic customs. In gaming, this is extremely apparent. Think about a game of chess: you can do your best to predict the moves of the game in order to act and react accordingly. But while you and your opponent are speaking the same language, you might be having different conversations. In a game of strategic skill, it is imperative to understand not only the rules and language of the game, but the specific conversation your opponent is having throughout the session. If you’re not reading your opponent’s moves correctly, you might miss a move that they are hoping you’ll make in order for them to advance.

When we aren’t playing by the same rules, that’s when things feel unfair, go awry, and breakdowns in communication happen which can break trust amongst players. But players can always test the limits of rules and structure, which we see in professional sports all the time. Referees and instant replays exist to help us understand the nuances of every rule–just like language can be nuanced, and meaning can be examined from many angles.

A conversation between creator and audience

Play isn’t just a conversation between players; it is a conversation between players and the audience as well. A prime example is the Olympics, where we follow not only the Games themselves but interact with the Games as fans, becoming invested in the players and their stories as well as their skills. When it comes to sports, specific players and games become mythical anecdotes in culture: times where an entire city got to claim to be champions when their team won a title, or a single player being traded to another team could result in a decades long curse (sorry, Babe Ruth).

I was moved when the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl earlier this year, and they addressed their fans as the “12s.” I don’t follow Seahawks football (or…any football), but I quickly learned that in 1984, the Seahawks retired the number 12 jersey, because their fans always serve as the “12th man” on their team. The support of their monolithic fanbase, the 12th man, is integral to their gameplay. The audience is as much part of their team as they are. It’s a shared language, even if you wear the jersey off the field, in the stands.

An audience also converses with the game in their own creative ways. They might cosplay to attend a viewing party or write fan fiction about the players. Their responses to the game are as emotional as if they themselves were playing, and they react in creative and social ways.

Fans create relationships independent of the game, but around it. Fantasy leagues have become a huge business because fans want to be part of the gameplay in a unique and creative way: building their own “teams” out of the players already on fields across the country, and actively tracking their progress. Fantasy leagues become their own social ecosystem, and are worthy of their own attention. The comedy series The League illustrates just how much the game can infiltrate a social group of friends and their loved ones–for better or worse.

In one of my favorite movies, Fever Pitch, Jimmy Fallon’s character Ben meets Drew Barrymore’s Lindsey, and the two have excellent chemistry off the bat (pun intended). But he’s self conscious about one thing: when she finally learns of his level of fandom for the Boston Red Sox. As an outsider, Lindsey has fun joining the fan conversation: dressing in team t-shirts and hats, eating hot dogs at Fenway, trash talking the other team and cheering with fellow fans. But before long, she realizes Ben has somewhat of an obsession. Things get complicated when Ben feels he might have to choose between Lindsey and his season tickets. What the movie illustrates is how serious the bonds are between a team and their fans, and between the fans themselves. Ben’s ballpark seats were passed down through family, and his identity is wrapped up in not only his love of the team but sitting in those exact seats for every game, surrounded by lifelong friends.

For spectators, trust, deep friendship, inside jokes, and camaraderie are all tied to the game they aren’t even playing themselves. But it is why we hear sports fans say “we won” versus “the team we support won.” The relationships that form are as real as if everyone was on the field.

A deeper meaning

Again, no spoilers. But when I’d finished Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, I went back to the very first page and reread the first two chapters. It occurred to me that the whole plot of the novel was an invitation to play, and I had said yes. I followed the events of the book as closely as any game: I identified the players, the spectators, the stakeholders, the NPCs. I noted when Sam and Sadie said yes to a game, and when they said no. Each invitation was combined with a life moment for each of them, an opportunity for connection with another human being, whether a personal relationship or group.

The play Take Me Out by Richard Greenberg is a story about a star baseball player who comes out as homosexual, igniting a firestorm of turmoil involving racism, sexism, homophobia, and masculinity, especially in sports. I had read something (the title of I simply cannot remember now) in my university studies about the game of baseball, how it is a sport that mimics the American spirit: we go out, try to connect with a target, make a run, maybe get on a base/achieve a milestone, and at the end of the day, come home. The game is a metaphor for life. There is a monologue in the play that sums up the idea beautifully; this is a short excerpt:

…I have come to understand that baseball is a perfect metaphor for hope in a Democratic society.

It has to do with the rules of play.

It has to do with the mode of enforcement of these rules.

It has to do with certain nuances and grace notes of the game.

First, it has to do with the remarkable symmetry of everything.

All those threes and multiples of three calling attention to…the game’s noble equality.

Equality, that is, of opportunity.

Everyone is given exactly the same chance.

And the opportunity to exercise that chance at its own pace…

What I mean is, in baseball there is no clock.

What could be more generous than to give everyone all of these opportunities and the time to seize them in, as well? And with each turn at the plate, there’s the possibility of turning the situation to your favor. Down to the very last try.

And then, to ensure that everything remains fair, justices are ranged around the park to witness and assess the play.

And if the justice errs, an appeal can be made...

Because even in the most well-meant of systems, error is inevitable. Even within the fairest of paradigms, unfairness will creep in…

…Another thing I like is the home-run trot…

What I like about it is it’s so unnecessary….the ball’s gone….

For all intents and purposes, the game, at that moment, is not being played….

Instead, play is suspended for a celebration.

The reward for a solid conversational connection is understanding. In the moment where a batter hits a home run out of the park, the pitcher and the batter have had their exchange, and the understanding of the moment is clear. Players and spectators pause and reflect on the new plateau of the game. But even the best attempts at conversation fail sometimes, and that’s just the game of life. But we keep playing, we keep watching players, and we keep attempting to connect with others around a common game in hopes of finding understanding and community.

Want more? Our Discord is where you’ll find everything you need to know about our ecosystem at Remarkist! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, tumblr, and Spotify for more insights on fandom—and hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing at rmrk*st Mag!