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.

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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!

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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 Art of Anticipation

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4. The Evangelist’s Dilemma

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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!

There are few things I love more, in terms of sporting events, than an Olympics year. Whether it’s the Summer or Winter Games, I have always been riveted. Mary Lou Retton was the first Olympian’s name I learned as a little kid. And as I grew up, I was fascinated by the stories. The drama, the drive to be the best, the trials and tribulations of being an athlete who gets to go to the Olympics…for me, it’s always been the best reality show on TV. In the winter, it’s such a personal thrill to sit inside, warm and probably enjoying delicious snacks on my couch, watching the best athletes in the world compete in the cold for gold and glory. I find it exhilarating to become an expert on figure skating, or skiing, or curling for a night, or even a few days. Despite rarely–or never!-doing any of those things myself. But I know I’m not alone.

Collective experiences like watching the Olympics or any sporting event demonstrate how shared attention can temporarily dissolve boundaries, create emotional unity, and reinforce cultural identity in ways few other events can. With so many different things happening in the world, it feels like a miracle that we can create a community around a single event where everyone involved, whether an athlete or a spectator, is hoping for the same outcome. Sporting events can be monoculture moments that bring many people from different places and cultures together. Alex Honnold’s free solo climb of the Taipei 101 skyscraper, broadcast live on Netflix, had everyone riveted for a night and talking about how crazy it was for days afterward. Suddenly everyone was united around a singular event. In a world where our attention is siloed so much, it felt pretty good to have a true “watercooler” moment.

A stadium without walls

Experiencing these events together but apart creates a stadium without walls. I have been traveling for most of February, and so I have been catching the Olympic games in several different cities. I watched the opening ceremonies from a hotel room in central Florida. I held my breath watching women’s ski jumping while on a plane. And I glimpsed the pairs figure skating final on TVs inside a Las Vegas casino. Wherever I was, so were the Games.

Having access to so much technology means we never have to be in the same room to experience events happening thousands of miles away. Whether we’re all watching the same thing and texting our friends, live-commenting on social media, or using a watch party app to experience content in the same “room” with others, the collective experience is made possible with technology. The first ever televised games were the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. But they weren’t broadcast to individual TVs; they were shown over closed circuit TV at public viewing spaces like beer halls in Germany. They were the first true watch parties! The 1948 Olympics in London were broadcast to individual homes throughout London via the BBC, and the 1956 Games were the first to be broadcast internationally, though not to the United States. That would come in 1960, when CBS bought the rights to broadcast the Summer and Winter Games to an American audience. NBC started carrying the Olympic Games in 1964 with the Tokyo Summer Games, and they’ve been airing them ever since throughout their network.

When I was a kid, we would tune into the singular broadcast on NBC in prime time to watch the most popular events: ski jumping, figure skating, bobsled. Everyone found out the winners at the same time. Now, watching any event live in another timezone versus a prime time broadcast of events that happened earlier in the day is hardly an issue with streaming. This does mean that sometimes the outcomes are spoiled by the news, or social media posts. It takes a little bit of that collective hold-your-breath experience away.

But because of modern technology, we have social media: we can watch behind the scenes content from the athletes, commentators, and family members that we never got to see in the past. This week I’ve seen so much coverage on Instagram of Jordan Cowan, the former ice dancer-turned-cameraman who films the ice skating events for broadcast. His is a job description I never thought about, but more people know his name in this Olympics than we have any production personnel in the past. The ice rink on another continent is no longer the real boundary; we can see what he sees because of tech.

A modern global ritual

Rituals and ceremonies are a cornerstone of community. Religious services, gatherings for personal and collective milestones, holidays, and more are filled with ritual and customs that help us define who we are in a collective sense. We look to these ceremonies and rituals to help us feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves.

Think of how it feels to rewatch your favorite show. If you’re a Gilmore Girls fan, you might fire up Season 1 as soon as the air turns a bit crisp and fall approaches–and you know you’re not alone. There’s a ritual to the experience, and a collective one at that. Memes abound on social media, articles come out about the best episodes, and you might find a festival celebrating the fandom throughout the season. Even if you watch the show alone on your couch, you know that fans everywhere are celebrating the season with you.

I feel the same way every two years when it’s time for the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. While each host country gets to choose how they represent themselves in a show that highlights their culture, the Parade of Nations, lighting of the cauldron, and raising of the Olympic flag and rings are always part of the event no matter where it takes place. The ritual is what unites everyone; though the athletes and nations are competing, Opening and Closing ceremonies, as well as presentation of medals at the podium at the end of each event, are the events that bring everyone together.

Shared Emotions and Storytelling

We are all capable of feeling emotions, but there is a fascinating psychology to collective emotion. Joy, heartbreak, and pride are amplified when experienced together; collective viewing intensifies individual emotion and creates lasting memory so that even when you meet a stranger years after the fact, you remember the same event similarly. As viewers, we are often introduced to athletes on the spot and they turn into household names overnight. We invest in these stories, sometimes early on if we follow a sport whose season culminates in an Olympic Games, or we get on board quickly as the broadcast itself showcases athletes and stories through pre-taped packages and docu-style narrative pieces. The docuseries Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing dropped on Netflix in early February just a week before the 2026 Games. It is a portrait of the competitive world of ice dancing and follows several of the athletes that would compete against one another.

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Story is essential in the collective experience. I still viscerally remember watching Kerri Strug do a spectacular vault in the women’s gymnastics team final during the Summer 1996 Atlanta Games to win Olympic gold–with an injured ankle. Watching her be carried off the mat is burned in my–and many other Millennials’-brains. We felt the combination of pain and elation in that moment together and still reference it in pop culture today. Similarly, my family and I all held our collective breath watching Lindsey Vonn crash mere seconds into her comeback in alpine skiing after multiple injuries during the 2026 Games. It seemed everyone was invested in her overall career, her path to the Olympics this time around, and had many opinions about her competing. But whether you were rooting for her or not, it’s no question the story of her return dominated the Games.

And who could forget the emotional rollercoaster of the 1994 Winter Olympic figure skating competition? Great stories need heroes and villains, and that was what audiences got in this situation. Nancy Kerrigan, heralded as America’s sweetheart, was horrifyingly attacked by an assailant hired by the boyfriend of competitor Tonya Harding, a dramatic story we are still litigating in the court of public opinion. The 2017 film I, Tonya, told in a drama with documentary-style interviews with all of the people involved, dives into the complicated sport that rewarded beauty and polish over skill in many instances. While in 1994, all eyes were on Tonya Harding, probably the most pitied and hated skater following Kerrigan’s attack, the movie offers a different perspective of a woman with incredible skill and a competition element only she could do who defied many obstacles including abusive relationships and lack of funds to get to the top of her sport. The film shows how her difficult upbringing and choices versus those of other skaters lead to a stunning clash of competition, social class, and power. It’s still an amazing story I find myself deeply invested in and reflecting on as I watch Olympics figure skating today.

But elation is a collective emotion too. Watching a team pull through to win gold is felt by everyone watching. The critically acclaimed and fan favorite film Miracle, about the U.S. hockey team’s win over the Soviet team in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, is a classic because it captures the journey to the absolutely stunning win. And in the 2026 Winter Games, the U.S. hockey team won their first gold since that incredible showdown 46 years ago. Netflix also dropped a stunning documentary in 2026, Miracle: The Boys of ‘80, about the team and its unlikely journey to win on U.S. soil as the Cold War raged on. The story still resonates.

I recently watched Cool Runnings, the fantastic Disney movie based on the first Olympic Jamaican bobsled team in 1988. It’s a great rewatch, but the part that I felt most connected to was how much I might have rooted for the real team if I’d known their story. We are conditioned to root for our national athletes, but I would have been emotionally caught up in the Jamaicans’ race because their story is so moving. While artistic liberties were taken for dramatic effect, the fact that a team from a tropical island might attempt to compete in a winter sport on a national stage is moving no matter what. It is a testament to the spirit of an athlete: they can push themselves so far outside their comfort zones and far beyond everything they’ve ever known in pursuit of a dream. Who wouldn’t be uplifted by that?

In this recent Games, U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu won Olympic gold in the individual ladies competition. Watching her skate was a collective moment of joy–and it was even more meaningful than I realized as I watched live. Liu approached the competition in a completely new way and might have changed Olympic figure skating forever. After retiring from skating in 2016, Liu returned to the sport with a laundry list of demands: she would only wear costumes that she herself approved, she would choose her own music, she would not deprive herself of fun and experiences outside of training. In short, she would do everything on her own terms. Consequently, watching her skate joyfully and calmly on the biggest stage of her career was so moving, the media hasn’t stopped talking about it. The lack of nerves and stress any athlete would feel in that moment is what won her the gold medal.

Every generation, we face a national conversation about what it means to succeed: steady job vs. hustle culture; work/life balance vs. getting ahead; burnout vs. boredom. Liu’s approach showed athletes–and anyone looking to excel in any endeavor–that joy and freedom can and probably should be part of any equation for success. Culturally speaking, it’s a paradigm shift from how we usually think of what it takes to be the best that I believe will seep into our collective mindset moving forward.

Why We Still Gather to Watch

Collective viewing is a reminder that attention itself is communal power. Whether we’re gathering around a television in a crowded bar or someone’s home to watch an event, or watching alone at home and participating in the conversation on social media and in texts and phone calls with friends, the way the world seems to stop for the Olympics or the Super Bowl is a rare moment where the collective experience feels bigger than the event itself. It’s no wonder that the Olympic Games have been witnessed by generations for hundreds of years, from the Ancient Olympic Games to the modern Olympic Games moderated by the International Olympic Committee–even if the consumption itself has changed drastically with technology. The tradition has held because people need to connect over shared experiences. When we watch an event collectively, we create our own memories around the experience, which in turn creates community. Our connection to the stories of the athletes–while witnessing pain and defeat, exceptionalism and glory–makes us feel like humans can be superheroes. We ourselves can be superheroes in our own lives. It’s a rare, grounding moment where we can awe at the limits of both the human body and the human spirit. And in a fragmented media and content landscape, where at any hour of any day we can consume the exact story we want individually, we are reminded that shared moments are special and matter.

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!

Every February, one singular event dominates the first couple of weeks in pop culture: the Big Game. I’ve never particularly been into most sports, both playing or watching. I sometimes enjoy a baseball or basketball game as a spectator. But if I’m being honest with myself I like attending those games or watching on TV for the vibes and the snacks. I feel the same way about the Super Bowl. I’ll come to your party if there’s an array of fun food and you won’t actually make me watch. But I’ll root for whatever team you want me to; it means very little to me.

In asking myself why I have a bit more passion for other sports and certainly massive sporting events like the Olympic Games, it comes down to one thing: understanding the rules. I don’t quite understand the rules of football, and therefore, I find it pretty boring. The stakes don’t really register with me because I often cannot comprehend what’s actually going on. By no means am I throwing shade to the football fans out there; whether or not I enjoy football is neither here nor there. I have made a powerful observation: in games and gaming, rules and structure matter and make play meaningful, both to the players and viewers.

Think about when you were a kid and played a board game with a sibling or friends. If one person did something that was “against the rules,” it sort of ruined the whole experience for everyone. In life, we don’t like the concept of cheating, no matter what the scenario, game or otherwise. That someone might go outside the boundaries of a particular set of rules is destabilizing. The idea of play is freeing; it’s an opportunity to have some fun (even if the particular game is your job and televised for millions of people). But while that might feel limitless, games collapse without a strict set of boundaries at any given moment. It’s a paradox, but limits create the possibility of meaningful play. And often, those limits inspire creativity, innovation, resourcefulness, and imagination.

What do Rules Do?

Like many other folks, I’ve been watching The Traitors. Every week I wait for the new episode drop with baited breath. For those who aren’t aware, The Traitors is a popular psychological game show with many versions across the world, but in the U.S. it is hosted by Alan Cumming.

Up through Season 4, which is currently airing, the cast is all celebrities, athletes, and general pop culture famous people from different shows and mediums. On the first day, the group arrives at a grand Scottish castle and are faced with immediate challenges. At a Roundtable meeting, several Traitors are anonymously tapped (literally by Alan with a tap on the shoulder) and the rest are designated Faithfuls. Each day, the Traitors pick one of the Faithfuls to “murder” or, toss from the game, and the Faithfuls try to figure out who the Traitors amongst them are and banish them with a vote. In between murders and banishments, the whole group competes in physical challenges for cash to add to a pot that in the end only a Traitor or Faithful can win.

What do I like about this twisty game show? Personalities. Drama. Strategy. Putting myself into the shoes of the players and wondering how I’d fare, if I’d be able to lie, or discern who might be lying. I love recognizing a good strategy by one of the players, and seeing how things change on a dime with one sentence, one look, or just groupthink.

What’s fantastic about this game is that it’s at once simple and complicated. The objectives are different depending on which side you’re on. If you’re a Traitor, 1) don’t get found out 2) stay in the game and don’t get banished 3) try to murder and banish all the Faithfuls and 4) do your best in challenges to bank more money. If you’re a Faithful, 1) don’t get found out 2) stay in the game and don’t get banished or murdered 3) try to banish all the Traitors and 4) do your best in challenges to bank more money. This is a game of psychology: can you present yourself in such a way that earns others’ trust, even if you have to lie? Can you figure out who you can and cannot trust, and does trust even have meaning if you yourself are lying?

The rules of the game and each challenge are pretty solid; any timed challenge is extremely strict and running one millisecond over won’t cut it. These rules create massive amounts of tension, and throw the stakes into a game of trust versus betrayal. Without these rules, there is no reason to care. It would look like every other reality show on any given network.

Rules Define the World

In any game, the rules establish the boundaries. Adults of a certain age will remember the McDonald’s PlayPlace, a section inside a McDonald’s where kids could play in ball pits or on playground equipment inside a firmly designated play area, away from the restaurant portion. A football field has endzones, a baseball stadium has outfield walls. The boundaries are physical. Rules of gameplay itself create conceptual boundaries, and define the play area. Consider any fictional world in movies, TV shows, or books: when we’re introduced to the rules of a particular universe, we can accept how the characters operate within it and storytellers can imagine all kinds of scenarios that make sense inside that world. In a sci-fi movie a DeLorean can be a time machine and also fly; in a fantasy world you can have a dragon as a pet.

In The Traitors, the rules define the parameters of the show, but there’s a twist: new rules are often introduced, especially on daily challenges, which adds to the drama. In the beginning, the rules are pretty straightforward and everyone knows there are Traitors and Faithfuls. The world is defined. Success and failure are defined by staying alive and in the game, or being thrown out of the game by either your peers or the Traitors. Actions have consequences. But as the rules shift, so does the gameplay–and so does the viewing experience. For instance, usually late in the game, a new Traitor is tapped, allowing them to switch sides from Faithful to Traitor, which may impact how they play. But that rule shift is part of the game itself: trust is still something that might mean nothing.

Rules Create Stakes, and Make Choices Matter

Because of the rules on The Traitors, no conversation can be innocent or simple. If you chat with one person you can be assumed a Traitor by others who observe or even the person you’re speaking to. You could be assumed a Traitor if you flub a sentence and misspeak accidentally. You might not be believed when you’re telling the truth. The rules of any game casts players in a particular light: their actions are considered against the boundaries of the game. The stakes are defined.

There is rarely only one way to play any game. But rules limit options, which forces strategy. In a game of chess, the best players think several moves ahead. They consider multiple move choices and play out what their opponent might do in their next turn, and how they themselves might respond. This is strategizing at its best. But, strategy creates tension. In The Traitors, every player is faced with many choices per day both in and out of challenges, at the Roundtable, and in the Turret as Traitors decide who to murder. These choices create dramatic tension for the players of course, but also for viewers as we consider whether or not their strategies are sound.

Rules Dictate Social Structure and Human Behavior

One of the reasons people watch The Traitors is because they already know some of the players. If you’re a Real Housewives or Bachelor franchise fan, you might see some of the personalities you already know there. If you love shows like Big Brother and Survivor, you might see some of those gamers. Maybe you’re a sports fan or love the Food Network–you’ll see some familiar faces. The cast is diverse, and all hail from different realms, so viewers come from different fandoms. Coming into the game, you might have preconceived notions about some of the players, but not al–just like the players themselves (raise your hand if, like me, you’re wondering how on earth Season 4’s contestants are completely unfamiliar with the best friendship of figure skating Olympians Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir!). And things get interesting when those preconceived notions about the players are mixed with gameplay and the roles those contestants are asked to take on.

The rules of any game determine human behavior. In a sport, the position you play dictates your actions. An offense player is going to act differently than a defense one. The rules dictate how you take action or not. And in The Traitors, the parameters of the game can make you do something you wouldn’t normally do, like lie.

Rules also frame societal structure. Because there are different kinds of players, there’s an imposed hierarchy, and with that hierarchy comes power for different people. Traitors have the upper hand in the Turret because they hold the power to murder. But at the Roundtable, their power is diminished by the presence of Faithfuls–unless they can convince them to vote other Faithfuls out and level the playing field.

Without rules, there can be no cheating, betrayal, or unfair gameplay. Because the framework sets expectations for everyone in the game, the system itself defines parameters of true loyalty. While players might be friends, the structure of the game allows friends to betray each others’ trust (or ignore one another, like Tara and Johnny), especially if you’re a Traitor. In the wildly popular series Heated Rivalry, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov navigate a secret personal relationship, but as they play on rival hockey teams, the world of the sport requires they not only compete against each other, but maintain open indifference or even hostility in public. In their situation, the rules of the world they belong to make it ok for them not to speak fondly of or show intimacy in public.

Breaking the Rules

In American sports, being the best at baseball means you win the World Series (even though only North American teams compete). Winning the Super Bowl means you get to go to Disney World. Either way, the integrity of the win means a great deal to players, teams, and fans–it’s why the Sunday on which the Big Game occurs is a bit of an unofficial national holiday. And it’s why any cheating is regarded as a scandal of the highest degree.

If rules are broken, the game collapses. And that’s not fun for anyone. It’s equally important for spectators as it is for players. I’ve definitely heard folks in the stands at a baseball game argue over what’s fair gameplay and not. And when referees make the calls that viewers don’t think are right, people get angry. We get emotional when the rules are broken because it throws the integrity of the game into disarray. If the game is rigged, play stops being meaningful and feels more like a manipulation. Imagine if at the end of The Traitors, all Traitors were eliminated by Faithfuls but they got the prize money anyway? It’s possible that nobody would ever watch or play again. We lose interest in games without honest stakes, whether playing or observing.

In the end, games reveal something quietly profound: structure is not the enemy of freedom, but the condition that makes meaningful action possible. The rules create a world where trust can be earned or shattered, where risk has weight, and where identity forms under pressure. Without those boundaries on The Traitors, there would be no strategy, no betrayal, no suspense–and no real reason to watch (except for the fashion). Without those boundaries during a football game, there could be no true winner and right to claim being “the best.” Gameplay is a carefully bounded system that turns human behavior into story. That’s why we watch, why we care, and why the outcome matters. Rules don’t shrink the experience of play; they give it shape, stakes, and consequence–transforming chaos into drama and participation into meaning.

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!

There’s a chill in the air and soon-to-be-discounted Valentine’s Day chocolate lining the shelves at my local grocery store, so you know what that means: Happy February, everyone! Hope you’re staying warm, wherever you are. I’m thrilled to share what’s coming from rmrk*st Magazine in the month ahead!

Towards the end of 2025, we took stock of all we are looking forward to in the coming year at Remarkist and within our larger ecosystem. We had a great year moving towards some exciting developments. It made sense to bring all of that momentum, combined with the thrill of a new year and the new challenges they bring together to inform our editorial vision. Every January, folks collectively take stock of all they’ve accomplished and forge ahead with resolutions and goals. Similarly, we are focused on what we’d like to build in the year ahead, so our theme here at rmrk*st Magazine was Building Societies. Here’s what you might have missed:

We examined the framework of high school as a society in movies and TV shows, and how that particular backdrop mimics society structures in the world outside of it. Setting in any story world often determines how the characters function, grow, and build relationships. To that end, we explored the role of setting as character: how topography and geography dictate plot and an audience’s engagement with story. We also considered the role of found family vs. traditional family as it relates to society building, and how different family structures create unique opportunities for story and character development. If you haven’t yet taken a look at those pieces, please feel free to leave us some comments! We love good conversation, and hope to engage with you in 2026.

At the start of every month, we introduce a new theme for the content we’ll be publishing over the next few weeks. In pondering what we would focus on in February, I remembered something very exciting: the Winter Olympics in Italy are about to start! I love the Olympics, and I think many people do because it’s a collective, collaborative experience. No matter how old you are or what country you live in, this is an event that we all get to share. Watching coverage of the Games activates the good-natured competitive spirit in all of us. So with that in mind, we’ll be investigating the idea of Play.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be publishing content under this theme as it relates to content and how we participate in and consume stories. From taking a deeper look at why rules in games and play matter to the power of collective, collaborative experiences, we will examine the role of Play and playfulness. We are excited to hear from you too: whether you’re a content creator here on Substack or on social media, feel free to let us know! We want to have conversations about these concepts with you, because collaboration is something we hold near and dear.

So consider this your invitation to come play with us! Over on Instagram, give a follow to both John Cabrera and Remarkist for fandom content and special event announcements. You can find more information about Remarkist on our Discord where we post regular updates about our entire ecosystem.

Our table of contents is below, but we look forward to publishing some surprises in addition to what you see here. Check back for updated links!

1. From the Big Game to The Traitors: Why Structure Makes Play Meaningful

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2. Global Watch Party: How Collective Viewing Makes the Olympics Meaningful

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3. The Social Power of Play: How We Communicate Through Games

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4. Author Matt Browning Talks Books, Business, and His Love for Gilmore Girls

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Like many kids, I loved Walt Disney World growing up. I was lucky enough to visit many times as a child, a luxury I know my parents saved for and loved just as much as my brother and me. If you’re familiar with the Disney theme parks, you know that there’s a particular feeling you get just past the entrance at any given park. Every one of your senses is activated: you might see a castle, you smell popcorn, you hear music, you can already taste the Mickey ice cream bar (or insert your favorite snack here) you’re going to enjoy later and you can feel the ground under your feet change. That last one is important: topography is part of the Disney theme park magic.

I remember watching a documentary or special about the construction of Disneyland and other parks many years ago. You might not actively notice it, but when you walk from the entrance of the park and Main Street, U.S.A to Adventureland, the ground underneath your feet shifts. Main Street has a paved street and trolley car grooves, but transitions to a rugged brownish terrain with animal paw prints and moss stains as you veer left toward a new land, making you feel like you’re in a jungle setting. Compare that to Liberty Square where you’ll find colonial-era bricks and stones, or Tomorrowland, where the ground is smoothly paved and concrete gray. Worldbuilding quite literally starts at your feet here. You know what kinds of stories might take place given the ground beneath you. Setting and topography determine your experience.

In the sitcoms I’ve loved my whole life–those with a studio audience like Friends, Full House, Boy Meets World–the settings are somewhat still. They are backgrounds. Much was made of the Full House set, how the actual interiors of the home we saw on screen couldn’t possibly match the structural layout of the real Victorian townhomes seen in the opening credits and establishing shots. Pod Meets World hosts Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Will Friedle consistently argue about the backyard/side-yard mysterious topography of the Matthews residence on Boy Meets World.

It’s clear that this sitcom doesn’t truly consider place as a character. You could probably pick up the entire show, place it in a different city, and notice very little difference. (In case you forgot: the show took place in Philadelphia. Was that apparent? No.)

But settings on shows like LOST and Gilmore Girls have more agency. The setting shapes behavior, controls possibility, and determines who the characters are allowed to become. The land doesn’t just hold the story; it steers it. Just like in a Disney theme park, the topography, geography, and decisive sense of place steers the story and guides a guest’s experience. It’s similar when watching a TV show where the setting has been well-crafted, and steers how the story is told.

Setting as Antagonist

One of my favorite shows, LOST, has a knack for bringing viewers into the setting in a visceral way. There are moments on the beach, with all its beauty and glory of waves crashing, sunsets, and beautiful soft sand. Something about that setting signals that the scene is going to be safe: maybe a tender moment or important talk would happen there. Compare that to when the survivors enter into the jungle, where one crack of a branch could send your blood pressure through the roof as a viewer.

On both the beach and in the jungle, the human characters are isolated from the rest of the world and even each other as viewers learn about other inhabitants on the island. This isolation removes societal rules the characters are accustomed to in the world they left behind. New social structures form: leadership emerges, conflict bubbles up and is dealt with by the group, and survival is often a question of how well they function together as a community. The island seems to choose who survives, which brings the free will of the characters, and their decisions, into new light. As they discover the secrets of the island, like the hatch, or secret dwellings, these findings test the survivors. The topography of the island seems to determine these folks’ fate–not the other way around.

Geography as Emotional Containment

In Gilmore Girls, the fictional Stars Hollow–famously filmed on the WB studio backlot–is a social ecosystem. The town feels real because in essence, it is. You can visit the lot and walk around and see Luke’s, Miss Patty’s, Kim’s Antiques, Lorelai and Sookie’s house, and Doose’s Market easily–even if the lot is dressed for another show or movie shoot.

I can name several other shows off the top of my head that have filmed on the same lot and the feeling of those shows share a similar DNA. The walkable nature of the town is explicit on the show; often the characters stroll from home to home or from home to the market, diner, or school. The town has traditions that play out in the square around the gazebo, and everything feels incredibly safe, even nostalgic. It’s when the characters leave this walkable safety net that events feel a little more high risk: Lorelai feeling stressed at dinners at the Gilmore mansion in Hartford, Rory going to Chilton and encountering high pressures and expectations as well as culture shock with other students, attending college at Yale and meeting new people who grew up in the kind of environment her mother tried to shield her from. In this show, geography protects or exposes the characters: Stars Hollow is a warm blanket, maybe even slightly stifling for growth, while points outside of the town offer new, challenging situations to contend with.

Geography as a Wound

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sunnydale is sitting directly on a Hellmouth. In Stranger Things, Hawkins sits on the Upside Down. A layered landscape where something dark lies beneath the suburban normalcy that the characters inhabit adds drama and storytelling potential. In the case of Buffy, an entire series could play out over seven seasons and one hundred and forty-four episodes; so many creatures and evil beings could lurk around that town because of the Hellmouth.

An underworld of some kind in any setting provides endless opportunities for story building. And furthermore, a suburban idyllic landscape above breeds secrecy, long-term scars, and comradery amongst those who can see it versus those who cannot. The place itself carries memory and trauma, and all inhabitants can feel it. This is best illustrated when Buffy receives the Class Protector award at Prom, or when Jason interrupts a town meeting to pontificate about the strange happenings around Hawkins in Stranger Things (he gets it pretty wrong, but he at least sees that something is absolutely amiss in town).

Geography as a Pressure Cooker

I love stories set in a contained environment, like a college campus or a boarding school. The sense that the characters are largely confined to one place creates a pressure situation where tensions might bubble over at any minute. It’s why The Real World was a huge success decades ago. We love live-in-a-house-together shows like Jersey Shore and Summer House, romantic game shows like The Bachelor or Love Island, and psychological competition shows like Big Brother and Survivor.

The show Tell Me Lies, based on Carola Lovering’s novel of the same name, follows a group of college friends whose toxic relationships at school come back to haunt them later in life. In the world of college, freshman Lucy meets new friends on the first day and sheds her old identity from home. She meets Stephen, an older boy with dangerous vibes (and a girlfriend, not that it seems to matter to him). In this limited physical world, Lucy can’t escape Stephen even if she wanted to, and the neverending loop of classes, dorm room visits, and campus parties puts all of the characters in close proximity all the time. Every character is trapped in toxic cycles of keeping secrets, and being retraumatized by one another’s misdeeds. When they leave college, will they all heal? The show relies on flash forwards to a later date, years after graduation at a wedding for two of the friends, and viewers can see that even though they physically left college, those wounds are still gaping. The pressure cooker of college extends to their relationships years ahead.

Geography as Dreamscape

Some settings are comforting and dreamlike, which is perfect for a narrative that relies on nostalgia. The Wonder Years has a bit of a home movie vibe to it; the opening credits were actually shot as home movies with actors looking at the camera as their characters. The voiceover narration in every episode speaks of idyllic suburban memories: a quiet street, kids riding their bikes until sunset, first kisses in the nearby woods. I loved Dawson’s Creek for a similar reason: the coastal town of Capeside was shown as a small town with intimate waterways that powered the community. The downtown waterfront and the personal docks at characters’ homes looked out onto a serene waterscape that felt like a vacation from the real world. In fact, one day I looked up the town they filmed in–Wilmington, North Carolina–and found myself requesting a physical copy of the free tourist guide! I just wanted to see pictures of the real place. I thought if I could see actual photos from their own tourist bureau I could mentally transport myself there. And on a Southern-Atlantic road trip with my mom in my thirties, I finally got to see the entire town in real life, waterways and all. It did not disappoint.

Water imagery often helps characters manage transition. When we meet Joey and Dawson for the first time, she’s climbing out his window to get to her little boat at the end of his dock to paddle home instead of staying the night. Spoiler alert: she ends up sleeping in his bed beside him anyway, despite their very adult conversation about getting older and how they probably should stop having such sleepovers because of, well, puberty. The creek is the body of water that separates their houses but it’s also a metaphor: it’s a boundary between their friendship and possible romantic entanglement; between childhood and adulthood. In the pilot episode, they choose not to cross those boundaries, and stay kids for a little while longer. But in the first episode of Season 2, the two go on a date. And Dawson picks Joey up at her home in a big, shiny speedboat, completing the metaphor: they jump into a relationship–and adulthood–with power and speed.

The landscape of a sleepy coastal town or a suburban block you grew up riding your bike on feels like a transitionary place. It’s small and intimate, but almost begs its inhabitants to long for bigger environments. Stories that take place here are about the in-between: adolescence as a time where decisions feel huge but might not be as earth-shattering as they feel at the time. And looking back on them, we can remember with a bit of wistful longing of a simpler time.

Next time you’re watching a show or movie, take note of the setting. What is it telling you about the plot and characters? I’d love to hear some of your favorites in the comments!

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Do you remember the first time you saw a TV show or movie that felt like it was FOR you? I do. I have a vivid memory of being six years old, sitting on a loveseat in a small room of the house where my parents had set up a portable TV. (The idea of a smaller TV that you could cart from room to room used to be a novel thing, long before everyone had a video screen in their pockets.) My mom turned on a sitcom, not that I could name it at the time. I really hadn’t seen anything like it before. The show was Full House, and I watched with wonder as Stephanie Tanner, a little girl about my age, got into some hijinks in her family’s living room. Her family was her whole world, and I understood that what happened inside that house between the characters was what mattered most. There were rules and hierarchy, the children having less freedom than the adults–even when some of the adults in this world weren’t parents.

Full House became my favorite show on TV, one I watched religiously every week from that evening at six years old until the very last episode when I was a young teen. The show reinvented the idea of family: while most of the inhabitants of the “full house” were related, the family relied on close friends to become part of their family dynamic. What started out as a premise where single dad Danny invites his brother-in-law and best friend to live with him and his daughters for extra childcare turned into many seasons that consistently redefined the very idea of what a family is and could be. Fiction is an opportunity to build new societies through chosen bonds versus just the ones characters are born into.

Family as the First Society We’re Born Into

Some of the earliest sitcoms of the 1950s like I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best and The Honeymooners focused on family as the central societal construct. Everyone had a place, and the storytelling centered around family dynamics. This is a prevailing framework; sitcoms and dramas still often center around one family.

When a nuclear family is the focus of a show, the stories all take place within the family dynamics. Narratives between parents and children, siblings, or the central romantic couple dominate. The family has their own rules, values and idiosyncrasies that drive plot. It is a social system in which belonging is inherited, and most of the time, a given. The Brady Bunch is a great example of inherited belonging: in a blended family, the conflict occurs when everyone is included, but bump heads when their individual family idiosyncrasies combine.

In family dramas like This is Us and Parenthood, inherited belonging spans multiple generations, and the central conflicts come from generational habits, lessons, and trauma. This is Us tells a story about a family with three siblings, triplets who lost one biological brother but gained an adoptive one born on the same day. This peculiar but heartwarming premise sets up endless plot points that have the characters questioning their roles both as siblings and sons and daughter to their parents who made a life-altering choice in a moment of grief. Their inherited sense of belonging–or struggles with it–follow them into adulthood.

Choosing Belonging Instead of Inheriting It

Families are mini-societies where belonging shouldn’t have to be earned. But there are many beloved shows we can look to that are set up around a different kind of family: one of found relationships that function like a family especially if the characters’ families are largely out of the picture due to living in different cities.

The first show that comes to mind is Friends, the smash hit long-running sitcom of the 90s centered on an ensemble cast of, well, six friends. I’d be remiss not to mention its predecessor, Living Single, as well. Both of these shows are about coming of age as adults after leaving the home characters grew up in, looking for belonging in a new city and environment. Living with roommates and peers instead of siblings and parents, on their own for the first time, the stories are focused on finding one’s place in the real world.

On Friends, Ross and Monica are siblings, so their family dynamic plays out in their circle of friends. But without their parents around, their antics are less acceptable to others–or, played for laughs. Their childhood family competitions, like playing touch football on Thanksgiving for the Gellar Cup, or their infamous dance “routine” they show off on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin Eve” seem completely reasonable to them but are just strange inside the society of their chosen family.

Nevertheless, the characters on Friends and other similar ensemble shows like How I Met Your Mother, Happy Endings or The Big Bang Theory live inside a specific kind of society where belonging isn’t guaranteed. The interpersonal relationships between the characters are deep, but could change at any moment and often serve as conflict opportunities. On Happy Endings, the pilot episode begins with one member of the group leaving another at the altar. As viewers meet this ensemble, their future as a found family is already in jeopardy. The success of the series relies on how well the two characters can keep their breakup from breaking up the group entirely, and puts the pressure on the group to stay friends as a unity despite this major, awkward rift.

Man on the Inside, a show about one man’s undercover detective operation inside a retirement home, showcases another type of found family. While the home’s inhabitants are not related, they’ve all chosen to live out their golden years with others in a mini-community living together. Some have suffered losses of spouses, others have families that come and visit. Like shows about young people out on their own for the first time, these characters are on their own again, struggling to find belonging at a stage of life where they’ve had many experiences that inform their personalities but more or less want the same things: love, friendship, and to find purpose.

Workplace Shows: Found Family as a Model for Community

Shows set in the workplace offer a different kind of “found family,” one that the characters aren’t choosing, but are more or less stuck with. The Office, Parks & Recreation, 30 Rock and Abbott Elementary are brilliant ensemble shows where every character has their own unique flair they bring to the group. A sense of belonging is guaranteed because everyone has to come to work every day and are more or less at the mercy of the same set of rules. In any community, this is the case: folks are thrown together randomly and have to somehow make it work–even if they don’t share the same values.

The stories emerge through these clashes: Dwight Schrute on The Office (hilariously) clashes with Jim Halpert almost daily, given that he takes himself very seriously and Jim doesn’t take Dwight seriously at all. Leslie Knope on Parks & Recreation has to inspire her coworkers to believe in the same community projects she does in order to get them accomplished, often with lots of red tape and community disengagement to contend with.

While individual friendships form within these systems, much like any larger community or society, these shows–along with hourlong procedural dramas like High Potential, Grey’s Anatomy, or Law & Order– demonstrate how important it is to find ways to problem solve with others you might not agree with, since everyone is essentially on the same team.

Found Family Is A Powerful Worldbuilding and Storytelling Tool

A personal favorite example of a “found family” show is Gilmore Girls. One of the reasons I find the content so rich is that it’s a show about belonging that blends choosing family with inherited family dynamics. Lorelai Gilmore flees her own family as a teenager with daughter Rory to Stars Hollow, a place where she finds a quirky kaleidoscope of characters that offer her the family that she always dreamed of. As Rory grows up, she also inherits the love of townies that embrace the two as if they’ve always lived there.

But the show is also about generational family dynamics, and the central premise sets up a weekly obligatory dinner with the elder Gilmores in exchange for funding Rory’s prep school education. Through seven seasons (and beyond), Lorelai and Rory both individually balance the found family acceptance they discovered in a town they made their own while navigating their place in their own family dynamics. The world of the show is subsequently expansive, the stories playing out both in the colorful, kinetic world of Stars Hollow and the stiffer, monochrome world of the Gilmores from their mansion in Hartford to Rory’s experiences at Chilton and Yale. As the audience sees these characters in two different worlds, we watch as they pursue acceptance and belonging in very different ways.

Greek is another favorite show of mine, centered on a fictional college and their Greek life system. While the two main characters are brother and sister, their experiences within their respective sororities and fraternities are as wildly different as they are similar. Themes of found sisterhood and brotherhood drive the plot–even when those relationships can be toxic. Casey struggles with her two love interests, former friends from competing fraternities with very different personalities who are now sworn enemies. Her younger brother Rusty finds himself the only academic scholar in his disorganized, wild fraternity and becomes best friends with a member of their rival frat. The idiosyncrasies of each organization, the coalitions that exist within them, and the forbidden friendships and relationships that exist outside of them offer endless points of conflict and resolution, as well as many different kinds of activities on campus to serve as fertile ground for these stories.

When “found family” on screen is used as a worldbuilding tool, it mirrors how individuals might eventually leave their nuclear family “society” in pursuit of building society in the outside world. A part of me is still six years old, watching Stephanie Tanner get up to some trouble in her living room, my family under the same roof in the next room. Eventually, I’d move out of the house (Stephanie never really did!), and gain perspective watching TV shows where individuals find and build societies elsewhere. Like myself, I’ve watched characters struggle for belonging when it isn’t guaranteed. Watching individuals choose found family in those spaces serves as a model for viewers living out our own stories in the real world. And while family and the family home will always be a fertile ground for storytelling, “found family” stories help us relate to one another in real life, and develop conflict resolution, affection, and find learning opportunities with others who have had different upbringings than ourselves. Which might be the best thing for society as a whole.

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It was the summer of 1995. I’d be entering high school in the fall, so when my mom took me to see Clueless in the theaters, I was stoked. Immediately, I was sucked in. Sure, I wasn’t a wealthy Beverly Hills teen living in a gorgeous mansion with a computer-programmed closet (sidenote: could we get on this, technologically speaking? It’s 2026!), but I felt recognition. Alicia Silverstone, playing Cher Horowitz, opens the movie with a voiceover monologue about her family and her friends as we see a montage of her seemingly charmed life. And within a few scenes, viewers know that Cher, Dionne, and their circle of friends exist within a specific kind of society: that of high school. No matter your personal experience, a high school setting is a familiar one. It is presented in fiction as a somewhat closed society with its own rules and customs, which most viewers are familiar with.

Like in many teen coming-of-age movies, when newcomer Tai arrives on the scene, she finds fitting into a well-established social fabric is challenging. Since Cher and her friends are popular and well-liked, she accepts their insistence on a full makeover, leaving her personal style, interests, and even her taste in boys behind in an effort to fit in. And during the course of the film, viewers get to watch every character begin to resist the identities they have long adhered to in order to evolve.

High school in pop culture is a society where identity is assigned early and reinforced relentlessly. Fandom for these stories exist in part because viewers recognize those labels, resist them, or rewrite them through identification with characters as the characters themselves blur the boundaries that exist in this particular type of society. It is in the breaking of unspoken rules, and push and pull within this society structure that leads to character development. What can we learn about identity and society in the real world from these stories set in high school?

Locations: Opportunities for Story

Whether the main characters spend most of their time at school, or the entire piece of content is set at the school itself, there are only so many places where characters’ stories can play out. This is true no matter what kind of high school is depicted: whether it’s a public or private school, located within a city or suburb, or exists in an affluent zip code or average community. But these designated areas within a high school have their own rules. Like any society, there are places for work and study (classrooms, libraries), leisure and public spaces (cafeterias, lounges, plazas and the bleachers), and somewhat private or restricted areas (locker rooms, offices). These areas dictate certain behaviors; students are usually more or less democratized in class, even if they stick to certain identities (class clown, teacher’s pet), but speak and behave in entirely different ways with fellow students in areas where they have more freedom.

The setting is one that resembles any society: there are authority figures that do set rules and are more or less present, and personas the characters inhabit depending on the room. But in general teens are left to their own devices when dealing with conflict, identity, choices (where to sit, who to befriend, how best to study, personal organization) and maintain a level of autonomy to fulfill responsibilities while navigating relationships with friends and classmates.

Since there’s a level of choice involved in, say, where to sit at lunch or what students can wear, these are situations where character can develop in a story. Choosing a different lunch table one day might require breaking an unspoken rule or setting up potential conflict whether it’s sticking to one table or attempting to mingle with a different social group. In Mean Girls, when Cady Heron is asked for the first time to sit with the Plastics at lunch and invited back to their table for the rest of the week, she is explicitly told, “on Wednesdays, we wear pink.” Her choice is to not wear pink, of course, and theoretically she can sit at whichever table she wants. But the invite plus the directive on what to wear sets up the central conflict of the movie: will she conform to fit in, and at what cost? Her decision to follow this social code and effectively become one of the Plastics marks a turning point for the character, and sets her on a path that will affect her sense of belonging and identity, both in and out of school.

Social Hierarchy

Staying on Mean Girls, let’s recap an iconic scene: Janice and Damian give Cady the rundown in the cafeteria about all the well-established cliques and where they sit: the jocks, band geeks, the popular girls (or, the Plastics), etc. Cady scans the room like she’s window shopping, searching for the table where she might fit in. A sense of belonging is important in any society, and one’s identity is the path to that sense of psychological safety. So, if you look around the cafeteria and don’t see others who either look like you or appear to have the same interests, you might be spending lunch eating your sandwich alone in a bathroom stall. Or, you might be asked to join a table and prove your allegiance in some way to its inhabitants.

But as I mentioned above, a character might wander over those unspoken lines of social demarcation on their journey to redefine their identities. They might mingle with classmates or love interests in other social cliques, or take up activities that might not align with their assigned identity. Mean Girls’ Cady is asked to join Mathletes early in the film but told not to by several new friends as it would be “social suicide.” While she spends the movie faking being unskilled at math to manipulate her social standing, in the end she wins her school the state championship.

In She’s All That, the movie’s central (admittedly problematic) storyline is that the most popular jock has to get the most unpopular girl to go to the prom with him as per a bet made with a friend. Class royalty Zack approaches the “uncool” artist Laney in an effort to get her to fall for him–or at least be his friend under false pretenses. Of course, along the way they find real connection–and not without some serious conflict. But it’s the intermingling of social tiers where the story takes place: his friends are cruel; hers are untrusting. Somehow they end up in a new place where those hierarchies fall away.

In Stranger Things 4, we see Lucas become a member of the school basketball team, effectively crossing social groups from nerd to jock. He hasn’t abandoned his friends per se, but they are sitting at a lunch table with Eddie Munson’s Hellfire Club (their Dungeons & Dragons party) while he gets to hang with his fellow teammates who have a different status at school. After the tragic events of Season 4, Stranger Things 5 opens with Dustin getting roughed up by the jocks for wearing Eddie’s Hellfire Club shirt, and Lucas–having been in their social group in the past–is able to demand that they stand down. A few years earlier, Lucas might not have had the power to end a standoff between the two groups, but since he’s been on both sides, his presence has power it didn’t before.

Rites of Passage

In all societies, rites of passage are markers of tradition, growth, and necessary change. In high school, sample rites of passage are starting a new grade or moving from lower classmen to upper classmen, first dates, getting a driver’s license, school dances, awards, prom and graduation. These are events where characters can further solidify or leave their former identities behind. In an episode of Never Have I Ever, the popular Paxton is voted to be the class speaker at graduation instead of the valedictorian. In his speech, he not only talks about shedding labels and expectations from others; he thanks friend and former girlfriend Devi for helping him push himself academically, instead of “doing a sexy dance” as some of the popular girls who voted for him wanted. He publicly recognizes someone his social class would never even predict he would befriend, much less date, for believing in his ability to be more than just a hot popular guy.

Afterwards, he turns the mic over the class valedictorian, whom he says has an earned right to speak. The impact is clear: Paxton uses a rite of passage moment to change a particular value prioritized during this event in this society–and he leaves instructions for the next class to break unspoken rules of identity in the future.

In 10 Things I Hate About You and She’s All That, the prom is the rite of passage on which all the action hinges. In both films, characters are challenged with persuading a specific person to attend this event as their date–and it’s where all the conflict in the movies take place. Both Kat in 10 Things and Laney in She’s All That realize they’ve become pawns in the games of others, and opt out upon learning the truth, with their feelings profoundly hurt. But these are opportunities for their love interests to turn things around, apologize, and show that they’ve learned something from the entire experience. They reject expectations, even old friends that held them to those rigid labels, and transcend the roles they were assigned at the start of their stories. Their personal growth during their time in that environment happens precisely because of how the society of high school functions.

Romance and Friendship

Relationships in any society often affect personal growth and social status. In high school, who you date or befriend can change your entire identity. Especially if a character breaks unwritten rules regarding who they are allowed, or expected, to date or befriend.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow’s introduction on the series begins with having a crush on her best friend Xander. Eventually she has a romantic relationship with Oz, who just happens to be a werewolf in addition to a teenage boy. But Willow’s character evolves in later seasons when she meets a girl named Tara in a Wicca group. Through her friendship with Tara, Willow dives deeper into magic and her identity as a witch. And as the two form a romantic relationship, her identity is further redefined.

In One Tree Hill, the central conflict of two estranged brothers, Nathan and Lucas, is further complicated by a love story. Lucas, abandoned by his biological father and growing up with a struggling single mom, is buoyed by his best friend Haley. Both are outsiders at school. Lucas’ estranged brother Nathan is raised wealthy and privileged by their intense and demanding biological father. When Nathan needs a tutor at school, Haley is tapped to help. While Lucas navigates a hostile relationship with his half brother in school and on their school’s basketball team, Haley gets to know Nathan in a different way. Their friendship and romance is unexpected and yet, enduring. Its success defies pre-existing identity expectations, challenges the idea that Nathan is a spoiled star athlete and nothing more, and aids Lucas and Nathan in eventually becoming friends.

I, like most viewers, was charmed when Cher ended up dating her ex-stepbrother Josh at the end of Clueless. But it’s not just that my 14-year old self found a young Paul Rudd so incredibly charming (though he was, and still is). It’s Cher’s ability to transcend the idea of who she is to see Josh as a viable option when she’s spent the entire film caring that she and her friends only date “suitable” boys. The popular boy she hopes Tai will date leaves her alone at a gas station in the middle of the night, only to be mugged in her Alaia dress. Tai’s actual love interest might be a greasy stoner, but he’s sweet and doting. And the boy Cher has been trying to date during the whole film turns out not to be into dating girls at all. Cher has always relied on having the answers, but as it turns out she’s pretty clueless, and the labels she’s been using for the people around her are essentially meaningless. The structure of any society is just that: structure. How we move within it is what defines us, not necessarily what identities we are assigned. This is the magic moment that keeps me rewatching this film well into adulthood: the realization that the society we live in during high school is a training ground for life. We can be clueless about what we want, who we are, what others expect of us, and where we’re going next. But it’s where we also become enlightened, hone social skills, and take risks outside of our comfort zones.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments: What stories set in high school speak to you? And what are some insights you’ve gained about identity and society from these stories? Let’s continue the discussion!

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!

Happy New Year! January is upon us, and with it, a celebration of new beginnings. We hope you had a fantastic holiday season and are looking forward to the year ahead as much as we are!

Before we show you our plans, let’s take a look back at everything you might have missed in December. Our theme was I Smell Snow (a nod to our beloved Gilmore Girls), focused on winter traditions and, well, actual snowfall in the stories we love. One of the things we geek out about is how fans become invested in fictional winter holidays every year, like Festivus, Chrismukkah and other winter solstice celebrations that provide perspective on the season whether they’re humorous or more serious. And since you cannot have winter or holiday content without snow, we did a small deep dive on the history of snow on screen.

With so much holiday content in the air in December, we knew we had to consult an expert. Our exclusive interview with author and historian Joanna Wilson (tistheseasonTV) was enlightening! Joanna has studied all things Christmas movies and TV, and has some incredible insights on holiday entertainment.

The conclusion of Wicked with Wicked: For Good was one of the biggest film releases of the year. Because we couldn’t let this epic fandom event go by without acknowledging it, contributing writer provided a fantastic roundup of facts you might not know about the movie franchise.

In addition to all of this holiday fandom fun, we announced our Holiday Hiatus content slate, consisting of watch parties of holiday movies and TV shows with Remarkists on our app. If you missed it, make sure to subscribe to this magazine and follow our socials to be the first to hear about new activations both online and IRL!

In a new year, it’s a perfect time to focus on new builds, whether physical or conceptual. In 2026, we’re going to be building so much at Remarkist. And in the spirit of exciting ventures ahead, we thought we would make building part of our theme here at rmrk*st Magazine in January. Worldbuilding and the storytelling require a thoughtful take on the specifics of the world in which the characters take action. So our theme is Building Societies! We’ll explore different societies in storyworlds, like high school. Geography and terrain play a role in any storyworld–whether it’s Stars Hollow or the Shire–and we’ll delve into how it functions. We’ll take a look at power, crime, and punishment. And we will also examine how families and relationships function in specific kinds of worldbuilding.

So come on the journey with us! We’ve included our blueprint below; you might call is a Table of Contents. You can find more information about Remarkist on our Discord where we post regular updates about our entire ecosystem. Keep in touch with us by following us on Instagram, Threads, Tumblr and Spotify for tons of fandom content and special events!

1. Clueless and Curious: Identity and Society in Stories Set in High School

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2. Found Family and Traditional Family: What TV Shows Teach Us About Society

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3. The Power of Place: TV Worlds That Feel Alive

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

Pop culture is a lot of fun–and at Christmas, this is especially true. Historically, we have turned to pop culture to help us celebrate, whether it’s your family’s annual watch party of a nostalgic favorite, a ritual marathon viewing of a classic, devoted dedication to TV romantic holiday movies, and more. And in the era of streaming and YouTube, it’s easier to find holiday episodes of TV shows of the past, TV Christmas movies that have been forgotten, and new content that releases every year just in time for the season. Holiday content across mediums is often escapist, combining fantasy with feel-good storytelling to appeal to the festive nature of the season. But that doesn’t mean it cannot be studied. For a moment, zoom out and consider the impact of Christmas entertainment on the broader spectrum of culture, the vast variety that lies within the genre, and why it persists year after year.

Cultural criticism usually comes for the standalone movies, TV, and books we consume all months of the year. But historian and pop culture enthusiast Joanna Wilson carved out her own niche: Christmas! Drawing upon her academic background in film history and philosophy to create insightful commentary on pop culture of all kinds, she is the expert on Christmas entertainment. Wilson is the author of the encyclopedia Tis the Season TV (2nd edition coming in 2026), The Christmas TV Companion (2009), and Triple Dog Dare (2017). She currently lives in Akron, Ohio where she watches a lot of TV with no apologies, and just a few regrets. We can honestly relate!

We were lucky enough to chat with Joanna Wilson about pop culture and Christmas entertainment. Enjoy our exclusive interview below–and make sure to follow Joanna on Instagram at tistheseasontv!

Remarkist Editors: People have referred to you as the Christmas TV expert, how did that come about?

Joanna Wilson: I’m a TV and film historian, specializing in Christmas entertainment. I wrote the book Tis the Season TV: the Encyclopedia of Christmas Episodes, Specials and Movies that came out in 2010. The expanded and updated 2^nd edition is due to come out at the end of next year. With college degrees in both Film Studies and Philosophy, it’s second nature for me to analyze, evaluate, and discuss film, television, and popular culture.

RE: How did you come to specialize in Christmas on TV and film?

JW: I taught college philosophy courses for several years and knew I wanted to get into writing about popular culture. I knew the world didn’t need one more Scorsese scholar or another Hitchcock historian, so I kept myself open for an opportunity. I’ve always been a pop culture junkie, and I may have spent hours and hours in front of the television but I’ve always been a reader. My mother worked at our local library so I grew up reading books on film and television. In the year 2000, I read a book on the history of the animation company Rankin/Bass—who are known for making many memorable Christmas TV specials.

From there, I began looking more closely at Christmas episodes, specials, and movies and realized viewers watch Christmas entertainment differently than we watch other programs. And, Hollywood knows how popular Christmas programs are and markets them differently than other genres and programs. I realized at that time there was so little written about Christmas on TV and film, I decided to take it more seriously and join the conversation. I’m also someone who believes strongly that we as viewers need to be critical about all that we consume, and that includes feel-good, escapist entertainment like Christmas programs too.

RE: Do you have other books on Christmas entertainment?

JW: Yes! From the research I’ve done to write the encyclopedia, I’ve also written The Christmas TV Companion—a book discussing the more unusual Christmas programs, such as Christmas horror, Christmas sci-fi, and Christmas animation made for adult tastes. I’ve also written Triple Dog Dare which documents my survival of the 24-hour marathon of the 1983 movie A Christmas Story, and it’s where I discuss Christmas movies in general, their appeal, and the nature of nostalgia. But I’m most excited for the 2^nd edition of the encyclopedia Tis the Season TV to reach readers. It is more than double the length of the original book and I’ve been able to improve the listings and summaries of programs from the past, making it far more scholarly.

RE: What are your favorite Christmas programs?

JW: I’m just like everyone else, I love watching the Christmas programs I grew up with. I love watching the 1971 TV movie The Homecoming: A Christmas Story—the movie that was so popular, it inspired CBS to create the TV series The Waltons. I also grew up watching 1972’s The House Without a Christmas Tree—my sister and I looked forward to seeing that every year on TV. I also grew up watching reruns of 1960s and 70s series, so seeing the Christmas episodes of Bewitched, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie, and The Andy Griffith Show always bring me great joy. Oh, and it’s not Christmas for me until I see the 1965 animated special A Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s still such a classic.

RE: What’s it like being a researcher?

JW: I love it! My love for the history of film and television still keeps me motivated to watch and document all the new Christmas programs each year. It also gives me the opportunity to visit archives and museums to watch forgotten TV programs from the past. I’ve also been lucky enough to be invited to join a panel discussion at the very first Christmas TV movie convention—Christmas Con—in 2019. I’ve appeared on two TV programs talking about Christmas TV specials. In 2018, I was selected by DVD.com/Netflix to be the highlight of their 20th anniversary, when I made a dress, resembling Rosemary Clooney’s dress in the 1954 movie White Christmas, made from the red paper envelopes used to ship DVDs by the subscription service DVD.com. The photos of the dress went viral and I ended up on Pee-Wee Herman’s website!

And, this year, I was invited to curate a public art installation that features video clips in Vancouver, B.C. The East Van Vodville Cinema, known on Instagram as freelittlecinema, this December, featured five clips from 1970s and 80s under appreciated Christmas animated TV specials I selected. It feels good to connect with others through the research I’ve conducted.

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

If you’re planning on watching the last episodes of Stranger Things (ever!) dropping this week, we’d love you to watch with us! Even if it’s a second (or third!) viewing for you.

This epic series is the monumental, community fan event of the decade and we are freaking out about the conclusion. Those first four chapters of Season 5 had us screaming at our televisions. So we are planning a week of Stranger Things fun so we can have friends to scream with. Not only will we be watching Chapters Five through Eight together, but we will also be playing some games:

YEEEEESSSSS!!!

There will be six mini-scavenger hunts taking you through our ecosystem and beyond. Each will lead to magical game items that will become useful at later events.

There will also be three trivia events with questions that will range in difficulty from “I watched enough to be somewhat competitive” to full-fledged mind flayers. And then of course, the watch parties–where we’ll laugh together, scream together, cry together, use our psychic powers at the TV together… and then wipe the blood from our collective noses.

If you don’t have an account in our app yet, we’re sending invites between now and the end of the year. We don’t officially open the portal–ahem–doors to Remarkist until Summer 2026, but we’re excited to welcome any new folks who’d like to get in on the fun.

You can find the Remarkist app in the Apple or Google Play store. Once you download and install, from the Sign Up screen request an invite and secure your unique membername. You’ll receive an invite code within a day. More information about the Remarkist app can be found right here!

The thing we’ve always loved so much about Stranger Things is the camaraderie. It started in Season 1 with a D&D party pulling together to rescue their friend from the Upside Down, and it only grew from there. Across every season, those bonds deepened as the group split up, reunited, and faced impossible odds from Demogorgons to the Mind Flayer to Vecna himself.

So we want to bring that same spirit to our Stranger Things challenges. Like past games we’ve played at Remarkist, these will reward folks who work together with others to crack puzzles and pick up game pieces along the way.

It’ll be super helpful to attend our first Scavenger Hunt kickoff event on 12/26 to get the rundown on how the game will go. But if you have to miss it, hop into our Discord where you’re sure to find folks looking to build a D&D style adventure party.

Can’t wait to see you and get started!

Friday, December 26

🔦 Scavenger Hunt #1

4pm PT/7pm ET

📺 Watch Party & Scavenger Hunt #2

“Chapter Five: Shock Jock”

8pm PT/11pm ET

Saturday, December 27

🧠 Trivia #1

1pm PT/4pm ET

📺 Watch Party

“Chapter Six: Escape From Camazotz”

8pm PT/11pm ET

Sunday, December 28

🔦 Scavenger Hunt #3

12pm PT/3pm ET

📺 Watch Party

“Chapter Seven: The Bridge”

8pm PT/11pm ET

Monday, December 29

🧠 Trivia #2

2:30pm PT/5:30pm ET

🔦 Scavenger Hunt #4

5:30pm PT/8:30pm ET

Tuesday, December 30

🧠 Trivia #3

2:30pmPT/5:30pm ET

🔦 Scavenger Hunt #5

4pm PT/7pm ET

Wednesday, December 31

🔦 Scavenger Hunt #6

2:30pm PT/5:30pm ET

Thursday, January 1

📺 Watch Party

“Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up”

8pm PT/11pm ET

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

We love holiday movies and TV shows for the cheese, the cheer, and the cozy vibes. Throughout film history, those vibes are usually cultivated by the existence of snow! Since at least the 1954 movie, we’ve all been dreaming of a White Christmas. From old black and white classics to iconic 90s hits to modern day Hallmark movies, snow is usually a main character of a holiday film.

And since movie magic has evolved over the past hundred years, so has snow-making. Filmmakers have used all sorts of crazy tricks to make things look wintry in film and TV. Here are some fun facts about the magic of snow on screen.

From Cornflakes to Soap Flakes

Frank Capra made It’s A Wonderful Life in the sweltering summer of 1946–but you’d never know it. In the fictional town of Bedford Falls, Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey would have to trudge through the snow to get back to his normal life after meeting his guardian angel Clarence. The snowstorm is pivotal to the plot, so it had to look real–enough to show George’s enlightened return after an emotional–and literal–trek.

At the time, the industry standard was cornflakes painted white to look like snow. But the biggest problem with this method was the fact that cornflakes are….crunchy. They affect the sound of the movie when actors and crew members walk over them, requiring the filmmakers to dub in the actors’ lines. Capra refused, and insisted on finding a new way to make snow so he could film his actors speaking the lines live. The result? His head of special effects Russell Shearman, from RKO Radio Special Effects Studio, invented a whole new process for snow on screen. He mixed foamite, sugar, water and soap flakes and blew them through a machine to coat trees and the whole neighborhood. This incredible decision earned the film an Oscar in Technical Achievement in 1947.

Lions and Tigers and Asbestos, Oh My!

It wasn’t all soap and foamite on the set of It’s A Wonderful Life; they used some asbestos as well for falling snow. At the time, they didn’t yet know the harmful effects. You might know that it was used in so many movies, like in The Wizard of Oz, Holiday Inn and White Christmas. Prior to cornflakes, soap and asbestos, cotton was often used to make fake snow–which was a fire hazard. But asbestos was fire-resistant and sure looked like snow; it was marketed to consumers for home decorating as such. The iconic poppy scene in The Wizard of Oz used asbestos to sprinkle Judy Garland and the rest of the cast with tons of snow (and it wasn;t the only harmful material used in that film either). As Bing Crosby sang “White Christmas” in the finale of Holiday Inn, asbestos rained on him. Holly jolly indeed.

Other popular but dangerous materials to create snow included salt and gypsum, which could be unpleasant to work with. And marble dust, another substance that looks like snow, could be poisonous, causing pulmonary fibrosis.

Paper, fish ice, CGI, and more

From around the 1980s to modern day, filmmakers, now aware of the dangers of asbestos and other materials, have gotten more creative with potato flakes (as used in Home Alone), paper and other products like less toxic flocking substances. In a recent NPR interview, the CEO of the U.K. based company Snow Business described how they can make snow for any occasion: light, romantic flurries, blizzards, ice, and more. They use a plant-based material to make paper snow; it is fire-treated and can be sprinkled or doused over an area with fans. They also use wax and gels that “melt” on cue. Hallmark movie makers for 2024’s Three Wiser Men and A Boy used fish ice for some scenes during their springtime filming. Fish ice tends to stick around longer, and hosing down an area first makes everything look wet as well. Another trick? The director put a plate of the fake snow under the camera to give the frame more of a snowy border. Pretty clever! And other Hallmark producers have admitted to using a soft focus lens to make blankets in the background look like snow.

And with the technology available, it’s not all practical effects. On NPR, Snow Business said that they often work alongside a visual effects partner on projects to get the complete look just right. Hallmark producer Andrew Gernhard gave some digital tricks of the trade in a recent interview. Since they have to make holiday movies year-round, they’re always faking the weather. Not only are the actors sweltering under layers of real wool coats and warm clothing on warm days, it’s impossible to produce ice in a heatwave. He revealed that often rollerskates are used and magically turned into ice skates in post-production. Similarly, they can remove leaves from trees and dust rooftops with CGI snow. For A Biltmore Christmas, filmed at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, they tinted the lawns orange and brown to fake the season. And while rain is the worst weather to shoot in, sometimes they can turn rain into snow in post-production by adding digital flurries to existing rain. They were able to do this for the new Hallmark offering, Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story which was filmed on location in Buffalo, NY.

This video from Netflix–whose holiday slate of movies is always entertaining–does a great job of explaining why making snow can be so difficult. There are so many factors at play: it has to be safe for the crew and actors, and look right. But snow isn’t just any set piece: it is often a character in a film and connotes a feeling essential to the plot. It can be romantic or punishing, act as an overall setting, or a well-placed sprinkle for holiday magic.

So the next time you’re watching a holiday movie, think about all the work–and risk!-that went into creating your favorite snowy scenes. And nothing makes up for the real thing: a bit of snowfall over your own holiday.