Personality: The Obsessors

Imagine this, you are in a group project in an L.A. class, the teacher assigns the partners, but you get to choose your topic over the WW2 era and your group chooses the Holocaust for whatever reason (probably because their lives are really depressing and they wanted to see people who had it worse for a change). Now imagine this, you get the topic, and all the sudden one dude in your group starts freaking out and smiling and laughing and cheering and practically shaking with excitement. Then says this: “I LOVE THE HOLOCAUST I READ ALL ABOUT IT IM SO GLAD IT HAPPENED ITS SO INTERESTING”. Not the best thing to say when the whole class can hear you, buts it’s obvious this guy’s social skills were not up to par. Turns out, this guy really did research the Holocaust and every living detail known to man about it, and was actually convinced it was a good thing. Needless to say that was not the best hobby to have but it worked to my advantage considering we passed that group project with flying colors.

This blog will be about people like my group partner who will remain anonymous (but for the sake of having fun let’s just call him Ken, a random white guy name, as he was indeed, white). These people I would like to call Codename: The Obsessors. This is a pretty self-explanatory codename, as these are the people who obsess over their favorite things. Now I have categorized the levels of obsession into three main levels (now I did have various sub-categories but to keep this post nice and short for the most part I’m sticking to my main three) the first level of obsession is called Stage One: The Mega Fan. They are not your ordinary fans, they don’t just read the book, or watch the movie two or three times, no. They read this book 17+ times, mark their favorite spots with post-it notes and write a song in the books honor. They watch the movie 20+ times and look at the same scenes over and over until they know the movie by heart and could quote the entire thing by memory. This person is not on the same level as Ken per-say but pretty damn close.

The next level is a level I like to call Stage Two: The Deep Ender’s. They are the ones who jump of the deep end and immerse themselves in some next level obsession, the likes of which ordinary fans would never see. These people are like Ken, as this is the level he is on. These people are convinced that their obsession is an entity of God or Ala or Rakshasa, whoever they choose to worship. Every small detail is committed to memory for instance, if the obsessed chose to rewrite the book they’ve been obsessing over for well over 5 years now, they could set the book on their pedestal that they always have it on, and write the book word for word, with no problem without having to look for a reference.  

Finally there are the people who have reached Stage Three: The No Returners. These fans have gone so far as to not even be fans anymore. They have convinced themselves in their dark depressed state brought on by reality that they choose not to accept, that they are in fact, part of their fantasy world in their book. They pick a character they love the most and are genuinely convinced to the point of insanity that they are that character. They will act out scenes and talk exactly the way they think that character would talk/dress/act and so on. They cannot return to reality as it would probably break their fragile mind, their family members walk on eggshells around their poorly lost child and make sure they don’t crack. Any indication they receive that they are not actually in their book could send them into a spiraling depression and a giant pool of tears will follow suit.

Thanks for listening to my crazy story about my thoughts on book/movie/history fans. As always I love you guys! Peace.