*Drags her tired ass into thread*
Give me a sec...
*Collapses gracelessly*
*rolls onto back and does inelegant imitation of a starfish*
So, I only missed just about everything that's happened since 'round about May 8th. Not much, right? I timed my move well, right? (By the way, thanks SOOO much, Adam, for your soonish, novemberish, maypril-ass frickin' release timing; it was REAL sweet of you to coordinate with me, kisses
>:(.)
Can't say I'm caught up (can't say I even managed a weak, pathetic snatch at the receding caboose of the Adam-crazy-train) BUT....I've done what I can, I've seen some of the biggest, awesomest stuff, and I was lucky enough to be at the IHeartRadio concert in the midst of my moving mess, so every argument in the history of ever is invalid! 8-)
'Ceptin'
NoAngel's.
NoAngel's arguments are always, by definition, valid. Thanks, lady, for another excellent essay, and enjoy your well-deserved break.
Today's essay coincided nicely with my recent personal musings on Adam-fandom. Missing all the fun these last few weeks has got me thinking about fandom. I'm always half-guilty about the amount of time and mental energy I spend thinking about a fabulous pop-star. Something about the fact that the star in question has an energy that is fairly magical and foreign to my day-to-day life, and the fact that almost all of my experience of that energy takes place in that virtual space known as the internet, makes me feel that the Adam-part of my life is completely imaginary, as incorporeal as dreams and fairy-tales. So I thought of this enforced hiatus as a kind of test of my RL metal, lol.
But of course, as Adam keeps pointing out, and as
NoAngel pointed out in her essay today, our weird, obsessive fanning has a solid impact on the real world, and impact that gives a lot of people all over the world a lot of joy, and that has also given the US its first ever No. 1 album by an out artist. Pardon my Bruce Willis, but Yippeekayay, muthafuckas.
You know, the first fifty times I heard Adam say "I really owe huge thanks to my fans; if it weren't for them I don't think I would have been able to make this second album," I sort of shrugged. That seemed so obviously true and unremarkable to me. I mean, doesn't every artist's career depend on people's buying their music? But this past week or two, watching Trespassing succeed the way it has thus far, it dawned on my that Adam meant something different. He says, "if it wasn't for the fans I have, this wouldn't be possible." He means "the kind of fans I have," the obsessive fans. The fans who youtube, and gif, and comment, and request, and buy album after album after album for their friends, family, charity. Who send videos viral and who keep his name in the media because a mere mention of his quiff in a style article guarantees thousands of hits and thumbs up and facebook likes and whatever the hell else counts as currency in this topsy-turvy world.
The fact that we are as unhinged, lol, as we are makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD to Adam's career. It got an openly gay artist with an out-of-the-box sensibility and very minor radio presence a NUMBER ONE ALBUM. Adam doesn't need consumers--he needs FANS. He boy, has he got'em.
But perhaps what I find most remarkable about Adam's appreciation of the fandom is the way in which he "GET'S IT," to borrow one of his favorite expressions about us. And he has EVERY reason NOT to "get it." He sees the crazy at its craziest--at a level we have only limited exposure to. He gets the madly adoring tweets every day. He gets the people breaking down into uncontrollable sobs in front of him. He gets the screams at a pitch which sets the neighborhood dogs off. But in a couple of recent interviews (which I now, of course, can't find) he put it all in the most generous and understanding light. He called fandom an escape, and a hobby, and something to get excited about. He understands that really, his fans just enjoy having something to spend their positive capital on, because it pays us back and then some. And then, as
NoAngel described this morning, fans pay it forward to other fans. (Love that contagious happiness thing that begins with Adam!) He doesn't think we are crazy (at least not in a bad way)--he paints us as people who possess a small, not particularly sophisticated, easy to reach key to their own happiness in a complex and often difficult world, and who are not afraid to use it. He made us seem, gasp!, NORMAL. Somehow, I so appreciate that reading of fandom, and when I get a little insecure about and a little overwhelmed by the sillier aspects of it, I try to hang on to Adam's generosity and reasonableness, and borrow a little of it for myself.
So your welcome, Adam, and right back atcha, kiddo. With Trespassing, we are repaid in spades. Hell, if that's the pocket, I wanna live in it!
