The Company You Keep...

If you ever want to stop liking a sports team you should join their fan group online. It might take awhile but eventually you will look at the other people who like the same thing you like and start rethinking all of the choices that brought you to that moment.

And it's not just sports. It's pretty much anything you enjoy. There are people out there who take things to a whole other level. And often that level is really uncomfortable. At least for someone like me who isn't a capital F fan of pretty much anything.

I mean, I think I am, up until I join a fan group and realize that I'm not.

I don't root for a mascot on a hockey logo, I root for a team. So because I am fine (in fact, I'd prefer) if the Winterhawks changed their logo I am clearly not a FAN.

I don't care much about Neil Gaiman's and Amanda Palmer's marital woes. I wish them both well and hope they find some peace either with each other or without, but definite peace, I mean they share a child and that will never change. But because I'm not willing to paint AP as the world's WORST person I am clearly not a FAN of Gaiman.

There have been others. I've left more groups than I remain in. Writing, comedy, you name it, if I've got an interest I've sampled it, spent some time with a fan, excuse me, FAN group and thought...nope. And left the group.

Sometimes I've left with my original fandom intact, sometimes not.

Sometimes the fan base is so toxic that it just ruins the joy of the original thing. Thinking that other people who like the same thing you do are just awful makes you reconsider the original thing.

Then, of course, there is the flip side. The groups that seem to form up just to destroy things people like. The whole "this is why we can't have nice things" as a life mantra groups.

This is an American pastime for sure. As soon as something good takes over a media cycle the forces form to tear it apart. If someone makes an adorable dance video there is a group immediately searching past posts for anything questionable. And if there isn't then you get a generic, they are just doing it for attention. And? So?

It's exhausting.

And yes, I do know that some of you are thinking right now that I did this to politics for you. And I'm sorry for that.

I mean, sorry that you think I'm extreme and have ruined the pure pleasure of following politics.

I'm not sorry that I am passionate about it all.

Which is what I have to keep in mind with these other FANS in groups. They are passionate. They REALLY think this stuff is important. So it's my issue, not theirs.

And I've just talked myself back around to taking a deep breath and walking away from another group instead of engaging in a not really helpful way on a post before leaving anyway...

Well fine. I've shown again that I am typically a fan not a FAN.

Except of the following. I am a FAN of this:

Wear your fucking mask.
Wash your damn hands.
Keep your distance.