No R'lyeh, I'm Not a Fan
by Scott Hardie on May 18, 2013
I never thought of myself as a fan of H.P. Lovecraft. I don't think I've read more than a couple of his short stories. Mostly, I respected him from a distance as an influential American writer.
But after I worked some Lovecraftian plot elements into Gothic Earth, and I watched several movies adapted from his stories, and I spent a day playing a huge board game based on his work, a friend sincerely remarked that I would like a certain other thing related to Lovecraft because I'm such a huge fan of his work. Perhaps I am a fan after all, or perhaps his work is just everywhere. I have no particular interest in vampires -- if anything, I'm tired of them -- but I have included them in Gothic Earth and played board game based on them and seen them in movies.
I guess it's a question of identity: Do I merely like something, or do I like something so much that I become "a fan," which makes it a part of who I am? I don't "like" very many things on Facebook because I don't want to feel reduced to such simple attributes, or to declare a piece of pop culture to be so important to me that it's a part of me. And that's a sort of lie, because some pop culture IS a part of me; I can name a dozen books and movies and shows off the top of my head that have influenced my personality and worldview and creative process.
Back when punk bands used to turn up often in Rock Block on this site, Steve Dunn used to call me a fan of punk music. I'm not, at all, and I never found out whether Steve was sincerely mistaken or messing with me; I gave up and played along as if he was kidding. Perhaps it's the lack of any declaration of fandom that led him to fill in the gap with an observation about what I seemed to like, and it's the same with my Lovecraft-minded friend more recently. If we don't take control of our identity, we let others define us, even if it's something as trivial as our feelings about a particular piece of culture.
Three Replies to No R'lyeh, I'm Not a Fan
Tony Peters | May 23, 2013
In Highschool I read everything he wrote and made yearly pilgrimages to his grave in Providence (its very understated). The one story I really want to see as a movie is "At the mountains of Madness"
Scott Hardie | May 27, 2013
Good point about waiting in line, Lori. A friend of mine said yesterday, "I've never bought tickets to anything months in advance. I've never camped out on the sidewalk. I've never gone to a midnight premiere of a movie. Getting up in the middle of the night to watch Arrested Development's fourth season on Netflix is all I have. Let me enjoy it!"
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
Parting Thought
I read in the news today that a British businessman will get to visit space in 2009 on his frequent-flyer miles alone. (link) I bet this gives David Phillips a damn good idea. (link) Go »Protecting the Children
"Oh yeah, well you can suck my anus!" "Dude, watch your language! There are kids around." Go »Weakened
A friend (new GOO devotee Aaron Weiss) once said he had read about a psychological study that found people don't feel like they've had a weekend if they didn't have free time on Friday night. That was my experience this weekend: At the office till eight, then sitting down with pizza and a DVD only to nod off on the couch by nine thirty. I may have woken up refreshed on Saturday morning, but there was this crushing feeling that the weekend was almost over, that sort of numbing dread you feel every Sunday night an hour before bed. Go »The Serpent
This is the third of four weekly blog posts about diagnoses that have completely changed my life since the pandemic started, after The Dragon and The Tiger. 2020 was hard on all of us. We all lost friends and family. Go »White Christmas
We're enjoying our winter vacation in central Illinois so far. Tue 12/22 - When you're hitting the road for your vacation right after work is over, every extra minute feels like an hour, which means I did 45 hours of overtime. The drive was easier than we thought, probably because we had days to prepare this time. Go »
Lori Lancaster | May 23, 2013
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