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 »
R.I.P. Bob
My friend and former co-worker Bob, who provided us with jerky at GooCon: Siesta Key, recently passed away of a sudden illness. He was a quirky dude, occasionally given to hostile pranks, but usually a delightful and friendly presence whenever he saw you. I don't know how much his service in Vietnam warped him, but he definitely wasn't like anyone else I knew, prone to making weird jokes and unexplained connections between ideas. Go »Solitaire
Right now, I don't think I could write emotionally about my feelings from last night as well as I could have in the moment, but I haven't finished considering them and this is a part of that process. Long story short, I found myself passing on friends who really wanted to spend time with me in order to sit here and write code for Celebrity Goo Game, and I came to question what the hell I was doing. As in, my whole lifestyle. Go »Trekkers Will Understand
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Kelly and I still have our annual passes to Disney World, but we've had more trouble going recently because of disabilities that slow us down. A friend suggested joining a busy Facebook group for Disney World fans like us who struggle with disabilities and share advice with each other. I clicked the button to join, and up popped a 4-question form asking questions that are required for membership. Go »February 10-16
I don't really blog much about my day-to-day existence because it feels too mundane. But life is made up of those little days, and we don't get an accurate picture of each other's lives if we only discuss the big events. Here's a snapshot of my life last week. Go »
Lori Lancaster | May 23, 2013
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