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 »
Trial of the Century
I served on my first jury last week, for the gripping case of the Walmart Protein Bar Bandit, accused of a $1.46 theft. Voir dire was oddly focused on whether grazing (eating groceries before you pay for them) was acceptable, whether eating protein right after a workout is important, and whether any of us had strong feelings about the Walmart corporation. Go »Det är inte så farligt
Yesterday, Kelly and I joined friends who had free passes to shop at the new Ikea store in Tampa before it opens to the public. It was our my first time in one of those stores, and it was every bit the harrowing shopping marathon I'd heard it was. For a store that boasts so frequently about how efficient everything is, having you proceed through the store in one long winding line for four hours sure doesn't feel that way, but every store has ways of getting you to buy more than you came for and Ikea has come up with a unique one. Go »World Trade, Like, Something
I love it when two teenagers ring up and bag my groceries. "Did you ever see that Nicolas Cage movie about 9/11? I watched that last night, and, like, it got me thinking about how bad that was." Go »More Than Meets the Eye
Paramount is holding a contest in which one lucky fan will have their line of dialogue added to the upcoming Transformers movie, spoken in character by Optimus Prime. (link) I wonder if they'll take my submission: "I want these motherfucking Decepticons off this motherfucking plane!" Go »Intruder Alert
At 5:30am I was awakened by the doorbell and the sound of someone fumbling with my door. Through the peephole, I watched a young man desperately trying to pick the deadbolt. After a couple of minutes, he gave up and stumbled off towards the other apartments. Go »
Lori Lancaster | May 23, 2013
[hidden by author request]