I don't like the concept of a fan

[Tyler Robinson]

Do you believe in being  someone's fan. People say they are Kanye's fans. There are Tate fans. Leo Gura fans. 

Personally I don't like being someone's fan. You can't really appreciate someone forever. People change. Things change. 

One day you're a fan of someone. Next day you read about a scandal they were involved in and all your aspirations and dreams about that person crumbles to the ground like a house turning to cinders. 

I think it's a sign of intellectual maturity to not give into the silly game of being tacitly attached to someone, it's a game of validation, and a way of simping yourself in the process. 

It actually hurts your personal development, you grow deeper into the biased rabbit hole and drink the Kool aid directly from the cup and lose your sense of self and integrity in the process. 

Tiktok is a great reminder of this phenomenon online. You see many people on Tiktok claiming to be fans of people they have barely watched or known anything about. 

It looks appealing but is dangerously misleading. I see it tantamount to peer pressure and equally harmful on your self development journey. I don't know your thoughts and perspectives on this subject. 

It inhibits critical thinking and increases dependency on social validation. 

I try to keep it simple. My strategy is this. Appreciate the person in the moment for what they do in that moment. Don't become a fan. Don't be attached to a person.. That way you will have less disappointments when  things go south. 

The intellectually matured thing to do is to take in all the good things, keep yourself open to all kinds of possibilities, never be a hard fan, never lose critical thinking and never be shy from turning away from what doesn't go with your general values and principles, not be afraid to speak your mind, criticize when you can, appreciate when you can, you'll never be blindsided, brainwashed and never fall into rabbit holes. 

You never have to be on someone's camp or deal with the burdens of being a fan.

This way you allow minimum influence in your life and maximum gain. At the same time you stay grounded and morally sane. 

No need to guilt yourself if you aren't someone's fan, you don't have to be and you don't have to submit to this pathetic culture. You can be a lonewolf and be proud. 

Perspectives welcome. 

 

[LastThursday]

11 hours ago, Tyler Robinson said:

Don't be attached to a person.

That's the key insight. We can extend that idea to everything in life. We want to aim for a life where we're masters at the art of not gripping on too tightly to anything, being loose and flowing, knowing when to release our grip and let go. Change is constant, and we should constantly change.

[Yarco]

I think being a casual fan or admiring the quality of someone's work is okay. The problem is when you become obsessed. Female fans throwing themselves at rockstars and that sort of thing.

A big problem in the modern day is parasocial relationships. People don't have as many friends in real life, so they take their fan status to the next level where they become almost delusional and feel like they have a friendship with the Youtuber, Twitch Streamer, or whoever they watch. People are spending 3 hours a day watching a streamer play video games, and in their brain it's like they're hanging out with a friend. It even feels like the streamer acknowledges their chat messages and knows them on the same level. But if the fan ever met them in real life, they'd be heartbroken at how little their hero knows or cares about them.

You don't have to be a fan of something forever. That's a big part of the reason why I don't have any tattoos. I don't think I've consistently been a fan of something for long enough that I'd want it permanently on my body. Either I wouldn't care about it any more, or it'd make me actively cringe in 10 years.

I think going full "sigma male" (or female) and having 0 role models or people that you look up to isn't healthy either. You have to be pretty narcissistic to not be a fan of anyone except yourself.

I'm a big fan (no pun intended) of the idea "Never meet your heroes." I never want to meet anybody that I look up to. Because even as a casual fan, I have this very limited and perfect idea of what I think that person is. I only see edited video or audio clips of them they want me to see, from a specific angle. If I see my hero being rude to hotel staff, or sitting slumped over eating a sandwich, it's going to totally ruin my image of them.

I've only been around a few minor celebrities, and that's weird as heck by itself. I can't imagine talking to a world-class musician or author, or even having my picture taken next to someone like Jordan Peterson. It's like those people are just concepts and ideas. They're avatars. To see that they're actual mortal people that occupy physical space, kind of ruins everything.

The people we watch... Destiny, Vaush, Jordan Peterson, David Pakman, Ben Shapiro, Joe Biden, MrBeast, Leo, Charli D'Amelio, Pewdiepie, etc etc.... they're almost more like a modern-day pantheon. Like our modern equivalent of Greek and Roman mythology, rather than actual people and public figures. In our minds we've already subconsciously elevated them to the stuff of myth and legends. We can't even see them as people any more.

[King Merk]

Yea fuck fans. All they do is spin around and around and around. Like cmon. Go do something productive with your life fans.

But for real there’s nothing wrong with looking up to someone. In my personal life I view “fanship” as more akin to “mentorship”.

The people I’m a fan of is because they have attributes that I’d like to embody in my own life.

Nothing wrong at all with looking up to people & aspiring to be similar in skill set as they are. Just be aware of the trappings of worshipping authority figures and falling into cult dynamics. 

[SOUL]

From what I see happening with people is not just the attachment to the person or  maybe it's more accurate to say the 'persona', it's the attachment to the ideas and concepts of the persona/mentor that people adopt from them.

People will build their own paradigm to emulate what they believe is what their mentors have and the attachment to the paradigm and mentor become so entwined together that if anything happens to the mentor in their perception the paradigm gets shaken.

If someone challenges the mentor they are also challenging the paradigm, if the mentor has a scandal the paradigm is tarnished, if the mentor appears flawed the paradigm also appears flawed. It's almost impossible to separate the mentor from the paradigm.

Even those who will attempt to outwardly portray that they don't 'follow' a person but that they just have some 'good ideas' you also see that person spending much time and effort defending the person and the ideas they have adopted from them.

There's also a whole other aspect that if someone likes some ideas from a person they will unconsciously give added credibility to much of the rest of their ideas and even adopting the rest as well often unconsciously as well.

Another unconscious psychological habit is a significant amount of conceptual priming happens so even if people 'do their own research' or is 'from their own direct experience' it inevitably mirrors what they heard from that person.

So the attachment to the persona/mentor is compounded by the ideological paradigm they believe which creates a powerful entanglement in people that they identify with. It becomes a house of cards that is easily disturbed and they will tirelessly defend.

Edited October 29, 2022 by SOUL

[Yog]

On 10/27/2022 at 3:21 AM, Tyler Robinson said:

I try to keep it simple. My strategy is this. Appreciate the person in the moment for what they do in that moment. Don't become a fan. Don't be attached to a person.. That way you will have less disappointments when  things go south. 

Exactly, there you have it!

To put a spin on it:
Expectation = Disappointment.
Disappointment = No gratitude.
No Expectations = Gratitude.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Yog