I’ve always been an obsessive person, and I don’t really know why.
It’s been since I was a kid, watching High School Musical and thinking I was in love with Troy Bolton, and watching Hannah Montana wishing I was secretly a pop star too. I watched shows and movies, listened to music, and immediately wanted to become all of those things in the movies and TV shows and music videos I watched. Troy Bolton was all over my walls, and I recreated all of Hannah Montana’s outfits (see below). It was all consuming. I just needed everything about my obsessions all around me all the time.
As I got older and found the internet, I realized that I wasn’t alone in feeling like this. It seemed as though everyone else on Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram also had intense obsessions. By then, my obsessions matured with me, and I instead became obsessed with Fall Out Boy and One Direction, even though I don't really remember which came first. It was hard to be emo and a boyband fan at the same time, yet I persisted. Obsessives on the internet, including me, felt compelled to constantly repost pictures, read fan fiction, talk about all of these things that in reality had little to do with our lives outside of our heads. But why?
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When I started brainstorming for this project, I thought long and hard about stuff that I cannot stop thinking about. How I really need to find a job, my dogs being cute, and how the general state of the world is going into the shitter. But, one looming thing I’ve never been able to not think about is what I’m obsessed with at the moment. During winter break, before starting my capstone project, my obsession was mainly with Pedro Pascal, and I could not stop consuming content all about him. I’ve watched so many of his movies (even the bad ones), scoured TikTok (R.I.P.?) for edits and interview clips of him, and added to my private Pinterest board new images of him that I found everyday. I really connected with him for some reason, and it felt like something more than a celebrity crush. I was really drawn to his personality and charisma that he showed through his work, and when I was down, looking at Pedro actually did kinda make me feel better. I genuinely felt some sort of connection to him.
If you’re thinking, “Wow, Ava, isn’t that kind of vulnerable to write in your capstone project introduction? Before even getting into the project, basically looking inside of your brain?”
Well, honestly, you’re probably right. I have done some embarrassing things when it comes to my celebrity obsessions, which you will be reading about at the start of this project. However, through writing this piece of work, I knew that I had to share these thoughts in a place that really takes them seriously. No bullshit, no patronizing, just real, unadulterated, fan behavior. See, these kinds of things really do affect our lives, whether or not they are physically present. If it’s happening in your head, it can be just as good as real. And, even though it’s sometimes kinda embarrassing, I don’t really care, and you shouldn’t either. Well, at least, hopefully you feel that way after reading this project.
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What I am trying to get at is that my capstone really came from my tendencies towards the obsessive, and my love for the things I love, which usually tend to be pop culture related, or more generally, unrelated to anything deemed useful in our society. I’m not a math genius, I’m not curing diseases in chemistry labs, and I’m definitely not reading up on the economy (unless my dad explains to me what it all means). I’m kind of a sponge when it comes to learning about contemporary life and the human experience, and since, as a concept, it's something I’m drawn to, I cannot get enough of it. When I love, I love a lot. Even if what I am loving is rewatching The Sopranos, and subsequently overanalyzing all of the dream sequences to see what David Chase was really trying to say about the Madonna-Whore complex. Even if what I love is a video essay about the made up beef between Audrey Hepburn and Julie Andrews during the 1965 Academy Awards. And, even if what I love is watching a podcast where two people make up facts and talk about things they know nothing about. No matter what, the passion I have for what I love runs deep, and I am here to spread that love. I hope you enjoy this peek into the inner workings of my mind, and hopefully learn a couple of things a long the way.
