Just like the iPhone
Judging by my friends page recently, I am the only person on earth who does not care about Harry Potter. Don't get me wrong, I have no animosity towards anyone who does care, but I am just not interested. Want to spoil it for me? Go ahead! (But you might not want to do it in the comments, as there are people on my f-list who will FUCKING KILL YOU.)
The strange thing is, I still want to be excited by these things, but I just can't be. I don't have the ability to remember tiny details that is required to really be a part of a fandom. I can't stay interested in any given franchise long enough to see it through, and frankly I don't think most things require the number of episodes/sequels/whatever that they receive. The problem with fandom in general is that it revolves around products of the mass media, and the mass media are incapable of letting anything go at one installment if they think more money can be squeezed out of it. So while good things happen, those good things are almost always ruined (for me) by being turned into a series of increasingly mediocre things. Even franchises that I still enjoy--the Series of Unfortunate Events books, for example--have installments that seem, to me, wholly unnecessary from an artistic standpoint, and therefore a waste of my time.
Of course this could also be something to do with my attention span decreasing as I get older. The more music I review for KXUA, the more I feel like most albums that are released really didn't need to be LPs, as all but the very best albums have about 4 songs that I will listen to more than once, and a bunch of stuff that sounds like it's there to pad the overall running time because LPs are considered greater artistic achievements than EPs. But I have come to be of the opinion that an LP with a few great songs and a bunch of throw-aways (and by this, I mean almost every LP I listen to) is an equal or lesser achievement to an EP with 3-5 songs that are all incredibly good. By the same token, not every film needs to be part of a trilogy, not every video game needs to be a franchise, and not every TV show requires multiple seasons.
This may seem tangential to my apathy towards Harry Potter, but really it is not. If Harry Potter were a single book--three books, even--I would probably be willing to crack it open and have a go at it. But seeing all the books that stretch before me, I think of the time commitment that is involved in finishing them, and I know that I simply am not possessed of that sort of time to commit. So even if you do tell me exactly how it all turns out, I will likely forget it before the next time I think "I should really try to read those books" and then decide I just don't have enough time.
The strange thing is, I still want to be excited by these things, but I just can't be. I don't have the ability to remember tiny details that is required to really be a part of a fandom. I can't stay interested in any given franchise long enough to see it through, and frankly I don't think most things require the number of episodes/sequels/whatever that they receive. The problem with fandom in general is that it revolves around products of the mass media, and the mass media are incapable of letting anything go at one installment if they think more money can be squeezed out of it. So while good things happen, those good things are almost always ruined (for me) by being turned into a series of increasingly mediocre things. Even franchises that I still enjoy--the Series of Unfortunate Events books, for example--have installments that seem, to me, wholly unnecessary from an artistic standpoint, and therefore a waste of my time.
Of course this could also be something to do with my attention span decreasing as I get older. The more music I review for KXUA, the more I feel like most albums that are released really didn't need to be LPs, as all but the very best albums have about 4 songs that I will listen to more than once, and a bunch of stuff that sounds like it's there to pad the overall running time because LPs are considered greater artistic achievements than EPs. But I have come to be of the opinion that an LP with a few great songs and a bunch of throw-aways (and by this, I mean almost every LP I listen to) is an equal or lesser achievement to an EP with 3-5 songs that are all incredibly good. By the same token, not every film needs to be part of a trilogy, not every video game needs to be a franchise, and not every TV show requires multiple seasons.
This may seem tangential to my apathy towards Harry Potter, but really it is not. If Harry Potter were a single book--three books, even--I would probably be willing to crack it open and have a go at it. But seeing all the books that stretch before me, I think of the time commitment that is involved in finishing them, and I know that I simply am not possessed of that sort of time to commit. So even if you do tell me exactly how it all turns out, I will likely forget it before the next time I think "I should really try to read those books" and then decide I just don't have enough time.