Amy's latest efforts at Celebrity Manipulation--Misha Collins
Got an anonymous message today from yet another Supernatural fan. How many of Amy Player's strategies can YOU identify? We should make up a Bingo game for this stuff:
Hello, you don't actually know me. I have nothing to do with any of the things Andy Blake did before joining the Supernatural fandom. Honestly, I have only recently heard of him. At first, I stumbled across him via Tumblr and though he was a rather over-zealous fan and lover of Misha Collins (Common enough in the Supernatural fandom, actually), though a few posts seemed...Off to me. In the last week or so, however, I was looking through the Internet about the Casandra Clare issue to clear something up with my sister and, through various fandom wank LJ sites, came across the long, convoluted story of Andy. A few things he posted about Tumblr make way more sense now and I do not see anyone talking about his more recent exploits. As someone who would like to get his story out to the Internet, foremost the SPN fandom, but who doesn't have the resources to do so, I was hoping you could help me or point me towards someone who can help me.
Okay, so recently Andy participated in a thing know as GISHWHES (The Greatest Scavenger Hunt Ever Known.), a week-long scavenger hunt put on by Misha Collins. The grand prize is a trip to met Misha Collins in Vancouver. He claims that the group he signed up with didn't do the amount of work he was expecting, forcing him to do more then he thought he would. He put together a group of his friends instead and went to work on the list. Fair enough, I guess. He claims to have gotten 44 items from the list of more then 150. Again, fair enough. That's when things get interesting. According to him, when it came time to turn in the photos and videos for the GISHWHES list, several things stopped him from fully uploading all of his images and videos. First, the person he asked to edit his videos apparently did not do all of it time, because he pissed off the editor. Second, he lost the camera taking a nap a few hours before everything was due to be uploaded. Third, the website kept crashing towards the end.
Honestly? I can't speak for the first two excuses, but the last one I can call bullshit on. I had that website almost 24/7 during the hunt and it only crashed at the beginning of the hunt. The last three or so hours of the hunt, I was continuously on it, helping to upload pictures for my own team. It didn't crash once. However, I find it strange that he chose to upload ALL of the submissions at the END of the hunt. Why not upload them as you go?
Now, that wouldn't have shocked me so much, first time doing the hunt and he made some shitty mistakes. Whatever. But, now armed with knowledge of his obsession with celebrities, currently Misha Collins in particular, things seem to be a little more clear. He has decided to try and appeal to the judges of GISHWHES (Made up of Misha Collins and only about six other people.) to accept his submissions. See how few judges there are, and how active Misha is with his fans, if he pesters enough, Misha is BOUND to see it. If he wins, not only did Misha do him a favor by letting in his late submissions, but he gets to spend about an entire weekend with the man. It seems, if the accounts I've read are correct, this all plays into his fantasies about celebrities and other people.
Of course, though, according to him, none of this is for himself. No, it's because his good friend, Jen, REALLY wants to met Misha Collins. Wielding power via celebrities, much?
Now, the reason I am so concerned is two-fold. First, I worry for the Supernatural fandom on Tumblr. Most, I won't lie to you, are young, naive, teenage girls. Most of my friends fall into this category. They have lulled themselves into this false sense of security that if someone is in their fandom and they talk to them enough, they have no ulterior motives. It would be EXTREMELY easy to manipulate these people in much the same way he did with those in the LOTR fandom all those years ago. Perhaps even more, since the entire indecent seems to have fallen out of memory and his blog either makes light of it when it is brought up or he makes it seem like everyone involved is making most of it up. I feel, in the bottom of my heart, that it would be almost easier then the LOTR fandom. Most of these girls are pretty much begging to preyed upon on the Internet by people like Andy. (Not that, if they did, it would be their fault. They just form extremely close relationships with people on the Internet and feel they are closer to these people then the ones they know in real life. They also tend to reveal secrets/very personal stuff to these online friends.) I worry that the more popular Andy becomes, the more likely he is to take advantage of these girls.
Secondly, I worry about, perhaps foolishly, Misha Collins himself. Much like Sean Astin, Misha Collins is a very charitable, very nice man. He runs multiple charities already, most notably RandomActs and one that works to build orphanages in Haiti. He runs marathons for charities and does various other good deeds in the community. Most importantly, he is incredibly active with his fanbase, like I stated before. He actively goes out and seeks experiences where he can interact and talk to these people. Now, I'm quite sure that Misha checks up on any fans he might do things with. However, a mere search for Andrew Blake reveals very little about him and next to nothing actually worrying about his previous exploits. Andy could quite easily get Misha Collins on his side, at least for a little, and use Misha's considerable fame to get things he wanted/get people to play into his little power fantasy by using Misha. I do not want that to be on Misha or any of his fans. Essentially, I worried Andy will use Misha much the same way he used Sean Astin. This time, his fan base has gotten considerably wider. No longer is it confined to LOTR fourms and mailing lists, but the whole of Tumblr.
Nothing has changed. Not a single thing! "My camera got stolen right out of my hands JUST as I was about to upload the winning photo from my computer, which had crashed at the same time BTW, and I'd been up for 156 hours straight bottle-feeding homeless kitty cats so I HAD to take a nap..."
LATE EDIT: Hey, if YOU ever heard Amy Player or any of her other aliases use that excuse, leave a comment with your story. We can make a contest out of it. I can send the funniest one a lavender wand or something.
Anyhoo, I advised this fan to google around and find Misha Collins' PR firm, call his PR agent, and tell them that "Andy" is the same individual who conned Sean Astin and half the cast of LOTR. With any luck at all, it'll be the same agency that Sean Astin used, and they won't even need to hear the explanation. The last thing Amy's "inner circle" needs is for Amy to win a meeting with Misha for a whole weekend, and then come home with a million stories of all the soulful channeling they did together.
Enough's enough, already.
Hello, you don't actually know me. I have nothing to do with any of the things Andy Blake did before joining the Supernatural fandom. Honestly, I have only recently heard of him. At first, I stumbled across him via Tumblr and though he was a rather over-zealous fan and lover of Misha Collins (Common enough in the Supernatural fandom, actually), though a few posts seemed...Off to me. In the last week or so, however, I was looking through the Internet about the Casandra Clare issue to clear something up with my sister and, through various fandom wank LJ sites, came across the long, convoluted story of Andy. A few things he posted about Tumblr make way more sense now and I do not see anyone talking about his more recent exploits. As someone who would like to get his story out to the Internet, foremost the SPN fandom, but who doesn't have the resources to do so, I was hoping you could help me or point me towards someone who can help me.
Okay, so recently Andy participated in a thing know as GISHWHES (The Greatest Scavenger Hunt Ever Known.), a week-long scavenger hunt put on by Misha Collins. The grand prize is a trip to met Misha Collins in Vancouver. He claims that the group he signed up with didn't do the amount of work he was expecting, forcing him to do more then he thought he would. He put together a group of his friends instead and went to work on the list. Fair enough, I guess. He claims to have gotten 44 items from the list of more then 150. Again, fair enough. That's when things get interesting. According to him, when it came time to turn in the photos and videos for the GISHWHES list, several things stopped him from fully uploading all of his images and videos. First, the person he asked to edit his videos apparently did not do all of it time, because he pissed off the editor. Second, he lost the camera taking a nap a few hours before everything was due to be uploaded. Third, the website kept crashing towards the end.
Honestly? I can't speak for the first two excuses, but the last one I can call bullshit on. I had that website almost 24/7 during the hunt and it only crashed at the beginning of the hunt. The last three or so hours of the hunt, I was continuously on it, helping to upload pictures for my own team. It didn't crash once. However, I find it strange that he chose to upload ALL of the submissions at the END of the hunt. Why not upload them as you go?
Now, that wouldn't have shocked me so much, first time doing the hunt and he made some shitty mistakes. Whatever. But, now armed with knowledge of his obsession with celebrities, currently Misha Collins in particular, things seem to be a little more clear. He has decided to try and appeal to the judges of GISHWHES (Made up of Misha Collins and only about six other people.) to accept his submissions. See how few judges there are, and how active Misha is with his fans, if he pesters enough, Misha is BOUND to see it. If he wins, not only did Misha do him a favor by letting in his late submissions, but he gets to spend about an entire weekend with the man. It seems, if the accounts I've read are correct, this all plays into his fantasies about celebrities and other people.
Of course, though, according to him, none of this is for himself. No, it's because his good friend, Jen, REALLY wants to met Misha Collins. Wielding power via celebrities, much?
Now, the reason I am so concerned is two-fold. First, I worry for the Supernatural fandom on Tumblr. Most, I won't lie to you, are young, naive, teenage girls. Most of my friends fall into this category. They have lulled themselves into this false sense of security that if someone is in their fandom and they talk to them enough, they have no ulterior motives. It would be EXTREMELY easy to manipulate these people in much the same way he did with those in the LOTR fandom all those years ago. Perhaps even more, since the entire indecent seems to have fallen out of memory and his blog either makes light of it when it is brought up or he makes it seem like everyone involved is making most of it up. I feel, in the bottom of my heart, that it would be almost easier then the LOTR fandom. Most of these girls are pretty much begging to preyed upon on the Internet by people like Andy. (Not that, if they did, it would be their fault. They just form extremely close relationships with people on the Internet and feel they are closer to these people then the ones they know in real life. They also tend to reveal secrets/very personal stuff to these online friends.) I worry that the more popular Andy becomes, the more likely he is to take advantage of these girls.
Secondly, I worry about, perhaps foolishly, Misha Collins himself. Much like Sean Astin, Misha Collins is a very charitable, very nice man. He runs multiple charities already, most notably RandomActs and one that works to build orphanages in Haiti. He runs marathons for charities and does various other good deeds in the community. Most importantly, he is incredibly active with his fanbase, like I stated before. He actively goes out and seeks experiences where he can interact and talk to these people. Now, I'm quite sure that Misha checks up on any fans he might do things with. However, a mere search for Andrew Blake reveals very little about him and next to nothing actually worrying about his previous exploits. Andy could quite easily get Misha Collins on his side, at least for a little, and use Misha's considerable fame to get things he wanted/get people to play into his little power fantasy by using Misha. I do not want that to be on Misha or any of his fans. Essentially, I worried Andy will use Misha much the same way he used Sean Astin. This time, his fan base has gotten considerably wider. No longer is it confined to LOTR fourms and mailing lists, but the whole of Tumblr.
Nothing has changed. Not a single thing! "My camera got stolen right out of my hands JUST as I was about to upload the winning photo from my computer, which had crashed at the same time BTW, and I'd been up for 156 hours straight bottle-feeding homeless kitty cats so I HAD to take a nap..."
LATE EDIT: Hey, if YOU ever heard Amy Player or any of her other aliases use that excuse, leave a comment with your story. We can make a contest out of it. I can send the funniest one a lavender wand or something.
Anyhoo, I advised this fan to google around and find Misha Collins' PR firm, call his PR agent, and tell them that "Andy" is the same individual who conned Sean Astin and half the cast of LOTR. With any luck at all, it'll be the same agency that Sean Astin used, and they won't even need to hear the explanation. The last thing Amy's "inner circle" needs is for Amy to win a meeting with Misha for a whole weekend, and then come home with a million stories of all the soulful channeling they did together.
Enough's enough, already.