By Jack Salaki
Opinions Editor
We live in a time of infinite abundance.
Through the spread of the internet, social media and other technologies, access to information is limitless, allowing a person to explore any topic and gain knowledge that wouldn’t have been possible in the past without a formal education.
That also translates to our entertainment.
Consider this: 40 years ago, there were three major news channels. Now there are dozens. Before the advent of streaming, you were stuck with a few options for entertainment. There were more limitations to what you could experience.
Today, you can choose to watch cable TV. Or you can watch TV on Netflix, HBO, Disney, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Apple or any of the numerous streaming platforms. That also applies to music, books and gaming.
Then there’s the creation of social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram, which allow people to share content about anything they are interested in, vastly increasing entertainment options even further.
The point is: entertainment is everywhere. If you want to read Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” which was written over 200 years ago, you can do that. Or maybe you are curious to listen to an old Beatles album from the 1960s. You can do that too with essentially no cost.
There are real questions about the effect that so much information and entertainment can have on us. I’ve written about this before and the importance of cultivating a media diet.
But ultimately, the staggering access to so much information and, more specifically, entertainment, makes it the best time to be a fan, since there is so much to see.
Fans, by my definition, are people who are interested in and admire specific pieces of artwork, pop culture, sports teams or even just have hobbies that they are interested in: whether it’s watching your favorite football team and following them intensely, or listening to every album from a musician you love — that’s all apart of being a fan.
And it isn’t just about “consumption.” A fan is someone who cares deeply about things and has a relationship with the things they care about.
Yet, finding that connection requires looking past the surface.
It’s often overlooked and underappreciated how much cool stuff there is out there which can often be buried by lesser quality mainstream entertainment.
And although there is a decrease in quality of entertainment in some ways such as with big blockbusters or certain mainstream artists, there’s still a lot to be a fan about.
The world contains an absurd amount of fun stuff waiting for people to find it, and trying to discover the good stuff is a part of the experience. Being a fan embodies this mindset.
You can start to appreciate more things in everyday life by seeing them through the same passion that you see what you are a fan of: whether you're a music fan, sports fan or movie fan, you can take that appreciation for your fandom and translate it into other parts of your life. This creates an interesting contrast.
There are many unsolved and growing problems in the world today, many of which affect your life or my life.
You don’t have to ignore the problems of the world. You can still talk about them and figure out ways to solve them, or even just joke about them if that helps. But you also don’t have to have let the problems of the world take up all your attention.
It reminds me of a line from “Lord of the Rings,” when Frodo tells Gandalf that he wished all the bad things hadn’t happened in his age. He wished he lived in a peaceful world where war and destruction were not something that he had to experience.
Gandalf responds by saying: “So do I,” “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.”
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
That’s part of what being a fan is about.
We don’t get to choose the world we live in. We don’t get to decide the problems that will be given to us.
But we do have a say in what we want to see in the world, and what we want to pay attention to.
Being a fan is one small way of enjoying the time we’ve been given.
And maybe that's why it's the best time to be a fan.
The world is far from perfect, but there's also never been more to discover, to appreciate, and find more things that make life just a little more interesting.
