The ongoing crisis of government-manipulated ADHD medication shortage in this country is not affecting me, but in all honestly it probably should be. My TikTok algorithm is certainly confident in its assessment that I have some combination of attentive disorder and autism spectrum difficulties. I did acquire Ritalin once in college by means of a v v sketchy doctor near campus who had me fill out a two-page form, took one look at it, and handed me back a script—but I never finished the first bottle, because the stuff even at a low dose made me feel all squidgy.
And also, to some extent, because as various minor professional successes mounted I began to consider my brain’s exhausting peccadilloes as assets in my career and not something to be pharmaceutically suppressed. Sure, I couldn’t stick it out in my first (and thus far only) full-time desk job with great benefits because it was driving me fucking insane, but by quitting that gig out of psychological desperation I launched myself into a series of wacky positions that ended up teaching me an incredible amount about my own capabilities.
Merely being able to define my career goals as simply “never having to medicate in order to produce work” has been immensely clarifying. I dislike being bored; I’ve done my best to make my constant pursuit of stimulation something which benefits me holistically, instead of distracting from what I’m “supposed” to be doing. Now, I’m not always successful at that, but generally this way I’m driven, however eccentrically, by my own interests, which so far have never failed to lead me into situations and scenes which have been both personally enjoyable and (more importantly) relatively profitable.
On that note I’ve started columning on Wednesdays for Today in Tabs! Here’s my first one. These pieces will be probably A) shorter and B) more eclectic and wide-ranging than Allegra’s Corner was. I’m very excited!!!!
This week in fandom
What do we talk about when we talk about fan culture? As I’ve written about previously, there’s a desperate need for more nuanced semantic taxonomies when it comes to discussing the way people act online about what the fuck ever.
In a Jezebel piece on the Bieber-Gomez “feud” the blame for abuse received by celebrities is laid at the feet of young fans: “[F]andom, delusion, and social media have rendered pretty much anyone who criticizes a beloved artist or public person a sitting duck for coordinated harassment campaigns.”
I mean, it’s correlated, sure. But the fulfillment the average user can find as a participant in scenes of morally motivated networked harassment is not necessarily directly caused by their identity as a fan.
The daily cause célèbre of pop culture blame and shame, whether it’s Depp vs. Heard or Bieber vs. Gomez, is much larger than what I perceive to be the living, breathing beast of online fandom. Instead, the kind of bandwagoning which sprawls to include brands like Duolingo getting in on the “fun” is more like itchy, parasitic barnacled accretion on the back of it.
I suppose I just don’t know how useful it is for the word “fan” to be deployed in this context. I wish we could figure out another way to frame it. Saying “stan” instead I guess is a start? But that’s also sort of inadequate and unserious.
My wish does, I admit, sort of comes from a defensive posture within myself, being that I regard fandom as something broadly positive which emerges from shared enthusiasm. Maybe that’s stupid or overly optimistic. But once the name of the game becomes “who are we doing it versus?” I think any given viral phenomenon has ceased to become the property of fan culture and instead is just something that people are doing, for better and for worse.
This week in polar exploration
I’ve recently been volunteering with the Frederick Cook Society in Hurleyville, NY, which occupies one room in the Sullivan County Museum with exhibits on the life of literal legend Fred Cook. The mad lad was a doctor, explorer, cutie, claimant to the North Pole, sketchy oilman, convicted felon, and consummate pursuer of the American Dream. For a basic intro to him I highly recommend Julian Sancton’s brilliant Madhouse at the End of the Earth, which will also introduce you to his bestie Roald Amundsen. Yeah, the South Pole guy!
Local museums are beautiful, miraculous places; more or less universally underfunded and understaffed. My fellow volunteers and I have been building bookshelves to store the FCS’s sizable polar library, which had been sitting in stacks on the floor of the Cook display room for probably decades.
And in the process of cataloguing and shelving the books, we came across a previously unseen and unknown letter sent from Amundsen to Cook at Leavenworth Prison, tucked away in Cook’s personal copy of Amundsen’s book The First Flight Across the Polar Sea.
Like… what?????? It was just sitting in there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s insane. Anyway, HISTORY IS FUN.