In reading my classmates blogs I noticed a common fandom that was in so many of them I just couldn’t escape it. Nothing wrong with it, I just noticed that it was a very big thing, and it’s not always a medium that is associated with some of the connections that were made. For instance, I first noticed in Sarah Murphy’s 4th week blog post that she picked her favorite Anti-Trump songs. And this went along with protest music, something I actually know a little bit about.

One of her chosen songs was this one here:

Certainly a different one than the only one I knew.

My first experience with protest songs was a song not intended for protest at all actually. If anyone here has heard of Buffalo Springfield or POCO, you probably know this song. Hell, even if you’ve never heard of Buffalo Springfield or POCO you now this song. I am willing to bet money most people reading this have heard of it. It’s called “For What It’s Worth”. Still don’t think you’ve heard of it?

Still saying that? Alright. I trust you now. But listen to it, it’s a good song. And I’m not just saying that because I know someone who may or may not be in that music video. Anyway. Not the point here.

The point here is this is something I don’t often consider but is an important note. Music does count as a fandom, something I sort of forgot about actually, and it is a great way to help make the world a better place.The important thing to remember with music is that it’s much easier to spread it around. To quote my classmate Sarah Murphy here “What is different today about protest music is that the digital era has allowed for songs to spread faster than ever before. Music spreads like wildfire in the online public sphere, and musicians are taking advantage of this fact.”

Unlike most of my usual fandoms, this is an easier spread. One click, and three to four minutes later you have fully taken in this fandom. You don’t have to sit down and read a whole book or get invested in a TV show. You don’t even have to sit through an hour and half movie. Less than five minutes later and you’ve absorbed this medium that does a great way of getting the message across. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s obvious.

And since we are discussing music I want to leave you with my favorite feels music video that may have actually saved lives.

Harry Potter - Part 2 - RP

This is part two my friends, and here we will be discussing Harry Potter once more and how it has affected my life, the lives of the people around me, and why it is so important to let yourself do this (and by this I mean get involved in popular culture and fandom).

Lets start with truth time, I was not a very involved kid. I looked theatre, and I was decently an all around nerd. I wasn’t exactly fighting to figure out my weekend plans with multiple people. But, in High School, I was introduced to something that has literally changed my life. And that would be online forum based role play.

What is Forum based role play you may ask?

Well I am certainly glad you asked.

Forum based Role Play, or just RP for short, is when you take a website like forumotion or proboards, and you use it to RP. For this post we will be specifically discussion a board I have been a part of for two years now. You create an application, usually using a provided template, and when it’s been accepted you RP. I’m not going to go into too much detail explaining, I’m just going to provide you with links to show you what I’m talking about.

Here is one of my more recent applications: http://phmerp.proboards.com/thread/743/ramos-elena

And here is a not yet completed thread that I’m a part of (I play Marlene): http://phmerp.proboards.com/thread/633/bulletproof-lydia

If you want to click around feel free, I’m proud of so many of my posts, we all are, we love when people read our things.

RP was a way for me to connect to other people using a medium I loved dearly. Harry Potter is, without a doubt, my favorite fandom. I’ve gone so in depth with my characters and my learning, I’m sort of an expert in that borderline creepy way. Seriously, I’ve corrected Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit. Ask me anything, I dare you.

When I was younger, RP connected me with people who I really got along with. I still see what they’re up to on Facebook and it reminds me of what those sites once were. Now that I’m older, I’ve begin to make real life friendships with these online people. My best friend lives in Washington, I have another close friend who ended up moving to Denver and had Christmas dinner at my house. Another close friend lives in Canada, and I even know someone back on the east coast (where I grew up) and who I got to meet in person over the last winter break.

Because of these connections I’ve been to Mount Rainier and the Space Needle. My best friend is like 99% of the reason I got my first tattoo (Harry Potter themed of course). The other 1% is me wanting to but not wanting to go alone.

Another thing I love about RP is that it allows me to keep my writing going. I’m a creative person, and the way I kept my creativity is through my forms of art, and writing is my biggest one. I can write anywhere. I have the ability to crate complex characters with different personalities and life experiences and write from their perspectives. I’m not tied down to certain experiences because I can put myself in their shoes. It has allowed me more empathy, well that and theatre.

When you connect to people through a singular medium like fandom, you realize you can meet people from all different walks of life. People who are older and people who are younger. People who are gay or straight, you don’t know who you’ll get to meet. I managed to meet so many people this way, and it really allows me to see life from other people’s eyes. I can really explore.

RP has also given me potentially valuable skills. If you can believe it I can, for the most part, code this post in HTML. I still require some help for images, but for the most part I can do it. I’ve also learned BBCode, which isn’t the same but close enough. I’ve become more able to run through the internet and learn how to do things. I taught myself photoshop before taking a photo class in High School. For the most part, everything I’ve made I learned by doing.

This is just one example.

You can learn so much from places you would never expect, and opening yourself up is the first step. The reason I am confident in my writing skills is because of RP. The reason I can be confident in my theatre life is because of RP. I’ve learned skills, even so far as knowing how to communicate something potentially controversial because people from all walks of life can do this. And if nothing else, everyone should know how to write an email or a letter or even a blog post. And this has helped me retain the skills I know I’ll be using for a very long time, and these skills are helpful to everyone.

That fandom life man.

It’s not just for nerds anymore.