Addiction wears many coats

We live in a society that has long bought the ticket of feeling like we are 'entitled to what ever we want, when we want it.' You can see evidence of this everywhere from driving on a freeway, to customers making demands on sales associates and other people in service roles. We are a demanding lot; GIVE IT TO ME, GIVE IT TO ME NOW. The perception of how this energy affects another is buried in the concept of one's fear of not getting for themselves. This is expressed in all aspects of our world now.

It is profoundly expressed in the world of fandom. Yeah, I am talking about celebrity worship by fans who can be as benign as those who frequent shows once a year to those who have spent fortunes, going into debt seeing the same show over and over, year after year, month after month. Others purchase just about every conceivable item that is connected with the idol of their admiration. I was definitely NOT prepared for what I observed on the internet with regard to fan behavior.

Fan behavior is not so unusual but it is certainly fits in the category of addiction in its own unique place. All of us walking on the planet want to feel special, acknowledged in some way or another by those who we put in a high regard. That is natural. It is part of the psychological development of people to want to feel special. Some of us receive it from family, by one or both parents instilling in us that we are loved and valued as children. Some who don't get that from home might get it from a teacher or a friend growing up. Other's still might be able to see and develop their talents and skills and feel a sense of value through that. All of us get it from somewhere to some degree or another. But what I have discovered about fans on line is that there are many fans, who surely appear to have missed the message that they are valuable. I am not talking about casual fans, I am talking about die hard, lost in their celebrity worship addiction.

I have observed fans who build up their idol to such a degree that they want to make a connection with their hero (disregarding and healthy boundaries), either by meeting them over and over, attempting to contact them privately, or going through the mental acrobatics to make sure they are present when their object of worship is walking out of a restaurant or going into one. There is a fan who ran a fan club at one time who kept a signed item that was to be auctioned off for a charity. Another fan was so bold as to travel to their idol's home to take pictures of service delivery trucks driving up the driveway. Another fan stalked her idol in an outside shop and took pictures from a distance. Still another fan offered unsolicited (not so) helpful advice as to how to run the public relations aspect of a celebrity's career. To an extreme some celebrities died because of an over enthusiastic fan, i.e. the gal who played the sister of the actress who played Mindy in Mork and Mindy. That is an example of someone wanting a connection so much from a celebrity, they lost all sense of decency. Pretty scary. Thank God, this doesn't happen all that often, but it happens enough that most celebrities hire HUGE security beefy types for protection.

Another aspect of fan addiction is exhibited in how fans treat fellow fans. The compulsion not to be out done runs rampant in the fan world. The addiction or need to feel special by gaining the adulation by other fans can be so overwhelming that there is a competition among them. There is nothing wrong with competition in of itself, but what one competes for dictates some competition as being unhealthy. What I am talking about is the harsh treatment and judgement fans have for one another. It almost is raised to the level of contempt. And sadly the behavior among fans reduces down to middle aged people behaving like school yard bullies. This behavior occurs all in the name of addiction and the gross perception of feeling undervalued.

One could write a doctorate thesis on fanatical behavior with celebrities' fans and I am sure it isn't so simplistic, but if you reduce all of this behavior to it's lowest common denominator you get the bottom line: People want to feel special, and when they don't they can go off on some pretty sad extremes to try to find that 'special' feeling or value. It is kind of sad when I think about it. One of the saddest things about fan worshipping celebrities is that the object of their adulation couldn't give one darn about these fans on a personal level. Not one iota! The fans are a means to an end. The celebrity sells a product, the product is entertainment. The fan buys it and enjoys a show, and if the fan is like any of the examples stated above, they want more, because they are addiction to wanting that 'feel special' feeling and will break any boundary to get it. How sad.

How sad! True sense of value comes from within a power that NO celebrity can give. Celebrities are only human with the same frailties and foibles we all have. But that is how it is with addiction, we cannot see just how valuable we really are when we are asleep in unconsciousness. Addiction blinds us to our true value. Lost in the addiction of celebrity worship closes off the portal to the true divine. And the really paradoxical thing is, in the eyes of the divine NO ONE is better than the next. We are all on the same footing because the divine looks at the heart, not all the outer stuff that we will have to let go of when we pass through to the next dimension.