recognized in public

Something really amusing and heartwarming happened to me recently. 

To the disbelief of those who think I never cared about the years of work I put in with my friends and the dedicated audience it fostered, it's a fact that I think about the experience and those involved on a daily basis. Many of my close friends now, the people that I speak to on a daily basis, were either involved with my creative team directly or met through the project and the social interactions involved. I care deeply for anyone who ever gave our work a chance (no matter what people who inanely believe themselves to know me, and how I think and feel, claim... but that's enough about those types and that flavor of hubris). This is a wonderfully endearing little story. 

Most of the reminiscing, processing, and learning about that period of my life is internal and introspective, though complemented by conversations with my therapist and those whose creative endeavors led to us walking the same path. There's not a lot of actual conversation about the audience going on in my daily life. It doesn't come up, especially due to the fact that I don't publicly play along with the social media games anymore. Do I feel like I'm missing out? A bit, I know there are wonderful people out there who I know I would enjoy talking to. However, as I've written (ad nauseam at this point) elsewhere, the stress and anxiety that prior bad faith actors have induced have completely neutered and gutted the prospect and appeal of maintaining an online presence. I don't want it.

That leads to an interesting conflict: wanting to give thanks to those who appreciate my work, but not wanting to interact with strangers at all. So I simply... don't. It's an ongoing process that I'm working through. 

But recently, a charming remedy and middle ground of this situation threw itself on my lap. 

I was at an outdoor retailer signing for an order of odds and ends I am picking up to learn a few new things and enjoy the outdoors this fall, and had gone through the process of confirming my purchase, showing my receipt, etc. when the clerk stopped me. 

They said something along the lines of, "this may be out of pocket, but..." and I thought they were about to comment on my hat featuring the band Ghost, or something else about our immediate environment, but they continued, "I'm a huge fan of everymanHYBRID on YouTube, and I saw your name on the order and thought, 'there's no way,' but here you are-" and I was astounded. 

I feel so bad, because considering that I was genuinely shocked, I felt like I could only smile and repeat, "that's crazy!" but we were both laughing and smiling and then took a selfie together. If you are reading this, kind clerk, I am sorry if I look completely tired and insane. Never expected this kind of interaction, a decade after the fact, and not at an un-anticipated location. It wouldn’t be as big of a surprise at a convention or something. (This reminds me of the first time we were recognized at the Steampunk World’s Fair, years ago. Two people were dispensing “Tea” and “Not Tea” (alcoholic beverages) in costume. They said my name and that they were fans - I swear I was more excited to take a picture with them than they were with me.)

Afterwards, as we left the store, I asked my girlfriend, "Was I nice? I was so surprised, I felt like I was an ass because I wasn't expecting that at all," but she assuaged my fears and confirmed that it was an adorable interaction. 

This kind of exchange warmed my heart entirely. It wasn't one brought on by cyberstalking, it was a quiet, personal conversation, however unfortunately brief, that brought two strangers together by chance. There's no obligation for me now to respond to messages all hours of the day, there's no expectation for me to keep up with the status of their posting a picture, or following back, or any other sort of parasocial stupid bullshit that people engage in today. Love Island USA is my guilty pleasure. You want to see insane, parasocial horseshit, take one look at that community. In comparison, we lucked out. But that's only because the size of our audience is exponentially smaller. Read some of my previous posts if you want to know the damage that was done by particularly rambunctious "fans" in the past. "With friends (fans) like these... Who needs enemies (critics)?

Interacting with our audience or my supporters is a delight. I feel like I would be much more open with strangers if every encounter was as pleasant as this one. The bad has forever soiled the good for me, unfortunately, but I have to say, chance meetings like this make a lot of the unrelated bullshit seem minor… and this sort of delightful surprise makes it, once again, all worthwhile.