Thread by @sheilakathleen

It's so weird to get irritated at other peoples' enthusiasm. I've been dealing w/it since I was 5 - one of my 1st memories is being told to calm tf down - so I'm a hardened veteran. I just don't experience other peoples' enthusiasms w/anything other than appreciation. Weirdos.

Imagine being like: "wow, you are posting a lot about a thing I have no interest in. How dare you." Imagine being a person like that. Soooo many people post all the time a/b things I have no interest in. I'm happy enthusiasm exists for them.

and sometimes someone's frenzied passion turns me onto something that wasn't on my radar. WIN WIN, ya freakin self-centered weirdos. In the meantime and related: I love this carefully constructed bit of blocking in LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT.

He's feeling his own forehead for fever. He knows how sick he is. She's kissing his finger. She knows how sick he is too but she is in total denial. Also high as a kite. Connected physically but soooo not connected.

This guy once wrote to me during the 1st flush of my Elvis posts, asking when I would "get back" to more diverse content. He mentioned something he wanted my "take" on. I wrote back: "Send me 150 bucks, I'll write about it. TCB! ⚡️" No response.

A sub-genre of this: "with all the terrible things in the world, why are you posting about this." This reminds me of one of my favorite comments ever on my blog, in its almost 20-year history. I post about Bogart. Some dude said, "Wondering when you'll weigh in on Abu Ghraib."

People who have been reading me since then STILL reference that comment, or throw it into the comments section as a joke. People who don't know the joke must be very confused. "Elvis is all well and good, but what about Abu Ghraib?"

Like I said, I'm a hardened veteran of this so it doesn't even make me mad, or make me blow a gasket. People have been doing this to me since I was 3 feet tall. I said something to him like, "I am not Crossfire. You seem to be confused about where you are on the internet."

Listen, kid, you have to calm down. Stop being so enthusiastic. It's irritating to other people.

Another tactic is to embarrass them via over-share. "I'm bipolar. This is kind of what happens. So sorry, but the train has left the station and it can't be stopped now! Hope you can hang in there until the mania passes."

Unsolicited over-share - especially if it's done in a super polite way, as though you're trying to be helpful and explain what is happening and why - really takes the wind out of their sails.

oh, and you can't do this if you don't have that diagnosis. Because then it's gross. But I do and so I do.

Unless your version of fandom involves death threats and doxxing over fictional ships not being reflected in reality or thinking that shipping something = political activism (just for example, ahem) - then I'm happy when people are into something. It's good vibes.