The Makings of a “Supernatural” Fan Girl
Before we begin, I’d like to make a declaration: I’m not a loyal customer.
I don’t shop from the same stores everytime or eat at a place where they might serve me “the usual”. Heck, i couldn’t be loyal to a particular brand of chips even if i wanted to. This wandering tendency applies to the shows i watch too.
I surf channels on TV like its nobody’s business and it is extremely rare for me to watch something from the opening credits. But what is even more rare is me pledging my undying allegiance to a TV show.
Having established that, let us go back to mid 2011.
I switched on the telly trying to find something to watch as I had lunch. I landed up on a channel, the frame dimly lit, and there are two guys deep in conversation. The “taller” guy with his back towards me and the “short” one going on about something which is apparently very important. I moved on. Yes, you read that right. I MOVED ON.
Maybe a month or so passes by and I’m channel surfing as usual when I saw the two guys again (this time on a different network though). They were talking, again. I moved on, again.
This happened several times after that and each time I saw them they were talking and so I used to skip watching it. By now, I’d seen this particular show on three different networks but hadn’t caught it’s name yet. It was almost as if the show was stalking me (tee hee). It used to be on, on at least one of the networks at any given time or so it felt.
It was now December 2011 and again during lunchtime i was looking for something to watch. I see the two of them again but it was different this time. One could sense there was way too much tension involved in the scene and there was a girl with them. She seemed nice but then she made a request. It seemed more like an order but hey, who was I to judge, right? So this girl, she asked the “taller” guy who she addressed as Sam to do something for her. It seemed like she wanted Sam to kill her.
And then it was time. The universe had given me enough signs, it had tried to nudge me towards my fangirl destiny on several occasions but seeing as I didn’t get the point the universe had to pull out all the stops, bring out the big guns, as it were.
And, boy, did that work!
Next thing I know, Sam started crying. But it was the most natural, genuine, non-actor crying i’d ever seen. It wasn’t the sort of crying which meant, ‘I’m-crying-but-i’m-an-actor-so-i’ll-still-try-to-look-pretty’. It was ugly crying at it’s best. It felt raw. I dug raw.
It was that moment in time that the fangirl in me had woken up. I never knew I had her in me to begin with.
As much as I was reeled in by Sam, the universe had to ensure I didn’t stray and that I remained a fan forever. It then unleashed on me a character named Dean, the “short” one.
And not just Dean, crying Dean.
Crying! Really universe? Really?
He was crying not because he was sad rather because Sam was. It weighed on him as much as it did on Sam. And, remember, I had zero background on their relationship but it became apparent that they’re brothers.
Just then, Dean’s trademark One Perfect Tear (OPT) rolls down his cheek. A single shot is fired. It resonates. Dean flinches. I die. Not before selling my soul to
‘Supernatural.”
I was now a “Supernatural” fan for life and ‘Heart’ had popped my cherry.
I’m glad I was introduced to “Supernatural” in this manner; minus the name, it’s review, background, promos, the whole nine………all I saw was just a scene……standalone, if you will…….like a leaf out of a book. Only, you don’t know which book or whether you will like it or not when you do find out.
At that point in time, I didn’t know these characters, what their issues were, where they were coming from or what lay waiting for them after this.
But they seemed like two decent enough guys, obviously very close to each other. Where one of them was slowly falling to pieces but he did so with a tremendous amount of trust that the other one would be there to pick up the pieces with him and will be there with him when he tries to put himself back together.
I did catch up on the episodes that I had missed but ‘Heart’ will always be special to me.
So, I still might be unfaithful to a brand of chips or whatever but question my loyalty towards “Supernatural” or anything even remotely related to it and I’ll salt’n’burn you (As a proud member of SPNFamily does, obviously). 🙂
It’s been a long time since I’ve been a fangirl…I mean with strolling toward the 60 year mark, you’d think that with age would some form of sane reasoning, right? Nope, nada, not with these two cuties…(blushes). I did not come to Supernatural until last year and that was when I was looking for something interesting to watch on DVD during spring….so I bought Season 1 and I was hooked….had to get the rest of the them, because I had to see what was going on with our two hunks…even with the nail biting until Season 7 came out and I could buy it. Me thinks that I am a bit crazy in the head.
Crazy is a gatepass for this fandom. 😀
Glad I’m not the only “senior” fangirl around,
I’m 55 this year and went to my first Convention ever, SPN Asylum 10 and loved every fangirling minute
I enjoyed your story! I can see how “Heart” grabbed you and never let you go. Show does that. I have never experienced another TV show to pull me in that way.
Welcome to the SPN crazy club where the membership may be rather small and slightly fanatical but the perks are fantastic. I related intensely with the reason Supernatural snared you like many of us, it is the relationships on the show that draw us fans in and keep us there. The fact that all of this is set against a background of fantastical supernatural elements is just a fun bonus. Who doesn’t like a good monster hunt?
So here is my sad story of how I became a “fan girl”.
My father passed away in Jan a few years ago, I had to have serious surgery on my neck the following month and then in March was laid off my job. While recuperating from surgery and the major pitty party I was throwing for myself I came across a SPN marathon.
If I remember correctly my fist episode was In My Time of Dying. Which for obvious reasons stuck with me. The marathon jumped around different seasons so I had to find out who and where these guys came from.
For years my son had recommended this show to me but I will admit it I was a snob. There was no way in hell two guys this good looking could possibly act their way out of a wet bag. I know shame on me!
I borrowed seasons from my son and my niece to catch up on all the seasons and I have not stopped since then.
I am not a 16 year old-head in the cloud school girl. I am a 50 something college educated professional & mom with grown children.
I m proud to be a fan girl…more appropriately ” a Dean girl”
My kids now find it comical that I m such a fan of this show as i have never been a real fan of TV. I m a classic movie buff and Turner classic movie channel was pretty much what i watched. Now i am the walking talking season- episode guide.
I have created a few games my daughter and i play. Supernatural roulette, One of these things is not like the other ( continuity mistakes) to name my favorites.
As one of our favorite heroes use to say ” We are all nine kinds of crazy” 😆
I’m with you on the 50+ grown children thing. Ain’t it great we found this show? These are ‘my boys’. Their relationship, J2’s acting and storylines are like nothing else out there. And except for Star Trek I have NEVER watched a repeat episode of a TV show this many times in my life. I will watch these forever!
When Supernatural came on I had heard about it and thought the promos were interesting but at the time I didn’t have TV so there was nothing I could do. It was the beginning of the third season when I started watching. I don’t exactly remember if it was the season premiere or one of the later episodes that I saw first. I do know that I was immediately mesmerized by this show.
Then a dreaded mini hiatus hit around Thanksgiving. I realized I needed more background information. I went online and bought both seasons 1 and 2. A very big expenditure since I was living paycheck to paycheck. By the time the two week hiatus was over, I had watched both seasons all the way through and using Amazon had bought and watched the episodes I missed in Season 3.
I have been an avid fan since then and have turned my cousin, niece and nephew onto the show. I am here until the end and am just enjoying the ride as long as it lasts. 😉
Ooh, I would like to share.
My foray to the Supernatural fandom started with Glee, strangely enough. One cold October afternoon of 2011, I was watching an episode where they sang this song, “Fix You” by Coldplay, and I loved it so much that I immediately searched YouTube for the song. Then I stumbled upon this fan-made video where there was this girl on fire, then this guy who was crying over the dead body of this other guy, and then said dead guy crawled out of his grave. So I watched the first episode despite the fact that I don’t even like horror shows, and the first time I watched Dean and Sam have the bitch-jerk exchange, I was done for.
# chrisgranny 2013-01-13 23:48
I am a 70 year old in love with entertainment ,which to me can be a good book or a terrific tv show or movie. I was barely able to graduate high school but was able to have a great career in a fantastic job that also gave me the time to explore the world and the people’s who inhabit this world.
I would say that I personally am very street smart,outgoing but also wary. My vocabulary is limited but I can get my point across. I do not feel less intelligent because of it because I am more a Dean person the one who might get you out of trouble, if the need would arise.
Boy I need to get to the point here I love to read and have read all of Joseph Campbells’ books and loved them , if I didn’t understand something I reread it or asked for help. I have read all the game of thrones books and now those are sometimes hard to follow .
To come to this site and find people who write passionately about this show whether in prose , long essays worthy of a grad school thesis or simply state I Love this show or I LOVE the pretty is an amazing thing. That a simple Tv show (I mean that in a loving way) can garner such emotion and discussion is a wonderful thing I believe that this show as we watch it makes us better people as we examine ourselves and those around us.
I love the analysis that people write big words or little .
Please keep it up.
The only thing that makes me sad is that more people are not aware of this amazing show and it’s talented actors and it does not get the credit it deserves.
As Dean says AWESOME. Sorry to be so long winded I am new to this thread and don’t post a lot I guess I am queen of the lurkers and sometimes embarrased at being such a fan girl at this age but as the saying goes when an old person looks in a mirror there is a young person saying what the hell happened.
I love this site and if a disagree with something I find someone else will come along who feels like me and states my case better than I can as I don’t know all the big words.
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I orginally wrote this in response to another earlier article but I think it fits here also. I discovered this show a year ago and marathoned thru it and have since watched some episodes multiple times especially those featuring Dean (Jensen)
I was so taken with this show I put it on my Bucket list to go to a Con and so found myself At Vancon next to Jensen for a photo op and a cruise with Misha and completely fell in Love with Mark Pelligrino an added bonus and met some great fans. I am actually planning going again this year.
I feel you to a certain extent. This summer my husband decided to start watching Supernatural at the urging of a friend and I watched about to the titles of this first Isolde and convinced myself it was going to be just like paranormal and I was more interested in sleeping well than being freaked out. But, he kept watching and I found myself watching bits and pieces while I was doing other things and he was watching. The last episode I remember before going, ok, fine, I’ll watch it was the one Cas discovers Sam doesn’t have a soul and my husband saying the man in the trench coat who stuck his hand into Sam was an angel (to which I replied “an angel?” and that too much had happened for him to explain. So, sometime from the beginning of July – a week before the season 8 premiere I watched all 7 episodes and am now planning on driving up with some friends to the convention in Vancouver later this summer. It has mad e the Hellatus even more horrible since I was able to watch the next episode with the flick of a finger before but I’m hooked, good or bad, I’m hooked.
Awesome work! Thanks for sharing! It’s great to be in the SPN Fandom. I sometimes forgot we all have our own way to ‘becoming a fan’ of the show. We all watch it for different reasons – which also represents different stages of the series and/ or character development. But whatever the reason(s) may be, it’s all about caring and sharing.. and we all love the show!
Keep writing!!
-tiny-
Glad to know I’m not the only fangirl who is “mature”. I also am fairly new to Supernatural, having only found the show in mid 2012. My then 14 yr old grand daughter has been a fan for a little while & told me about the show. For her 15th birthday on April 1, 2912, I gave her seasons 1-6 on DVD, which thrilled her no end. We spent 2 weeks (9-5) watching the DVDs and I was hooked and can’t believe I had missed such a great show for almost 7 years. Needless to say, I never miss an episode now. Sometime I watch the episodes in the morning on TNT east and then watch the same episodes on TNT west + the episodes on The CW. I have bought seasons 1-7 for myself & gave my granddaughter season 7 for Christmas. As many others have stated, the acting is amazing and the relationship between Dean/Jensen and Sam/Jared is truly a beautiful thing to behold. And the fandom for this show is really a “family”-one I am thankful & proud to be part of.
I wrote this because no matter what happens with respect to our show, how the storyline changes or how it might end, one thing that will aways remain with me is the day i fell in love with the show.
I’m gad to see you all relive and share your experience of the time SPN stole your heart. 🙂
– Shinmin
I’m amazed of how many people discovered SPN late in the seasons, sometimes during season 7 or even season 8. And are already hooked and writting in this awesome fandom. Like me, by the way. The first season I watched live was season 7, from the beginning.
And I easily could have known it from the begining, since I’m no teen, far from it.
I discovered SPN acidentally around the time of the season 3 writers strike via a youtube clip while I was looking for a music video and ended up watching a few clips of the show and eventually my very fist full episode which just so happened to be one of the shows very best MYstery Spot. After that I was hooked on the show. I watched all episodes up to that episode in less than a week and couldnt wait for more.
My love for the show has faded somewhat over the years but that hasnt stopped me from loving Sam Winchester and the reason I love him is because of Jared Padalecki.
I have watched Sam grow to be one of the most incredible (not real) people on tv and I have watched Jared grow as a person and as an actor. I literally can not get over how much they have both changed from season 1 to season 8. Sometimes I am literally left speachless with awe at how incredible Jared is as an actor and a human being. I never would have belived a young man with such beauty and talent could turn out to be so humble, intelligent and hilarious too.
I guess while Sam made me a fan of the show it was Jared that made me a fangirl. Have you seen those convention videos?! This man is a one of a kind thats for sure.
Yeah, you go back to Season 1 and see how young both Jensen and Jared look….especially Jared….he practically grew up on Supernatural.
Thanks for sharing Shinmin, it’s always nice to hear how people came to this fanbase and stayed there. Because that’s what this show is all about, loyalty. I defend this show left and right to any detractors, and that’s usually people who don’t really watch it! The response I get when I say I’m a HUGE (and that’s understated) fan is usually this one, oh, yeah the show with the cute guys! Oh, come on, that’s not why we all love this show. Sam & Dean Winchester are so much more than that, and that’s why we fans brought in the People’s Choice Award as the favourite fanbase. Hooray for us I say that we are the keepers of such a stupendous show. Sorry, I sound like I’m running for president or something! 😀
I would like to add this for the fan base, if you have a Facebook account, Jensen and Jared have offical Fbook pages. Jensen’s publicist updates his page almost every day with wonderful pictures….Jared’s isn’t quite as up to date with his page….Just thought I would mention it to those who are interested.
I thought that their bodyguard Clif said, quite emphatically, they have not got Facebook pages.
He did. They don’t. Jared has the twitter account @jarpad and that’s it.
I love hearing the story of how one of us fell for Show – thanks for sharing yours 🙂
@FangasmSPN