Finding Culture in America
A friend shared a VOD (Video On Demand) clip from popular Twitch Streamer HasanAbi, AKA Hasan Piker, who discussed a recent craze over a Stanley x Starbucks exclusive tumbler, with a response tweet where he said, “Americans treat guns the exact same way, but no one wants to have THAT conversation.” Hasan expounds that in America, most people, especially women, are so far removed from any type of culture that they seek it in shared experiences. For better of for worse.
There is a lot of truth there. I found in my own life and the lives of people I know a lot of involvement in Fandom culture, cosplay, and what seems to be meaningless or frivolous rituals to others, but to those in the fandoms, they have deep meaning. As a person who is in a LOT of fandoms, I see things that express culture; Swifties trade friendship bracelets (most handmade), as well as callbacks at concerts(What time is it??) during Style comes to mind. Supernatural fans wear flannel and call each other Bitch and Jerk lovingly. They know the lore of all of the show’s characters like evangelical Christians pretend to know the canon of the bible itself, and most of them are always down for a slice of pie. As with any culture, there are in jokes, regional differences, and dialects, so to speak. But as fans of our things, on a base level, we all have that thing in common and can build relationships off our shared “culture” of the…
