I've been a member of DorothyL for something like 12 years. Mind you, I love it there. I was one of the people who nominated DL for a recent "community" award given by "L-soft" the list management folks. And it was my distinct pleasure to announce last week that list moms (or as we now might refer to them "doyennes" after the Raven Award announcement) Kara Robinson and Diane Kovacs were to be fan guests of honor for Left Coast Crime, which I'm chairing in just over 2 years. But like any family conversation, like any party, it DOES get to me at times.
I was gonna head this blog entry "Absolutely NOTHING about the DaVinci Code" but that wouldn't have been accurate. But what I'm thiking about is HOW much it bugs me when something is SO popular; how much it annoys me when everyone's doing the same thing, reading the same book, watching the same tv show and discussing it endlessly. And it goes back years and years for me; I'm a reverse snob of major proportions. If there's something out there getting Big Huge Buzz, I try to ignore it.
Now, some of that, mind you is experience - the awareness that over the years I've tried lots of those things and found them at best wanting, and at worst, awful. I've TRIED best-seller list mainstream novels (The World According to Garp? I don't THINK so.). I haven't tried, and won't try "reality television" because I so don't care what happens to a bunch of strangers competing with each other for something I don't understand. And I don't like television that much anyway and don't want to get invested in it. My mother never told us we could not watch tv, but I grew up with her sort of quiet disapproval and I tended to sneak what little I watched. Even then, I preferred to read a book.
It's followed me though, this desire not to do what a majority does, or even a huge number of people, or even sometimes a crowd. Not that I don't get the fun of being in a group of like-minded folks. I still tell the story of going to DC from Connecticut for a one of the country's biggest anti-war marches during the Viet Nam years; and finding my sister, who had traveled there from Ohio. But there were also the weird looks from people when I went on a short vacation trip by myself, sailing for 4 days on the Mystic Whaler, because I wanted to. No one could GET traveling alone, especially at the age of 19 or so.
It's even why I never smoked dope, which now I regret, since I probably woulda liked it a lot and probably would find useful now for the chronic pain. But I didn't like smoking, didn't like the smell and well, EVERYONE was doing it. So I didn't - although stories of my contact highs are easy to come by.
I grew up liking to be alone - I had my own room from the time i was very young and had a roommate in college for less than one semester. I grew up feeling that it was cool to be a smart girl. I didn't fit in, and instead of it bugging me, somehow it became a source of pride. And maybe even strength.
So rant rant rant, I am SO sick of further discussions of Dan Brown's awful book over on DorothyL and maybe elsewhere and of lawsuits and of books ABOUT his awful book and about why his book IS awful. I don't like fan clubs. I like it here in the minority, with the intellectuals and the nerds and the genre readers and all the other smallish groups I'm a part of. In fact, I'm a real snob about it.