Episode 120: Not A Super Fan of a Show or Movie? You Might Be Missing Out!

Evolutional Psychology: Stories of Tribal Communities Based on Fandom

Annette Taylor playfully describes her transformation from a semi-traditional adult into a super fan of the tv show Supernatural as her second adolescence or her mid-life crisis.

But instead of blindly following her urge to dive into this newfound side of herself, she became very curious about the “why” behind this transformation. What was driving her to shift her behavior in this way? What was happening in her brain that could explain the intense desire to watch every episode, learn everything she could about the characters and the actors who played them, and even to fly across the country for a convention for the show?

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Having a master’s degree in educational psychology, and many years of experience in the human development field, Annette started a deep dive into a related field - evolutionary psychology. Over the past few years, she has read and absorbed hundreds of books and articles, driven to understand the intensity that comes with super fandom. Her conclusion? Humans continue to demonstrate characteristics of our great, great, great, great…. ancestors, all the way back to when we were cave dwellers.

As cave-dwellers, we started to truly understand the value of a community or tribe. We innately understood that when we liked and appreciated the same things as the people around us, our lives were a little bit simpler and safer.

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This characteristic translates into what we see now in the behaviors of entire groups of people, from super fans of tv shows, movies, musicians and theatre, to religious communities and political parties. When we find people who feel strongly like we do about something, we feel deeply connected to them, we feel understood and appreciated, and we feel safe to express our opinions and feelings.

During our conversation about Annette’s education, she mentioned that the founders of Evolutionary Psychology were at UCSB, here’s the website for the Center for Evolutionary Psychology.

Annette’s deep dive into the psyche of super fans continues, and she shares her thoughts and insights on a variety of platforms. Visit her blog site, Congirl vs. Cavegirl (Congirl is slang for convention girl), follow her on Twitter, take a look at her published article in Psychology Today, and connect with her on LinkedIn to learn more.