Top 5 Wednesday is a Goodreads group that began in 2013 that provides book related topics for readers so that they can produce content for their videos or blogs. Spending anytime on the Booktube wing of YouTube will show that T5W is quite popular, so I figured I would incorporate this into my blog as well.
The irony is that, for my introductory topic for Top 5 Wednesday; Fandoms You Are No Longer In, I will have to refer to television show that I watched when I was younger that I got heavily invested in. The reason is that I can’t recall ANY book related fandoms that I’d say I felt part of. I’m not sure why I haven’t been able to get heavily invested in books like I once did with TV shows.
So I’ll begin…
5. Six Feet Under
In short – I was obsessed with this show. I loved every aspect of this series and a remember staying up late just to watch the new episodes as they came out. Interestingly, I really didn’t know anyone else who liked the show – or watched it for that matter, so I would seek out internet chat rooms that talked about the show.
I moved on from Six Feet Under when I graduated high school and moved off to college. Although I was obsessed at the time for this show – I can’t really recall much of it now.
4. CSI
My entire family watched this together – along with it’s spin off’s. I just really enjoyed the science in it, along with the story lines. CSI for awhile was the thing that I would look forward to going home and watching.
Once again, in retrospect I don’t recall much from the series.
3. The Whitest Kids U Know
MANY of the phrases and inside jokes that I use with my friends can be sourced directly to this show. Randomly screaming out “Nailgun” when things are beginning to go weird has it’s origins with this show.
In regards to WKUK, I was certainly in a ‘fandom’ with this show. When new episodes would air, I’d get online and open up my instant messengers (AIM and MSN!) and quote lines from the shows to friends who would respond with lines from the show to me. Sometimes I’ll go back and watch entire seasons of WKUK just for the memories.
2. Boy Meets World
I watched every single episode of every single season of Boy Meet’s World from the first day it aired.
I was always envious of the friendship that Cory and Shawn had and continue to this day to have something like that.
In early post’s on this blog, I may even reference this show in regards to my [former] best friend and I. This show helped me to formulate what an ideal friendship should look like.
And now that things have fallen apart in the friendship between myself and my [former] best friend, I sometimes look to a quote from Boy Meets World for, perhaps, a glimmer of hope.
“You do your thing and I do my thing. You are you and I am I. And, if, in the end, we end up together, it’s beautiful.”
In many ways this show continues to shape my life – even in retrospect. It was a show that I grew up with in my teenage years and watched religiously – just like it’s predecessor, The Wonder Years. Recollections of the show does bring back a lot of emotions. It’s difficult to believe how many memories I have attached to Boy Meets World, and how integral large portions of it are to my life.
1. The Tribe
The Tribe is my Harry Potter/Hunger Games/ Game of Thrones / Throne of Glass etc. This IS the ‘fandom’ of my childhood.
The Tribe was a New Zeeland(?) TV show that had a plot similar to many modern day dystopian Young Adult novels. In The Tribe, a virus had been created that killed off all the adults, leaving a world of children who were fighting to stay alive. The kids form small groups – or tribes as they struggle through this new world. The primary tribe the show follows are called the Mallrats who live in an abandoned mall. The Mall rats are comprised up of outcasts of various other tribes who sought refuge in this mall.
Each kid plays a different role in the Tribe, there is the scientist, the engineer, the spiritual one, the farmer, the warrior, the scavenger, the deal maker, the leader, etc. The show had numerous stories interwoven into it that made for a very compelling show. As one character was trying to develop an antidote for the virus, others were trying to fight off an attacking rival tribe.
Barter was the way of conducting business.
The Tribe took on a whole bunch of grown-up topics, like teenage pregnancy, religion, depression, suicide, rape, sex, death, slavery and numerous forms of violence that you generally would not see in an American children’s show.
If Boy Meet’s World helped to shape the way I viewed friendships and personal relationships, The Tribe was instrumental in helping me shape my views of the world. It is the precursor that most likely lead me to the anarchist views I hold to this day. A lesson that both Boy Meets World and The Tribe taught me is that people must be valued over money and possessions.
A Tribe fandom still exists to this day. I will watch old episodes on YouTube when I’m in the mood. It was a lovely show that, whenever I meet someone else who once watched it, I feel instantly connected with. Although I have one older brother and two younger sisters – they never really got into The Tribe, so I’d always be watching the newest episodes with my mom – a connection I have with her that I would never trade.
The year is 2045 and Kenneth Durand, an Interpol agent, works diligently to protect the world from genetic crime. Durand’s existence however poses a threat to the worlds largest criminal genetic cartel, the Huli jing and their leader sets out to stop him by transforming Durand into the leader of the Huli jing, Marcus Demang Wyckes.
Following Rachel, we learn of the origins, the ‘life’ and the ultimate fate of an undefinable creation of The Company that is known in the book as Borne. Borne is introduced to us as a discovery made by Rachel in the fur of a sleeping three-story tall flying bear known as Mord. When she takes her discovery back to her home in the Balcony Cliffs – a defunct hotel – she initially believes it to be some bio-engineered form of plant life.
New Earth begins with a space expedition to a distance planet that looks like it could support life. So humans board a ship and voyage there to, essentially, have a closer look. Upon arrival it is discovered that this planet isn’t just inhabitable, it is already inhabited by aliens that are essentially human clones. Through the book you learn that a very advanced alien race created the planet in order to one day lure humans there. The advanced alien race knew that it would be dangerous to try and make contact with humans first so believed that the best thing to do was to have humans come to them.
Death Wave, the second book in the Star Quest Trilogy has an all together different tone than New Earth. In Death Wave the plot revolves around the monumental task of convincing the World Council – the earths one world government – that there is an extinction level event approaching Earth (and other life supporting planets) and if the World Council doesn’t act – it will mean the end of life on earth as we know it.
Sadly that is not what I got at all in the final installment of the Star Quest Trilogy. This book is, to be blunt, a mess. The very beginning starts off strong but it’s as if half way through it Ben Bova forgot the premise of his trilogy and just started writing whatever he thought sounded interesting at the time. This book, by itself, created for itself so many plot holes and loose ends that reading it gets frustrating. And if you are wondering about the death wave – don’t bother learning too much in this book.
Ransom Riggs final book to his Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children trilogy, Library of Souls, provides a rather exhaustive collusion to this peculiar adventure story.
It is interesting to note that the Peculiar trilogy takes place over the course of only a few weeks. This I found a bit irritating at times.
