Last week's foray down Sarcasm Boulevard was extremely cathartic for Doctor Merlin, and she was gratified to see that many of her gentle readers also took part in both the catharsis and the (far more important) discussions being addressed. Alas! Some of the responses, even those from Doctor Merlin's very dearest friends, also read last week's diatribe against Internet Idiocy as including a grudge against those who choose to revel in their squee. To clarify, Doctor Merlin is specifically annoyed with those fans who, after exhausting their own supplies of the other derailment techniques, boycott communities and fans still discussing the uncomfortable topics and create spaces with "No Srs Bzns" on the doors, which effectively shuts up those pesky dissenters. Doctor Merlin bears no ill will towards those fans who choose to cling to their squee above all else. Doctor Merlin appreciates squee, and so is dedicated this week's topic to All About Squee.
What is squee? If you're a fan and you’re reading this, you already know. It's that happy, warm, fluttery feeling you get in the pit of your stomach two minutes before a new episode of your show airs. It is defined by the sound that very likely escapes your mouth when your favorite couple (or threesome) is on-screen together, interacting, and omg, their hands are touching, that was definitely a touch, and did you see how they were looking at each other, they're so doing it, it's canon!
*cough*
Squee is the name we have given our joy. Squee is the emotion we feel as we watch and it is the action we take when we open our browsers to gush about the latest episodes and it is the connection that brings us together. Luminous squeers are we, not this crude matter. Squee's energy surrounds us and binds us. You must feel the squee around you, here between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes, even between land and ship.
*cough again*
Anyway, squee's nice. Squee is why we're fans. Sure, lots of people watched Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. But how many people watched it and immediately felt the need to go online and talk to people who had just seen the exact same episodes and talk about what they'd seen? Lots of people are familiar with Star Trek. But how many costume up for movie openings? (Or musicals? Last year, some friends and I dressed in our Starfleet uniforms to attend a local high school's performance of "Chicago," because of a fanvid. Anyone who cares to mock us for owning Starfleet uniforms is missing the point of this essay.) We celebrate the joy of the things we love, and we hope the next installment will make us feel just as good.
And we do it in groups.
Squee can be experienced in a vacuum. It can. The phenomenon is known as "fan inna box," when one is isolated from other fans and has no idea that there's a wider community out there for people who are exactly like us. It's sad, but only a lucky few don’t start out this way. Children of fans have a leg up, attending conventions from infancy. I have neighbors who have taken their five year old son to dozens of cons. My own daughter (also five) is going to attend her very first con this summer, and I can't wait. The rest of us, though, had to come at it the hard way. Asking leading questions to see if someone else liked the same shows, chatting them up if they did, sighing in despair when they didn't. We subscribed to Starlog, back in the day, and sent out our SASEs to fans somewhere in the tristate region, hoping to connect with just one other soul. We found fanzines – rare, precious things – and reread them until the pages fell apart. We squeed, but we squeed alone.
It's sad to squee alone.
Squee is best when shared live among good friends, but squee shared in a chatroom, in a forum or on a community is often just as sweet. Squee is meant to be experienced with like-minded others, no matter how far away they might be from you. A squee shared is a squee multiplied, which is why cons are so exhausting, and fan-gatherings so very fun. As fans, many of us tend to live like immigrants to the world of the mundanes. (For more on this thought, please see "You're Wearing the Wrong Duck on Your Head") Finding other fans after years of searching is like coming home for the very first time. And like home, sometimes it's welcoming and peaceful, and sometimes it's your turn to clean out the litterbox and take out the trash, and sometimes everybody is screaming at each other and the neighbors are calling the cops who are asking pointed questions about why the baby's wearing a soggy diaper and nothing else because it's freakin' January and they've already been out here twice this week, but USUALLY it's like getting home just in time to sit down to the table and everything's warm and ready from the oven and someone honestly wants to know how your day has been.
*rereads last sentence a couple of times, realizes she still has some old family issues she needs to work through with her therapist's help, continues onwards*
Fandom means never having to explain why you think Duncan Macleod and Methos ought to get married and have fifteen adopted Immortal babies, and being able to find someone who wants to listen to your reasons anyway. Fandom means skipping the explanation of who Captains Jack Sparrow and Jack Harkness are and cutting directly to the extremely kinky multiverse 'fic where they hijack the TARDIS and go shag every attractive person in SF history. Squee means giggling at the thought of either of those, or better, at the thought of your own favorite couple stowing away on-board to watch the fun, and then writing it up to share with your best fandom friend.
Squee is when you see the name of a certain writer's sister, remember that he named a set of bad guys after his siblings, and then rewatch that story arc for the first time in years and still get as giddy about the end as you did twelve years ago. Squee is reading a one-off story written by a friend from a fandom you'd quit and immediately getting plot bunnies for the sequel. Squee is getting this week's comics, making squeaky noises when you find out who wrote the new issue, and then gleefully discussing the high points of the series with the guy behind the counter as you both wax nostalgic about something that happened five years ago. Squee is three people huddling around a laptop to watch something on YouTube that hasn't aired in the States yet, while snarking about the characters who annoy you all and championing the coolness of the ones you adore. Squee is big fuzzy pillows with pirates on them, found at the Disney store, and refrigerator magnets with emo vampires and Medical Examiners on them, made at the same mall kiosk that puts dog's faces on t-shirts. Squee is found in weekend-long marathons to catch your friends up on Bones and it is hidden in single episodes (chosen very carefully) introduced with a sly, "If you don't like this one, I won't make you watch any more." Squee is hanging out with people you met in fandoms more than ten years ago because you like how they write about their cats. It's wearing prom dresses to Trek movie premieres and being cheered up from a bad day by someone's funny Original Series fanfic and then sharing in case someone else needs the pick-me-up.
Squee is about sharing the love. We are fans, therefore we squee. If we're not squeeing about something, we're probably leaving the fandom soon. We squee about shared glances, about hugs, about kisses, about moments shared and futures possible, and then we go out to our other fannish spaces and we squee at more people and if they don't share our squee, we try everything we can think of to make them want to. Squee's addictive, and we never, ever want it to end. Even when we're complaining. Even when we're pointing out the problems in our canon that chip into our squee. We complain and argue and discuss because we love our squee and want it to grow, and we know that if just this one thing was different, was changed, was better, we could squee that much more, and we also know that if the thing is bad enough, is skeevy enough, we're going to stop squeeing and go somewhere else where we can squee without the yuck. And then we lose the squee where we are, and we're sad. No one wants to be sad (except those emo kids over there) so we'd much rather stay here and try to fix the problems. We will do what we can to keep our squee.
We want to squee. We love to squee. We live to squee. We're fans.