Celebrating Squee
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| Title: | Celebrating Squee |
| Creator: | Merlin Missy |
| Date(s): | March 6, 2008 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | multifandom |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | Celebrating Squee |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Celebrating Squee is a 2008 essay by Merlin Missy.
Series
This essay is part of a series called Dr. Merlin's Soapbox.
Some Topics Discussed
- a mention of the feedback Merlin Missy had gotten about the previous essay, How to Be a Fandom Jerk in Just a Few Easy Steps
- a link to You're Wearing the Wrong Duck on Your Head
- what is squee, what does it feel like?
- "Squee is the name we have given our joy."
- squee is best done with other fans
- "Finding other fans after years of searching is like coming home for the very first time."
- fandom is sometimes a lovely, and sometimes very hard, place to be
- a link to a story (http://penknife.livejournal.com/325027.html) that is now on a locked journal
From the Essay
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!
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.
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 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.
Fan Comments
[Leva Cygnet]: Thank you, Missy. :-) I needed a reminder tonight on why I love fandom so much.
[Mara]: ...this should be required reading for everybody in fandom, to remind us why we're here.
[qaffangyrl]: This article made me squee...as someone who is still relatively isolated when it comes to sharing TEH LOVE of fandom IRL seeing articles like this make me feel SO MUCH less alone. THANK YOU.
[Katt]:*holds up a lighter* Awesomesauce.
[L]: That was brilliant - reminds me why I enjoy being a Fan
[okelay]: aww. Squee is indeed the best part of fandom. and it is very sad to do it alone.I remember all those lonely days before I went online and found my first forum, and how much better is it today that I know that as soon as the ep is over I can go to lj and discuss it.
[Emily]: This is the best essay ever! I can't believe I just squeed about squee! hahaha