collaborative storytelling that is equal parts critical and creative

Six in a Civic

Karl Ortegon

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In 2009, I was a huge fan of Lady Gaga. I was also a fan of Glee, a fan of waking up at 7:40am and scrolling through every single Facebook post in my news feed that I had missed while sleeping, a fan of being early to swim practice (otherwise I felt like I was late and that felt really bad, like apocalyptically bad), and a fan of pizza (either pepperoni, sausage, or just cheese). I was a fan of impressing people, of the prospect of other people being my fans. I was a fan of getting an A+ in every subject, and I ignored the real possibility that my grades in middle school didn’t matter. I didn’t realize it, but I was still valiantly a fan of leaning into my own weirder interests and habits and my voice and style. I lacked the self-awareness that puberty brought, leaving me free to be a fan in the first place. And as for my neuroses, not having the burden of analyzing and re-analyzing and breaking them down and trying to ignore them I took for granted. 

 

Once I began high school, I stopped being a fan. To be obsessed with something, I feared, would out me to my peers, to the leering lacrosse boys, even to to Ms. Seibold in Drawing 1. To be a fan was to be passionate and to be passionate could be conceived of as gay, and to me, I became very sure that I did not want that train of association to follow me everywhere I went.

 

In Drawing 1 with Ms. Seibold, at my table of four people, we all had a role in our friend group that only existed during that class. Shana was the mom, Jackson was the dad, Ridley was the daughter, and I was the dog. If I was a fan of anything then, I was a fan of being tangential, because when I was tangential I could still be important, still have a fleshed out role to fill (dog), but nobody had to look too closely as who or what I was. Or maybe I was a fan of being in the corner of every room, a fan of only understanding the high school experience through limited lenses like social media or what I heard at the lunch table. Rarely was I someone who intook social data (like how to play beer pong, or when to show up to the football game, or how to make the friends you need in order to show up with people to the football game) from a primary source. To seek out actual social experiences terrified me; not knowing what could happen in a given social scenario was, I decided, not my cross to bear. I already had formulated who I was, a protected and sheltered ego that I had reconfigured into a persona of passing masculinity and heterosexuality, and the idea of going into new social settings where that persona could be tested and ultimately compromised felt like doing standup at a sold-out arena without knowing what the concept of comedy meant.  

 

My fandom in high school slipped in and out of what it means to be a fan. I was obsessed with living my life a certain way to the extent that I was avoiding feeling unsafe rather than seeking out what made me feel good. So I was a fan of being one-dimensional, of going to swim practice, of doing schoolwork and staring at screens all weekend, of my Honda Civic.

 

I drove my Honda Civic to the lifeguard banquet at the end of my first summer working at the beach on Lake Michigan. Afterwards, I was a fan of having five other people (six total) in a car that fit four comfortably and five legally, while David smoked something in the backseat, and Morgan drank a Straw-Ber-Rita. With my new-ish license, I was only allowed to have one non-family member in my car according to Illinois law, but I had six total, yes six, and we were also all drinking underage and I was also driving past the 11pm state law curfew. And I had drank a bit, too. I was a fan of spontaneous events that to my peers seemed normal but to me seemed rebellious and exhilarating, of releasing my damn inhibitions just like Natasha Bedingfeld yearned for me to do!

 

But after that night, I was back to being a fan of avoiding all but one or two parties per year, events where I’d force myself to leave the house, work towards the seemingly impossible goal of having a social life, to engage with other people who I did know, and some who I didn’t, in a party setting where I might be expected to drink or smoke or make out. 

 

In 2019, I’m a huge fan of Charli XCX. I’m also a fan of checking in with myself, of living in the biggest city that I’ve ever lived in, of trying to go on just one date per season even when that is hard. Right now, I’m a fan of the idea of living of Brooklyn, the idea of a social life and job that stimulates and satisfies me. I’m a fan of being invited to a dinner party but certainly not cooking for it (which is precisely why I’m a fan of Trader Joseph’s). I’m a fan of potential; for fulfillment, for smiling, and for going places alone.