Why We Love Things That Won’t End
“It just won’t end.”
You know those shows or book series that never seem to stop? Anime is usually invoked as an example, with Dragonball Z, Naruto, One Piece, and so forth. Doctor Who is occasionally mentioned, though the never-ending nature of the show seems to kind of be the point. Soap Operas are the classic example. I rather expect we’re going to see Downton Abbey, Toriko, and Fairy Tail enter the Realm of the Unending.
The unending nature of these shows and similar properties is usually a mystery to people on the “outside.” How can something just keep going like this? How can people care? How can the various stripes of nerds, fans, geeks, and otaku actually care about something like this?
I’d note the words “how can people care” explain this. It’s about people caring.
These long, unending creations, the ever-expanding ones like Star Wars and Star Trek, all of this gives people something to care about, something they’re interested in. In turn it gives them something else – something to bond and connect over.
Humans are natural community builders. It’s really part of being human, because without other humans, without community, we really aren’t who we are.
Something that goes on forever makes bonding that much easier.
Art boards that have fan art going back for years or even a decade or more are history. Message Boards form and grow over time, Chat groups that evolve and leap technologies and keep going. Blogs and journals that point back to each other as the community moves on. These things are much easier to have when there’s some continuous base – and a constant media property is an easy way to provide that base.
So why do people love things that go on forever? One answer is simply this – it gives them an axis around which a lot of socializing, meeting, and creativity happens. It’s reliable as well as stimulating, and it makes our natural community building easy.
Next time you wonder why something won’t end, remember how many people don’t want it to.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
