Fandoms can get us through some rough times, they can be our light when we have trouble finding one. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t enjoy things and enjoy them well, I’m just saying that there is a threshold people pass where it starts to get unhealthy fast.

Maybe it isn’t safe to say, but celebrities aren’t your friends, characters aren’t your friends, and honestly we’ve turned celebrities and characters into one of the same. I’m not saying that you can’t find refuge and comfort in them, but I am saying that you need to be focused on your outside life and outside relationships more than you focus on your fandoms. Being a fan isn’t bad for you, focusing all your energy on it instead of what’s going on in your actual life is.

The fact of the matter is we all get wrapped up in things that aren’t relevant to our daily lives, whether it be a fandom or marathoning too much reality TV, we get swept away in these universes. I get it, I’m a writer. I get swept up in my own universe often, but you need to be able to leave it behind and go about your day without it. You need to be able to function and be happy if a band breaks up or if the character dies in the last movie.

You can’t live your life for others, real or fictional, because they aren’t living their life for you, even if they are entertainers, they still don’t shift their whole world to revolve around their fans. They are thankful for them, they got them to where they are today, but they can also find them a burden, so it’s a delicate line to be dancing on.

You are your own person, you have talents and loves and dreams and you need to spend more time focusing on that than you need to be focusing on a fandom. It’s good to love things, but it’s important put more love into your real life than it is to put them into something that is never going to love you back the same.