Thursday, August 13, 2020

Capitalising on my love for Animorphs

I've started many drafts of an article about Animorphs. I wanted to pitch it to editors and publishers and convince them that a piece about deeply enjoying something not topical or relevant was interesting and worth being on their platform.

I wanted to say that even though Spinoff already published "I read all 54 Animorphs books in five days and it almost killed me" and thus have taken the element of nostalgic surprise, which is pretty much the only hope of a mass appeal of Animorphs, that what I had to say was indeed still interesting and worth being on their platform.

I wanted to say that that piece is more of a fun-challenge-i-subjected-myself-to-pain-for-your-entertainment thing, and mine would more of an earnest and sincere almost undescribable appreciation of the first 18 books I've been able to get my hands on.

I'd probably include Mr Knightley's quote about loving Emma less so he can talk about it more to add literary credibility to my opinion.

I wanted to write about finding joy that truly felt pure.

I wanted to write about how the joy I felt reading these books carried me truly dark times. 

I wanted to tie in how the characters tackle questions of identity, humanity, friendship, and grief gave me language to talk about my mental health, relationships,what kind of person I want to grow into, and how I see my place in the world.

I've wanted to write this for four years.

I've only realised now that one of the things stopping me is the thought of making money from what feels like such an uncapitalist exchange I have in reading these books.

Books are ultimately part of capitalism - the production and purchasing of them require it.

But finding these books, tucked away in the corner of a second-hand bookstore at $4 each just felt so removed from the system of marketing and attention hungry algorithms that writing about it on a platform whose aim is to reach as wide of an audience as possible may take away from this quiet and profound joy I've found.

So I wrote it here instead. A very small and quite corner of the internet that I make no money. Publishing this still makes me productive though. That by writing I'm practicing a skill that adds to the productive work I do in my current and future jobs.

Whatever I'm going to stop worrying about the minutiae of this.

I hope you to find the quiet and profound enjoyments that don't lean so much into the demands of capitalism and productivity.

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