The Cake and the Apple.

Hey Ryloggers,

It's 7 in the morning and today is the day Ish and I randomly decided to write a poem together so I thought I'd post the little mess that was formed. It's based on the  the first eight words we could think of. ( four of hers and four of mine) Love, Life, Death, Cake, Prostitution, Prosecution, Madmen and Apple. So here you go:-

                             Apple of my eye, fallen from the sky
                     'lest you didn't know, I witnessed your downfall
                 Horizons are a delusionary, illusion for the sun to rise
           but I've seen life flash before my eyes, while I stood tall ( -  Ish.)

                          O darling, you talk about life and death,
                                 As if they are worlds apart,
             And yet, I see myself but inches from its cold embrace,
                         O darling, Your love, prickly as thorns,
                 And yet, many layered in its sweetness, like cake.
                  Was appealing enough, for me to throw my life,
                           And face death, like mates of old.
                               Never was I ready though,
                To dig deep in and live, savoring every bite. ( - Me )
                     
                      If the line between life and death is fine
                       The abyss between you and I is infinite
            I won't let you stand between what's rightfully mine
          I may be a madman but I'll prosecute thee tonight. ( - Ish )

                     I once did find beauty in your madness,
                               Like an apple half eaten,
                      Now all that I see in thine eyes, dark,
                              Is the reaper of my heart,
                                 All but too inclined,
               to make mine soul, thy personal prostitute. ( - Me )

It's completely bogus but I had to blog it. Aaiz out.

Fandom Kills Perks.

Initial Book Cover

Hi Ryloggers!

So since I am procrastinating anyway and not giving a damn about the work load still pending which possibly could and probably would come back to bite me in the ass, I thought I'd do a short 'Aaiz rant' on something which has been bugging me for a while.

So if you've followed this blog from before, you'd know that my favorite book has been 'The Perks of being a Wallflower' for quite some time. It is maybe one of the few books which had touched me on a deeper level than your regular reading and It's definitely meant much more to me than any other book has, ever. I guess I could relate to the book a lot on many different levels and it's more than a good read for me. There is this power behind Chbosky's words, his style of writing, his portrayal of Charlie that carried a certain elegance that made me incurably depressed and at the same time, lighter, more at peace. I still have this habit of reading Perks from time to time to be followed by a phase where I won't read any other book or watch any series, I guess to savor Perks in my head.

Anyway, I could go on with my dramatic narration of how much Perks mean to me but that's not the point of this article. I've already reviewed the book in an earlier article on this very blog. My point here would be that, back then I was happy with the 'fandom' Perks had. For those of you who don't know, a fandom is a new term used by fans of a certain book, book series, movie or tv series to depict basically all the internet forums etc which has been created where fans come together and discuss the particular book, movie etc or post fanart, fanfiction etc about it. You must have seen those pages in Facebook,  Harry Potter naturally has the biggest fandom.

So yea, I was happy with the small 'Perks' fandom that existed. I mean, it wasn't main stream. But there were a group of people who were genuinely affected by the book and they talked about it; about Charlie and about how his experiences related to theirs etc. It had a decent and enriching way about it. Then disaster struck.

Credits :- www.filmofilia.com

Stephen Chbosky decided to direct a Perks movie. And of all people, it starred Emma Watson and Logan Lerman, If I am not very much mistaken, it was Emma's first time starring in a major role after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Everyone went fanatic. I mean, I remember seeing the posts. All the talk was that Emma Watson, gorgeous Emma, brilliant Emma, Hermione freaking Granger was starring in this movie by this bloke called Stephen Chbosky. No one even knew what 'Perks' was. And I'm not complaining. I'm as much an Emma fan as the next guy and I was excited to see a film adaptation of Perks. I did worry that they might screw it up as they do so many movies but i figured it would be safe with Chbosky

And when it came, it was perfect. I can tell you that, it was amazing. Chbosky managed to bring the book to life in the movie and it was not like that it was verbatim from the book, there were changes and there was a nice elegance to these changes. Emma was an amazing Sam and Logan played Charlie very well. But Ezra Miller was the biggest hit for me. He took Patrick from the book where he was a good character and brought him to the screens as one of the best characters I've seen portrayed in a long time. You couldn't help but love Miller's acting. So, if it was so picture perfect, what is my problem, you ask?

My problem was the response from the public. We saw the old Perks fandom withering away. And I'm not even being dramatic here. The old pages in which we discussed the novel kind of disintegrated, to be replaced by a new fandom. Pages where you talk about how hot Emma was in the movie, how well Logan Lerman managed to shift from Percy Jackson to Charlie etc. And worse than that, there were these small small pictures, fanart that they uploaded with a quote here and there about the movie and then everyone got together and talked as if they deeply understood the novel while everything they are talking about is the face value you got from the movie and not the themes that Chbosky has brought forward. Everyone seems to be a Perks expert and I find few people who have actually grasped what it was about and fewer people who had actually read the book.

They acted like they knew everything there is to know about Perks just because Emma Watson starred in it, I mean you guys should see the Harry Potter pages where they like incessantly and murderously just kill this amazing novel in the sort of stuff they come up with about. I know that I sound like a little boy who has been asked to share my favorite toy with the whole world and I don't care. It is my favorite toy and I am sharing it with the world and they don't know how to play with it and in the process would end up breaking it. Perks went mainstream and it killed the meaning of it.

IF that wasn't bad  enough  a rather peculiar trend started. It was Just like how the LGBT movement made it cool for people to come out there and advocate homosexuality (And understand me here, I have no problem with that. what I'm saying is that LGBT created a trend where people just supported gay rights because it was the cool thing to do when they remained incessantly ignorant about related themes like gender based persecution, gender roles and their utter stupidity, you get my drift?), how feminism made it cool for women to consider every guy as the enemy who would discriminate you, how nerds were ostracized once upon a time and then it became cool to be a nerd and people who haven't touched a book in their entire life puts on big glasses take pictures and put it on FB and go, 'OMGEEE, kill me now I am such a nerd. hihihihaaa!' etc etc, you know how we humans have a tendency to associate with whatever is 'hot' at that time in order to get acceptance.

Anyway similarly, it became cool, a fashion statement to be socially awkward. Now, I don't know how many of you have actually read Perks and in case you haven't, I won't spoil it for you but more or less, it does talk about a boy who has, because of the events in life become socially awkward. I won't go more into that, but anyway, this was taken up by people posting stuff on facebook saying, 'I'm so socially awkward I could just....' 'It's cause I'm so so freaking socially awkward that I am...' 'OMG, you know me, so socially awkward..' And the funny part is if these people post these stuff early in the morning, at midnight there would be pictures of them being the life and soul of a party in some club. Excuse me, lovelies? Do you know the meaning of Socially awkward?

It is a very real problem for so many people and it's a huge slap on their faces and your foot down their throats when you make a mockery out of it just because you love a certain actor or actress and would like to associate with a fandom just because he or she is the star of it. So yes, these among other reasons are how the Perks fandom has killed, murdered, butchered and desecrated my favorite book for me. It was my personal escape and now I look at the book and I see all the nameless, faceless people of the fandom who are a global joke.

Until next time,
A.