Bandwagons

This December, one of the most anticipated movies of all time is going to be released to movie theaters for the public to view.  The hype for this movie has been unreal and the advertisements have been everywhere, even the President of the United States remarked about the movie.  There is one thing bothering me however, and it is that now, so close to the release date, everyone seems to be the biggest star wars fan in the world.  While several years ago the talk about Star Wars was limited to certain enthusiast communities.  Why is everyone all of a sudden a huge Star Wars fan that seems to know everything about the Star Wars universe all of a sudden? Bandwagons.  It's the cool thing to do, and everyone else is doing it, so why not hop on that train and get hyped for it as well.

Some other things that are extremely prone to becoming a bandwagon are sports, video games, music artists, and even political candidates.  Often times I see that when a sports team starts winning, or make it to the playoffs for the first time in a long time (looking at you Mets "fans") people suddenly become fans of that franchise.  Who cares if you root for a losing team? Sticking to one team and calling yourself truly a fan of that team, will make it feel so much better when they actually do have a good season!  The same goes for musical artists, such as when a new artist doesn't have many followers or fans, but people begin to like their music for the sole reason of them getting famous.

Now where am I going with this? I believe social media has had a tremendous impact on how people bandwagon.  With all the publicity and information available to people about different products, teams, artists, etc, it is very easy for people to lose interest in what they were originally supporting.  People are constantly updated on how sports teams are doing, and what music new artists are releasing, what the latest presidential debate was about and the newest movies.  People get distracted easily and switch from one favorite thing to another.  I like to think of this as the selling out version for fans, instead of the other way around.

An example of this, and the event that got me thinking about it, I was in Times Square in New York City, and I noticed a massive Star Wars advertisement along one very long screen.  The first thing I thought was this is pretty cool, but then I realized that there haven't been any Star Wars advertisements like this in a very long time.  I then walked into the Disney store in Times Square (It wasn't my choice) and the first thing I see are a bunch of star wars toys for little kids.  Selling cool Star Wars stuff is perfectly okay, but I got the impression that everyone seemed to be a Star Wars fan all of a sudden.  Are people actually invested in the Star Wars universe? or do they just say they love Star Wars and can't wait for the new movie like everyone else.  And Disney having an incredibly easy time advertising is not helping people have their own opinions.

To wrap things up, I believe people that jump on bandwagons because it is the cool thing to do is just as bad as an artist selling out.  It bothers me greatly as a Star Wars fan to see a franchise like this monetized like that, and I can assume it is the same way for others that feel strongly about things like sports teams or music artists.