If I ask you about your all-time favourite actor, actress, politician or any personality, all of you must have some answers. It is natural that we like someone, we follow someone or someone seems like an ideal persona. But, I am going to talk about being a fan of someone and other aspects related to this.
Being a fan is different from liking or following someone. If you are a fan of someone, it means that you like everything about him/her. You either want to live life like them or live with them. You can’t hear a word against that person from anyone in any case. You keep fighting with others on social media or in personal interactions to defend your lifetime Hero(ine). In extreme cases, you are ready to even kill anyone for a person. I read that how fans used to send intimidating messages to Puneet Issar for causing Amitabh an injury while shooting a scene. Seems like sanity to you? Being a fan is something like that. You can watch the movie “Fan” as well to understand it more clearly. By becoming someone’s fan, you often end up sacrificing your conscience, your critical nature, and rationality which is reserved only for humans. Let’s see how.
If you are a fan of any actor or artist due to their talent, you start to like that artist as a good human being. You try to defend them as much as possible. You get hurt if someone criticizes them and start worshipping them. You allow blind faith to rule your conscious mind and gradually, it turns into fanaticism. I have met many such people who are die hard fans of someone and defend them forever.
But, it is a reality that no person is perfect in this world. No one is best in every aspect. No one has ideal virtues and everyone commits mistakes in life. Then, how can we become a fan of someone? It is possible that we may like someone’s talent but it is not necessary that we extrapolate that talent to being a good human being or any kind of God personification. We should always leave a scope to criticize people. We should always keep the possibility to have a different opinion about someone. I have not seen any perfect person in this world. People even criticize Gandhi for some of his views. Keep your mind open and do not let any kind of illusion about any person affect your conscience. Everyone commits mistakes, everyone does some good or bad deeds in life.
Another thing is that people become a fan of someone due to their qualities or nature, though, they have not met them personally even once. How it is possible? It is most common when we like celebrities and get impressed by their onscreen character or image portrayed in public by their PR team. It is most dangerous when you are a fan of some political personalities. Because, by being an ardent fan of any politician, you are compromising our democracy, people’s welfare and your voting right.
I also used to be a fan of many people. But gradually, I came to know that it is not possible for me to follow or defend anyone unconditionally. For me, it is impossible to be a fan of anyone, and if you are, then you must be mistaken. Because it is the ultimate truth of life that no one is perfect in everything in this world.