The Mate

Right, cheers. I liked the last one. She was good. Got a bit fancy with the words near the end there — "emotionally vulnerable," "patrons," all that. She's clever. I'm not that clever, and I think that's fine, because you're probably not that clever either, and that's not a dig at you. It's me talking to people like me.

So let me just say it plain. This whole thing — it's really simple. Somebody who loves a story writes more of it themselves. And then loads of other people who love that story go and read what that somebody wrote, and they love that too. That's it. Millions of people, every day, reading stories that other people wrote about characters that somebody else made up first.

The truth is, the people who read this stuff are just people who really, really like a thing. They like a TV show, or a book, or a film, so much that they don't want it to stop. When it ends, they don't go "oh well, that was nice." They go "I need more of that." And then they find out somebody else felt the same way and wrote more, and they read that, and they love it, and then they want even more.

And look, we all have that thing we like a bit too much. Some people are into football. Some people are into baking. These people are into their favourite characters. It's not that weird.

What is a bit weird — and this is where I start laughing at them — is how far they take it. And how seriously.

Because these people, they like a thing properly. They get really into the details. They know every single thing that ever happened to their favourite character. They know what they'd order in a restaurant. They know more about these make-believe people than they know about most of their actual friends.

And here's the thing that makes me laugh the most. They argue about it. They get proper angry about it. You've got two people who love the same show, and they'll argue for hours about whether character A should have ended up with character B or character C. Proper argue. Heated. Like it matters. They'll fall out with their mates over it. They'll stop talking to people over who their favourite character should have married.

And none of it is real! None of it! These people are not real! The person who wrote the show decides who character A ends up with! It's not a vote! It's not up for debate! But try telling them that. You'll get a lecture. You'll get told you don't understand the character. You'll get told you're not a real fan.

And that's the bit I love. "You're not a real fan." As if liking a thing is a test you can pass or fail. As if the person who made the thing is going to come round your house and check your fan credentials. You like the thing? Great. You don't like it as much as me? Then you're not a real fan. It's like supporting a football club, except nobody ever actually wins, because the game is all in their heads.

And the best bit. They get on these websites and they write proper long reviews. Like they're critics for a newspaper. They write a whole paragraph about why they liked or didn't like what somebody wrote. And the person who wrote the story reads those comments, and cares about them so much they'll change the story. They'll change what they were planning to write because one reader wrote a comment.

So you've got a person who wrote a whole story, did all the work, and a person who read it and wrote a little comment — and the person who did all the work is the one who's scared of the person who did the comment. That's the whole world in one little picture. The person who made the thing is scared of the person who just read the thing and had an opinion.

And they'll all tell you they're not like that. They'll all tell you they just like the stories. But they know what they're like. They know they've read a story at two in the morning and cried. They know they've checked, every single day, for a new part of a story somebody said they'd write, and been proper disappointed when it wasn't there. They know they've got one favourite character that they care about more than they'd ever admit to their actual family.

So I'm not saying they're weird. I'm saying they're us, but with a bit more energy and a bit less shame about it. And I love them for it. Because at least they care about something.

Even if that thing is two make-believe people who should have ended up together, and they'll never, ever, ever get over it.