I’m a fan of Kiara Takanashi!

I’m a serious fan of Kiara Takanashi since December last year.
She’s a hard-working video content creator with a warm but generally ecstatic personality. She’s amazing because she thinks fondly of her fans and actively seeks out interactions whenever she’s live streaming or not. She’s also trilingual, sings, draws, can (supposedly) fly, and is an absolute delight to spend time with.
Her digital avatar and backstory is based on the Phoenix, the mythical creature.
I recommend checking out her content. Keep in mind that it’s considered mal-intent to spread information about her physical persona!

Before this experience I couldn’t even comprehend what being a “fan” actually means. This post contains the result of some digging into my behavior. I intend to shine a positive light on the phenomenon.
As a bonus, nitwits like my former self might have found an interesting read.

Don’t like to read that much? Check the third installment for a fun (I’d say so) FAQ section that also intends to summarize the experience a bit.

Fans and their environment

I remember my niece being a serious fan of One Direction, and another friend fawning over Taylor Swift. In theory, there is nothing wrong with this behavior. Everyone is entitled to experience an enjoyable time. Those are one of the few tools to offset the guaranteed pushbacks you’ll encounter within your lifespan.

A balanced mental state leads to stable connections with your body and environment. It’s not uncommon for mentally unstable people to suffer from health issues or fights with others. To be clear; Think about aspects of life like weights on a scale. Each of us is in charge of keeping the needle under control. Both fun and boring stuff are weights on this scale.
This balance is not always bound to the duality of our math or religion! Or differently put; this scale has more than two plates for holding weights. Our decisions typically lead to a concise yes/no answer, but these answers often don’t feel satisfactory. Some decisions need more types of weights on the scale.
You do not like broccoli, but does this imply that you hate eating it?“ ask yourself this question and discover how black/white your view on life is.

The needle needs to stay under ‘control’ and not ‘in the middle’ or ‘centered’ because those are different things. There are perfectly valid reasons to rotate the needle into an extreme state. Recognizing such a situation comes with what old people call ‘life experience’ (I think).

Being a fan triggers exaggerated behavior in one of many possible ways, often confused with addiction. The bottom line is this behavior will look uncommon to other people. External opinions about extremes rapidly dwell into the negative space. That’s imperatively confirmed to be true; use politics as a topic or look at the reasons for success for Facebook and Twitter.
These opinions often stem from misunderstanding or a counter-reaction to perceived obsession(s). Fans specifically can get laughed at, or get excluded from conversations, or become the target of active bullying. All those community reactions prevent them from sharing their excitement. This hurts the self-image of most of them. Humans are group animals after all.

There are fans that pull through, notwithstanding the bullying they receive because of it. This requires a lot of willpower and I have all respect for this skill. I believe Kiara is an example of such a fan.
However, this is not laudable behavior because the long-term consequences are uncertain. It’s highly dependant on the individual, but in any case the chances are high to end up as a troubled person.

“Troubled person” comes from my lack of vocabulary. I don’t intend you to interpret this fragment as a negative trait. Having experienced certain feelings and human interactions changes your mentality. If those experiences and perspectives are rather unique your personality becomes hard to fathom by the average person. This affects new and longstanding interpersonal relations.
Simply put into an analogy; At which point do you cross the line between an average human and a superstar?

These fan relations are legitimate. At least one in ten people (source; my pool of acquaintances) will turn into a ‘serious fan’ about something once in their life. I think the chances of finding a serious fan around the same age about the same topic is low. The internet helps to find them, a good thing yay!, but you need to expose yourself for the entire world to see before you can reap benefits. At this point, I circled back to an earlier statement about external opinions.
Be aware that the internet is generally not much different from the living space within your hometown. Using it gives you a better chance at finding like-minded fans. Or at least more understanding people.

Fans and their balance

Each week I spend about 20 hours of my time consuming Kiara’s content. Yes, that’s the equivalent of a part-time job. Some weeks the average is a bit higher, but never actually lower. Eighteen weeks have passed since December 2020, resulting in 360 hours invested.
This total excludes the amount of time to create fan works.

Are these too many hours spent? I’m uncertain, the result is inconclusive.
There was a moment, around two weeks ago, where I decided to go cold turkey. My day at that point consisted of sleep, work, eat, work out (twice a week), and Kiara. I felt chained, stuck in a non-productive (outside of work) mentality. Before, I spent my free time consuming science news and did ‘programming for fun’. Up to this day of writing (2021-05-13) I’m still feeling more tired and less motivated than before. BUT writing this post goes pretty well! Maybe I just needed something different to focus my attention on.
I don’t regret spending that amount of time on Kiara.

I’ve donated a total of 86 euros to Kiara since December 2020. That’s about 5 euros per week or 23 euro cents per hour of consumed content.

Is this too much money spent? No, I’m convinced that this is very cheap for the amount of amusement I got in return. I’m a bit surprised though because I expected the amount to be around 50 euros.
I love Kiara’s transparent policy about donations. She’s a creator focused on interaction, and the monetary aspect is secondary:

• People can consume 99% of her content for free!
• She has a single membership plan for 5 euro’s per month that provides visual perks
• Alternatively, you can send her a SuperChat, which is a highlighted chat message, for any amount of your choosing. She gives your name a shout-out and sometimes reads your message out loud and replies.

On a slight tangent; The daily cost of my car has been on my mind for a week. The cost scale doesn’t even compare, caused by the ultra-low amount of time I effectively use the vehicle. I don’t even like driving, so this car costs me an absurd amount of money more than Kiara does.

Fans and their trigger

What causes trigger the creation of fans?
Stay tuned for part two of this post!

Note; This post is last updated on 2021-05-14 to improve grammar, styling, and clarification of my ideas.