The Obsession and The Hunt
Picture this. It was 1999. I was walking around Forest Hill Chase (my local shopping centre/mall) desperate to find the third book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Except I felt that ‘Azkaban’ was too difficult for me to pronounce, as did many sales assistants I spoke to ‘Do you have the latest Harry Potter? The Prisoner of…?’ They would respond with a ‘Oh, (insert wrong pronunciation here)? No, we’re sold out sorry.’
So then to the next store I would head. Harry Potter was big, but I’d been given the first book as a gift for my eighth birthday in 1997. I’d managed to get Chamber of Secrets easily. Though I was nine so maybe my mum remembers it differently. But I remember the feverish hunt for the Prisoner of Azkaban. And from then on, I pre-ordered every single one as not to miss out ever again. At a bookstore. In person. And then I collected it. In person. I don’t know what the internet was doing at this time, but I thought online shopping meant you’d lose all your credit card details. I found the whole prospect completely terrifying.
For each release after this (so we are talking book four onwards), I would block out the entire day to read the book, avoiding MSN Messenger for fear of spoilers. One year, I took a bean bag into the bathroom and sat in there all day, only leaving for the essentials (not that it matters but the toilet was in a separate room), wandering out at the end of the day, leaving Hogwarts and returning to Muggle life, my head spinning. Often, I would have tears streaming down my face, processing whatever I had just devoured and aware that I would need to wait for the next one. The duration I can’t remember, but I just know it felt like FOREVER.
There are two reasons I’ve been reflecting on this lately. The obsession and the hunt.
First things first, the obsession. I recently wrote about the love drunk haze which engulfed me after watching K-Drama Oh My Venus. I do this often, devour books and shows. The life that exists outside of my watching, reading or listening simply acts as a distraction between getting back to it. Before I go to bed each night I check to see if any new YouTube videos are released so I know what will be keeping me company in the morning. I listen to the same songs repeatedly, trying to conjure up something. In my first year of uni I listened to Sam’s Town by The Killers on repeat, and at full volume, birthing an essay about society’s attitudes towards death. This album was never my go-to productivity playlist, and it hasn’t been since, but in that moment, sitting on the floor with my back against the door, it was exactly what I needed. Up until I remembered my Harry Potter bathroom lock-in, I thought that my habit of getting obsessed with a text was something new I had developed in my over stimulated, multiple streaming services, double screening context. But it existed long before, when I would play Aqua’s Barbie Girl whilst staring at a poster of them on my cupboard door. When I would chat to my friends on MSN, then on the phone and then through short sharp texts for fear I would be charged more than I intended due to my character length.
What is perhaps different now, is the permission I gave myself when it came to being sucked in. Now, life has more responsibilities but the intense reading, music listening and binge watching happens in short bursts, whenever they will least interrupt the rest of my life. We are also such segmented viewers that it is rare you can guarantee that anyone will know what you’re talking about if you start carrying on about a show, or a book, as was the case when I was first reading Harry Potter.
The Hunt is at once easier due to the advances in online shopping and more frustrating because my expectations of when I should have access to something. If I can’t find something in store, I have access to thousands of online stores and even if I have to wait a couple of days, or at worse a week, there is a guarantee I will have it in my hands. I have about three of four pre-orders in my Booktopia account and take great comfort in knowing that these books will be mine, without any more worry on my part. It has been a long time since I have struggled to get something Media related. Besides Harry Potter, the last time was trying to find a DVD Copy of the French film, Love Me If You Dare. However, recently I have been trying to get my hands on books I’ve seen on Instagram not realising that they have become famous on TikTok. I know very little about the reading community on TikTok but Booktopia have started including the tagline TikTok made me buy it! Under many of its titles. This influence is not just seen on social media or online stores either.
Last week I went into a big Dymock’s book shop (the one on Collins Street, for those familiar with Melbourne) looking to buy The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. Unable to find it on the shelf, I asked a sales assistant who told me they had 200 on order with 40 names down already. But, the sales assistant told me, they had a whole section for books popular on TikTok*. I didn’t even know this was a thing, but when I saw the display consisted of two books (which I’d purchased the week before) I knew that I had been influenced, without even realising. The hunt ended after I left Dymocks, hopped on to Booktopia and bought The Love Hypothesis, along with the rest of The Mirror Visitor Quartet. I’m not ready to read them just yet but I didn’t want a Prisoner of Azkaban debacle all over again.
We can talk about my lack of patience another time.
*I’m ashamed to admit that when she said this I cringed and felt the need to defend myself. Media snobbery at its finest.