Assignment #20 - Taylor Galavotti - how to ~stan~ something

ok i know. i wrote an essay about one direction, i won't shut up about harry styles, i rant about sherlock at any point possible, i pull random facts out of thin air about harry potter, i know a lot about a lot of "unimportant" things. so i thought i'd share my process.

step 1: find something to be obsessed about

for me, this is quite simple. for others though, this might be a different story. also you need to be curious or information-seeking from the start if this is going to work. i usually start with netflix or spotify and then go from there. we can use one direction as our example.

step 2: do some lightweight google searches

this initial sweep will get you some basic information about the band/television show/movie etc. using one direction, you can find the band members' names (harry styles, louis tomlinson, liam payne, niall horan, zayn malik), how the band started (x-factor), their hit songs (what makes you beautiful, little things, night changes, drag me down, basically all of them), and band drama (zayn leaving 1D, louis being pissed about it, louis and zayn aren't on good terms right now). once you have a baseline, you can go to youtube or the instagram explore page. i recommend youtube first.

step 3: youtube rabbit hole

the algorithm should be realizing your obsession at this point and will queue up fan videos or interviews that relate to the topic at hand. for one direction, lots of interviews came up from the boys' solo careers which slowly transitioned into one direction interviews and fan compilations. you have to leave it up the youtube mole rats for this step. trust the mole rats. this should inspire the next step

step 4: explore page deep dive

this is my personal favorite step. all you have to do now is find one post about one direction/sherlock/harry potter/bucky barnes/(insert your media of choice here) and just keep scrolling. this continued "investment" in one topic will tip off the instagram mole rats that you want to see more content like this. soon, you'll get updates within your explore page. for example, i knew 20 minutes before the Daily Mail article dropped that harry styles was robbed at knifepoint in london thanks to the instagram explore page.

you know you've completed your research when fan accounts on instagram request to follow you. by this point, you can award yourself a degree in whatever media you've decided to invest your time in.

so yeah. feel free to invest lots and lots of hours into researching something using these steps, so you too, can pull random facts out of thin air and make a well-developed argument to absolutely no one about how under-appreciated louis tomlinson is in the 1D fandom. you're welcome.