As Teen Wolf enters its final season, I want to share a little bit on how much this show has changed my life. I’ll be posting a series of articles until the Season 6 premiere on November 15th at 9 pm on MTV on how I got involved with the show and all of my different experiences within the fandom. I hope you enjoy as I take an emotional look back to the last five years of my life that I’ve spent dedicated to this amazing show.
On a warm Sunday night in the middle of the summer of 2011, I sat in my room waiting for the MTV Movie Awards to come on. Having turned 15 just one week before, I was super anxious since I was leaving my family for boarding school in just a few short weeks, but mainly because I wanted to see who would win between my new two favorite movies at the time, Twilight and Harry Potter.
During the ceremony, I kept seeing an advertisement for a new show coming to MTV that was going to premiere directly following the awards ceremony called Teen Wolf. I had no idea what it was about, really all I saw was a shirtless guy with fangs on a field, and my interest was sparked. So after the awards ended, I decided to give it a shot.
I had never seen a scary movie before (I still haven’t and don’t plan on it), so I almost immediately turned off the television during the opening scene. Me and dark settings with ominous music is not a great combination. But suddenly, a buzzcut teenager appeared, and I started laughing. Although it was creepy sitting in the dark, well past my bedtime watching the show, I appreciated the comedic relief.
I continued through the episode and was amazed by how intrigued I was with the supernatural storyline and wondered why the guys at my high school weren’t that attractive. In the end, I couldn’t wait for the next episode. In the meantime, I decided to head to Twitter to see if any of my friends happened to have watched the series premiere.
I only had about 15 followers at the time, all from my high school, and my Twitter account was super top-secret since my mom didn’t allow me to have social media at the time. Nobody I knew had watched it, so I decided to head to the MTV account to find out more information about the cast. That’s when I first found Dylan O’Brien.
I followed every cast member and saw them continually engaging with their new fans. In an effort to get noticed, I changed my username to @LOVEdylanobrien so that he would notice me, and planned on changing it back to my original Twitter name as soon as he followed me. It proved to be successful, and both he and Tyler Posey followed me along with a couple of thousand other people.
https://twitter.com/LOVEdylanobrien/status/81095651340980224
I wondered why my Twitter was gaining so much traction, and it turned out people thought I actually was Dylan. I told myself that I would keep the username just a little while longer since it was hilarious to me, but then I started talking to different people who watched the show, and they welcomed me into my first “official” fandom, and I realized I should probably keep it just a little while longer.
https://twitter.com/LOVEdylanobrien/status/81941702566359040
The moral of the first chapter of this story is not to listen to your mom when she tells you not to talk to strangers on the internet, but also try new things. You never know who or what will change your life.
Stay tuned for my next post where I talk about being in the fandom during the first season!