I have a collection of articles I cut out from TV guides etc. I posted about in in the forum before here: Aspie porn - stuff we really love
In this blog post I'm going into detail some more.
When I started getting interested in TV shows and movies I began a collection of cut out articles of TV guides. I kept recent TV guides and then cut out all the summaries about shows or movies I liked, I wanted to see or which featured an actor I was interested in. I also cut out other articles and collected them, such as book reviews, interviews or texts about other topics I found interesting.
Since I started the collection quite a while ago it is also interesting to see the changing focus. Depending on what I was into the most, that also was what I collected the most articles about. Later others were added, some categories weren’t continued etc.
Once I got a book for my birthday about a TV show, which included, besides other information, a list of all the episodes up to the point of publication, sorted into categories, just like I did with the articles regarding the TV show. I immediately started to compare that list with my collection and took some notes about what I already had collected etc.
This book is also the easiest way to narrow down the start of the collection without any additional effort because through comparing my collection with the episodes I can also see when the episodes first aired. These air dates are written down in the book. So whenever I saw an article stating that it's a "new episode" I checked the air date and so figured out that my collection was started in 2009.
Here are some examples of categories and related shows/movies etc.:
In opposite to this BBC Sherlock is a fairly new subcategory.
Tatort is one of the longest lasting subcategories. It was started rather at the beginning of my collection, but I never lost interest in collecting related articles.
Naturally, some additions can only be made as soon as the specific episodes or sequels actually exist. This is important for the Harry Potter category, for example, since I started the category when some of the movies hadn't been produced yet. This also shows some kind of time line.
Obviously, there can be overlaps and sometimes it's difficult to decide where I want to put a specific article at the end.
I have some folders full with these articles now and still keep doing this. It's a fun thing for me to do and I could do it for hours.
I really like to look through the articles as well and I'm happy when I get the summary of an episode of something I haven't collected yet, so I can complete this part.
I don't have that much time anymore sadly, so I don't do it as much as I used to when I was at highschool and I also have periods when other more changing interests catch my attention and I rather do something else for a while. But then I still keep the TV guides until I find the time to engage in this process of cutting out and sorting again.
Despite the happiness associated with the articles and the process of organizing the collection I feel kind of guilty about it as well.
It is mostly about feeling guilty to have such a completely useless collection and spending time with the associated process at all. I think it's partly caused by my mother who told me that it is useless and obsessive some times before. This lowers my enjoyment and makes me feel guilty afterwards when I see that I have just spent three hours on categorizing articles.
But as I said my collection makes me happy as well. So I don't think it's actually useless. Just because others might not understand the comfort a collection provides, it doesn't mean that it is useless or bad to own such a collection like mine that helps me to feel happy on my own while working on it.
Maybe I'll feel more comfortable about it again soon. I live on my own now, so there is no one telling me how useless it is what I'm doing. No one judges me when I'm alone while working on my collection.
I'll give it a try soon. Hopefully, it'll work as expected. I am looking forward to feeling better about it again.
In this blog post I'm going into detail some more.
When I started getting interested in TV shows and movies I began a collection of cut out articles of TV guides. I kept recent TV guides and then cut out all the summaries about shows or movies I liked, I wanted to see or which featured an actor I was interested in. I also cut out other articles and collected them, such as book reviews, interviews or texts about other topics I found interesting.
Since I started the collection quite a while ago it is also interesting to see the changing focus. Depending on what I was into the most, that also was what I collected the most articles about. Later others were added, some categories weren’t continued etc.
Once I got a book for my birthday about a TV show, which included, besides other information, a list of all the episodes up to the point of publication, sorted into categories, just like I did with the articles regarding the TV show. I immediately started to compare that list with my collection and took some notes about what I already had collected etc.
This book is also the easiest way to narrow down the start of the collection without any additional effort because through comparing my collection with the episodes I can also see when the episodes first aired. These air dates are written down in the book. So whenever I saw an article stating that it's a "new episode" I checked the air date and so figured out that my collection was started in 2009.
Here are some examples of categories and related shows/movies etc.:
- actors/filmmakers
- Tim Burton
- Johnny Depp
- crime/thriller
- Sherlock Holmes
- Elementary
- BBC Sherlock
- movies with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law
- Tatort ("crime scene" in German)
This is a famous German TV show. The book I mentioned before is about Tatort. There are police teams in various German cities, such as Berlin and Cologne, who solve murders there.
- Sherlock Holmes
- TV series as a general category
- H2O: Just Add Water
- The Big Bang Theory
- Harry Potter
I had already started a Harry Potter collection way before I had a general collection like this. So Harry Potter was later added to the collection as an own category.
In opposite to this BBC Sherlock is a fairly new subcategory.
Tatort is one of the longest lasting subcategories. It was started rather at the beginning of my collection, but I never lost interest in collecting related articles.
Naturally, some additions can only be made as soon as the specific episodes or sequels actually exist. This is important for the Harry Potter category, for example, since I started the category when some of the movies hadn't been produced yet. This also shows some kind of time line.
Obviously, there can be overlaps and sometimes it's difficult to decide where I want to put a specific article at the end.
I have some folders full with these articles now and still keep doing this. It's a fun thing for me to do and I could do it for hours.
I really like to look through the articles as well and I'm happy when I get the summary of an episode of something I haven't collected yet, so I can complete this part.
I don't have that much time anymore sadly, so I don't do it as much as I used to when I was at highschool and I also have periods when other more changing interests catch my attention and I rather do something else for a while. But then I still keep the TV guides until I find the time to engage in this process of cutting out and sorting again.
Despite the happiness associated with the articles and the process of organizing the collection I feel kind of guilty about it as well.
It is mostly about feeling guilty to have such a completely useless collection and spending time with the associated process at all. I think it's partly caused by my mother who told me that it is useless and obsessive some times before. This lowers my enjoyment and makes me feel guilty afterwards when I see that I have just spent three hours on categorizing articles.
But as I said my collection makes me happy as well. So I don't think it's actually useless. Just because others might not understand the comfort a collection provides, it doesn't mean that it is useless or bad to own such a collection like mine that helps me to feel happy on my own while working on it.
Maybe I'll feel more comfortable about it again soon. I live on my own now, so there is no one telling me how useless it is what I'm doing. No one judges me when I'm alone while working on my collection.
I'll give it a try soon. Hopefully, it'll work as expected. I am looking forward to feeling better about it again.
