These days there is a lot of Star Wars out in the wild. New movies, television shows, full-length novels and numerous other kinds of books, comics, and video games. As fans, we are constantly bombarded with new media and content on almost a daily basis. It can feel overwhelming to try and keep up at times. There are a lot of remedies that can be taken to check out this issue and there isn’t one single answer that applies to everyone.
Do I want to see/read/watch it all?
This is one of the biggest questions when it comes to trying to manage digesting all of this media. For some people it can come down to a breaking point where they have to really think and decide how they want to proceed with the material they want to continue with. Obviously it is hard to try and keep up to date with everything that is published and aired while keeping yourself still engaged. A lot of people opt out from some of the things that are released. With comics, it has a sort of built-in way to do that. Instead of going to the comic shop and getting every issue as it is released, you can wait to collect each volume as they are released in paperback collections. There are obviously pros and cons to this method of consuming and it is up to personal preference on how to proceed.
It is a little easier on the novel and book front since they tend to have a far more sparse release schedule. Over the course of a calendar year, the publishing of full-length novels falls any where between three to five releases. As of this post, there have been exactly three novel releases this year, with at least two more scheduled for the remaining months. (This only goes for novels being published under DelRey.) It usually ends up being a little easier to consume the titles with this sort of release schedule. Obviously it’s a little different with the other books that come out like the reference titles, young readers, and YA novels but not all of that is for every demographic.
As for me, I end up taking in mostly everything. Books, comics, TV shows, video games – you name it. This definitely comes down to personal preference and not everyone has the time/ability/means to take it all in. I gladly enjoy everything that comes out without getting bogged down by it all. There’s one way I’ve found to make it easy for myself.
The Social Media Storm
I keep away from the social media rigmarole. I’ve tampered down on my social media consumption in regards to the Star Wars fandom. There is a palpable difference when it comes to taking in all of the actual media released from Lucasfilm and also constantly engaging with it in the social sphere than to just consuming what is put out there. This is definitely one of the biggest things that comes down to each individuals capacity for interaction and appetite for media and material.
Increasingly, I found it more & more difficult and exhausting to always keep up with the conversation that happened on the social media front. A lot of the time it devolved into choirs of nothingness and nameless speculation. With every time a piece of media is released, notably trailers and the behind the scenes reels, everyone jumps into the ring to play armchair quarterback and try to be the most right. It just got to be too much. I got burnt out on it all and decided to extricate myself from it.
I’m certainly not here to tell someone that it’s wrong and they shouldn’t stay engaged and active with the social conversation, but it’s up to each individual to control their own experiences. I found that it was having a negative impact on my enjoyment of the actual content itself so I did what I needed to step back and assess what I wanted to get out of being a Star Wars fan.
What about you? Do you ingest everything that comes out? Are you constantly active and engaged on the social channels? Feel free to leave a comment below or send in your thoughts with an email!
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