It all started directly after the season finale of Lost. I was sitting around with my friends wondering what show to watch next. Lost had occupied our Tuesday nights for the last couple of months and I was sad that we were losing our get together night. We quickly remembered that True Blood was starting back up again in the summer months. For the past 2 summers I've been out in the wilderness (quite literally) and have had to catch up on True Blood when I got back home. I was excited at the prospect of watching it as it was on. I went home and looked up the starting date on the interweb.
What I found was the contest that led me to Facebook. I could win tickets to a fan screening? Awesome! I kept the page open and went about my business. I was up late that night doing some writing and I happened to glance over to the page as San Francisco was up. My moment! I clicked and I was an "instant winner".
"Fuck yes!," I said to my rabbit. He was very excited for me, I assure you.
The rest is history. I started following @truebloodHBO on Twitter and was thrilled when they followed me back. That led me to the discovery of the True Blood character Twitter accounts. Let me tell you, that does absolutely nothing good for my separation issues between fiction and reality. One by one I followed the characters. I started with Eric, and flipped all the way out when I got the text on my phone notifying me of a direct message from him. "I see you are following me. I will offer you but one warning -- I would not try anything rash if I were you. I'm still hungry." That's what he said to me. Sookie was up next, then Lafayette and Bill. Direct messages from all of them! As silly as it is, I felt cared about. Whomever is behind those Twitter handles is following and direct messaging almost every person who follows them. In Sookie's case, that's over 15,000 people!
I saw the tweet from @truebloodHBO announcing the contest to be "Sheriff of the area" at the fan screenings. I jumped at first, tweeting about why I was the ultimate "truebie", as they say. I realized then, that I might be required to talk to strangers or be put on the spot in a public situation and I wasn't so sure. Ultimately, I figured, what the heck? It's just for one night at the screening. It's all fans, what could happen? I might get something out of it! I tweeted that I had "turned so many people... into True Blood fans" and that "I can't help it, it's in my blood!". I don't know what caught HBO's eye, but round about lunch time last Tuesday, I got a direct message from @truebloodHBO asking for an email with my information. I have never been so happy eating a Subway sandwich as I was that day.
Well, @truebloodHBO did make me Sheriff of San Francisco. What I got out of it was kind of amazing. All these True Blood fans from my area were suddenly following me on the Twitter! They were replying to my tweets with greetings and comments, and asking me questions about the event. I was suddenly in a position of authority, so I decided to make the best of it and find out the answers to most of the questions I was asked. Yes, if you won tickets on Facebook, you have a VIP pass. No, I don't know how you can register now, I think it's too late. Without any real instruction, it seemed like a lot of the different sheriffs paved their own way in regard to what they were doing. I saw Facebook groups and Tweetups mentioned. I am weird about my Facebook account, and I shy away from actually talking to most people, so I stuck to Twitter. I was blown away by how friendly the community was, however artificially created it may have been.
The buzz surrounding the "Ultimate Truebie" event was absolutely electric. The day of the screening, I was at work... physically. My mind was on how I was going to do my hair and what my makeup would look like. What was the show going to be like? There's going to be a red carpet! I heard something about giveaways! The True Blood roleplay was in rare form leading up to the event. Sookie and Lafayette are going somewhere and they don't know where! Eric sent them because he was coerced by the American Vampire League! I was busy replying to tweets and looking at what other people were saying about the screening. I left work at 4pm, and believe me, I was counting down the minutes. I almost got hit by a truck on my way home (not my fault) and almost sideswiped a motorcyclist (kinda my fault).
Hair and makeup took me the better part of an hour. I looked all over for my vampire fangs from Halloweens past, but I could only find one fang. Le sigh. My friend, Jamie, came over just as I was finishing curling my hair. We left at about 6pm, which is what I was aiming for. We got to SF in record time, just over an hour from Santa Cruz. Parked at the Colma BART station and rode up to Powell St. I vaguely remembered the Powell St BART station was inside the mall. Incredibly convenient. We walked through the food court, picking up some Beard Papa's creme puffs and coffee along the way. Up the escalator, I saw a crowd of people holding pieces of paper similar to the one I had stuffed in my purse with my camera and a spare pair of flats. True Blood Ultimate Fan experience VIP passes. I found them! We went and stood at the back of the line.
I was looking around for people that I may have recognized from their Twitter pictures. It was no easy feat. Also, I'm really bad at recognizing folks from pictures. I saw some Fangtasia and Merlotte's shirts. There were fangs and "vamp stamps". I think I expected to see more flamboyant costumes, but I saw enough to be satisfied. People going to regular movies stood gaping at the line for the event. A couple of people asked me what we were waiting for. I replied that we were waiting for the True Blood screening. I suppressed the urge to add, "hookah" after that statement. I was so hyped up on adrenaline and caffeine that I was literally vibrating. At the table, I gave my name and Jamie and I got our handstamps and our tickets. We walked down the short red carpet and had our pictures taken movie premiere style in front of a banner sporting the "True Blood" and "HBO" logos. They even gave us free sodas! My bladder said no, but my taste buds said OMGDIETCOKE.
I was tweeting all kinds of stuff from my phone, a first for me. I was told that my tweets would be on the screen at the event, so I wanted to give a shout out to my SF Truebies. Didn't quite work out that way. The one time I saw my avatar and Twitter handle up on the screen, it wasn't accompanied by any tweet I wrote. It was something about saying "hi" to some people... Whatevz. It was a good idea anyway. The preshow was all kinds of sneak peeks at upcoming material complete with a countdown. I wasn't completely excited for the finale of season 2, as I had just watched it days ago. I was excited for the Q&A. The episode aired with slight technical difficulties, as to be expected from live streaming content. It ended and the Q&A begun. Almost every main actor was there, save Lafayette. They were all in costume! Were they in costume because they were filming or because of the event? It didn't really matter. There was a man from ET mediating the event, asking the actors and Alan Ball questions that had been sent in by the fans.
I had been to panel discussions before, most recently for the movie "Kick Ass" at Wondercon. They do wonders for hyping up an event. I am excited for season 3 now as much as I ever was. I kind of love seeing actors sans-script. It makes me feel better about myself knowing that they're hellof awkward when they don't have words prepared for them. Yes, I know all about your character's evolution, you don't have to tell me that. No, I don't really care about what you were doing before you got called for this show. I felt like a lot of them weren't sure about what they could and couldn't talk about in terms of this upcoming season. I'm sure that was what was foremost on their minds, and so they ended up talking about who their characters were in general. I think my favorite part was when Stephen Moyer was talking about how he didn't think the sex on the show was gratuitous. Sure, it's part of the story, but the story is about sexy vampires! Let's be real, Moyer. I also liked Alan Ball's bit about how happy functional relationships are good in real life, but boring on TV. So true!
The Q&A ended and I found myself thinking "That's it? Really?". I don't know what else I was expecting, really. We left after everyone else to discover a table giving away prizes! Swag! We waited in line for the drawstring backpacks filled with True Blood goodies, including a whole bottle of the True Blood beverage! In the bag we found some coupons, a set of postcards, and one of the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. Little did they know that I had just received the whole set for my birthday the day before! Now I have two copies of "Dead Until Dark".
I had to pee like a racehorse. At the sink in the ladies' room I ran into someone I recognized from Twitter. Lucky for me, she had posted a picture of her that day with what she was wearing and everything. That certainly helped. I said hello and as soon as I did, someone else came out and recognized me as the sheriff! It was such a goofy TV sitcom moment. It was totally awesome. We chatted in the ladies' room for a bit and then gathered outside for a picture. The theatre crew was cleaning up the swag, and we got to take a few more things home with us. It was awesome meeting some of the people I had been in contact with over the past couple of days. A great night! The whole ride home Jamie and I were buzzing with talk about the show and the next season. It was late, and I had to work the next day, but I didn't really care.
The screening is over now, but people are still talking about it. I noticed that @sookiebontemps never said where she was sent. A clever ploy. She definitely wasn't sitting next to me. Whoever she is, she was tweeting like it was going out of style. I can't get the image out of my head of some older man in the back of a theatre on an iPhone pretending that he's a 20-something Southern cocktail waitress.
I am heartened that some folks in my area are talking about setting up an actual meetup. Possibly for the beginning of season 3! I would love to have something to do with that. It's really interesting and exciting to me to see that some people have formed actual friendships out of this event. It seems that some people in some other areas are really tight now. I look forward to what might become of this. It was an event designed to build hype around the premiere of a new season. I can say that I have never been involved in any kind of fan even like this. I felt special and empowered by so many different thing surround the Ultimate Fan experience. It is obvious that the fans are quite dedicated to the show. It is really awesome that the show seems just as dedicated to its fan base.
Thanks for the memories, suckas!
Your friend, Jenn
