Introducing Buffy to Anti-Buffy People

[Moggin]

I was once vehemently anti-Buffy, but a few months ago became converted through a very specific set of circumstances. Absolutely everyone else I know personally is still on the anti-Buffy train. I even asked my oldest friend last month and found she was still disgusted by the notion. One by one, though, I've been leaving trails for the uninitiated to follow, and I think I've hit on a foolproof system. Some, I can tell, are slowly coming around to the idea of watching the series. A couple of them, who I suspect are secretly sneaking peeks at episodes, have been casually dropping questions during unrelated conversations, and a few more who have watched with me have openly been wanting to talk about specific aspects of the show. LOL!

Anyways, how many friends and family members share your Buffy obsession, and are there still those in your life who still can't/won't get into it? Have you tried some Buffy conversion? If so, what techniques did you use, and did they work?

 

[Anyanka Bunny Slayer]

My brother was REALLY into Buffy before I was. He'd make snarky remarks about Angel, so I resisted watching Buffy until 2015.

 

[thrasherpix]

Not everyone is into Buffy. I don't worry about it, even if I'm really close to them. I don't like all they like either, but different strokes for different folks (and I think things like mood, circumstance, and all that make a difference). As long as they let me watch what I want to watch, I let them do the same. (One reason for going online is so I don't speak of it to those who don't want to hear of it.)



For what it's worth, I did get a history teacher to try out anime in exchange for watching an equal amount of something she wanted me to see, and also promising that there was historical subjects (unlike many teachers, she's not burned out by the subject, only the job). She was so impressed by one that I even squeezed another short anime out of her which she had lukewarm feelings for (but said "still better than Disney"). It's worth noting that she sees no value in comics (other than a brief gag) or animation so this was no small accomplishment and I got more than I expected from her.



For me and others, commitment had to be small (that is only a few episodes, so season 1 would be easier to commit to than season 2). And I can't say whether someone should start with season 1 or 2. For me, I don't think I'd have gotten through the 2nd season had I not seen the first one as the first one made me care enough to get through the first few episodes of season 2 (and Buffy was hard for me to put up with in When She Was Bad, I can only imagine how I'd have negatively reacted if I didn't know why she was that way). But I can see some seeing the first season as way too campy...but then if they like The Lost Boys as many do then I don't think they have room to talk.



Oh! After I sat through It's a Wonderful Life (pushed on me by the aforementioned teacher who felt it shocking that I'd never seen it before), I then tried to get her to see The Wish. She wasn't into it, but being tipsy from spiked eggnog, I told the kids they could see it with me if they wanted. It was an easy sell to the boy, but the girl hesitated and said no, and in an offhand tipsy moment I said might be for the best, it's one of the scary depressing ones...and to my surprise that changed her mind ready to see it.

(They liked it enough that I played Doppelgangland after, and soon after the following year I began a full Buffy rewatch--surprised I'd forgotten some episodes even existed--and they convinced me to buy the Angel series which was my first time to see it with them. On a side note, while the girl liked both eps I played, she then wanted to see the Kim Possible Christmas episode which I happily got up...I remember thinking I was drunker than I realized at how I kept messing up with the buttons. )

 

[IndianaSolo221]

I keep trying to get my aunt to watch Buffy with me; she’s the one family member I can be close to, and I wish she could understand why I enjoy Buffy so much.

She doesn’t even want to try it, but I’m okay with that. It’s not like we don’t have plenty of other things to chat about.

 

[Athene]

Me and my sister watched everything together growing up and I'm so glad Buffy is well known in my home. I tried for years to get my best friends to watch but they never did. After many years of promotion I got @Mehansa to watch last year. I don't exactly know why she finally gave in. I think it's frustrating because a lot of popular shows take so much from Buffy and yet people judge Buffy.

 

[Mehansa]

@Athene I finally gave in because I thought it must be worth it if you are still going on about it after 9 years. Also, we had a deal😏

 

[Athene]

@Moggin Yeah I remember now 😅 what I did was I said to Mehansa I'll watch a show of her choice if she'll watch Buffy and she chose Lucifer which I'm very slowly working my way through. Maybe you could make a deal like that.

 

[fauxindigo]

I was once vehemently anti-Buffy, but a few months ago became converted through a very specific set of circumstances. Absolutely everyone else I know personally is still on the anti-Buffy train. I even asked my oldest friend last month and found she was still disgusted by the notion. One by one, though, I've been leaving trails for the uninitiated to follow, and I think I've hit on a foolproof system. Some, I can tell, are slowly coming around to the idea of watching the series. A couple of them, who I suspect are secretly sneaking peeks at episodes, have been casually dropping questions during unrelated conversations, and a few more who have watched with me have openly been wanting to talk about specific aspects of the show. LOL!

Anyways, how many friends and family members share your Buffy obsession, and are there still those in your life who still can't/won't get into it? Have you tried some Buffy conversion? If so, what techniques did you use, and did they work?

Why were you vehemently anti-Buffy? What made you give it a chance? Did you start with Season 1?

 

[Moggin]

Why were you vehemently anti-Buffy?

I was vehemently anti-Buffy for two reasons 1) her romance with Angel looked soap opera-esque and 2) she seemed like a superhero cheerleader...not my cup of tea. Before it aired, I had wanted to give it a try. The whole concept intrigued me, but the promos showing Buffy and Angel together killed it for me.

What made you give it a chance? Did you start with Season 1?

LOL! No, I watched them backwards! Long story short, the song "Early One Morning" sent me to a clip of James Marsters playing Spike/William in a clip from "Lies My Parents Told Me". First, seeing the flashback clip knocked me for a loop, because I didn't expect this kind of show to do anything historical, or to do it well. Then, just seeing JM as Spike knocked me for a loop, which was massively but delightfully unexpected. Then, I watched the seasons backwards, and the whole show knocked me for a loop.

I really wish I had not been so prejudiced against it all those years ago! I absolutely love it now, and I'm so glad I've been gradually corrupting my social circle. Fingers crossed for a total conversion.

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

welcome to the dork side.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

We need Buffy evangelists to go out into the world and preach the good news that someone is hard at work countering the vampires, demons and forces of darkness!

I have never been able to get my wife to accept the show as anything more than "bimbo Buffy". Nevertheless, she got me the DVD's for Buffy and Angel.

 

[AnthonyCordova]

I've met with resistance from most of my friends. Most expressed disbelief at the idea that Buffy of all things was great television. I was incredulous myself before a friend sat me down and forced me to watch Restless and The Body back-to-back. In the past, with friends who I thought would like the show, I tried the approach of sitting down and watching one carefully chosen episode or two together. Also, I've gotten a few friends to take an interest by first introducing them to Angel instead of Btvs. They would begin with Angel S1 and then curiosity in how it all began motivated them to go back and give Buffy itself a chance.

 

[AnthonyCordova]

For what it's worth, I did get a history teacher to try out anime in exchange for watching an equal amount of something she wanted me to see

This is the best way I think. My friends like sharing as much as I do. In my experience, if it's a swap they seem better engaged and more interested.

 

[katmobile]

We need Buffy evangelists to go out into the world and preach the good news that someone is hard at work countering the vampires, demons and forces of darkness!

I have never been able to get my wife to accept the show as anything more than "bimbo Buffy". Nevertheless, she got me the DVD's for Buffy and Angel.

Show them Passion of the Nerd's Why You Should Watch Buffy video.

 

[Give Us A Kiss]

All I can do as a person is recommend Buffy and Angel to someone, it's their choice if to watch it or not.

 

[Puppet]

The only two people in my life that have also watched Buffy - my sister who first got me to watch it and my good friend - neither of them are very obsessive by nature. They don't rewatch things over and over. My sister has borrowed my Angel DVD's twice over the past ten years, but never my Buffy ones, and my friend can't stand Alyson Hannigan's way of speaking, which keeps her from rewatching things she's in.

But, y'know, that's why I came here; to talk Buffy

 

[TriBel]

LOL! I had the opposite experience. Most of my immediate family saw it when it first aired and will talk about it in small doses (though it turns out my sons have a Bingo card covering my obsessions). One son's a NHS psychologist and repeated a conversation with me at work - turns out another psychologist disagreed but was a big Buffy fan who wanted to meet for coffee. At my place of work, a guy in the IT department had Bangel posters on the wall. I made a comment when I was in the Departmental Office and found closet Bangels there. I was doodling in a really boring meeting and an equally bored sport scientist asked what it was. I said "the gaze in BtVS"; she responded "Aah...Team Spike". On my other side was an expert in John Ruskin. She was also Team Spike. She introduced me to a friend of hers who was arranging a conference on BtVS and religion and we had long discussions about God and the mechanistic universe (motivated by Spike's "Ain't we in a soddin' engine?").

I never attempted to convert non-watchers. I just ran ideas past people and that was enough to pique their interest / curiosity. It was a film specialist who pointed out Robin Wood shared his name with a film scholar (I hadn't made the connection even though I've read Woods' work. As it turns out he was named for the scholar: Whedon heard a lecture by him and was enthused by it). A colleague with an expertise in Victorian Lit came into my office when I was watching Touched and said she thought the bed scene was influenced by Simeon Solomon's painting "The Sleepers and the One who Watcheth" (she'd worked in the museum were it's displayed. Kinda made sense when you know the One who Watcheth is an angel and Solomon was a Pre-Raphaelite). She got her husband to download the series. A philosopher who was also a writer/BBC radio producer helped with ideas I had about Merleau-Ponty. I even had a conversation with the Dean of Faculty about Willow and whether empathy was a defining characteristic of being human (she thought not, it's a sentiment only the West can afford). The advantage of working in an interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary environment is that the best people tend to take popular culture seriously.

How did I get non-Buffy watchers to actually watch it? Easy, I put it on my 3rd year curriculum and showed it in class. 😄

I watched the seasons backwards, and the whole show knocked me for a loop.

Personally, I think that's the way Whedon wants you to watch - or it least reconsider 1-6 in the light of S7 (hence The Master's "Going back to the beginning" in Lessons). Retrospection/retro-construction's a fairly common device in postmodern texts. Whedon does something similar in S12.

 

[Myheadsgonenumb]

I was 12 when it started airing so through its run it was pretty much THE show of its day in the sort of circles I moved in (teenagers - not like high society or anything). There was always people who watched it, people who refused to watch it and people who were totally obsessed with it so I had 'Buffy friends' - people who I was friends with because of Buffy and then my actual friends, some of whom watched, some of whom didn't. I bored on about it a lot but I never felt the need to convert people to it, it was everywhere - people who weren't watching it were making an active choice not to. Their loss.

Because I am the age I am - whenever I meet new people who are around my age there's at least a 50/50 chance that they've seen and enjoyed at least some of Buffy. Not that I look to bring it up in every conversation - but occasionally it might get mentioned. Because I've been watching for over 20 years I don't have the zeal of the newly converted, wanting to share this brand new thing I've fallen in love with with anyone who'll listen. I've not tried to convince anyone to start watching Buffy since the early 2000s. At most, if someone said they hadn't seen it I'd shrug and say 'oh it's really good' - and then caveat that it might not be their thing ... because it might not be.

My mum loves Buffy, though and my dad likes Angel - they watched along with me when I was a teenager. My sister isn't a Buffy freak but she's seen most of it, and will watch repeats if there's nothing better on. She's definitely more of a casual viewer though because she doesn't like fantasy, her 90s TV show of choice is ER.

 

[Moggin]

We need Buffy evangelists to go out into the world and preach the good news that someone is hard at work countering the vampires, demons and forces of darkness!

I have never been able to get my wife to accept the show as anything more than "bimbo Buffy". Nevertheless, she got me the DVD's for Buffy and Angel.

Ah, yes, Covid is about the only thing keeping me from going door to door and saying, "Have you found Buffy?". LOL

Honestly, I was with your wife on the "Bimbo Buffy" thing, only to find out how witty and complex both the character and the show are. Unfortunately, if you get the wrong scene/clip, it can really look that way. I assume she's seen more than a snippet by now, though.

 

[thrasherpix]

Question for our academicians:

How many other shows have studies devoted to them? (Offhand, I know there are studies devoted solely to Alien, Star Trek, and Twilight Zone. I'm sure there are more, but college classes on TV series isn't something I'd know. It does seem to me that the more "trivia" and essay books there are on a series the more likely there is a class on it somewhere.)

I know there are Buffy Studies. So unless such (studies/classes focused on a specific MODERN series) are a dime a dozen then surely that's a point to be made that it's probably different from what they're expecting.