Supply and demand is a funny thing. Actually it’s more of the demand part that can make things interesting. In the celebrity collecting (by the way, I really have no idea what to call my hobby anymore) department, sometimes I am driven by demand rather than supply, or worse yet, my own interest. I may have only a passing interest in getting a photo with or autograph of a certain celebrity, but when I hear that someone else is dying to meet them or otherwise thinks they are the cat’s meow, somehow my interest is piqued even further.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is 100% ego, nor is it 100% trying to make someone else jealous. Maybe 50% between the two, but the other half that drives this behavior is that maybe if someone else is really interested in the celebrity, perhaps it’s only a matter of time before I find something they’ve done that really interests me as well.
Ian Somerhalder is one such example. I had somewhat of an interest in him as he had been one of the original stars of the TV series Lost, playing half of the brother-sister team of Boone and Shannon in the first season. On that basis alone, I would have probably easily shelled out $30 or so for an autograph and photo op.
Perhaps though that it wouldn’t have been quite enough to pay the $85 professional photo op fee that he was charging if I didn’t have some female friends that were absolutely swooning over him. This was because of his starring role in The Vampire Diaries, which to date I have never seen and probably never will.
So on the strength of ego, demand, Lost, plus the added bonus of him being in an episode of Smallville, I went ahead and paid for a photo op for Carolyn and me. No real regrets there, plus he’s a young guy so you never know what he might be doing in the future. I can add him to my list now and be done with it.
As always the photo op was very quick, but I got a sense of his persona, or at least the one he was putting out there, as a spacey, slow-talking hippy full of love. And then there was the hat…and the stickers. But it’s all good. We got a picture with Ian Somerhalder, and if it doesn’t impress you, I know some girls who will see it differently.
Celebrity encounters of the 2015 Chicago Wizard World show will continue…
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