‘Collective effervescence’ is the feeling of unbridled, unadulterated joy you feel when you come together with others who share the same purpose. In this case: fangirling.
I have long been an Asian pop culture fan. I’m proud to be part of the legions of Meteor Garden fangirls from when the series first reached our shores in 2002. Back then, cable TV was limited to news, wildlife, and Hollywood movie channels, and streaming was a figment of the imagination. The Taiwanese hit was watchable on ABS-CBN alone, in a set time slot and dubbed in Filipino. Once you miss an episode, there’s no way of knowing when it will be replayed again. That can be frustrating.
But we fangirls are known for our resourcefulness. We always find ways. Some would record on VHS tapes (the era of this very ‘90s contraption was coming to its inevitable end). My way was the Greenhills way, my favorite haunt for anime VCDs since I was in sixth grade in the late nineties. My suki, like many other bootleg media shops in the notorious shopping arcade, had also branched out to the then increasingly profitable pirated Asian dramas. Each VCD was P70 a pop or about P1,400 for the whole series, a fortune for an undergraduate student like me. I willingly saved up what measly allowance I had for the coveted boxed sets for Meteor Garden seasons 1 and 2, all because of my love for lead star Jerry Yan, the original Dao Ming Si.
I digress, as I always do when writing about something nostalgic. For that apologize. Going back to my original premise: I’ve been a long time Asian pop culture fangirl.
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But I’m also an introvert. Which means most of my fangirling is done in the confines of my room. I don’t mind getting kilig all by myself, burying my head in my pillow while squealing like a teenage girl. Sometimes I watch with my cousin or my son, but I enjoy my favorite dramas best, from then ‘til now, when I watch by my lonesome.
Being an introvert who enjoys Asian dramas like a hermit means fanmeets are out of the question. I don’t hate crowds, but I would avoid—if I could—to be in one. As much as I would love to meet my favorite actors, the thought of lining up for hours and what I anticipate to be an unbearable din is enough to put me off. I prefer watching on my laptop and in the comfort of my bed, thank you very much!
This has been the case all these 23 years. That is until two weeks ago when I went to Japanese actor Kentaro Sakaguchi’s fan meet. Sure, I had media privileges (thanking my lovely editor for this!), but me and my good friend and plus one Alfred still had to line up for over an hour before the show on a humid Saturday afternoon.
But everyone around us—Alfred and I included, I suppose—had a certain glow. No, it was not the kind of shine from sweat (haha). It was an inner glow, for lack of a better term. We were smiling at one another, strangers we all are notwithstanding. The queue, heat, packed venue, and the racket I was so anxious about faded into nothingness. All that was left was a feeling of joy and excitement. So this was what I’ve been missing all along!
And there’s a term as beautiful as the feeling I felt that May afternoon: collective effervescence.
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What is collective effervescence?
The concept was coined in the early 20th century by the sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe a state of “intense shared emotional unity,” the kind of unbridled, unadulterated happiness felt by individuals who come together in a group or community, particularly during rituals, ceremonies, or collective events—as in a concert or a meet and greet with a favorite celebrity.
This phenomenon involves a synchronization of thoughts, emotions, and actions among participants, leading to a heightened emotional experience that transcends individual concerns and fosters a sense of belonging and solidarity within the group. Those who are active members of a fandom would know this feeling all too well. I briefly mentioned the benefits (and downsides) of being a fangirl in a previous essay here on The POST, which you can read here.
Collective effervescence, then, is that feeling (mostly positive) of being in sync with strangers on a dance floor, friends in a religious service, schoolmates in a heart-stopping UAAP game, or fellow fans in a fanmeet or concert. It’s the feeling my son feels when he plays Pokémon cards with fellow Pokémon geeks.
So there’s a term for that feeling of joyous oneness shared by strangers bound by a common purpose—and for me and my friend Alfred on that Saturday evening, that shared goal was to spend some time with a favorite Japanese actor, who by some stroke of luck decided to include the Philippines as one of the stops in his Asian tour.
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Happiness shared is happiness multiplied
I’ll be deluding myself if I say that I didn’t have a great time during the Kentaro fanmeet. I was overjoyed, in fact, especially after seeing how SakaKen (as fans lovingly call him) was just as excited as we were given that it was quite unbelievably his first fan tour outside of Japan. For one hour and a half we all laughed with him and at his silly jokes, all while exchanging smiles and small conversations with fellow fans. We need not ask for our names, all that mattered was our shared admiration for this Japanese actor whose eyes are reduced to slits when he smiles his trademark smile.
While I’ve always found joy watching films and series on my own, I can’t deny that being part of the collective effervescence during the fanmeet gave me a different kind of happiness. It felt like I was floating! It was an elevated kind of joy—it was exhilarating, breathtaking even. My forty-something tita self didn’t even feel even the tiniest bit exhausted; I was smiling all throughout the event. There’s research to back this up, my dear readers: a study found that people laugh five times as often when they’re with others compared with when they’re alone. Come to think of it, even those fleeting in-flight conversations with a stranger on a plane or a long commute back home can spark joy, right? Just the thought of how happiness can be this contagious already puts a smile on my face.
With the current state of the world, we need more of this kind of happiness, the kind that is shared with others and is magnified into a beautiful collective effervescence. It reminds us that we are not so different from one another after all, if only we take a little more effort to look past our differences.
It looks like the Kentaro Sakaguchi event is the first of many fanmeets for this tita of Manila. And I’m now looking forward to my next one—will it be Park Seo Jun’s, Byeon Woo Seok’s, or Park Bo Gum’s? I’m now praying to my lucky stars for it to be a clean sweep of all three.
Here’s me hoping you experience your own kind of collective effervescence, too!
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