“You’re still obsessed with The X-Files? I don’t get it, it’s just a TV show.”

I’d be willing to bet most of you have heard something like that before. Hell, variations of that statement have been thrown at me for over 20 years by my parents, friends, girlfriends, teachers, and the like. And I usually launch into a dissertation on what Mulder and Scully mean to me, how the show changed my perception of the world, how groundbreaking Scully’s character was, and all of the other praises you’ve heard me sing before.

The truth is, what keeps me in this fandom may include all of those things, but it’s also you.

From the old school message boards, to gossamer, to AOL chatrooms, to forums, to LiveJournal, to Tumblr, this fandom has always been an interactive one. It was never “just a show,” it’s always been a community of like-minded people who share a love of the intellectual, the debate, two characters (who should get it on for god’s sake), the truth, creativity, support, community, and love.

Because of this show I’ve been able to do amazing things. When I was 11, I met a 12 year old in the AOL X-Files chatroom. His name is Dylan and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him several times throughout my life. He’s a constant, my oldest friend, who’d have thought?

In 2002, I met a girl on the XF message boards. She lived across the country in Seattle (I was stuck in Tallahassee) and she inevitably flew to me, and then I to her, and we toured Vancouver together in 2003. It was my first time out of the country, and also my first time falling in love with a girl. Who’d have thought?

In 2008, I met up with a group of Philes from LiveJournal at the midnight premiere of IWTB. It was great- we were able to get drunk and be angry all together. In 2016, I flew to NYC twice to meet a bunch of Tumblrinos at Streetcar. We sang karaoke, I got a tattoo, Chewchovny was born, Gillian pulled on my tie, and we played Resist or Serve from start to finish. Amazing. In 2017, I returned to NYC to see Mr. Duchovny show off his moves at the Gramercy theatre- again with Tumblrinos. Superb.

And last, but certainly not least, this month I had the most amazing experience of my life thus far: I shared a house in the Holy Land of Vancouver with 8 other Tumblrinos - representing 6 different countries – for two entire weeks.

Over the course of those two weeks we laughed, debated, had family dinners, visited old filming sites, read fanfiction out loud as bedtime stories, got tattoos, read smut out loud drunk, saw filming, stayed up together to see the sunrise because it was too much fun to go to sleep, documented our trip on Snapchat to share with all of you, and we became a family.

That’s the kind of fandom we’ve built together. And without all of you - and this online experience we’re creating – none of those things would’ve happened.

You’ve changed my life.

So, from the bottom of my heart to every single person in The X-Files fandom who ever has or ever will participate in this ride, I love you.

Thank you.