SQUISHY HUGS Why is Misha Collins, AB’97, the object of so much affection? By Carrie Golus, AB’91, AM’93 Anonymous asked: how do you ask jensen and misha to give you one of those really tight hugs, do i just ask them for a ‘squishy’ hug, would they get what im talking about? lol (im so nervous) Answer: Hi there Yep, they would understand what you mean if you asked them for that. Have fun! —spncontips.tumblr.com isha Collins, AB’97, calls himself tee-ELL, or Cass for short—on the television “a C-list celebrity.” He’s a C-list series Supernatural. A bit like Collins, celebrity whose photo ops at fan Supernatural is the most successful show you conventions can include a hug, if might not have heard of: last season it averaged desired, but that’s it: “PLEASE DO 1.8 million viewers, compared with 22 million MNOT KISS THE GUESTS,” the guidelines state. for NFL Sunday Night Football and 18.9 million Who inspires fans to create art in any number for zombie drama The Walking Dead. of media, including sculpture, video, and melted Nonetheless, Supernatural is its 12th season crayon. Who, at this writing, has 2.6 million on the CW network, making it one of the Twitter followers known as “minions”—not to longest-running TV shows of all time. At press be confused with the especially ardent fans who time it had just been renewed for a 13th season. call themselves “Mishawives.” (Legally Collins Supernatural centers on two brothers, Supernatural fan has just one wife, writer Victoria Vantoch, Sam and Dean Winchester, who lead a lonely, Rachel Howard AB’97. They have been together since high peripatetic existence, hunting demons, ghosts, displays a crocheted school and have two young children.) and other supernatural phenomena. The show blanket featuring For the uninitiated, Collins plays the angel functions like a love letter to vintage cars, Collins’s face. See more of her fan art Castiel—pronounced with three syllables, Cass- cheap motel rooms, diners, guns, beer, whiskey, at crocheter-of- Photography by Michael Vendiola by Photography faces.tumblr.com. 18 / The Core Winter 2017 / 19 n the 2013 essay “#Bowdown to Your If his tweets are New God: Misha Collins and Decentered I Authorship in the Digital Age,” Louisa Stein, to be believed, his a film scholar at Middlebury College, claims that Collins uses social media with “dadaist relationship with creativity” to create “a distinct star text.” As Collins tells the story, in 2009 the Queen Elizabeth II network asked him to answer fan questions on its Twitter account. He thought, “They’re going to be looking over my shoulder and I’m not is particularly going to be able to swear,” so he set up his own account instead. tumultuous. Rather than following the usual celebrity Twitter formula—sharing mundane details of ordinary life—he “created this slightly surreal He did love the radio though—National persona,” he says. “I was the self-important Public Radio in particular. “I guess I was pretty celebrity who was actually in incredibly fannish,” he admits. In the early 1990s he had important situations at all times.” He tweeted an internship at NPR, working alongside Susan about his (fictional) friendships with various Stamberg, Nina Totenberg, Neal Conan, Bob world leaders, who requested his advice or Edwards. “I got a rush from it,” he says, “but I sexual favors. If his tweets are to be believed, didn’t make paintings of them at night.” his relationship with Queen Elizabeth II At UChicago, Collins majored in sociology, is particularly tumultuous. Last June he participated in Scav, and performed in one play, characterized Brexit as their “conscious Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, “in uncoupling.” The tweet included a Tom of a classroom with plenty of empty seats.” He Finland-style erotic painting of the pair. had considered going into politics. But after Stein sees something subversive in Collins’s an internship in the Clinton White House (his grandiose tweets, given that his role on time there did not coincide with a more famous Supernatural is “somewhere between marginal intern), he decided it was not right for him. and nonexistent.” He uses social media, she So he decided to try acting. “I went to claims, to play with his “marginal status as Hollywood with the intention of getting famous, renegade character actor.” with no intention of staying an actor, so I could “Marginal” is an overstatement, but classic rock, and small-town America, though But the fans adored Castiel. He was use that celebrity to have some sort of positive Stein is onto something: compared to how it’s actually shot in Canada. innocent, socially awkward, and nice to look at, impact on the world,” he says. “This sounds like frequently he appears on the show, Collins There’s a lot of stabbing with silver knives, despite his frumpy trench coat. the ravings of an arrogant crazy person.” plays a disproportionately important role shooting with salt bullets, spray painting of In an essay for the book Fan Phenomena: Collins played guest roles on TV shows such in Supernatural fandom. Sam and Dean are satanic-looking symbols, and Latin spells. A 2016 Supernatural (Intellect Ltd, 2014), Collins as 24, ER, and Nip/Tuck but was fairly unknown the stars. Castiel gets a bit of screen time in PR Newswire poll found that Republicans ranked it recalls the screening party for the first Castiel before Supernatural. During his first season on roughly one episode in three. their No. 1 show; for Democrats it was No. 3, behind episode. When his character appeared, writer- the show, he would lurk on the website Television Collins’s favorite Supernatural episode is Game of Thrones and The Haves and Have Nots. producer Sera Gamble whispered to him, “Your Without Pity, a proto-social networking site for “The French Mistake,” one of the so-called Collins first appeared in 2008, at the life is about to change.” TV fans. Collins—who just wanted to know if fans meta episodes, of which there are many. beginning of season 4, playing the angel who Collins writes: “I thought, ‘That is a liked him so he could estimate how long his job This particular example is “the most violent rescues Dean from hell. His first line, delivered truly arrogant thing for a producer of a CW would last—found the discussions “baffling,” he shattering of a fourth wall I think in television in the monotone that would become Castiel’s television show to say. I’ve been on plenty says. “There was a fervor and a passion to this history,” he says. In the 2011 episode—the title signature: “I’m the one who gripped you tight of television shows. My life is going to stay discourse that really shocked me.” is a reference to the Mel Brooks movie Blazing Crocheted and raised you from perdition.” This unlikely exactly the same.’ … Well Sera, I think I owe you Castiel dolls are He was asked to do interviews, both with Saddles—Sam and Dean find themselves in phrase is now available on T-shirts. an apology for that thought.” an international journalists and onstage at Supernatural fan an alternative universe where Supernatural is Castiel was intended to have a three-show phenomenon. The conventions. At first he tried to cultivate a certain a television show. (Dean: “Why? Why would story arc. “As a guest star, your prospects of am not now, nor have I ever been, a member doll on the left was public persona, “the coolest, most composed, anybody want to watch our lives?” Sam: “Well, made by Aleksandra having a long run are very slim,” says Collins. of any fandom,” says Collins, born Dmitri Chiel in Poland, the sexiest version of myself,” modeled after Marilyn I mean, according to that interviewer, not very “I was kind of just waiting to be killed.” Krushnic in Boston in 1974. (Collins is an old doll on the right by Monroe and other stars of classic Hollywood. many people do.”) I Heather Wykoff of Supernatural fans tend to hate anyone who family name; he’s always been called Misha.) His But his early interviews went badly. So Collins The episode spoofs both Collins’s social takes screen time away from Sam and Dean— mother was “a hippie,” so the family didn’t have a Crafty Geek Girls in took a radically different, more playful approach: media presence and his attempts to fit in with Los Angeles. Both both complex, sympathetic characters played television. “I never really developed those neural are for sale on craft interviews could be “an opportunity to riff and the show’s stars. He plays a shallow, irritating Photography by MIchael Vendiola by Photography by former models. networks that process pop culture very well.” site Etsy. improvise and to have fun.” A star text was born. version of himself, tweeting constantly at his 20 / The Core Winter 2017 / 21 Photo op costs According to a 2016 Hollywood Reporter article, some stars make more money fans, whom he calls “mishamigos”—“‘Ever ollins is on Facebook too. He uses from convention get that feeling … someone’s in the backseat?’ it to live-stream interviews and appearances than Frowny face”—before he is abducted and announcements. Once he streamed from their movies C or TV shows. Here’s brutally murdered. Some of the tweets he taps footage of an actual mountain stream. He the going rate for out in the show appeared on his real Twitter also posts videos to YouTube, including eight fan favorites.