popelizbet

Half the story around the election of a new Pope has been about the election of the new Pope (with JD Vance a side feature), but the other half seems to be around the sudden emergence of Pope fandom. Or Conclave fandom if you want to be precise.

Rolling Stone: ‘POPE CRAVE’ MEME ARTIST EXPLAINS HOW ‘CONCLAVE’ FAN ACCOUNT BECAME A REAL VATICAN NEWS FEED

Time: How Pope Crave Went From Conclave to the Conclave

My favorite exchange from the latter:

TIME: Who is behind the Pope Crave account? How many admins? How many correspondents?

Susan Bin: I'm the lead admin behind Pope Crave. I'm the one with the password. There's another admin who helped co-edit the zine that we worked on. She is involved in queer Catholic ministry. She also is an international human rights attorney, so that's why she doesn't want to be publicly associated with cardinal memes. But she's the person who actually knows cardinals at the conclave. I'm an artist. I work in film and TV. I have a background in Catholicism. I'm not Catholic. My background is more from an art historian and archeological perspective. When I was in college, I studied Greek Myths on Roman Sarcophagi (with Professor Ruth Bielfeldt), and followed that trajectory to visual iconography of these narratives on Early Christian sarcophagi with a focus on Papal Sarcophagi (repurposing Greek Myths as Christian myths). Under Professor Christine Smith, I looked into the recordkeeping of the original placements of the Papal tombs from Old St. Peters to New St. Peters.

Because although this may have surprised other people, you and I and everyone on Dreamwidth knows that if you were wondering what type of person would create a 100+ page charity zine about Conclave and then accidentally become a worldwide media fandom phenomenon, an international human rights attorney and an art historian turned film and TV artist are exactly the people you would expect. I'm only surprised there's not an archivist or librarian in the mix somewhere.

Long story short, Bin wound up on the Vatican beat because she really, really likes the Oscar-winning 2024 film Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes, which is about the palace intrigue and power struggles that arise when cardinals are convened in Rome to elect a new pope. “I mean, you probably liked it a normal amount,” she says. “I did not like it a normal amount.”

This is just good for my soul. I identify. Oh fandom, never change.

If I ever publish this novel of mine and get interviewed about it, this is going to be me: "When I was thirteen I watched the film Apollo 13. I did not like it a normal amount."