I just finished doing my fourth round of GISH, which over the years has inspired me and a friend to wear a hat made of kale (and an evening gown) to a country club, to cajole my niece into wearing a dress made entirely of construction paper and pose by my neighbor’s little red sports car, to brighten the day of WWII veterans at the local VA, and this year to help a four year old conquer his fear of strange noises in the dark. The beauty of GISH is that it gives you permission – and actively encourages you – to step outside your comfort zone. It makes weird a good thing, and underneath all the zaniness, it reminds us to be good to each other.
Those are two of the important things that Misha Collins has accomplished in the past decade, but there have been many more. There’s an inspiring and emotional chapter in Family Don’t End With Blood about how Misha changed fan Claudine Hummel’s life, and it’s titled “Spreading Kindness Like Confetti.” That’s a pretty apt description for what Misha has tried to do over the past ten years, and how much he’s succeeded. He realized soon after joining Supernatural that he could harness his popularity and the charitable nature that has long characterized fandom into making change in the world, and he’s done exactly that.
I remember one of our first chats, which turned into a long discussion of celebrity and how weird and artificial it can be, and how uncomfortable he was with it at the time, but he was also one of the first to recognize that it could also be a force for good. That’s how Random Acts came to be, and the good it has done in the world at this point is off the charts!
Misha wrote about celebrity, fandom and the creation of Random Acts in his chapter in one of our first books, Fan Phenomena Supernatural. His chapter is extremely candid, irreverent, hilarious – and fascinating. Just like Misha. It’s one of my favorites out of all the books I’ve put together. And he had this to say about his role on Supernatural and starting Random Acts:
At some point, fairly early into this strange experiment, I realized that my position on the show would allow me to provide a framework within which people can engage one another in the community. That I could be a catalyst because I happened to have been cast on a show that people were really, really enthused about. And so I guess I partly saw it as my responsibility to be a coalescing factor. Or perhaps a better way to put that is I saw it as an opportunity to serve and to help others be of service. So now I can say “Let’s all go do a scavenger hunt” or “Let’s go help Haiti” and people will come along and participate and engage. It became apparent fairly quickly that there was tremendous creative potential in Supernatural fandom. In spite of what everyone seems to think, I don’t spend a lot of time trolling online, but people email me things or I occasionally click through on something in the Twitter feed, and I see a tremendous amount of creative energy. I started Random Acts with the ambition of harnessing those resources to playful, productive and compassionate ends.
And did he ever! What a difference Misha and the SPNFamily have made, all over the world!
My conversations with Misha have often been around the ideas on celebrity, fandom and Supernatural that are in all my books, and I’ve loved hearing his thoughts – they’re often outside the box, which is a rarity. He also wrote a chapter in Family Don’t End With Blood about the SPNFamily – and following Misha’s example of trying to do some good in the world, every copy of the book benefits Random Acts and the important work they do.
Misha’s new book, The Adventurous Eaters Club, is also a way of changing the world and helping others. The book benefits the fight against childhood hunger (while also providing you with some out-of-the-box recipes). It’s impossible to list all the charitable endeavors that Misha has spearheaded over the last decade, and that the SPNFamily has generously contributed to, but suffice it to say, it’s a lot!
Random Acts isn’t the only way Misha has changed the world, though. He’s done it by throwing his weight behind the political and social causes that he believes in, opening eyes and raising awareness in the process. I keep telling him he needs to run for office, but I think he’s found his own way of making a difference. He’s done it with tweets and posting videos and giving us glimpses of his decidedly unconventional life and family, a challenge to the way we’re taught things “should be” that I think is healthy. I found myself all emotional yesterday over a video he posted of him and his family and friends in kayaks rescuing a pelican ensnared in fishing line, because of course he did. Misha grew up with an unconventional life and he’s continued to live one, and I think sometimes we all need a little shaking up of the status quo to realize there are other ways of being, and some of them might just make this world and our human-to-human interaction a bit better. (Not to mention human-to-pelican).
Misha is an extraordinary human being who has managed to do extraordinary things. He’s been a tremendous influence on his costars and on his fans (me included), I think for the better. And if he does decide to run for something, I’m right there lining up to cheer him on. Supernatural is ending, but I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Misha Collins changing the world.
Happy Birthday, Misha. Keep on being you.
Love ya,
Lynn
You can order Misha’s new cookbook and help
fight childhood hunger, link at his twitter!
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