"MutantFam Has Changed My Life"

A Letter of Appreciation from @Lilys_Lab

When I was young I was loud and alone.

I had a cool family, don't get me wrong, but I wasn't exactly well liked by people, I was that energetic annoying kid who just had to jump around and be a tiny hurricane. I blame some of it on my gender issues and the rest is me being a pain in the ass.

I spent most of my time as a child watching movies and lucky me, my family is a bunch of nerds. My dad is a huge horror fan, Stephen King being his go to, and my mom will read or watch anything, her favorite flicks are Die Hard and she REALLY enjoyed Alien Apocalypse and Godzilla. In her words "I love anything

where you can see the zipper”.

My love of movies grew as I did, I was lucky enough to get cable back when that meant something and was able to catch “Joe Bobs Drive-In Theater"and reruns of Doctor Who and Twilight Zone and other goodies that seemed so elusive. Joe Bob formed something in me as a child that just never left, all movies are fun, maybe not good, but fun. They all evoke an emotion and maybe thats good enough. or hell maybe add some more boobs and a little more blood and your good to go!

Either way I learned to love the obscure, the cheesy, the funny, the great, the underrated, the hidden.

Long story made shorter, I never really had friends, I grew up weird keeping maybe 1 or 2 people nearby until high school then dropping out and keeping away from everyone until well...Bunnula and Frank (@HeyahNew).

When I woke up in February and glanced at my facebook feed for the billionth time, glancing at posts with the mental rule never to comment least I be greeted with a deluge of hatred from the seemingly toxic crowds in the horror, comic book, movie, music, art etc. crowds. I came to the realization that no one I cared about other then a few family members were even on there. The pages were run by companies and had no soul, they just sold you things.

I downloaded Twitter not remembering that I had once made an account with the express purpose of keeping up with the Friday the 13th Game patches and logged in, I cleaned up my account and looked around for the first person who came to mind, my hero Felissa Rose. Following her and seeing the

interaction she had with her fans made my brain click over. AHA! THIS is where all the fun is! This is where they hide! And I was hooked. I started adding all my favorite horror freaks and geeks and even some I’d never heard of just so I could learn about new people and things and see new movies or shows.

It was during this time that I stumbled on BunnulaTV and was enthralled. I poured over everything to the point of obsession and even nearly made a VHS of the show before deciding that I respected the work too much to do that without permission. Eventually I needed to talk about it. I wrote and I wrote hard. When I was done I had a Frankensteins monster of an article ready to be unleashed on the world... but now what? I had NO idea what to do. No clue.

Where to turn with it. I just wrote and didn’t care what happened. But I wanted to share now, I needed people to read this and then go see what I saw! I wanted a conversation and I wanted to share! Days pass... I almost forgot about the article when I get a message.

"Hey sorry the tweet went off topic.

My names Frank, nice to meet you."

… and with that my whole life changed.

Bunnula gave me that spark, the passion to create and Frank stoked the fire. He gave me a home. He gave me friendship and he has had my back since day one.

Through Frank I met John (From the Mega Popular YouTube channel Survivors Guilt) , who is a wonderful person and has kept me laughing for months now, working on that piece with him really sharpened my skills and kind of inspired me to work on the lab in the way that I formed his article as a real world event. Then came Matt. The Garage of Horror. Not gonna lie. When he first came in I was SO jealous. I was sure he would somehow bury my work with his kick ass podcast, but then out of the blue I got the message "Ok let’s talk about how your bio is a line from Hellraiser. Hope you enjoy the episodes. Let me know if you need anything else.”

I knew I had a kindred spirit.

When he had no reservations about telling me what movies that I enjoy are horrible. I knew I had a best friend. Then came Video Creep, a person who I deeply consider to be family regardless of how far away he is! I’ve never in my life had someone instantly treat me like a long lost friend and consistently stay positive.

Much later down the road and I have created a short story series, a blog of my own and I contribute weekly to the Mutant Fam blog with a lab segment. I have made so many friends and even got to interact with my idols Joe Bob Briggs, Darcy the Mail Girl, Felissa Rose, Barbara Crampton and Kevin Smith.

I have spent every Friday night for a month now hanging out with hundreds of freaks and watching Joe Bob laugh his way through another commentary. When I got my first notification saying Joe Bob Briggs has liked your post, my heart jumped for joy like I had never felt, when Felissa responded to me I literally teared up, when Darcy retweeted me I jumped around shouting like a schoolgirl.

My rambling here has a point. Mutant Fam is just that. It’s a family. The bond thats built is more than just watching movies or reading something we wrote. It’s the late nights, hunkered down in the glow of our TVs watching Joe Bob crack a joke and Darcy roll her eyes. It’s seeing the fan art people make. its having us Kaiju our way to number 1 trending each week. It’s Saturday morning cartoons and sharing all of our favorite flicks. It’s a big huge family. A mutant family, but a family none the less, we all belong in the ooze.

Mutant fam has changed my life, every single aspect of it. I went from waking up, hanging out with my kid and playing games till he got home, cleaning, more hanging with the kid and bed to everyday being a new adventure. Not sure what it will bring but I know I’ll have fun. I’ve smiled, laughed, talked, sang, danced, been goofy, watched soooooo many movies and weird TV series, and I have never been happier.

I wanted to write about what the Mutant Fam means to me, but that’s the thing. It means EVERYTHING. Love you all.

-Lily Spellman (@Lilys_Lab)