How a Shipper is Born
Let me tell you a little story. It takes place circa 2006 and is about a girl with no job and two babies who sits in front of her TV many a late night and falls in love with a guy named Jim Halpert and his love for a receptionist. She swoons, she cries, she memorizes episodes, she gets on message boards, she learns every aspect of John Krasinski’s life and career, she analyzes every JAM glance, she finds a fandom. SHE BECOMES A SHIPPER. A JAM shipper. If you haven’t caught on yet, that girl is me. I’ve been a faithful — nay crazed — fan of The Office, and Jim and Pam since The Pilot episode aired.
I know. I love you too.
In fact, Jim and Pam are not only my OTP, but they are my ULTIMATE OTP. I have so irrationally shipped JAM over the years that I had a real and legit hate-on for season three interloper, Rashida Jones. I have shipped JAM like it was my JOB. The Office became my first internet fandom experience thanks to their simple perfection and heartbreaking angst.
I mean LOOK AT THEM!
You guys know what this is like, right? They are my Robsten, my Larry Stylinson, my Drarry. If you have a ship to end all ships, you know what it’s like when one of them accepts a flirtation from the ethnically ambiguous new girl who always has gum (DIAF, KAREN!!!), or when they are forced to be apart to follow their dreams (art school!!!). You know the irrational feels. THE FEELS.
But there is one thing a true shipper never expects, something you’re pretty sure your fellow shippers would maim you for. In a real OTP, a true shipper knows without a doubt that they will always be together. Even if circumstances – or evil television writers – pull them apart, YOU KNOW in your heart of shipper hearts, that they will always yearn to be together.
Peeta comes back all genetically modified to hate Katniss but YOU KNOW he will still do anything to save her. Jon Snow’s willy falls off beyond the wall, but you are assured if he could still use it, he would poke Ygritte with it*. Rose lets Jack freeze and drown and marries someone else, but HELLO her heaven is totes her young self and Jack, not the man she was married to for decades or whatever. See? OTPs last forever.
Unless … unless … well. Unless all of the sudden Enter: Brian the Boom Guy.
Uh. Hey.
How a Ship Sinks
So, apparently this season, Jim has been evasive, inattentive and absent. Sure, he has reasons. He’s trying to get his new start-up company to work in Philly, splitting his time at home with his wife and kids. It’s tense. Married men can often be oblivious and a teensy bit selfish. Then comes a major phone argument where Jim makes Pam cry. And who is there to tell her it’s going to be ok? The Boom Guy. The guy who’s been there for every moment she’s had with or without Jim for the past NINE YEARS.
I’m not gonna lie. Jim made Pam cry. Brian was there. And in that moment, I wanted her to put her mouth on his mouth. U GUISE, WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY SHIP?
over years and years of little workplace jokes and conversation, [and] the thing I think is so, like, disturbing, maybe, is the realization that there may have been another guy who was there in an invisible setting this entire time also participating in little jokes with them and killing enormous amounts of hours at work,” Daniels says. “Once you start opening the box of who’s working on [the documentary], you have to picture that when Pam does an interview, Brian is right there, right off camera, holding a boom mic.”
Oh, well if THAT’s ALL. Thanks, showrunner Greg Daniels for killing my ship in one short paragraph. I mean, I BELIEVE in this relationship with Brian and Pam. Romantic or not, I understand how they can be close, and how easily he could fall in love with her. And … she, him. Oh, because not only does he comfort her in her distress, HE SAVES HER LIFE BASICALLY the very next week.
Yep, that’s Boom Mic Brian keeping a giant oaf bully from literally hitting Pam in the face. He LOSES his job for doing this (because the documentary crew is not supposed to intervene in their lives). But, of course, he couldn’t let her get hurt (even thought they’ve let Meredith get hit by a car, trapped with a bat in a garbage sack, etc etc). I mean, I think he loves her FOR REAL. AND I DIG IT. I don’t want to get into what I believe about marriage and cheating and blah blah because this is not real life, ok? If Pam were my best friend I would be telling to lose Brian’s number forever and watch the Booze Cruise episode over and over again. But Jim and Pam and Brian are fictional, and I think Brian is HAWT. Do you know what this feels like fellow shippers? I feel GUILTY, and ENERGIZED, and ANXIOUS and MOVED. I’m so confused. All I know is that when this happened …
…. I swooned just as hard as when Jim finally told Pam he was in love with her, even though she was engaged to Roy, and not his to love. OH THE PARALLELS.
I don’t know what’s going to happen on The Office. I mean, if I had to guess, Jim will get his act together and fight for his wife. And she will want him to. And Brian will go the way of Roy and Karen and Katy Purse Girl and Chubby Art School Friend. But I will always know, for one moment (or for four awesome weeks of television) my ship went under.
*not a confirmed spoiler, but I haven’t read past Book 2, so I think it could happen
Do you have a ship to end all ships? Have you seen your ultimate OTP split and sink like the Titanic? AM I CRAZY for being Team Boom Guy?
