locker_monster | In every generation there is a Chosen One...

I can't believe today is Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 20th anniversary. I will love this show forever and ever. God, I feel old, though. I was just a kid when the show premiered.

Buffy was everything for me back in the day. It was the first fandom that was mine, in that it was something I discovered and liked as opposed to something my family had on and it was just there. With the Internet these days, so much hype can be built up around a new TV show. You see advertisements and articles everywhere, so shows just don't appear out of nowhere anymore. I had no idea that YTV was airing Buffy back in the day. I just stumbled upon it while channel surfing during a commercial break during a rerun of Sliders. The fact that I stopped and watched the rest of the premiere just goes to show just how strong Buffy's appeal was from episode one.

I really think that Buffy came at just right the time in my life. I don't know where I'd be without it. It was the show that sparked my love for writing and made me really think about what constitutes a good story. It showed me that it was okay to be different and not to go with the crowd. It just made me think and that's the true worth of a good show. It challenges the audience emotionally and philosophically and maybe, just maybe, you come away with a new point of view.

So thank you, Joss Whedon. Thank you for creating a TV show with a strong, bold, and independent female lead and surrounding her with friends who saw that a strength and not a weakness. Thank you for giving me my first celebrity crush (David Boreanaz) and making a British librarian sexy. Thank you for taking fun and weird risks like having an episode with almost no dialogue or doing a musical with all original songs. Just thank you for being an awesome part of my formative years.