Jay asks: What other Kevin Williamson is there? Funny thing: A few nights ago, I had a friendly(ish) exchange on Twitter with Kevin Williamson, a socialist politician and publisher from Scotland, who is a widely (and rightly) admired writer; he was chiding me for abusing (in his view) the word “socialism.” There’s also a Kevin Williamson who reviews movies in Canadian newspapers. And, alas, these news items – “Kevin Williamson selling Palm Springs home for $1.395 million”; Kevin Williamson plunked down a hefty $8.1 million for a newly reconstructed mansion in L.A.’s historic Windsor Square” — refer to another Kevin Williamson, also a writer, not of polemic but of clever horror films and television dramas. (I very much enjoyed his series The Following.) Occasionally, somebody e-mails me a pitch meant for him.

The screenwriter’s admirers live up to the word “fan,” and from them I have learned about a phenomenon that seems to me almost perfectly emblematic of this cultural moment: “shipping.” I refer you to Wikipedia: “Shipping, initially derived from the word relationship, is the desire by fans for two people, either real-life celebrities or fictional characters, to be in a relationship, romantic or otherwise. It is considered a general term for fans’ emotional involvement with the ongoing development of a relationship in a work of fiction. Shipping often takes the form of creative works, including fan fiction and fan art, most often published on the internet.” That’s accurate enough, but it does not really capture the fanaticism at work. Williamson likes to write complicated love triangles, and enormous, energetic lobbies spring up to advocate one pairing or another. The rivalries can be vicious. These people are worse than Philadelphia sports fans.

I have had to accept the fact that I probably will never write anything that millions of people care about as much as they do the imaginary romantic attachments on The Vampire Diaries.