{"id":122475,"date":"2019-12-09T02:09:26","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T01:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/2019\/12\/09\/i-thought-the-elvis-fan-festival-would-be-funny-it-cracked-me-open-and-changed-my-life-meg-watson\/"},"modified":"2019-12-09T02:09:26","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T01:09:26","slug":"i-thought-the-elvis-fan-festival-would-be-funny-it-cracked-me-open-and-changed-my-life-meg-watson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/?p=122475","title":{"rendered":"I thought the Elvis fan festival would be funny. It cracked me open and changed my life | Meg Watson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In my cynical early 20s, I thought the fandom would make for a novel story. But the community\u2019s joy was so contagious I ended up joining itIt\u2019s often said that watching Elvis Presley was a religious experience. He sent women into fits and presided over his disciples, singing gospel and gently blessing them with silk scarves. I\u2019m not a religious person but in 2016 \u2013 39 years after Elvis died \u2013 I saw the neon light.This was also, not coincidentally, the year I gained sympathy for journalists who pursue stories about cults which they then end up joining. Continue reading&#8230;<br \/>\nVia: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2019\/dec\/09\/i-thought-the-elvis-fan-festival-would-be-funny-it-cracked-me-open-and-changed-my-life\" target=\"_blank\">I thought the Elvis fan festival would be funny. It cracked me open and changed my life | Meg Watson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my cynical early 20s, I thought the fandom would make for a novel story. But the community\u2019s joy was so contagious I ended up joining itIt\u2019s often said that watching Elvis Presley was a religious experience. He sent women into fits and presided over his disciples, singing gospel and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=122475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=122475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=122475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=122475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}