Word of the Week: Completist

Completist: Someone who wants to make something, such as a collection of books or records, complete. The OED puts it more strongly: “An obsessive (and often indiscriminate) collector.” And Encyclopedia Dramatica is even more judgmental:

A completist is a fanboy or fangirl that must prove their devotion to a band, television show, movie or comic book by collecting every piece of Chinese made crap sold at Wal-Mart that relates to said media. Symptoms include lining up at midnight to buy a new record, DVD, or toy, constantly searching eBay for imports of the same exact crap from Japan and camping in line for years just so they can get tickets to a show before you. There is a significant overlap between completists and fans of Pokémon and similar franchises, and this is expected given Pokémon's catch phrase “Gotta catch ’em all”.

Completism is sometimes called an “affliction” or a “pathology.”

Completist appeared in the first sentence in an article in last Friday’s New York Times holiday gift guide: “Completists with deep pockets can revel in the 2010 bounty of boxed sets.”

Merriam-Webster online gives 1951 as the date of the first known use of completist, but doesn’t provide a citation. The OED moves the date to 1955, citing an article in the New York Times Book Review: “Perhaps the one point of interest here, even for the Holmesian completist, is the effort in the introduction to identify Watson as Doyle’s secretary, Maj. Alfred Wood.”

Comments

[Joanne Mason]

This reminds me of when the Beatles Anthology came out on DVD. Appealing to completists, the set included an extra disc of footage that was not part of the original video set. Ringo Starr said something like (and I'm definitely parphrasing), "It's the same stuff, it's just more of it!" :-)

It also reminds me of my brother's response to claims of "never-before-seen footage" that is supposed to entice consumers. "How can it be 'never-before-seen'?" he asks. "The person operating the camera surely saw it!"

[panavia999]

Remember that "fan" is derived from fanatic!
I'm a completist on certain old movie stars from the 20's,30's,40's. I want to see all their movies. If it's really nice, I keep it for future viewings. Otherwise, I watch a few times and pass it along. Hopefully, to a fanatical completist who will pay top dollar on ebay. :-)