Due to the sudden outbreak of Covid-19, the entire country went on lockdown as a safety measure at the end of March. As people who were busy with our university studies and of course Rotaract work, adjusting ourselves to this new lifestyle certainly wasn’t easy. At a time when we were bored out of our minds staying at home during the lockdown, the Rotaract Club of University of Colombo Faculty of Management and Finance brought us a refreshing experience – The Fandemic – An online quiz series based on 4 fandoms.
I and my fellow members from our club were really excited to try this out since we saw the first poster and the teaser video. We even talked about which quizzes we will be choosing to participate and even considered binge-watching them all over again! We were able to see how much hype it set among others as well when the WhatsApp groups were created to communicate the participants for each quiz. The group chat was flooding with messages and GIFs related to each quiz and it was really fun to get to know the fellow crazy fans of your favourite show/movie franchise!
The first quiz was on the 15th of April, based on F.R.I.E.N.D.S., the quiz I was waiting to try out the most. Being a die-hard fan of F.R.I.E.N.D.S., I pretty much knew a lot about the series starting from the dialogues, so I was excited yet nervous to see the questions.
I got into the final 50 along with Rtr. Thisura Ramanayake. The final 50 were divided into groups of 10 and only 2 out of the 10 were selected for the final round from each group. There were some tricky questions as well; for example, “When did Chandler’s father put on a Santa suit?”, “Who’s the owner of Rosita?”. After a competitive round, I was placed 2nd in my group making my way to the finals.
The questions in the final round were much more challenging. The fellow finalists knew the show to the core and gave a really good fight till the end. At last, Rtr. Riz Liyanage from the Rotaract Club of Faculty of Science University of Colombo became the champion of the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. quiz – the ultimate F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fan. I was placed 4th overall which truly made my day.
The second quiz was on the 19th of April, based on Harry Potter. All the Potterheads, including myself, were eager to test our knowledge in Harry Potter. I don’t think there’s anyone who didn’t binge-watch the Harry Potter franchise during this lockdown, and this quiz sure made all participants relive the enjoyable moments of the series. Me, Rtr. Thisura Ramanayake, Rtr. Rahul Jeyanthan and Rtr. Asel Gunaratne got into the final 50 and Rtr. Rahul snuck through to the final round. While he ended up claiming the 3rd place, Sheron Felix became the champion – claiming to be the biggest Potterhead of all.
The third quiz was on the 23rd of April, based on Marvel. I really enjoyed the Avengers movie franchise so I thought of giving this a try as well. However, the quiz was based on movies like the X men series, Deadpool, TV series and comics which I wasn’t very familiar with. So, this quiz was comparatively hard and I couldn’t go beyond the first round. Rtr. Hasitha Jayasuriya and Rtr. Naadir Thassim were able to move into the final 50. Rtr. Adheeban Gowrishankar from the Rotaract Club of Faculty of Science of University of Colombo became the champion and proved that no one can outsmart him when it came to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The fourth quiz was on the 26th of April, based on Game of Thrones. This was the only quiz I didn’t participate since I haven’t watched the show. However, my fellow club members participated and Rtr. Asel Gunartne was able to make it to the final 50. Ravindu Shehan emerged champion in the quiz and certainly made his fandom proud.
The show wasn’t over yet… after the four champions were selected from each fandom to the surprise of the participants including the four champions, a final quiz was held for them to battle one last time for the Ultimate Throne – THE FANDEMIC – ENDGAME!
The Fandemic – Endgame was held on the 27th of April, and the quiz was streamed live on Facebook. I watched the live stream and the finalists competed really well. In the end, Sheron Felix went past his fellow competitors to win The Fandemic.
The Fandemic – An online quiz series based on 4 fandoms was certainly a refreshing experience to Rotaractors as well as non Rotaractors and made our boring lives rather enjoyable during this quarantine period. Kudos to team FMF for coming up with this creative idea and for putting a lot of work to come up with a total of 29 quizzes – it sure must not have been easy. This made us relive the good moments we had with the 4 fandoms and the credit certainly goes to team FMF for that.
Rtr. Vinuri Ramanayake
Editor