At the beginning, I was only mildly interested and would watch only when it happened to be on Comedy Central (which was real often in ‘91). Soon I started taping eps, then trying to find the ones I didn’t have and then it wasn’t long when I was watching those tapes a lot , then every day. Ultimately, MST3K really became the white noise/background music of my life for a good couple of years. Then it got canceled twice and after a while there were periods of years when I didn’t watch a single episode until something in the real world reminded me to, like the episodes being released on video, or the rise of Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic or wanting to watch it with my kids.
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I think I started ramping up my fanhood and trying to see every episode on Sci-Fi when season 10 started. So of course it was cancelled shortly after.
Hitting the online community in the year 2000 was when I discovered just how large the history to the show was. I spent years going through that stuff, finally having seen all the episodes around 2012, I want to say. Then the first Kickstarter launched and I started my blog, and went through them all over again.
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I had a similar experience. I watched and loved it as a kid in the early 90s but once I lost access to Comedy Central it just became a fond, somewhat fuzzy memory for a number of years. In the early 2000s I discovered it on VHS, learned of the Mike era, bought a bunch of the tapes at Media Play (remember Media Play?!) and once DVDs became an option, I started buying them as soon as they were released since I knew access was precarious. I’ve never looked back.
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I’ve been addicted since I saw my first episode about 12 years ago. From there it’s been a non-stop stream of MST3K
I watch almost every day
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This feels a lot like MSTies Anonymous and I’m here for it.
I’d always known about MST3K and always liked the concept, but I didn’t really have the opportunity to catch whole shows much of the time. Then I started hanging out with a person who is now my nesting partner, and he is a long long long-time fan who had pretty much ALL of them saved on his hard drive. Sooooo basically the last 5 years I’ve been watching all different MST3K seasons and all the Netflix stuff as soon as it came out really regularly and enjoying the hell out of it all, definitely a “fan” of the show at that point. But for obsessive, it’s this season that’s done it. For a few reasons: (1) I want to support this as much as possible, Netflix blows, and I’m so all about making a new platform that isn’t a bunch of corporate BS, (2) life has kind of been lot lately and I need these laughs, and (3) it’s more than just a funny show, there’s a level of fulfilling wholesomeness that you just don’t bump into very often. There are probably other reasons, but that’s what I got for now.
tl;dr: When: This season; How: Need funny more than ever
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There were/are different stages of obsession.
Perhaps the biggest one for me was when I first read about MST3K in this Electronic Gaming Monthly article when I was a video game-crazy kid. Didn’t see one second of the show, but the description had me SO SERIOUSLY PSYCHED for the whole thing. I made it a point to call my cable company every now and then about getting Comedy Central. (They would, but way too late.)
I became way obsessed when I caught the show by accident on MTV (they had Alien from L.A. as part of a comedy weekend promotional thing) and then again late on a Saturday night / Sunday morning on a local Fox affiliate as part of the Mystery Science Theater Hour.
I became more obsessed when I got the Satellite News newsletter and merch catalog, and then got the Amazing Colossal Episode Guide and a copy of MST3K: The Movie, which I played the hell out of every day one summer.
I became even MORE obsessed when I learned about a letter-writing campaign to get the show picked up by Sci-Fi Channel, which my cable company DID get.
And then there were the Rhino VHS tapes and the Sci-Fi pickup and the DVDs (official AND bootleg)… and then Netflix… and then the Great Cheesy Movie Circus Tour… and then the Gizmoplex. Not to mention all the YouTubing and Twitching and Pluto TVing.
There was always a mad obsession. It was just a question of which phase of that mad obsession you caught me in.
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I was never obsessed. But the Mike years were when I was staying up until ridiculous hours to watch the show every week.
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Don’t think the obsession has stopped since the Mid 90s.
It did start to hit a little bit of a lull as 1013 got further and further away, but the reboots have definitely jolted it back to a consistently strong level!
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So. Obsessed then.
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I discovered it just before starting high school in 1993 and got obsessed with it real quick. I was recording episodes and rewatching and sharing with friends. I had a gigantic box-o-VHS. I was even making mix tapes out of host segments and songs to listen to on the bus. 
I still remember these things even though I haven’t rewatched some yet in over 20 years. I was super into it for a few years in high school, but stopped watching just before they left Comedy Central.
I drifted away from it for the next 20 years or so, but the weird thing was that I had watched those shows so much back in the day, that I was learning many of the references in reverse. Like I finally listened to an album and I’d hear Tom Servo’s voice echoing back from the past and it would click. Oh, this classic whatever is an MST3K joke!
I found out about Rifftrax around maybe the same time the classic episodes were on Netflix and I started getting back into it again. I was worried it would be weird, but it was delightful.
This season is even more delightful, and I don’t think I’ll need another 20 years to get the references this time. 
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My very first episode was The Sidehackers on a VHS tape my sister sent to me. I followed the show as best I could — very dependent on tapes from my sister. However, I married a woman who was less than enthused with MST3K, so I lost contact with the show through the SciFi years.
Fortunately I am now married to a woman who, though not really a MSTie, fully supports my fandom.
And with the first Kickstarter, my obsession has definitely taken root.
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