Why I Heart My Media

Love isn’t actually the word i would use to talk about my media..

sure media is great, it lets us communicate with our loved ones, meet new people, and share funny memes (my personal favorite use of media) but media has also made me struggle more than i thought i would when it came to self image. being a kid i was always skinny and told “eat more” or “you’re all bones” until i was a teenager and experienced a loss i never thought i would, i fell into depression and started eating away all my feelings. i was unhealthy mentally and physically i tried everything to cope with my feelings but the only thing that seemed to work was food. whether it was a bag of chips or a whole large pizza i would always feel a sense of comfort when my mouth and stomach were full which caused me to gain a tremendous amount of weight which then lead to me being bullied which made me depressed and eat more and then gain more weight, a vicious cycle for a 13 year old. this habit carried on until i was 16 and realized i was slowly eating myself away and decided to lose 45 kg but no matter how much weight i lost i was never truly happy, id log onto instagram and see a bikini picture of Kylie Jenner on my feed hundreds of comments flooding the heart eyes emoji if she could do it so can i.. right?

so i got into my favorite swimsuit black with cherries, and it took hours but i finally found the one i wanted to post, my finger trembling i clicked post. that was it. it was done. i switched off my phone read a book and ended up falling asleep, i woke up the next morning to my whole school reposting an edited photo of my bikini picture right next to a picture of a whale, my heart dropped and shattered into a million pieces as i saw stories and stories of myself and comments of me being laughed at i ended up deleting the post but it was already too late i was now ‘the whale girl’

it was engraved onto me.

it went away after a long while but no matter what ill always remember it.

and i never saw media the same way after.

If there’s one thing my media does perfectly, it’s creating an escape for me. During the first lockdown, I downloaded TikTok even though I’d always tell myself that it’s the most stupid and useless social media in the world and only kids or influencers I don’t support use it. Yet I was locked in my house with nothing better to do so I downloaded it and obviously, it immediately became my new addiction. At that point I wasn’t in a good place mentally, I didn’t have many people I could talk to and I was stuck in front of my computer for most days doing assignments for an online school. I dramatically lacked social interactions. I don’t know exactly and I don’t think I want to know what was my daily screen time spent on TikTok back then. I also spent hours watching Netflix on my phone. That wouldn’t be that bad if not the fact that I’d just rewatch all my comfort series and films for example Friends, Gilmore Girls, How I Met Your Mother, The Breakfast Club, 10 Things I Hate About You, Me Before You, Love, Rosie. I swear I’ve seen Gilmore Girls at least four times and in fact, I’m rewatching this show now. During my senior year, my screen time increased even more. I don’t even know how I managed to graduate high school. I procrastinated so much, missed deadlines, wouldn’t show up to online classes. At that point, I was already in therapy and taking medication for depression. My therapist told me that it’s common for teenagers to distract and silence themselves (the thoughts) by using media. That’s exactly what I was doing for months. Whenever I got overwhelmed, stressed by the amount of work that I had to do, my unhappiness, a fight I had with my mom, or anything else unpleasant, I’d just open TikTok and scroll or play an episode that I already knew by heart, just to focus on something else than my life. I’d rather think about that girl’s room, outfit, how productive she is in quarantine, how many new recipes she tried that week and shared on TikTok, or watch again how Rory and Jess fight over Rory dropping out of YALE (I swear I know the whole dialogue form that scene by heart). Anyway, at least now I’m aware of my bad habit, I know why I do it, and (in theory) I can stop it because it still happens quite often. There’s just one thing I can’t figure out: Did my media save me or did they cause or at least intensify my depression? Maybe I was in such a bad place that my brain came up with this defense mechanism that was supposed to distract me and my thoughts. On the other hand, maybe I’d have been better if I didn’t download TikTok and didn’t spend hours each day scrolling through my for you page. Maybe then I’d have more time to think about my life and would have gotten help earlier. I’m afraid I’ll never know the answer to that question but I’m not sorry. I try not to regret things I can’t change and besides TikTok actually taught me a lot and now I can use this knowledge. To sum up quickly: I think I love my media. We don’t have a very healthy relationship, in fact it’s a bit toxic but what love isn’t hard?

student ID: 13978551

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student number: 13735640

Oh, media, shall I compare thee to a Summers day?

Thou art lovely and oh so comforting,

Rough winds do shake my dear mental health,

And my good times online hath all too short a date:

Sometime too perfect the sun in your user’s days seem,

And often is the actual reality dimm’d,

and when pic from pic some-time makes me compare,

By choice, I try to look for what’s untrim’d:

Because, still, thy eternal Summer shall not fade,

Nor shall I loose sight of what chances thou give’st,

Nor shall my temporary discontent with myself put you in a shade,

When in eternal lines through more real content thou improve’st,

So long as men can breath or eyes can see,

So long lives media, and media gives life to me

Student ID: 14020947

As a media student, there is a long list of reasons why I love media. I used to come home to cartoons and Disney series on television after school; then I started to have my own smartphone which I watch shows and dramas on the school bus; now that I’m studying abroad, away from my family and friends, a facetime video call would make me feel less lonely.

I love how mundane media has become, I love media as it has been my playdate for the past twenty years and more. I didn’t realize how important media is to me, and how it has infused in my daily life until I moved to Amsterdam. Moving from almost ten thousand kilometers away from home isn’t easy. To start a new life so far away, living in an unfamiliar environment, studying for a bachelor’s degree with a second language, struggling to establish your own social life, and so on. Without media, I would have struggled a lot more than I have now. Due to the pandemic, I have a lot of time alone in my room. I facetime my family and friends every now and then, so I don’t feel like I’m stuck in this small room with only a desk and a bed. The connection it gives me is sometimes stronger than the connection I have with my new friends here, even though it’s divided by two screens that are ten thousand kilometers away. 

Media is everywhere, I am addicted and in love with it, I can’t live without it.

student number: 13182102

Media allows us to engage in the world and further connect and unite us through its connectivity.

Despite the development of smart phones and the internet, if there is no media at all, it is like being marooned and stranded on a desert island.

We reside in various forms of media, and we are always influenced and surrounded by media. 

Sometimes it is an emancipatory tool to express ourselves, vocalize ourselves, represent ourselves, free ourselves, and strengthen ourselves. 

We are shaped by media and thus, we are an artefact of media because we live our lives conforming to what is shown on media. Therefore, media takes a huge part of my life and I cannot even imagine a life without media 

In short, media is part of our lives and I love media because I love my life. 

Student Number: 13889605

There are many reasons why I love media (and many reasons why I hate it) but one of the most important is that it has always been an oasis for me; when the real world felt too unwelcoming, I always turned to media and found comfort there. When I think back to my middle school years and some periods of time in high school when I was pretty lonely, I mostly associate those times with the media I used to consume. I remember being 12-13 and spending all my pocket money on books and all my free time reading, drawing, playing computer games and scrolling trough Tumblr. I felt as if media was the place I actually lived in, and the real world was just something that also existed but wasn’t so important. Yes, it was a form of escapism, but now when I look back, I realize it shaped me as a person in ways that wouldn’t be possible without it: it shaped my reading taste, it showed me what life in other countries is like, it grew my love for art even more and most importantly, it made me feel understood.

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i love media because i can create my own safe space and call it my home. it helps me escape the reality and at the same time connect with it in a special way. i feel comfortable enough to explore my interests there, it keeps my mind fluid and adjustable and open to new perspectives, and im taking something from it, establishing my views and shaping myself in the process.

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The main computer in my household growing up was placed in the kitchen, on the kitchen island next to the spices to be precise. As a child with a father who loves tech stuff, i was allowed 2 up to 3 hours of ”computer time” a day. I’d play games alone or with my friends and later on mostly with my online friends. In the beginning i couldn’t use any website my father didn’t vet first, that was no problem for young me; the internet felt safe that way and i thought every parent did that. And after two or three hours or sometimes mysteriously that particular day would the computer automatically log out and shut down: time is up. And i was at peace with it for a while, until i wanted more time because my brother seemed to have more than i did. After a bit of an argument about allowing me more time, i discovered my dad could shut down the computer from another computer in his workspace or anywhere in and outside the house really. And only then he finally told me he works for the government and his job entailed pretty much to hack the hackers that were trying to get into government databases. That was also the time i realized: he could see every site i visit or any game i play live. My father then began to ”troll” me; mid game he’d let a message pop up causing me to be distracted, he could move my controls or my cursor and fuck around with that a bit, jumpscares could pop up.. the list goes on..

When i asked him if he didn’t trust me, and if he for my saniety’s sake could not watch every move i make online

( and if he could please please stop trolling me)

he told me this:

”It’s not that i don’t trust you, and i will give you more freedom from now on, but understand this: when you were younger i wanted to protect you from anything bad online or let’s say anything…. too spicy.”

I have been careful with media most of my life, until i started to rebel a bit and just stopped caring for a while, which gave me freedom but also a lot of life lessons for mistakes or situations i could’ve avoided. Now it’s kind of a mix of both caring and not caring to some degree. Knowingly i might be watched or surveilled at any given moment i spend online anywhere.

[Hi dad if you are reading this: don’t forget your dentist appointment in about 9 hours from now, also don’t text me ‘thank you for reminding me’ — i rather not know if you can actually read this, love you:)]

Student number: 13930125

This is my third attempt to answer the question “Why I heart my Media?”.  It stunned me how much trouble I had answering this question. After all, I chose to study “Media Studies” at University, so I should have been able to answer it rather easily.

But I could not have been more mistaken.

On my first and second attempt, my thoughts were constantly gravitating towards my childhood. This does not change in this attempt either.

I couldn’t help myself, but remember, all the evenings my family spent watching movies together. My parents were not very strict when it came to following the age limit on the front of a DVD. It was continuously disregarded with the result that as a child I watched “The Birds” by Hitchcock at a rather young age (some may argue at a too young of an age) for the first time . Subsequently, I might have developed a slight fear of birds around the age of seven. Nonetheless, my parents’ love for cinema definitely poured into my siblings and I.

While my father watches predominantly only movies in his limited free time, my mum used to watch a lot of TV-shows during the week. Some of them we watched almost religiously together. 

Usually in the afternoon, I sat next to my mum on the sofa and cuddled with her while on the TV Kevin McCloud presented yet another grand design. Sometimes it was Monty Don letting us into his gardener’s world and every now and then it was Jamie Oliver who shared with us another one of his 30 minutes recipes. 

My parents’ ringtones were always some kind of music score from their favourite movies or television shows. My father had until recently the opening theme of a polish series from the early sixties as his ringtone, as it reminded him of his childhood hero; A spy who in order to help his country to win the war, had to disguise himself as a German officer. My mum’s ringtone used to be the “Whistle Song” from “Kill Bill”.

Recently I was in a metro station and somebody’s phone started ringing. It was the “Whistle Song”. For just a tiny moment I was convinced that my mum was there in the metro station with me. I never felt as disoriented as in that second of my life.

Why I heart my media?

I heart it, because a piece of media as mundane as it might seem to one person, may hold for another great memory of a person lost a long time ago.

Student ID: 13906518