Why I Heart My Media

When I was very, very young, there were no smart electronic devices, not to mention new media. At that time, my only daily entertainment was watching TV. The only way to get fresh information and news is to watch TV. Every time I went to my grandma’s house for summer vacation, I was forced to listen to the morning radio — even though I didn’t really know what room there was for appreciation. When I was in primary school, the school would recommend a uniform subscription of children’s magazines, and I always bought every issue, which was full of fun to read in my spare time, because it was like the New York Times for me. There is a certain difference between this kind of magazine and children’s literature. The content of each issue is different, which makes it more fresh and attractive to read. I didn’t like sports when I was young, and video games weren’t popular at that time, so TV and magazines were the only entertainment I had in my spare time. In junior high school, we were required to subscribe to English newspapers, and the teacher gave us the task of translating articles in English newspapers word for word. It’s long and cumbersome, but it’s fun. Everyone expands and interprets a sentence differently. We felt like little translators engaged in a sacred task of spreading knowledge. Those were also the years when wechat was widely used in China. Social media is really spreading across all ages in China. In addition, Weibo (a kind of software similar to Twitter) was very popular in junior high school to record the details of my life. After high school, TikTok and Honor of Kings, a mobile game similar to League of Legends, flourished. People are increasingly more inclined to exchange feelings and meet new people online. Now, wechat has become an indispensable part of Chinese people’s life, covering all sectors of the market. My growth, to some extent, witnessed the rapid development of Chinese media.

Why do I heart my media? It has been a question I have been thinking about a lot since I first came in touch with it.

I could write long essays about what media adds to my life. About how it can transport me to different worlds and times. About how it opens up new opportunities and connections. About how it can connect me to the things that aren’t instantly available.

But honestly, I think all of that would come down to me saying things that have been said and repeated countless times before.

However, there’s one thought that has been circulating through my mind since the moment I first thought about it.

Media expands my world, at the same time that it keeps me from expanding my world.

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Why I heart media

The media I truly love is film. Mundane and common as it may sound, the world of film is actually versatile enough to be neither. I cannot name just one film that I love the most. The fact that so many different stories can bring me to so many different worlds is what amazes me. Real life can scare me when I realise that I am set out to be like everyone else. I expect to get a 9-5 job, I accepted that fact, even though it used to scare me out of my mind. It’s not a bad life, but it’s not a world filled with magic. When I am watching a film, good or bad, my imagination drags me into that world. I leave this 9-5 world and temporarily move in time and space and out of my own head even. This loss of reality and control soothes me in a way that is incomparable to any other form of distraction. Those worlds without boundaries, in a way, make up for the fact that this world we live in, is so restricted in so many ways.

One might ask why a good book does not have the same effect on me. Well, even though the effect is slightly different, I love reading books almost equally, even though reading books kind of has the opposite effect on me than watching films. The pace in a film moves very quickly, everything is thought out for you, the next scene follows the previous one and every second is important. When reading a book, some sentences are phrased so beautifully I stop to think about the message behind them and appreciate that very often. When reading books, compared to watching films, I have more “free mind space”. Thus, I am not exactly transported into a different world, but I still see it as an escape.

I’m afraid I’m not exactly original in my answer as to why I love media, but I can’t help it. Whenever I’m malcontent with real life, even though I realise how lucky I am and I have very little to complain about, I still need an escape from this relatively boring life. With ‘relatively’ I mean it might be disheartening to compare my ‘boring’ high school life with the high school life of Harry Potter, or my ‘boring’ future 9-5 job with the life of the Marvel Avengers. I don’t get sad (anymore) by these comparisons, because I realise this life is hard enough as it is, but it is still exciting to live through someone else for a moment.

13811479 (student number)

I don’t really know why i heart media. It has simply just been part of my existence as long as I can remember. What I can say though, is that my dependence on media has significantly grown over the past 21 years. It has evolved from occasionally watching television after school or playing video games to accessing it on any device close to me at any given time of the day. Morning to Night. Rinse and Repeat.

The most important media to me would definitely be music. Music fills me with happiness, sadness, anger and everything else, it just lets me feel my emotions, whatever they might be at that moment. It expresses who I am as a person and gives my life some type of background noise(like in a show). I do not necessarily have the desire to make music myself but I enjoy pretending like I’m in my own imaginary music video from time to time.

Media has had both positive as well as negative impacts on my life, but I like to see it as a form of character development. I know how to handle some things better now than I did a year or two ago. You cannot have tunnel vision when it comes to media, there are so many ways you can go with it, you just have to choose your path and inspire yourself through others along the way.

student number: 14014734

What I love about media is how it is an extension of humanity. We as people live inside the media that we create, it is not a separate construct to the rest of society but a foundational form of communication. Media is something which in my opinion is meant to connect with people. The intent behind most media is to elicit an emotional reaction from the individual interacting with it. These emotions can range from very positive to very negative and are sought after for a variety of reasons. The goal of the media can be to get someone to spend money on a product, or join a political movement, or simply to spark a debate/argument. From my experience this is where the fear and negative connotation with media arises, that media is there to control what we think and do; leading to some having a critical opinion of the entire concept of media. Personally I feel that the value of media lies in sharing stories and experiences that allow people to connect over their similarities. Whole friendships can be based around taste in film, music or literature; and social media and the internet allows us to meet people we could never have met otherwise. Many of these forms of media are part of large industries aimed at making money and at times exploiting consumers. However this should not undermine the genuinity of the media and those who produce it. Many artists and influencers create media with the intent of sharing stories and experiences rather than an intent to make money. All the positives and negatives of human society exist within media due to all of it coming from the human mind. As a result human issues also find themselves within all of media; it should not be blamed for these issues. Media is a tangible manifestation of human nature and emotion, which is what makes it so interesting in my opinion. 

Student number: 13619063

I wake up with my Media, checking my phone to see what I missed while I was sleeping, playing music when I work out in the morning and a YouTube video for when I shower. I have come to the point that I can’t do an activity without using my media, if I am walking somewhere I need to be on the phone or listening to something. Thinking about the silence makes me uncomfortable even if I know in reality it wouldn’t bother me. My life is fully dependant on my media and I don’t know if this is a good thing but I do know I don’t want to live a life where I wouldn’t be able to use it.

I can’t sleep well without a podcast playing in the background and I can’t eat without a video playing. A part of me feels like its fine, the world is changing and we are getting more connected that keeps my life more interesting. I can’t even imagine how I was able to be entertained before I discovered what I could do online. Another part of me feels like I have codependency issues with my media and that’s never healthy , but codependency would only be a problem if I suddenly lost access to all my media for a long time. I don’t see that happening so I don’t have the need to change my ways.

I think I’ve accepted the role media has and how necessary it is, I choose to conform and maybe even become Media in the future. I just hope the negative aspects of Media especially the toxic nature of social media platforms gets resolved but even if it doesn’t I’ll still use my Media.

Student Number: 13091212

I just turned sixteen. She is holding the cake, I am blowing the candles. I make a wish, it later comes true.

Over years, we have built an entire world around dreams, little Terabithia of our own. Such strictly professional alliance started in sixth grade when no one else at school would share the desire to spend hours discussing something that could never happen. But we would mull over every tiny detail of the perfect life we were to have. 

It is crucial to say, that our dreams all contained one-way ticket, packing three huge luggage pieces, in them: clothes, pictures in frames, and a few kilograms of buckwheat and Russian candy; then getting on a plane that would land in Los Angeles, California in twelve hours forty five minutes. It would be morning in America and we would have an entire day to ourselves. After that the stories varied. 

And here we are, cutting ice-cold chocolate cake, and loudly congratulating me on my sweet sixteen. 

Couple weeks pass, and we are in the airport with one-way ticket, three huge luggage pieces, in them: clothes, pictures without frames, and a few kilograms of buckwheat (no Russian candy). But by the green corridor she waves at me and I appear to be farther and farther from her and ultimately beyond my capacity to distinguish familiar figure. Then my plane lands in Tel-Aviv in four hours fifteen minutes and, needless to say, my wish came true. It indeed came true, yet in some twisted, satirical, snide even way. I call her, I send her letters. 

I just turned eighteen. She is holding the watermelon (we either became creative or merely ashamed of our form), I am blowing the candles. I make a wish and hope it does not come true. 

But it does. One-way ticket, three huge pieces of luggage, buckwheat, Vienna in two hours fifty five minutes for her, Amsterdam in three hours forty minutes for me. She calls me, she sends me letters. 

I have deepest disgust and anguish in my heart for distance between me and my dearest friend. But besides that, I have fierce passion for letters. 

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Because when you smile, I smile.

No, I’m not quoting Justin Bieber’s 2010 hit single “U Smile”. But his lyrical mastermind has captured the essence of what I love about media quite well.

You see, I just love the way other people get all excited when talking about their favorite movie, series, or podcast. Or when they can’t stop giggling when they show me the meme they’ve been crying laughing over all night. Or when I see them blushing and smiling to themselves, talking to their favorite person online on their phones. 

Of course, I’ve had these experiences myself as well. There are forms of media, in particular movies and music, that have quite literally changed my life. People I’ve met on the internet who are bound to be life-long friends, and one of them possibly my future husband. If it wasn’t for Facebook, I wouldn’t be able to keep in touch with people I love and hold dear to my heart so easily.

Ultimately, I think the things that spark joy in people make the world a better place. And the media plays a big part in that. So that’s why I love media.

student ID: 14023350

The reason why I cherish my media is that it has both developed and kept me up to date with my interests. It enables me to immerse myself into the fantasy world of video games, enjoy the romance of a serial, as well as introducing me to new anime and animation styles. Those are influences that have shaped my  personality and contributed to my affinity towards art. My main hobby is singing and every music video I watch and listen to inspires me to go forward, full of emotions and story ideas I can share and sympathize with. Without the media, my world would be incomplete, deprived of color and sound as it is my place for relaxation, sharing my ideals and discovering new aspects of life. 

I wouldn’t be here in Amsterdam, opening a new page and beginning a true life if media didn’t exist, hence I love it, because it has given me the opportunity to think and live.

Tsvetelina Toneva

Student ID: 13638424