It's Kind of a Big Deal

I woke up this morning and the first thing my roommate said to me was: 

"You know what I wonder about? Why didn't Rafiki just tell Simba that Mufasa was shipping Kiara with Kovu?"

Needless to say, that was not what I was expecting out of her mouth at 8am. But I guess it makes a tad bit of sense; we did watch The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride yesterday and she had never seen it (believe it or not). 

 So it's had me thinking all morning about our interactions as roommates (and with others in general) with the media. Now that I thought about it, I realized that every night, we have a different show (or multiple shows) to watch. And then afterwards, we theorize like crazy! All night and sometimes into the next day (see above example). 

As another example, the Haven (Syfy) season 3 finale was last week. Our apartment was quiet and dark, lit by only the glow of the television. The popcorn was popped. The pillows and blankets were all over the couches. And there we were huddled there, just trying to comprehend the amazingness that had just played out on screen. 

We thought of the most ridiculous conclusion to this ending (and this will only make sense, if any, to those who know the show): Duke and Audrey come out of the barn 27 years later and introduce someone to Nathan. "This is our son. We named him Nathan." .....Yeah, it's a wild theory and almost completely implausible, but we had fun thinking it up! Which is part of my point.

Theorizing and talking about our shows is what we do. It's how we originally bonded as roommates. AT LEAST 1/2 of our conversations involve something about media. We quote our favorite movies. We rock our to our favorite songs. We talk about the couples of Glee. We talk about Pelant, the serial killer on Bones. We discuss the implications of a secret getting out on Beauty and the Beast. We laugh at the terrible singers auditioning on American Idol. We listen to each other drone on forever about the books we read and the couples we ship. We argue Team Duke or Team Nathan. We try to figure out the killer on Castle. We follow the adventure of New Girl and Ben & Kate. We squirm over the medical procedures in Emily Owens MD or Grey's Anatomy. We talk about the attractive qualities of Sam and Dean on Supernatural. We read spoilers. We read fanfiction, for goodness sake.

Last night, we FINALLY had our apartment Christmas, where we opened all of our presents from each other. I couldn't help but notice that almost every single one of our gifts had something to do with the media. I got two Castle calendars, we got one roommate a Darren Criss (Glee) poster, another roommate got a Haven poster, and our last roommate got a Detective Conan (Japan) action figure. Media has infiltrated our entire lives.

And if you didn't realize it already, it's kind of a big deal.

Think about it. What did you get/want for Christmas or your birthday? A book? A movie? A season of your favorite TV show? An iPad? A Kindle?

I thought about the things that are around me and I noticed, yet again, how immersed I am in media, without even realizing it. Right now I am sitting in my bedroom in front of a laptop with multiple tabs up (Facebook, Blogger, Learning Suite, etc), my cell phone just alerted me of a text, my bookshelf has more DVDs than books, my Kindle is charging, my iTunes is blaring, my walls have TV show posters covering them, my current reading endeavor is on the bedside table....

It's everywhere.

I try to imagine a life without these things, a life with just books perhaps. Strange, isn't it? I almost can't even wrap my mind around it. Can you? The more I think about it, the more I realize that I could be a lot happier and a lot more focused on the important things if I ditched the MacBook and grabbed an actual book for a few hours. I would have quiet. I could actually think without distractions. I could save on my electricity bill. I could actually get my homework done in a timely fashion. I could sit myself in a library and never leave. I'd discuss Jane Austen and William Shakespeare instead of Taylor Swift and whatever boyfriend she happens to have at the time.  I eventually talk myself into thinking I'd be perfectly happy staying in something akin to the Beast's library for all eternity.

And then my phone alerts me of a text, effectively breaking me out of my daydream. That's all it really is, a dream. There's almost no going back to the time before iPads and laptops and Hulu. But thankfully, every once in awhile, I can get a glimpse of that time and read a book in the quiet corner, surrounded by warm blankets and fluffy pillows.

So my readers, I ask you, any personal realizations lately? What would you do without your usual media?

x j