rosemarie chats about: media consumption and tiktok influencing
i am so filled with the need to deinfluence myself that my first instinct toward anything popular is to reject it. not reject it in a "not like other girls" way but in a way that i tell myself "if it's meant to be, i'll find it." i do not read books when they first trend, but after months or maybe years until i can form my own opinions. i don't listen to albums or artists while they are popular so i can ensure i genuinely like them. and i especially don't watch popular movies unless i feel the calling from a higher power and the gentle nudge of my intuition that tells me it'll be worth it.
and i feel so much like a pick-me when i do, but that is not the intention. i just have a very strong sense of what i like and what i don't, and i'll be damned if i let myself be coerced into partaking just for the aesthetic. i refuse to pretend to enjoy things just because they seem like something i should enjoy. i'm a self-proclaimed twee indie film feminist teenage girl but i can't stand lady bird (2017). in my community that might sound like sacrilege... but i don't care! rejecting popular things is intrinsic to my media consumption and i might end up like every other homogenous navel-gazing wannabe if i didn't have the backbone i do.
most recent and topical example i can think of is brat by charli xcx. i avoided brat for a long time until i sat down and listened to the album from start to finish, by my own volition. and i actually really like brat. not in a tiktokified, brat summer aesthetic way, but i genuinely love the album. and i never would have fell in love with it had i listened when it first released. i couldn't give two shits about the "apple" dance or the fact that lorde and charli are hanging out again. summer is ending and people are moving on and my love of brat is just getting started. maybe i'm late to the party but i'd rather be fashionably late than early and hating every second.