The Girl On The Train

My mother and I had to take several train journeys in order to get my dress for my prom next month. One one of these journeys this girl got on the same train as us and sat opposite us because there were no seats. At first I was a bit annoyed because she was one of those people that talk very loudly on their phone the whole way there; moreover, it was rather hard not to take notice of her. It sounds creepy but she was incredible. She had this style and this unique character and I was literally in awe from the second she got on the train. 

 She had clearly perfected the 70's hippy look. She had the flared trousers that didn't look tacky at all. She owned it. Her hair was this gorgeous wavy blonde that was then dip died a bright, fiery red and she had the most amazing shade of red lipstick on to match. Her skin was flawless. She had these mesmerising dream catcher earings and the feathers  came right down to the bottom of her hair. Her nails were filed into perfect points and they were also bright red. I said to my mum as soon as we got off the train, "she looked amazing" and she had to agree. 

 I have no idea why I remember this girl so vividly or why I even took that much notice. I figure it was her individuality. She wasn't the kind of girl you'd see in the fashion magazines or on a cat walk yet she was stunning and her whole image was on point. 

 Since that journey I've looked all over the internet for a pair of earings like hers. I've been desperate to dip die my hair some wacky but awesome colour. I've wanted to wear clothes I wouldn't usually wear. Because of this, I've come to a conclusion that I've never really considered before. I'm desperate to be anybody besides who I actually am. 

 I don't know why, and I'm certain I'm not the only one but I'm fascinated by other people yet completely disheartened by myself. It's as if my insecurities are caused by my own critique and it's almost like a never ending cycle. I spend way too much time looking at other people's instagram accounts and feeling like I'm not good enough because I'm not them. But why am I not happy enough with myself?

 I don't understand why I worry about this so much or why the girl on the train had such a massive influence on the way I see myself but I'd just love to be that girl. I'd love to have a style that nobody else had and just be so comfortable with who I am that it doesn't matter if someone doesn't adore me because I'd adore myself. I think that's everyone's goal really. I don't know how close I am to achieving it but I know that since having this realisation, I've become more eager to find out who I am. 

 I know I'm a feminist. I know what colours I like wearing and what makeup I like to do. I know I love writing. I know that I love music. I know that I hate inequality and I also am sure that I'm passionate. But I have no idea what to do with these things and what good they will do me. It's a scary place to be in but also really interesting. I know that the person I am now is completely different to the person I was a year ago and I know the person I will be a year from now will be completely different to this version of myself. I know that I can use pain to drive me forwards. I think you need to realise these things to become happy enough within yourself to continue because I no longer feel like I'm drifting because I know that I matter and that I'm worth it. For the first time I don't feel like I need anybody to prove that to me. 

 I'm not sure how this post ended up where it did. I just needed to write something and see where it went. 

YouTube Is The Future

I think that because last time I wrote about the negative impacts the media has in terms of the removal of privacy and exploitation of youth, I needed to write about something positive to even things out. As a society, our lives seem to revolve around entertainment and watching the lives of other people. The increase in the popularity of reality TV shows highlights how intrigued we are by other people's lifestyle. 

 I personally dislike the soaps you can watch on TV. Supposedly capturing everyday life, the over dramatic emphasis on disasters such as weekly explosions, car crashes and death make things rather unbelievable and frankly soul destroying. In terms of real life, I'd much rather watch a vlog. 

 The thing I love most about YouTube is how the people are real people. Anyone could upload a video and have a million subscribers. You don't have to be unrealistically perfect or have boob implants in order to have people watch your videos. And there are YouTubers that make every single genre of video you can imagine. It's like one great big TV network that you can watch on your own terms. 

 The fact that you can have a contract with YouTube and make money off of making the videos is such a good idea for the YouTubers themselves and for the people watching. People are more likely to watch those videos made by people who have earned their platform than some fake family on the TV that waste their money on fake duck lips. If you think about it on a wider scale, we're on the way to ruling out the whole 'Fake Celebrity' status by producing a new platform to overtake the old one. 

 I hardly ever watch TV. I find it boring. Real life is much more entertaining for me and for the people I know too. There are videos for every type of person and their interests. Personally, I love watching a good vlog on a sunday evening - Hannah Magg's videos are edited beautifully and will put you in such a good mood! There doesn't seem to be any reason to need a TV anymore. Give it a few decades and no one will be watching Eastenders and dull shows like that when you could watch the Sacconejolys and actually see what real life is like for a family. 

 Not only does it give out a better message to younger people giving them much healthier role models (Kim Kardashian VS Zoella...hmm tricky one) but it's also beneficial for the people starring in these videos. A lot of people would find this controversial especially when it comes to family vloggers because they're putting their children in the public eye; however, you only have to watch the sacconejolys once to realise how beneficial  Anna and Jonothan's career is on their children. Emilia and Eduardo are so confident and have such a great relationship with their parents because Anna and Jonothan get to stay at home and bring up their children rather than constantly leave them with different strangers whilst they go to work. Another positive outlook to have is how you only see 15 minutes of their day and they can make a living out of that! I'll admit, I'm slightly jealous but it's so good for them because they get to put all their time into their family! 

By being able to make a career out of making videos you can specialize in something you enjoy and not have to work in a field that you felt was more practical despite not being the slightest bit interested. 

 YouTube might not be for everybody, but so many YouTubers have found a career they love out of it and escaped a life they would otherwise have hated. It makes having an interesting job so much easier because you don't have to have media platforms interested in exploiting you. You just have to have regular people have the same things in common as you do. I'm an advocate for sending out positive messages to the younger generations and I think in the future younger people would much rather watch YouTube than TV and thus the false media image will become less prominent in our everyday lives.  It's an interesting thing to think about... Do we need the television or do we just need a wide screen computer? 

I Hate The Media

In the last year or so I have become much more opinionated about certain things than I used to be. I'm not sure whether this is because I'm finding myself or if it's simply that I'm becoming more educated and smarter therefore more aware of the world around me. I have realised many things over recent months including my passion for feminism and a new love for writing. But one thing that I've found myself getting increasingly angry and frustrated about is the growing callous nature of the media. 

 As we are all aware, due to the media coverage, that the new Royal Baby was delivered on Saturday morning. She is beautiful. It's not surprising that the growing population of Britain is seemingly obsessed with her already. However, I not only found the media's infatuation disturbing but even more so offensive. Imagine it for yourselves: either you yourself or your wife has just given birth and you can't even go to visit her without being photographed and filmed? We've all seen the video of the gorgeous Prince George being carried into the hospital to MEET his own sister for the first time but of course, before he could he had to stand and wave to a bunch of strangers with his Daddy. I'm not implying that it was wrong for William to encourage George to do this; he has to do so in order to prevent negative headlines. But isn't that tragic that the media stole priority over the baby? 

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 What I thought was even sadder than this was when Kate and Will left the hospital to bring their daughter home. Not even a day old and cameras zoomed in to get the first picture of her face. Again, they stood and waved before preparing the baby and getting her safely in the car to leave. It breaks my heart that they can't share that private moment together in peace. I couldn't imagine having to politely allow a group of strangers to snap images of my new born baby before I could even go home and enjoy her myself. 



 Considerably crueler than this was the reaction of the general public to Will and Kate's desire for some privacy. I took to twitter to convey my views on their departure in which my comments were of a similar tone to this post. I was disgusted by the amount of negative comments from people I know! One girl stated how she felt it was 'rude' that Will and Kate didn't speak to the media when they came out. For goodness sake. I don't think I would want to speak to a bunch of people invading my private moment if I had just given birth either. They're real people. Another girl replied to one of my tweets to state how amusing she found it that I referred to the couple as Will and Kate as if I am 'super chummy with them.' Of course I'm not but those are their names? They're people with names. Kate's birth name isn't The Duchess Of Cambridge it's Catherine. Why shouldn't they be called by their names? They're people! 

 This morning I even saw negative comments from people on Facebook slagging Kate off for how she looked when she came out of hospital. I can admit, I even felt slightly disheartened after seeing her leave and hoped desperately that I can look that good after I give birth. But the tone and nature of these comments were disturbing. Obviously she had to make herself up because she knew there were people outside waiting to photograph her! If she had left in joggers with her hair pulled up on her head like I'm sure she wanted to, think of all the preposterous articles we would have woken up to this morning? 

 Do you not think it's tragic how much effort she had to put in just to make sure no one said anything bad about her?

The media has this kind of effect on every single celebrity and it can either coerce them into taking extra care of their words and appearance in order to convey a positive image or it can send them over the edge. 

 I swear by Taylor Swift. I will stick up for her until the end of the earth because of how much effort she has put in to give off a positive image. There has not been one scandal in her almost 10 year career. The worst thing the media can say about her is that she dates a lot of people and I have written in my previous post how sexist and cruel I think that is. Not only does Taylor make sure to write and act in a way that is healthy for young girls to look up to but she addresses this publicly often in order to convey to everyone how important it is that the media emits a positive image. 
 She said this in an interview on 60 minutes:  “I definitely think about a million people when I am getting dressed in the morning,” “That’s just part of my life now. I think it’s my responsibility to know it and to be conscious of it.”. “It would be really easy to say…I’m 21 now. I do what I want. You raise your kids. But…that’s not the truth of it. The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation. So make your words count.” 
 Not only this, but Taylor has to put in intense effort into her appearance every time she leaves the gym or goes out for a walk and when questioned about this, she is again very honest. A million people are going to be looking at her and taking pictures of her because of her career. 
What is heartbreaking about the influence the media has had on Taylor Swift is how much it has changed her attitude to what she wants from life. As a huge Swiftie (and proud of it) I have watched Taylor grow from a hopeful 16 year old girl to a strong willed, intelligent young woman. You can hear this heartbreaking reality in her lyrics, in her interviews and in her honesty. From a young age and since her young debut she was determined to have a family. She wanted to get married and give up her career to bring up a family in order to follow in her mother's footsteps. She talked about it in so many interviews. That was the life she really wanted. Since then she wrote a tragically accurate song called 'The Lucky One' that found it's place on her fourth studio album: RED. The song is about how invaded the lives of celebrities are by the media. Since then, Taylor has stated how she would never have children. She thinks it would be cruel to try to convince them they have a 'normal life' when they would have strange men constantly putting cameras in their faces. 

 Again, this conveys the tragic intrusion of the Royal Family's privacy because they couldn't make that choice. They have a duty to carry on the family. Will and Kate could never decide they didn't want to expose a family to the media. 

It breaks my heart that the media have scared Taylor into not having her family because of the cruel way they have intruded into her private life. 

Many people also talk in a malice way about Miley Cyrus who I have also previously mentioned when talking about sexism. I evaluated in my last post about how her choices and actions are media influenced. I do feel sorry for her because she is made to feel like she has to portray herself in a certain manor; however, I can't help but be angry by how little responsibility she takes. She could have an attitude like Taylor or like so many other celebrities who refuse to be that provocative and take a classier approach but she doesn't. Not only does she allow herself to be sexualised by she completely disregards any responsibility for her actions.
It's almost as if the media's disregard for people's privacy has inspired celebrities to feel like they can use that as an excuse to do whatever they feel like doing. 

Some may argue that being exposed by the media is simply 'part of the job' but it shouldn't be and it never used to be. There used to be singers and movie stars way before there were gossip magazines and corrupt media coverage. It's as if this rise in media usage has left people in the spotlight with little time to adapt and evolve to suit the new type of famous. If you take for example the royal family who go back centuries obviously, there was a time when they could leave their home to go for a walk without being followed by cameras. They could appear looking tired, let their hair go grey, wear what they wanted. Obviously, they would always have had a lot of money to make themselves look presentable but they could do so off their own backs, there wasn't this pressure. It illustrates an image of a fish out of water. The royal family worked even 50-60 years ago when media coverage wasn't as much of an issue but they're not designed for this kind of exposure. This is tragically highlighted in the events of the last 20 or so years regarding the private lives of the royal subjects. 

 You have to be smart to be a celebrity. People such as Justin Bieber, Meghan Trainor and so many others who clearly don't think about what impact their actions and words have result in heartbroken teenagers who think behaving in a certain way is okay. I cannot tell you how thankful I am that I found Taylor and had a good role model or who knows where I would have ended up. 

 It's true: Celebrities are bringing up the next generation through the media. 

This whole outlook has completely scared me away from all of the things I love. I am terrified of getting my dream job. I want nothing more than to take my music all over the world and release albums and tour but I don't think I could handle it even if I had that opportunity. I don't think I'd have the energy to never make a single mistake. I couldn't put that much effort into making sure I always looked right and behaved right. I couldn't cope with the articles and the press and the interviews and always having to say the right thing. 

 I love writing. I plan to do english at university but I have no idea what I could do with it. If I  can make sufficient money from writing this blog then great but I don't want to go into journalism because I find it boring. I could never write for a magazine either. As much as I love fashion and make-up and writing about that stuff I couldn't live with myself if I had to make money of writing horrible things about people. I don't want to write about how a certain celebrity still has stretch marks from the baby she gave birth to a few weeks ago, I mean how dare she? Or have to interview famous people and ask them hurtful, private questions. 

It's cruel. 

When you consider how much these celebrities have sacrificed for us to enjoy their music or films etc. Why should we then take more than they offer? Why bite the hand that feeds you? You don't need to know who they're dating or how many times they've worn a certain outfit. Of course they make a lot of money but no amount of cash could make me want to be exposed like that. I could never do that to somebody either. 

The media is a great thing in some ways. We can learn so much and get in touch with so many things but it scares me how much we are going too far every single day. From all of this pressure on so many people, we are inches away from everything collapsing be it a metaphor or a physical tragedy.