Month: December 2020

2020 Gratitude: The Bachelor/ette

If you had told me a year ago – literally one year ago, probably up until New Years Eve 2019 – that I would be die-hard into The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, I would have said you were crazy! 2020 was a new year for me!

Though I had been in love with Survivor for a few years now, I never really branched out into other types of reality shows. I had especially thought that The Bachelor and The Bachelorette were not for me – they’re all vapid and fake! The drama is fake! Who really falls in love on TV? What’s the point?

In the new year, however, I was introduced to a new group of friends that I was excited to bond with. When one suggested a fantasy league for the upcoming season of The Bachelor, I put my prejudices aside for the shared experience. I chose women completely at random and tuned in every week with low expectations.

Little by little, I was sucked in. I thought that I was above petty drama and female cattiness, but it turns out, I’m not! I absolutely love it! I love getting angry at the imagined drama between beautiful women in expensive ball gowns! I love gasping and screaming at my TV whenever Peter makes another bad decision! I love watching people’s hearts break on national television!

The end of the most recent season of The Bachelor happened to coincide with the beginning of quarantine, when I was especially ravenous for more media to fill my time. I spent this past summer watching the Greatest of All Time season recaps and have started to put on old seasons as background noise while I’m working (just like I did with Survivor a few years ago).

While the original friendships that inspired my new obsession fizzled out very quickly, my obsession with the franchise definitely did not. I found out that some of my existing friends were already avid watchers, so I continued to connect with them over what happened on last week’s episode, who got eliminated, what happened on the dates, even stupid memes. We even have a fantasy league for the current season of The Bachelorette, and listen to episode recap podcasts together.

Like many of my other quarantine obsessions, this show has given me the double whammy of routine – tuning in on Tuesday nights has become familiar at this point – as well as connection to others. Yeah, it’s a silly show, but who cares? Not everything in life has to be serious!

Who is my winner pick for this season, you ask?

2020 Gratitude: Crooked Ways

Of all of the unexpected joys that 2020 has brought into my life, a new Motion City Soundtrack song was by far the most unexpected.

Over the summer, I was able to indulge in the rare treat of my favorite band! releasing a previously unreleased song! from one of my favorite eras! and it was amazing!

This song is like a tiny, 3 minute time capsule of the style and mood of my favorite band at their (arguable) peak – something that I didn’t knew existed, didn’t know I wanted, and was pleasantly surprised to receive.

And the most unexpected part of it all: it’s all thanks to the Stephenie Meyer and the Twilight saga!

According to my Spotify Wrapped statistics for the year, Motion City Soundtrack was one of my most listened-to artists this year. I first chalked this up to going to their concert in early January (remember concerts?), but I later realized that it was also because I had Crooked Ways on repeat for a few days.

At the same time, it is both something new in a time where it feels like the same day is repeating over and over, every day, and also comforting and familiar, like a favorite sweater or blanket. Except also new! But also familiar! … It’s hard to explain.

2020 Gratitude: Video Games

#AmongUsWrapped

A conversation of the things that I’m thankful for in 2020 – especially in terms of video games – would be incomplete without a mention of Among Us. In a very sentimental and cheesy way, the rise of Among Us marked a new “era” of my quarantine, as lots of aspects of my quarantine changed when we started playing.

Most importantly, I re-connected with old friends and started using Discord, which helped me stay connected with them in new ways. It was also nice to use voice chat with them, which feels even more “real” and genuine than the text messaging that we had fallen into after Zoom fatigue set in (and not having to look video chat-ready is a big plus too!).

After getting into the game, I also started watching lots of YouTube videos and Twitch streams of other people playing. I’ll admit that I never understood the appeal of streaming before this, but I can now happily sit through hours of watching total strangers on the internet yell at each other – imagine that! I’ve also started talking to my friends about these streams as well, bringing everything full circle.

I had a solid months-long love affair with playing Among Us that has recently died down due to falling in love with a new game (see below), but I’m still forever thankful to InnerSloth for making an incredibly simply, yet incredibly fun game, that injected a lot of life back into my tired self-isolation.

Beautiful! (image from nme.com)

I actually started playing less Among Us when I started playing more Genshin Impact, which is considerably more time-consuming but, in many ways, a lot more deep and gratifying!

While I loved Among Us for its relatively simple and multiplayer gameplay, Genshin is the exact opposite, with lush, detailed graphics and extremely strategy-heavy, single-player gameplay. I watched a few streams (again, something I never thought I would do before quarantine) and decided to give it a shot, and became engrossed in the world for several weeks.

For me, a lot of the appeal lay simply in exploring the sprawling landscapes in the game. I watched one stream where they gushed, “Do you see all of those cliffs? All of that land? I could just fly out and go to any of it!” – and I was sold! Though I had played a bit of Breath of the Wild back when it came out, I never dedicated the time that I should have to it, so seeing a new version! free-to-play! felt like a chance to redeem myself.

I’ll admit that a lot of the gameplay goes over my head – I refuse to drop any money on the game, get sick of grinding pretty quickly, and my characters and weapons are definitely not as optimized as they could be – but I still enjoy it nonetheless!

Like Among Us, I’m starting to get fatigued from playing this game almost every day, but I still enjoy jumping back in every once in a while, especially as new updates (read: quests! characters!) get pushed out.

image from channel3000.com

Though I had never played the first Paper Mario game, I had heard nothing but good things from many people, including my boyfriend. When it came out this summer, it seemed like a good excuse to play the game together as a shared quarantine experience.

I was quickly drawn in by the game’s cute art style and clever, often laugh-out-loud, dialogue. Though the normal battles only got challenging near the end, and were pretty easy to figure out for most of the game, we got a lot of satisfaction out of figuring out tough boss battles and random puzzles, like hunting for toads, together.

Paper Mario ended up being an unexpectedly wonderful surprise from this year. My boyfriend and I probably would not have shared if we were both busy living our normal, busy lives, but this year was no ordinary year. This game allowed us to transform our usual, boring nighttime couch hangs into moment for teamwork and memories – and I’ll be forever grateful for that!