Media While Quarantined

Hello blog! While under this amazing, relaxing and extremely boring quarantine, media has been my true only outlet to the outside world. It first began as an endless vortex of Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok, until I decided to be a little bit more productive and useful with my time or use the information from those 4 apps to benefit myself. So starting off with Instagram:

I follow a bunch of random girly accounts and journal sketch accounts so I decided to put them together and create this little page in my journal and post it to my story to hopefully inspire others:

Some responses I got that keep me connected to friends:

Overall, posting and creating pictures including my favorite things keep me feeling better about my days and in general keeps me connected to people who share the same interests:

                             

Next, Twitter. So, let's be honest. Twitter does not provide the most intellectually stimulating content. But, it does spark some ideas and inspiration for my daily life. Since so many people started talking about this game Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, I wanted to get in on the hype. This was about a week ago, I am now on Level 44. You can say I am a tad bit obsessed and distracted. 

I posted my little character to my Snapchat private story (I will talk about that in a second) and 4 of my friends responded telling me to add them and I had no idea they had the game. I do sound dorky right now but I talked to them about the game for a good hour, showing that under these conditions with no real outside stimulation, we find interesting ways to still feel connected beyond just calling or texting. (Also, in the game you can water each others' plants (that sounded sexual, is not meant to be sexual) and give each other kudos. It's a really cute way to connect I highly recommend this game!!)

Now, Snapchat. Snapchat has the feature of allowing you to put only the people you want on a private story. I have about 30 people on mine, that include people all the way from Greece, New York and of course Florida. This is the best way to stay connected indirectly while still seeing what others are doing without necessarily talking daily. It's just a more private way (not actually private if you think about it) of posting random things that you only want a certain amount of people or specific people to see, does not have to be anything special but it can definitely open up conversations. Through Snapchat, I also ask a bunch of people to send me songs and playlists they have made, so here are two I recommend from my friend Alex and my friend Aldo:

Last but not least, TikTok. Another app with no intellectual stimulation, yet it is very motivating for art and working out in general. On my ForYou page, a bunch of workouts and paintings show up which I get a lot of inspiration from. Also, I send a lot of TikToks to friends which always bring me joy more than it probably does to them because I do spam a lot more than I should.

(Super random but my friend that lives in Texas got famous on TikTok and I messaged her about it and we texted for hours! Media has no limits with communication)

Pushing this even more, I found a thread of youtubers to watch on Twitter and I searched up this one girl that I knew was Greek and next to her name was a really popular show in Greece called "My Style Rocks' so I clicked on it and turns out she was on it to promote sustainability and fast fashion, which I would not have known unless I was in Greece chilling with my grandma on the couch. Anyway, to finish this long blog post, media has helped me with staying connected to people and lifestyle all the way from Greece to people around me in Florida in interesting ways. It has helped me stay motivated and creative, making my own workouts and art through inspiration on TikTok and overall sending funny and inspirational content and ideas to friends and even people in my own home without leaving the comfort of my bed. Of course, FaceTime, Whatsapp and Canvas have kept me sane and the most directly connected to the outside world of friends and school life but other uses of media makes the quarantine a lot more bearable and enjoyable for my daily life.