Getting into a subculture can be hard. Getting into a sub-subculture of that subculture? Even harder.
Luckily for any new bats out there with a budding interest in ethereal wave, I’ve compiled a beginner-friendly list of bands that are perfect for dipping your toes into the misty waters of this dreamy, haunting genre. π€
I’ve been reading tarot for several years, and I’ll be honest—I struggled to remember the meanings behind the cards. I often ended up defaulting to intuitive readings rather than using the intended meanings.
In the last 20 years, we’ve seen the decline of owning physical copies of media and the rise of subscription-based streaming services and digital licenses. Was this a positive change? Maybe not, but first let’s explore what these terms are and what it means to you.
In my oracle journey, I’ve found that everyone’s go-to oracle artist always seems to be Rebecca Campbell. Honestly? Her decks never felt like they were for me. Every time I came across her work in recommendation lists, I’d just scroll right past. So when I saw one of her decks at Barnes & Noble this morning, I nearly walked right by it.
As the holiday season comes to an end and we enter into 2025 I find myself reflecting on the noticeable differences I observed in other people (and myself) these past couple of years. When you go out in public how often do you notice that nearly everyone seems to be on their cell phone? Hell, just the other day I observed a family of three taking up an entire aisle entirely consumed by algorithmically recommended media. Passively scrolling away searching for their next dopamine hit simply because grocery shopping wasn't stimulating enough. I have no room to talk though, after raving about how "disgusting" this was to my father for nearly half the day I settled down into my room to watch YouTube videos, just another form of computer-recommended media. How am I any better?
When you ask most people to look at their screen time on their phones, it becomes alarmingly apparent just how much life people are losing to media consumption. Major gaps in our lives and memory because it is in our human nature to binge hours and hours of this content every day. 5, 6, I've even been up to 7 hours a day of screen time, entire days spent where I woke up, worked, consumed, and went to bed just to repeat the same cycle the next day. Weeks of my life were lost to just stuffing my brain with slop. I have noticed a huge change in the attention span and the memory of myself and others. Only through cutting these things out of my life have I realized how depressed this made not only me but my friends and loved ones as well.
But if this is such a problem, how do we fix it? How do we take steps to reverse the damage that these forms of media have done to our brains? I'm going to talk about the things I have learned through my experiences and how they've helped me reclaim my life.
The primary issue with the current age of online media, short form videos and pornography especially, is what they do to the dopamine levels in our brains. Now, contrary to what social media trends may tell you, a dopamine "fast" is impossible, our brains do not build up a tolerance to dopamine like how you might to substances or alcohol. Where the problem really lies is within the pathways dopamine takes inside your brain, and this you can manage. There are two major ways for dopamine to travel (there are more but they're not relevant to what I'm writing about) the Mesolimbic and the Mesocortical pathways. The Mesolimbic pathway being a very short and quick way for our brain to get dopamine, which is typically favored, while the Mesocortical is a longer pathway, contributed to our "delayed gratification." In most people I would argue the Mesocortical (delayed) pathway is extremely underdeveloped, leading to a lack of attention span and the inability to spend longer times working toward accomplishing a goal.
If we're getting the dopamine faster why would that make us more depressed? As we take actions that favor short, instant hits of dopamine like scrolling on videos that are maximum 60 seconds long or the instant gratification of pornographic content we begin to under develop our ability to use that longer dopamine pathway. Soon enough after years of this one might not be able to function or get dopamine at all if it doesn't come in a short amount of time. Why would someone work towards learning something new, or adopting a time consuming hobby when they could just watch YouTube or TikTok, platforms that serve you content perfectly tailored to your interests? Why play a video game when you could just watch it?
I think the answer to this problem is quite simple, do more things that take time. Fully beat that video game sitting in your backlog even through the boring sections, read a book, be creative in some way, take on a non internet hobby. This sounds quite simple, but go a day without your phone and try these things. You'll notice it'll feel "boring" at the start, but that's just showing how far gone your brain already is. I'd argue that most of us need to fully cut out short form content and heavily regulate consumption of YouTube or similar websites. But before you fully uninstall everything and leave yourself sitting and doing nothing for an entire day try to start small, just sit and watch an entire movie without going on your phone, try to regulate yourself down to just doing one thing at a time. After awhile you will be able to more easily incorporate things like reading, learning, and meditation into your day to day.
Social media and short form content addiction nearly ruined my teenage years and it completely ruined my high school experience. But I can almost guarantee adopting some of these ideologies and practicing patient, delayed gratification will greatly improve your life. You'll be happier, healthier, and on a better track to accomplishing something.
Don't wait to take back your mind, don't fall victim to major corporations that exploit your dopamine for profit and gain. It is only through cutting these forms of media out of your life that you can find true peace, joy, knowledge, and skill.
Written by Porter Patterson
Getting into a subculture can be hard. Getting into a sub-subculture of that subculture? Even harder. Luckily for any new bats out there wit...
