My power went out for about a day this weekend and I found myself laying in bed, pouty, wishing I could watch Netflix. I wasn’t quite sure what to do if I couldn’t watch Netflix. I looked at the stacks of books I own and knew that I would rather be watching The Vampire Diaries, a show I don’t necessarily love but am in the process of consuming like a bag of potato chips, than reading any of them. (Aside: Doesn’t this promo picture for the show weirdly fit the title of this post in a cool way?)

While sitting and watching a puddle of water leak out from my fridge slowly over the course of the day, I got so bored that I started to question my own media habits. I know the average smart person would say, Becky, of course you should be reading Nietzsche rather than watching teen chick media. I also thought things like this when I was 17. But then I, probably like many other people, discovered Chuck Klosterman and had the amazing revelation that you can be a smart person and still consume 90210 and in fact be more interesting because of it.

But now that I’m out of college and am no longer forced to read things like linguistics textbooks and post-colonial theory essays, it could be that I have shifted dramatically on the teeter totter of trashy/intellectual media toward trashy.

But let’s back up. I think the best way to approach the question in the title of this post is to examine the benefits of each type of consumption:

Trashy pop culture:

-Lets you study different types of people

-Gives you something to talk about with new people you meet

-Helps you reflect on your own life and choices, and see what other people do in the event of certain outcomes that might happen to you

-Gives you a chance to pay attention to what you’re drawn to rather than what you’re supposed to like

-Often a chance to stare dumbly at good-looking people

-Can challenge your assumptions

Intellectual media:

-Teaches you critical thought

-Teaches you something you didn’t already know

-Challenges your assumptions

-Helps you discover more non-traditional stories that you can probably relate to on a deeper level

-Makes you seem smart

No media consumption at all:

-Ideally will spend that time creating instead

-Probably go outside more

-Probably be thinner/ snack less

At the end of my philosophical weekend of driving around and thinking about whether or not I should reread one Freud book for every 6 episodes of The Vampire Diaries, I came to the conclusion that, basically, I should. No matter how much of an expert on CW shows you become, you will be more of an expert if you are also regularly reading about something like, say, Jungian archetypes. 17-year-old me was so wise for realizing this. (But also kind of snobby. I wouldn’t even watch Top Model back then, which I now love.)

What about not consuming media? I do think that people who tend to be creative view consuming all kinds of media as productive for them – and it is, but not if it comes at the cost of never making anything yourself. That being said, for the amount of vampire media I have consumed in my life, I should probably have written at least one vampire-related thing of some sort.

This might all seem really obvious to you. Duh Becky, I am an expert at optimizing my own media consumption. But I do not believe you. You are probably reading this post while watching The Real Housewives. If you are, don’t feel bad about it. Just make sure you’re also consuming stuff that gives you an interesting way to look at it.

–Becky Lang