This may come as a big surprise to everyone, but I have a tendency to encounter something/someone, love them instantly, and then make that something or someone my entire personality.

Wild, right? It’s true, though. Even in my advanced age, I will latch onto something/someone and obsess for an unspecified amount of time. Years sometimes. I feel I need to clarify, I don’t do this with people I may meet on the daily. If I go to the grocery store and strike up a conversation with someone in the cereal aisle, they are in no danger of becoming someone I obsess over. However, Tony the Tiger has no such protection. Pop culture. When I make something or someone my personality, it has something to do with pop culture/entertainment.

I have never obsessed over Tony the Tiger, though. I promise.

10 Aspects of Pop Culture I’ve Incorporated Into My Personality (or made my entire personality)

Horror Movies

I can’t point to any one specific horror movie and say, “There! That’s my obsession!” I started watching horror movies when I was about 4 years old. Highly inappropriate, maybe, but I like to believe I was a very sophisticated 4-year-old. I was a child when Freddy Krueger was at his peak! I had a Freddy doll. As a child, I used to pretend I was little Jamie Lloyd on Halloween night, trying to get away from her murderous uncle, Michael Myers, while I trick-or-treated. To this day, horror is still a part of my personality. My autograph from Robert Englund and Heather Langenkamp hangs proudly on my wall next to my figures of Ghostface, Freddy, Hannibal Lecter, and Radu.

Roleplaying

Picture this, teenage Siemelle on the internet in the mid-1990s, coming across a ton of questionable chatrooms, talking to questionable people, hoping that no one picked up the landline (if you know, you know). Amid all of the A/S/L?, I managed to find an environment that housed a vast array of people who loved the written word and were happy to take on the personas of vampires, werewolves, demons, angels, etc. Thus, the era of Simelle role-playing online began. This lasted for years. In fact, I am more than willing to own up to the fact that it became not only a major part of my personality, but an addiction. When you have depression and anxiety, the call to become someone else was dangerous for me. I wanted to be anyone other than who I was. And when I say years, I mean that this aspect of my existence didn’t start to taper off until somewhere around 2014-2016. Now, the majority of what I write is right here, and I am fully me. Unless I decide to start writing as a dryad. I mean, I could be one. You don’t know.

Ewan McGregor

No part of me feels the need to defend this. Just look at him!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I came into Buffy the Vampire Slayer a little later in the game, but I like to think I discovered it when I needed it most. Joss Whedon being trash aside, the show is probably still my all-time favorite. It has action and adventure. In the course of an episode, I would go through a rollercoaster of emotions – laughing one moment and sobbing the next. It was written well. The characters were fleshed out wonderfully. There is something in the show that anyone can relate to. Whether you dream of being a hero like Buffy Summers or feel like you’re constantly struggling to keep up like Xander Harris. For a show that used monsters as metaphors, the characters were surprisingly human. I haven’t sat down and rewatched the show in years, but these characters are all still very much a part of me!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

I will confess that I first saw this movie when I was eight or nine years old. Yeah, I know. Inappropriate, but it was the late 1980s / early 1990s, and it was a very different time. I fell in love with Tim Curry. Yeah, yeah, still wildly inappropriate, but it wouldn’t be my life if something was normal. I fell in love with the idea of “don’t dream it, be it”. The music. The hedonism. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that this movie guided my sexuality. I still love this film. While there may be long stretches between sitting and rewatching, I do find myself thinking of it from time to time. I used to go to midnight screenings of the film a few years ago, but the cast who performed isn’t around anymore (to my knowledge). The theater where they used to perform also closed down. I’ll have to look into other shadow casts to see if any are active in my county. I’m feeling nostalgic for a good midnight show!

Heathers (The Musical)

This is a fairly recent development. This is not the only musical on this list to have completely taken over my personality. Heathers sort of latched on and refuses to let go. It’s dark and catchy at the same time. It has no business being as good as it is. Not everyone will share that opinion in the theater world, but this show works for me. Do yourself a favor, give this a listen! Or watch the proshot on Roku! Come back and thank me later.

RENT

Here is what I learned from my years loving the musical RENT. People either really love RENT, or they really hate it. Whether you love it or hate it, you can’t deny that it changed the face of musical theater. Let’s be for real, Broadway in the late 1970s and through the 1980s was dominated by the Europeans and Sondheim. Now, before you say anything, Sondheim was a genius, I love Phantom of the Opera as much as the next person, and Les Misérables will stand the test of time. However, by the early 1990s, Broadway needed something new, something bold, something real. Enter Jonathan Larson. Jonathan Larson died before he could see just how much his work would change the course of musical theater. He paved the way for musicals to be something other than traditional, something other than a mega-musical, something other than operatic. He injected something into the world of musicals that was missing. Flawed, everyday humans who were just trying to survive. It resonates.

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

If you are a reader of a certain age, reading this series was a rite of passage. While I have since read many books far more graphic, gruesome, and shocking, in the 80s and 90s, we thought we were getting away with something by reading this series. Let me just say this – no part of the original series is written well. It’s not. It’s horrible writing. But there is bad writing, and there is writing so bad that it’s awesome. And Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows all are so bad that they are fuckin’ amazing. I know that the ghostwriter for V.C. Andrews has since added more books to the series, but I can’t speak to those new additions. That original set, though? They will always be a part of me.

Bette Midler

I can’t fully explain this one. I can’t even tell you which movie I watched that put me fully in Midler mode. What I can say is that whatever movie that was opened the door for me to rent as many of her films as I could through the 90s. I have always found Bette Midler to be extremely talented as an entertainer. Hocus Pocus. Beaches. The First Wives Club. All of her concert specials. Her albums. She has always been just consistently divine.

Seananners

I couldn’t end this list without placing at least one YouTuber who became a part of my personality! There were many, and there are still many that I watch regularly. Markiplier, VanossGaming, Good Mythical Morning. Over the years on YouTube, I have watched so many talented, funny, and intelligent people grow their channels. Too many to list, really! There can really only be one who stood out as my go-to every single day for years. Seananners. Adam. #NeverTrustNanners. He brought a smile to my face so many times. While he isn’t as active on YouTube as he once was (or he may only be featured in other gamers’ videos), it’s still a joy for me to come across him!

There you have it, friends. A brief look into what makes up my inner world!

Now, go to bed. You have work in the morning.

Siemelle