Media 2022
Here’s a recap of my media consumption for the year. I track all this in my Media Diary.
Film & TV
This year, I watched 50 movies (wow!) and 13 TV shows (to varying degrees of completion). Here are my very scholarly highlights:
- Everything Everywhere All At Once – a whole Experience in theatres. This makes me want to embrace maximalism.
- House of the Dragon – I had low expectations for this (considering Game of Thrones) but this was surprisingly good. It’s like all the good parts of GOT’s characters and political scheming, and without the bad parts (disjointed plotlines and poor pacing).
- All Of The X-Men Movies (Except Logan) – I now understand all of the memes. I watched these over the summer while obsessively playing Dorfromantik. I haven’t watched Logan yet, only because I want to dedicate full attention to it instead of having it play in the background.
- Dune – shit’s good, wish I saw it in theatres
- Hackers – the best Bad Movie, absolutely ridiculous, incredible stuff
- Barry (season 3) – this show continues to be really fucking good
- Spy × Family – WAKU WAKU ✨✨✨
Next year, I want to:
- Watch more Prestige™ / classic films, because I haven’t seen any of them and I feel like I should? Like idk…Fight Club. Pride and Prejudice. In the Mood for Love. Whatever else wins Oscars or gets talked about at parties.
- Watch stuff with nice cinematography. (Wes Anderson? idk I need to google a list or something for this)
- Watch casual stuff while playing my casual games.
- Watch some Ridiculous Movies in the same vein as Hackers.
- Actually watch the movies that people have recommended me. (Feel free to rec me stuff!)
- Watch more web series.
Music
Here’s my Spotify summary:
To elaborate on them more:
Concerts
This year, I was fortunate to attend four concerts:
- Khruangbin – an outdoor concert on a perfect July evening. They performed as the sun went down and it was perfect.
- SUNMI – my second time seeing her! She’s one of my favourite k-pop artists so I’m happy she went on tour and visited.
- Florence + The Machine – I can’t believe I was debating about whether or not to see her—this was my favourite concert of the year. It was a magical time.
- Carly Rae Jepsen – an extremely good time!! Someone gave her a sword!! Everyone knew the words to Call Me Maybe!!! The saxophone!!!
Some Favourite Tracks
(all links go to youtube)
- King is my favourite track off Florence’s new album, and now I love Never Let Me Go after seeing her perform it.
- Carly’s The Loneliest Time is such a perfect melancholic bop. and in the morning / sun hits the water / is this nirvana?
- Rules by Khruangbin really grew on me this year.
- I was obsessed with Enchanté by Dirt Poor Robins from the first time I heard it. One of those songs that burrowed itself into my brain. Great Vacation is also very good, and I feel like I’ve heard it somewhere—like in a movie, or something.
- Heartburn by Sunmi is a summer bop
- Paprika by Japanese Breakfast is really lovely. They opened for Florence and the gong was ✨ magical ✨
I add these to my music page.
Next year, I would like to:
- Listen to more full albums
- Listen to new music – I’m really bad about this. I tend to listen to the same things over and over and rarely branch out to new artists.
Games
As usual, this year I mostly played Destiny 2—according to my Steam recap, it took up 76% of my playtime.
Destiny Highlights
This is a silly game that I play too much of, but it’s really enjoyable. The Witch Queen expansion in February was exciting to play, and doing raids and dungeons with friends is fun. I like to shoot my silly guns and throw my silly space magic grenades.
The highlight of the year was spending 18 hours clearing the new Vow of the Disciple raid on contest mode—an incredibly intense and exciting Destiny experience. I feel like I never want to do that again, but of course I’m going to try and do that again when the new raid comes out.
I’m really excited for the new expansion in a couple of months, and it’s such a fun experience to share that feeling with a bunch of friends.
Other Games
There was a lull in January-February before the Destiny expansion came out, so I spent that time playing other games. And now towards the end of the year I’ve gotten burnt out on Destiny, so I am once again playing other stuff.
- I tried really hard to get into FFXIV—I finished A Realm Reborn and did a bunch of stuff with friends, but ultimately my interest waned. I may come back to it in the future, but it’s officially on the backburner now.
- Dorfromantik was my favourite casual game.
- I played Control back in January and it was fantastic. I loved the environments and art. The gameplay I was less good at, but I still finished it!!
- Stray was wonderful
- I attempted but didn’t get far in: Elden Ring (hard, dark, idk if I liked it), Breath of the Wild (hard, because joycons), and DEATHLOOP (hard, because I’m a clown), among other things
- I started Genshin Impact and my interest is safely Pretty Casual.
Next year, I would like to:
- Play more of my steam games that I bought but never touched
- Play some games on Switch, which I never use anymore
- Get better at Destiny PVP (lol, lmao)
Books
I actually read books this year! Last year, I read 1 book, but this year I read 13. Wow me.
- I read some Agatha Christie novels, which are all very enjoyable. I’m terrible at mysteries so I never figure out what’s going on, but that keeps them fun.
- I finished the manga series 7 Seeds, after having started it many years ago and dropping off. It’s magical! The heart of the story is about how the world is beautiful and worth living in.
I have a reading list.
Next year, I would like to:
- Read more consistently – normally I read sporadically, in long sessions. I’d like to build up a habit of reading for shorter periods on a daily basis, instead of waiting for the whim to strike, whenever that may be.
- Read some classics
- Read something non-fiction in a subject I normally wouldn’t be interested in. This year I read Field Notes on Science & Nature, which I quite enjoyed.
- Read some of the books I bought but have been collecting dust on my shelves 😬