It genuinely blows my mind that I've been doing this for three years. I'm not a "famous blogger" at all, but I still love writing on here more than anything. I use this blog as a way to share my passions with the world, mostly in the realm of entertainment. I didn't really write on this blog at all in 2019, but I figured 2020 was a good time to come back. It's been a terrible year for pretty much everyone, but it's allowed me to write some posts I'm incredibly proud of. The stuff I've published in 2020 has been leaps and bounds better than what I wrote in 2017 or 2018.
A big reason why I'm so proud of the new posts is because I started to expand my horizons. When I first started writing on this blog, I pretty much only wrote about music. I've loved music my whole life, and I've loved talking about and expressing my thoughts on it. However, in 2020, I started to branch out. Although I do write about music quite a bit, most of my favorite posts are ones that are related to other passions. In January, I started doing a little series called MOVIE TALK (I don't know why I wanted to write it in all caps), where I talk about the history of sandpaper! (Just kidding, you know what MOVIE TALK is about. It's right there in the title.) I also started a little segment on here called Stellar Gets Nerdy, where I talk about things I'm interested that can be considered "nerdy," mostly Pokémon and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Even when I talked about music, my posts were more than "hey, here are some mostly popular songs I like!" In my Kpop Crash Course series, which I'll get into later, I listened to iconic Kpop songs to get myself into the genre. I wouldn't post anything on this blog that I wasn't entirely proud of at the time, but the stuff I've written this year, I've been especially proud of, and if you've read any of it, I can't thank you enough for it. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoy writing it, but even if you don't, thanks anyway for clicking on my blog!
Since I'm in a retrospective mood, I'm first going to a highlight a few posts that I regret writing, all of which are from 2017-2018. Don't worry, I'll get to some personal favorites in a minute!
This was where I addressed a lot of the flaws with the stuff I wrote in middle school. I don't really hate the idea or content of this, but it really shouldn't have been a two-parter.
-Every Single Album Review I Made Before 2020
With these, the main problem is that I insisted on writing long-ass preambles about the artist's "development" and "career path" or whatever. Worst offenders in this category are the reviews for Reputation by Taylor Swift, Pray for the Wicked by Panic! At The Disco, and Sweetener by Ariana Grande. It's okay to talk a little about how the artist in question evolved and how we got to this album, but the preambles were way too wordy. The reviews for Reputation and Witness by Katy Perry were also way too negative and biased and I regret them. Even the Jake Paul Christmas album review, which I mostly listened to for a "so bad it's good" thing, had a few jokes that totally missed the mark. (Namely "to quote that Taylor Swift song from last week's post, THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS." and "Dude, you're not Ariana Grande, what makes you think you can do impressions?") The only not-awful album review I wrote before 2020 was the one for Dangerous Woman by Ariana Grande, which isn't terrible, but isn't anything I'm particularly proud of either.
Because two of the ten people on this list, I just can't defend anymore. I put JK Rowling on the list when she has revealed herself to be a pretty nasty transphobe. This breaks my heart, as so many people of all backgrounds were able to relate to the Harry Potter series, including many LGBTQ+ readers. The fact that Rowling, a woman who created a series that meant so much to them, doesn't respect who they are, that just kills me. I think the singer Halsey put it best when she tweeted, "Imagine writing a generation defining series about a youth uprisal that defeats a tyrannical monster motivated by the preservation of “pure blood” and looking at THIS time in the world and going 'hmm...yep. I’m gonna invalidate trans people.'" I couldn't have said it better myself, and although I do enjoy a lot of Halsey's music, I'd probably put her on a new "Top 10 Favorite Celebrities" list for this tweet alone.
The other celebrity on the list that I can't really defend is Ellen DeGeneres. There's been a lot of stuff coming out about how she's apparently not a nice person behind the scenes. There are sexual assault allegations against some of the executive producers, and she's also had some problematic and uncomfortable moments on her talk show, including trying to force Mariah Carey to drink alcohol while she was pregnant (resulting in Carey having a miscarriage) and having Taylor Swift play a game based around slut-shaming. I'm sure there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that I don't know about, but the shady stories around Ellen make it difficult to enjoy her work in the same way I used to.
With that, now let's talk about some posts I truly am proud of! Like I said before, I would never post anything I wasn't completely proud of at the time, but these posts particularly stood out. I particularly enjoyed writing them and I reread them a lot. Is that narcissistic?
-The Kpop Crash Course Series
Last year, I got into the kpop group Twice, and I didn't just like them, I was fascinated by them and how the kpop industry works. Other than the obvious difference of kpop being in Korean, the kpop industry is a whole different beast. The performers train for years with the slim chance of maybe debuting in a group or as a solo artist. So I decided to make a series in which I looked at 100 iconic kpop songs to try to make sense of the wide world of kpop. I split the 100 songs into four posts, linked Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and then an epilogue where I recapped my favorite and least favorite songs and artists. Kpop Crash Course was the first really big project I started and finished on my blog, and although it took quite a while to write, I couldn't be prouder of it. The series allowed me to expand my music-listening horizons and discover some new jams.
When I saw M. Night Shyamalan's whatever-the-opposite-of-a-magnum-opus-is The Last Airbender got put on Netflix this April, I knew I had to watch it and analyze whether it was truly as bad as its reputation suggests. My answer is yes. The Last Airbender is by far the worst, most personally offensive movie I have ever seen, but it's so much fun for me to talk about. The movie has so many levels of failure, from whitewashing the characters to bad acting to shitty effects to crucial differences from the original series. (Trust me, the infamous "mispronouncing character names" thing is only the tip of the iceberg.) However, the original series dropped on Netflix a month later, so I watched it for the first time in almost a decade, and even though I loved it as a kid, I've become even more obsessed. You don't need me to tell you that, despite the fact that it aired on Nickelodeon, Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the most complex, creative, vivid, emotionally resonant, and inspiring pieces of media ever created, an animated series that deserves all the praise it gets and then some. But every fan of the show knows that the live-action adaptation of the series is a crime worse than anything the Fire Nation ever did, and it's fun to rant about why.
This one is exactly what it says on the tin. I looked at the first post I made on the old blog in middle school and talked about how I've changed. I think in this post, I had a few important philosophies for myself and how I see the world. The segment I'm most proud of is where I condemned how I used to define my entire identity on the pieces of media I was most obsessed with at the time. I think if I were to write a thesis for myself and my blog, it would be this quote, taken from this post:
It's great to be passionate about the things you love, but that can't be your only personality trait. There are many things I'm a fan of, like Pokémon, Ariana Grande, 80s movies, and more recently, kpop, but I'm not solely defined by my love of any of those things. I'm a creative, passionate, honest, and loyal person who will fight for the things she believes in at any risk. I believe in equality for all and I stick to my principles no matter what. I love expressing myself creatively, mostly by writing. I've been through some serious shit, but I've come out swinging. Doesn't that say so much more about me than "I like this book" or "I like this singer"?
I do want to apologize for something I said in this post, where I said that referring to myself as "grammar police" was better than referring to myself as a "grammar Nazi" because "as cheesy as it sounds, it's not making light of the Holocaust." The problem is that this post came out a few days after the George Floyd tragedy. I've since come to believe that despite the good that some cops do, the police system is an inherently racist, problematic part of our society. I'm not sure if entirely getting rid of the police is the best option, but they do need to receive less funding. There is no reason for a cop to have an AK-47, is all I'm saying.
(And on that note, I'd like to say that I wanted to name my Black Lives Matter post as one that I'm particularly proud of, but that felt a little too "performative activism" for my tastes. If I did that, I would feel like I was just highlighting my post to say that I did a good thing. I'm just linking it to reiterate that I strongly believe in and support the ideals of Black Lives Matter. I have signed many petitions and I strongly encourage you to do the same, if not donate or protest directly. Just because you aren't hearing about the protests 24/7 doesn't mean everything is peachy-keen. We still have a long way to go in the fight against racism.)
-Top 10 Favorite Movies (The Addendum)The second post I ever made on Stellar in Neverland, My Top Ten Favorite Movies, does have some flaws, but it will always have a very special place in my heart. I love talking about my favorite movies, and this post serves as an addendum or sequel to the first Favorite Movies post. I updated my opinions and discussed some of the more embarrassing aspects of the first one.
This was another bigger project, not as big as Kpop Crash Course but still pretty time-consuming to write. I talked about a bunch of movies I was passionate about, some in good ways, some in bad. I focused a lot on the impact some of the movies had, like Despicable Me and its minions being the poster child for capitalism in my mind and how Alice in Wonderland led to the plague of live-action Disney remakes. My best friend also wrote a really nice reflection on Inception and why it's her favorite movie in Part One.
That's all I really have to say for today. Here's to another year of writing on this blog, hopefully.
Stellar
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