The Media and Our Overblown Self-Consciousness
How Media Distorts Our Sense of Self — and Life Itself
For a while now, I’ve been thinking I should write about this topic. I kept putting it off, but tonight, coming home late, too restless to go straight to bed and too unfocused to start anything serious, I decided to just sit down and start writing.
Once I get going, I figure something always takes shape eventually.
Or maybe the writing will end up just as hazy as my state of mind right now. 😂
The other day, I was watching a TV program about Princess Diana, King Charles III, and Camilla — Charles’s girlfriend in his 20s and now his wife after Diana’s death.
I didn’t catch the entire thing, but the gist was familiar: Charles kept his relationship with Camilla even after marrying Diana, and Diana, with her distinctive style and free spirit, gained huge popularity — so much so that it apparently annoyed Charles because she became more beloved than the royal family itself.
But I’m not here to rehash the soap opera of the British royal family.
What really struck me was the program’s closing question:
“Would you rather be the woman loved by the whole world but unloved by the one person you care about, or the woman hated by the world but loved unconditionally by one person?”
That question, to me, perfectly summed up how the media has amplified human self-consciousness over the years.
After all, is there really anyone who’s hated by everyone, or loved by everyone?
And whose daily life is truly defined only by being loved or hated by others?
Get Korean Africanist’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
But media favors sharp, black-and-white language. It’s clear, it’s punchy, and often provocative.
So, in the end, I’ll just keep living my way — loving, being loved, and yes, sometimes being disliked, too.
2. Life has no clear beginning, middle, and end.
Even if it does have some structure, it’s usually so ordinary — so full of routine days stacked one after another — that the few truly dramatic moments are rare. That’s why life rarely feels like a drama.
And no matter how much effort I pour in, things don’t always turn out the way I want. Misfortune can show up out of nowhere, regardless of my intentions.
All we can really do is keep moving forward, step by step, through the ordinary days. Through happiness, sadness, and everything in between — just stacking up the days, even when it’s a bit boring.
And hopefully, we find small bits of fun along the way.
(And yes, it helps to have some sense of direction or purpose if you can.)
But the media constantly produces dramatic moments — because without that, it’s just too boring.
That’s why people struggle to endure the dullness of everyday life.
We forget the value of persistence, of building something slowly and steadily over time.
Instead, we become obsessed with the idea that we must achieve something, that we can do it — this inflated sense of self.
And in a society full of people with overblown self-consciousness, everyone ends up chasing achievements that only make sense within the short-lived context of their times. This, in turn, deepens the contradictions of the very structures we live in.
Human beings become increasingly isolated.
The feeling of being connected to others — the idea that we can and should work together to overcome shared challenges and build a better society — fades away.
In the end, we each struggle alone.
Happiness and suffering alike are reduced to nothing more than our own failures or successes.
And that’s the real problem.
