Help I’m Reverting Back to 2020

Season 20, Episode 02: Help I’m Reverting Back to 2020
27 March 2026 – Obsessions never go away for me; I’m embracing it

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In 2020, I was obsessed with niche online cultures, spending all day every day either on Twitter, Tumblr, ao3, YouTube, or deeply engrossed in a book. Usually, a COVID-19 lockdown day was comprised of all these things. Sharing my old interests has always been a source of embarrassment for me, something I’m nearly terrified to admit for fear of judgement.

But about a month ago I somehow became intertwined in some of these fandoms again, and the embarrassment grew in a new way.

Was I regressing? I know the version of me today is better than the fourteen year old girl who had more friends online then she ever did in real life. I also know, though, that it was easier to be happy when I loved things with reckless abandon.

Did loving the things that younger me loved mean the change in myself was a facade? At this question, I felt the sudden urge to stop. To change again. Instead of that, I paused. I took an imaginary step away from myself and examined the way I love these things now as opposed to the way I did as a child. I interrogated what parts of them I find the most joy in. I realized I’d never stopped loving many of these interests at all.

This level of introspection was something I never would’ve done at fourteen, already inspiring in me the idea that something has changed about me, no matter why I find my life suddenly mirroring 2020. Perhaps some of it is loneliness, or solitude more broadly, but in the majority it is the fact that the things we love only ever really go away because we feel society says they must. At least, I think this is the case for me, seeing as my obsessions are cyclical and always find a way of coming back.

I’m nervous about publishing this article. Embarrassment is creeping into my veins and threatening me in ways I know are unrealistic. I’ve described these interests as niche, however most of them are/were some of the most popular interests for people my age online. I imagine many of you have adored the same things I have or did. I somehow find it easier to embrace the incredibly niche interests, the ones no one else knows about. It’s easier when there aren’t any preconceived notions, but I’m going to share everything here, even if it has a somewhat notorious reputation. Buckle up.

I should preface this section on music with the fact that 2020 was my first year ever using Spotify. Previously, I had only ever used YouTube to listen to music, and at that point my favorites were whatever my mom had squeezed into my brain via car rides or our watches of American Idol.

5 Seconds of Summer is the band I’ve loved the longest. Even during my period of distancing from them in late high school they were still on my multitude of playlists (I have 65 public playlists, and probably couldn’t even count the amount I have in total. Check them out here). The distancing was, as will quickly become theme here, at its core out of fear of embarrassment. No one I knew listened to them, so I felt I shouldn’t either. I don’t know when I picked them back up, but I also never really let them go.

One Direction, though, is the band I have the most interesting relationship with. I don’t particularly listen to them anymore, probably because they’ve stopped releasing music, but I have the new Harry Styles album in my rotation as of late. I began liking them after I found 5SOS, when I discovered that they’d once gone on tour together.

I had, of course, already known who One Direction were from magazines and radio hits. My first instinct had been to hate them. To say they were stupid and annoying and that I wasn’t like the other girls. Obviously, this was some sort of deeply ingrained misogyny within my child brain. I hated them because girls were supposed to like them.

Once I got over that (and finally started calling myself a feminist), I developed an incredibly strong obsession. I can probably still remember all of their lyrics. Loving these two bands came with an immersion into stan Twitter. I somehow amassed around 1000 followers (on an account now long erased) just from farming interactions and joining countless fan group chats.

I don’t use Twitter/X at all anymore. I also don’t really use Instagram or TikTok, but I do keep updated on 5sos and the solo 1D careers whenever I inevitably end up scrolling. In fact, I’m planning to attend the 5 Seconds of Summer “Everyone’s A Star World Tour” this summer, and I have honestly never been more excited for a concert. I’ve never seen the band live, and I only actually started attending concerts within the last three years.

My means of enjoying music has developed a lot––I’m no longer immersed in the fan culture of the music I love, and more artists have sprung into my rotation. But the songs and bands I loved in 2020 are things I still love today. I’m not embarrassed about my music taste at all, though I absolutely was six years ago. This is definitely due to the way my taste has broadened, as well as my eventual breakdown of the misogynistic views that had been subtly ingrained into me about who was supposed to like specific music.

I’ve been trained to be the most embarrassed about my love for YouTube. Today, I watch the creators that millions of others love––Kurtis Conner, Ted Nivison, etc. But I also am an avid fan of more niche creators, namely Bunch of Friends and Katie B.

I am still withholding truth here, again from fear of embarrassment. Let me get on with it: I was a fan of the Dream SMP in 2020. For those who weren’t chronically online during this era of the internet, the DSMP was a Minecraft server full of YouTubers. They would create lore and wage wars, all within their Minecraft world.

Way too many of these creators have ended up being objectively bad people, which is part of the reason why I distanced from it. Another reason was absolutely the social ridicule that being a fan of it inspired.

I’ve always loved silly Minecraft videos––I was obsessed with crazy craft and LDShadowLady as a kid. Even so young, though, I was made fun of for liking it. My sister would laugh at me, and tell people what I was watching as if it was something to be embarrassed about (I hold no resentment towards her for this). So, I was embarrassed. That feeling never really went away.

Within the past few weeks I’ve surprisingly picked up this interest again, though in a slightly different way. Katie B, along with JSchlatt (another favorite creator of mine), joined a Minecraft server. This time it is the QSMP. In a recent Twitch stream, Schlatt discussed his aversion to the role-play aspects of the server, and I found myself agreeing with his sentiments. I now much prefer to see the interactions of my favorite members, and the classic elements of Minecraft gameplay.

This is not to say there is anything wrong with enjoying the aspects I’m not a huge fan of anymore. Instead, it is to say that my means of enjoyment have shifted. I never fell out of love with this type of content, I was just scared to love it. This content (and loving these creators more generally) shouldn’t be laughed at; anything that brings people enjoyment is an objectively worthwhile endeavor.

I am proud to say that I read fanfiction. This section will be short as I’m planning to write a longer article on fanfic culture as of late, but I do think it important to include because in 2020 it was another secret love of mine.

I read all the landmark Harry Potter fanfictions, for example All the Young Dudes (rip). And, yes, I also read One Direction fanfics… yes, including Duplicity. Wattpad was my first love in middle school, but AO3 (Archive of our Own) quickly took over. I kept my love for fan made stories hugged tightly to my chest, but as the years went by I began to discover that genuinely all of my friends and peers read this stuff. Everyone had been harboring the same silly secrets.

As I’ve grown, I realize that even established authors have read and written fanfics (e.g. Victoria Aveyard). It’s not something to be a source of embarrassment, but rather a minefield of creative growth and emotional outlets. Nowadays, though I still love the classic Harry Potter stuff, I find myself reading in new fandoms as well, like The Pitt.

It’s important that people know I didn’t really have any personal interests before 2019/2020 (aside from my strange pull to Minecraft YouTube). I literally existed as a vacuum person who enjoyed or disliked whatever the people around me enjoyed or disliked. It also so happens that these years between 2020 and 2026 were when I started making real friends––people who didn’t care about how I dressed or looked or what I loved.

The friends I’ve made connecting over these niche or not-so-niche interests are the best I’ve ever had. One of my best friends and I send fanfic recs back and forth. Another friend and I come together to watch the weekly Bunch of Friends YouTube video.

I’ve gotten a lot better at letting people know these parts of me, or at least at being unashamed of them. Letting yourself love what calls to you is key to loving yourself. If you live in the potential misery of other people’s judgement, you’ll fall into traps of changing for others like I did, not realizing that you truly love to do/watch/experience certain things.

A final example of this, for me, is my presence on social media itself. Because of my incessant love to consume content (which has become much more well time-managed may I add), has naturally led to a calling to exist on the internet in whatever way I can.

In 2020, I created a BookTok account, where I amassed a small but loyal following. Eventually, I deleted it. Partially this is because of my fear of people I knew in real life finding it. It is also, though, because I realized I didn’t necessarily love being the one in front of the camera.

This leads us to Substack, where I’ve found a new online home just recently. Emily Henry’s newsletter is what introduced me to the site, and I will forever be grateful to her for it.

Writing is a passion I have never been ashamed of. I think because it exists so deeply at the core of who I am I simply cannot fathom not outwardly expressing my love for it.

Though I haven’t shared this publication with people I know IRL yet, I know that when I do it will be something I’m proud for the world to see.

My interests are more than things that take up my free time, they inadvertently have shaped me as a human. I am irrevocably changed, for the better, by the communities I have grown to know and have grown up knowing. It’s sad that I’ve been so embarrassed of things I once so innocently loved, but I know they are welcoming the new me back with open arms. In return, I’m sharing my adoration for them loud and proud.

Investigating the ways in which I’ve returned to what I used to love has brought me to the conclusion that the new self and the old self don’t have to be all that different. I have always been one person, and the fact that the way I enjoy content has changed doesn’t equate to me changing. I have changed because I’ve matured, I’ve learned how to exist in my body, I’ve discovered my passions more extensively.

There is something to be proud of in whatever your history may be. Embarrassing, niche, mainstream, it doesn’t matter––they once were a part of you and therefore will always be.

I didn’t become myself until I found these internet subcultures. They absolutely shaped me into who I am today, though of course the question of who I am is always going to be a difficult one to answer. For now, I will say I am the things I have loved.

Fear of embarrassment has hindered my life in so many ways, and I imagine it has yours as well.

This note I posted a few days ago seemed to resonate with quite a few people, and one comment by Cecily Mae Wren noted that embarrassment is an unexplored emotion. Most of us live in constant fear of it, which leads to running from opportunities, enjoyment, and potential sources of love.

Let’s stop running.

P.S. Shoutout to this article on a similar subject by ellen ☆. She discusses the way Covid allowed for a real absorption of information and ideas that today it seems we struggle with. I 1000% agree with what she’s saying in this piece, and it feels like a sister article to this one. Go check it out!