what media forms a "before/after" for you? that is to say, the person you were before watching/reading/etc was fundamentally different than the person after?
I think there are a few types.
- the thundercrack. you are not the same. this is the most dramatic
- more subtle. it provides a nice end to one chapter and transition to another, but maybe at the time you didn't even realize it
- the representative. maybe it wasn't actually that instrumental at all, but nicely represents some big change in your life I get too obsessed with proper ontologies so I am not married to the above and I think it's probably crude and bad and would be curious how other people think about this, because I bet there are more useful framings, I just don't want to psych myself out of posting.
though because I can't help but be pedantic I think that the size of impact can also vary. like a given piece of media can have a sort of extremely clear before/after affect, but that affect could be more constrained
I'm trying to think of pieces of media that form a before and after, though I won't commit to exactly what kind, I'd need to think about that more...god I wish I had a list of everything I've ever seen and read!!
Roughly in chronological order
- Akira
- Fushigi Yuugi
- Sans Soleil
- Sandman
- MP3 by Jonathan Sterne
- Swan's Way by Marcel Prouste
- Infinite Jest by DFW (yes yes yes I know I know I PROMISE I'M NOT ONE OF THOSE PLEASE GIVE ME THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT)
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities
- Distinction by Pierre Bordeax/Let's Talk about Love by Carl Wilson (I read distinction first, but Let's Talk about Love was a lot more fun and presented a lot of the same ideas)
- Hamefura (this is one of those smaller ones, basically just cemented my affection for ojou type characters, well that and having a badass bisexual character...ok I should probably post about my love of Hamefura sometime)
- Symphogear? (I think so, still processing, it's too recent, but it feels like something)
I bet there's gotta be stuff from when I was younger, I just don't remember it well enough. I gotta ponder this subject.
I think of those, the "thunderbolt" type ones, and the age I first encountered them, would have been...Akira (10), Fushigi Yuugi (16), Sandman (22), MP3 (24), Swan's Way (24), Death and Life of Great American Cities (26), Distinction/Let's Talk about Love (28). And well I watched Symphogear earlier this year :)
But I feel like I've always really been affected by the things I watch and read, which is why I love good stories so much. I feel they really...get into me. Change me.