Pain, Something we all have to deal with, Media gives us pain too, sometimes good and sometimes bad. But it is also known to be good in a bad way. There are good pains such as a bittersweet ending in a show or book. There is also the bad pain that for some reason we always go back to for one reason or another. There’s also the better version of this that is the guilty pleasure.
I decided to write a piece detailing some of these media and asked my Loco mag colleagues to assist in it but telling me media they like to be shared.
First up, Media that hurts me in a good way. First thing that comes to mind as a recent (But also a normie answer) was Cyberpunk Edgerunners. For context, I was someone hyped for the original release of the game Cyberpunk 2077 and was disappointed in how the game was at launch with everyone else but came back after the show came out a few years back.
My colleagues when asked said…
What is a media that hurts you (In a good way) emotionally?
“How to Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World” – Haylie
“‘Broken Glass’ by Lizzy McAlpine or ‘Vortex’ by Lizzy McAlpine. the lyrics are depressing but her voice is very soothing” – Kylie
“Mitski’s whole discography… the songs that she makes are so sad that even if I was in an okay mood beforehand, listening to them would make feel down. But it’s comfortable in a way where its familiar” – MJ
“Media that hurts me in a good way are Inside Out 2 ,Soul, and The Good Place. These movies/tv shows leave me thinking about the topics in them for days and it might even make me change how I go about life”. – Peri
“The movie Carol from 2015. It hurts me because the romance between the two main women is emotional and very sad at times. This pain is good though because the movie ends on a slightly high note. It’s worth dealing with the pain of watching to see the end.” – Madison
“Assassination Classroom. This anime legitimately made me cry but just the way the story was written made you truly feel for almost every single character. I still find myself being brought to tears on the final episode but the whole show from start to end was so good that I don’t care.” – Aleishka
“I always enjoy going back to That ’70s Show because it reminds me of the simple joys of being in high school and enjoying simple things with your friends. I miss the days of hanging out with your friends and not having to take life too seriously, and That ’70s Show can easily take me back to those days.” – Patrick
Second up, a media that hurts you emotionally in a bad way that you keep coming back to. For me, it is any online multiplayer, specifically PVP. Recently, I made the unwise decision to get back into Halo Infinite multiplayer after so many years after a fun custom game night my friends and I had a few weeks ago. The amount of default armor blue cadet (peoples’ first color options in Halo Infinite) people on my team along with how constantly the top three on the enemy team has triple the kill count on my team made me feel like I’m constantly descending further into madness(skill Issue I know). No matter how much this hurts me to go back to, I always seem to go back. But, I always tell myself it could be worse. I could go back to Destiny 2 or Call of Duty. Something else that I watch is the new A.I slop infesting online culture. I always try to watch drama slop youtubers react and talk about it because I don’t want to watch the original videos to give them the ad revenue and viewer count.
When I asked my colleagues on the topic, they had this to say…
What is a media that hurts you emotionally (in a bad way) that you always go back to.
“All Too Well (The Short Film)” – Haylie
“Michelle and I talked about shows that hurt us in our podcast like Normal People and Fleabag.” – Kylie
“Anything with a family illness/death or pet dying. Some examples are Marley and Me and A Monster Calls. To be honest, I’m not sure why I go back to these since they make me cry so much.” – Peri
The show Grace and Frankie, but specifically the last few episodes of the last season. It hurts me emotionally because things are changing and become sad. It plays with your emotions. Although the show ends on a high note, you have to get through the pain of watching their lives start to crumble. What makes it even worse is that there’s nothing more left after it; the show is done with. I got attached to the characters so to have it end hurts me in a way emotionally that I try to avoid the last season at all costs. – Madison
Now finally, I thought about something that I see as a guilty pleasure. Now earlier I mentioned Halo and if you know about the current state of the franchise and its fans (it’s not just the show that’s bad) you can probably figure out that I watched the Halo TV show from Paramount Plus when it was released. I watched all the episodes, some with friends as I streamed it on discord. I’m not going to be overdramatic about it like some Halo fans, the show wasn’t completely bad. Sure I disliked a lot of things that happened but honestly I’m in the camp that is your average sci-fi show that you can turn your brain off and just watch. Now as a Halo Fan, it was pretty bad compared to most of what came before with how they depict certain things and ideas from the games and lore. The discussions with the wider Halo fanbase when the show was coming out especially when it came to what happened were extremely funny to read about as it became the drama slope issue of the time. Many jokes were made at the show’s expense for what they did such as all the memes such as what show Master Chief did with the Human Covenant Spy actually made me feel sad when it got canceled because the true entertainment value for me was gone.
I asked…
What is something that you either find as a Guilty Pleasure?
“Reality TV (Catfish, Wife Swap, etc) as a guilty pleasure.” – Haylie
“I used to hate watch the Fraggle Rock movie. The different Fraggles and characters in the movie would scare me. The whole thing gave me an uneasy feeling, but for some reason I still watched it many, many times.” – Madison
“My Guilty pleasure is MXTX’s works. She’s a Chinese author and one of her series got a live action that I watched on Netflix that I have rewatchted multiple times and gone out of my way to watch and read other adaptations that have been made. In the process of this I got into her other works one of which has a show that’s season 2 has been stuck in limbo for going on 2 years. I just love her works but I don’t talk about it cause I’m don’t know a lot of people who would see those works and look at me confused if I talk about them so I wind up just not talking about my interest in them at all.” – Aleishka
