I have the tendency to hug my favourites when I’m struggling. Sometimes in life, I don’t want to be blown away by something so new and unfamiliar that it makes me feel the need to upgrade myself. Sometimes, I want to sit with the things that helped me grow up and cross the salty oceans I never thought I could cross. There is a particular comfort in returning to stories that have already witnessed your becoming. They remind you not of who you could be, but of how far you’ve already come. And I will definitely not let anyone shame me for it.

Most of the time, I am aware of the latest crime thriller that has everybody hooked. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet because maybe I need to see Jim and Pam’s nerdy, goofy romantic gestures to feel a sense of ease. Maybe I need Jake Peralta, the perfect man, to assure me that he exists. And sometimes, I just want to curl up with my Archie comic books or reread The Cruel Prince trilogy for the ten-thousandth time. Sometimes, I need to watch Luffy’s crew do crazy shit rather than start a completely new anime.

Part of why I hold on so tightly to these stories is because of the pressure to always move on to the next thing. If there is one thing that I know haunts people in general, it is missing the next best thing. If all your friends have consumed a piece of media and you haven’t, you feel like you’ve missed out on something so great that the situation is unsalvageable. Of course, you need to stay on top of things, but I loathe the idea that you have to keep doing it just so that you don’t become irrelevant.

Media consumption has become a rat race. Instead of engaging critically and artistically with the text that you’re reading or the song that you’re listening to, somewhere along the way people have started forcing others to enjoy things that they might not actually like. And people are afraid to not like something that everybody adores. When the group chat gets exhaustingly filled with the latest updates, spam them by nerding out over your comfort media.

Do you genuinely think that the interaction between us and the media that we keep revisiting stays the same? Each time, you discover a tone, a word, or an idea that you missed the first time around. Your growth as a person can be attributed to the media that you engage with, and when you revisit it, you could never be the same person. When you sit in that comfort, you sometimes dig deeper without even being aware of it.

Media is an important tool for self-regulation. And of course, if you are already under a lot of stress, watching something that makes you stressed, especially if you are uncomfortable with unpredictability, is a risk that I am not willing to take. It would just stress me out further. Once when I was heartbroken and completely in my ruins, I rewatched One Piece, and then I ended up binging it. By the end of it, Going Merry burning down was the biggest problem in my life, and I was weeping then for a different reason, on a bittersweet note. That’s when I lean on Taylor Swift, and she usually always makes me feel better. Even if the lyrics are heartbreaking, there’s a sort of comfort that I associate with the familiar sadness.

Comfort media deserves a better reputation. Media doesn’t always have to teach us something new and stimulate us intellectually. Sometimes, it’s something to return to after a bad day, especially if we don’t have a lot of human support. Media has the capacity to support and sustain us, and those stories, songs, films, and books deserve a wider appreciation.

As the weather gets colder and we snuggle into our blankets, don’t forget to revisit your favourites. They might have a surprise waiting for you, even after all this time, when you’re convinced they have nothing new left to offer.