By David Cotter

This might surprise you, but I don’t have the most intellectual hobbies. I don’t read Plato in my spare time like some kind of philosophical mastermind. I sit in my bed, I scroll through TikTok, and I laugh at the funny boy singing the Fortnite song. That’s honestly how I spend most of my time these days. But recently I’ve noticed myself getting into old habits I thought were long dead-- six years dead to be precise. In a bid to pass the time and kill my boredom, I’ve become something I thought I would never be again: a teenager.

Let me give you some details about 15-year-old me. I was not, as the kids would say at the time, swag. I was short, with a mop of curly hair and glasses, so I really haven’t changed much. I loved all things anime and Pokémon and talked about them at length on my Tumblr (which was called fishmongerofthestarz, don’t ask). I was the weird kid in the corner that people just put up with because I’d say something funny once a month and I didn’t cause much of a fuss in class.

Now, I thought I had grown out of a lot of this. Once I left my emo phase behind me, I was under the impression it’d be smooth sailing from here on out. I’d listen to cool music, read interesting books, watch indie movies, the works. But that’s not what’s happened. The metaphorical distance between me then and me now is tiny, and as quarantine continues, it keeps shrinking. I’ll catch myself listening to All Time Low, screaming Dear Maria Count Me In at the top of my lungs. I’ve gotten back into anime again (which is partially anime’s fault for being really good actually), and if you had told me six years ago that I’d still be watching Attack on Titan when I’m 21, I probably wouldn’t have responded due to social anxiety, but I definitely wouldn’t have been impressed.

The meme, “It’s not a phase, Mom, it’s my life,” feels way too real right now as all my weird little phases come roaring back week after week. My emo phase, my scene phase, my weeb phase, my weird phase of watching people forge samurai swords out of junk metal, they’re all back and with a vengeance. Catch me in a week singing Nugget in a Biscuit by renowned musician Tobuscus and binging the backlog of Smosh I’ve missed in the years since Charlie the Drunk Guinea Pig. I put all this effort into being the suave casanova with a sense of style you wouldn’t believe, and I’ve ruined it all in one fell swoop.

I don’t know if I’ll recover from this, or if it’s relatable in any way, but this wasn’t what I signed up for last year when we were told to stay hope to stop the spread of a deadly virus. If I knew this was how I’d turn out, I would’ve stayed in my science course in UCC and worked on a vaccine instead of learning about the Irish Times in a Zoom lecture that my brain can’t even focus on. I have Pokémon on my laptop! How am I supposed to focus when I’m being teased by Pikachu in an icon in the corner the entire time?

Fortunately for me, I haven’t gotten so bad as to log back into Tumblr, but at this stage it’s only a matter of time. I’m on a slippery slope into shipping Johnlock and posting all about my OTP (one true pairing for those who were spared the horrors). I did check on my Tumblr the other day, just to see if it was still there (another slippery slope, I know). It is and a surprisingly high number of my followers are still active, which just adds to all the reasons I should hop back on ASAP.

All that is to say I’ve found some real comfort in revisiting the things that kept me going in the most tumultuous time in my life. Being a teenager wasn’t incredibly easy and I feel a real love for these things that I’d brand as cringey if I encountered them today. I can look back at teenage me with hindsight and say that some of that stuff I liked wasn’t worth my time, or even objectively good, but they have this weird little nook in my heart now, and I’m happy it’s there.