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My earliest memories of media is playing super Mario and the Nintendo DS.

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Early in my life the only TV I watched were shows family members were watching on TV when I was in the room.

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Before I was familiar with methods of discovering music myself the only music I was exposed to was what my parents played in the car.

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In 2006 with the release of the Nintendo Wii gaming became more mainstream. For me this meant that, when my family purchased a Wii a few years after release, instead of Super Mario Bros being something I did while my parent were busy it became a communal activity that my family would set aside time to do together.

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New Super Mario Bros Wii, Family - TV Commercial/Advert

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I Began watching doctor who at a very young age after being introduced to it by my Dad. I was around 9 years old in 2010, being able to have a bonding experience with my dad was nice because I didn't see him that often when I was younger. In retrospective I think seeing the character captain jack, an openly bisexual man being presented as something that was not a spectacle or in any way unusual was very useful to me as I grew older as it helped normalise bisexuality for me while I was hearing from many different places it was unusual or wrong.

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Buying DVDs from second hand DVD shops helped me develop my own taste in Tv shows and movies separate from the things my family were watching on TV. However i was limited to what I could find in shops and finding things i knew i would enjoy was difficult as I had only the DVD box to base my purchase on

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When I had access to a personal computer, probably around the time I entered secondary school in 2013, I began developing a music taste of my own through using YouTube to listen to music, this however especially at the time was not the intended purpose of the platform, so most of the music I listened to was uploaded by an unauthorised 3rd party, meaning it was difficult for YouTube to understand what I was listening to and recommend similar music and as most of the uploaded songs were poorly labelled it was difficult for me to find more music by artists I liked.

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When I was around 13 in 2014 I had a leg lengthening surgery that left me bed bound for the better part of a year and unable to go to school or socialise. During this time I played the game Fallout: New Vegas multiple times. Problems in new Vegas are not presented as black and white moral issues but rather what do you as an actor in this world believe is best. This prompted me to think more critically about the world and the media I consume.

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In 2018 when I was between 15 and 16 I was added to my families Spotify account. Having an application dedicated to music streaming made it easier to find and listen to music and also allowed me to download it and listen outside of my house. The fact that this service is dedicated to music also means that it had a process of recommending music that allowed me to discover music I couldn't find on sites like YouTube without knowing exactly what to look for.

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I made a discord account in order to call my friends as we played online games like Left 4 Dead. After having the account for a while, in 2018, I decided to join discord servers  (sort of chat rooms) centred around bands I liked.

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Similarly to Spotify, access to streaming services such as Netflix allowed me to more easily discover a wider variety of movies and tv shows, the nature of streaming services also meant I could sample a much wider range of media without committing to it buy buying it in a physical medium. Through this I discovered shows like The Boys and Bojack Horseman which I believe present things like mental health an sexuality in a very helpful and honest way.

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Getting music recommendations from people online

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Getting music recommendations from people online

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In 2019 and 2020 I began joining discord servers based around bands I liked and through the use of the website Last.fm people were able to easily share what music they were listening to and recommend things to others

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Getting music recommendations from people online

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Getting music recommendations from people online

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These discord servers exposed me to lots of music of genres I'm unfamiliar with that discuss subject matters I've never really seen discussed in music such as the autobiographical album Twin Fantasy by Car Seat Headrest in which songwriter Will Toledo discusses his romantic relationship with another man in a very casual way as well as being very open about the depression and anxiety he was experiencing at the time of writing. I feel this was important to me because I related to a lot to the subject matter so, being in a community that also liked this music and related to it made me feel less alone.

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I continued using discord to communicate and ended up making friends on the app through common interests like music that I still talk to to this day and and sometimes hang out with in person on occasion. To me having a group of similar people that while I'm incredibly close to, are a constant presence in my life is helpful and makes me feel like I'm part of a community in ways that having a family or a couple friends I know from school does not. This was especially useful to me during the coronavirus lockdown in 2020 when I was unable to interact with people personally as it combated feelings of loneliness.

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In 2021, because of recommendations from friends, its availability on Netflix and watching clips from the show on YouTube, I began watching the show community, Seeing positive depictions of both autism in the character Abed Nadir and Bisexuality in Dean Pelton was exiting for me, despite being past the stage in my life when I felt bad about these things.