Not too long ago as I was engaging in one of my favorite pastimes of binge-watching shows that I’ve seen 100 times before, I was met with a pressing question that made me do a deep evaluation of the tv shows and movies that I’ve spent years watching. Did my favorite childhood shows predict my future career? Allow me to quickly paint the picture.
The show in question? The Bold Type, one of my favorite shows that airs on freeform. Reminiscent of a modern-day Lipstick Jungle the show centers around three girls working at a women’s magazine in New York City trying to make a name for themselves. During a particular episode the main character Jane, a writer, went on an interview where she and her prospective boss discover that they have careers in the professions of the idols they dressed up as for Halloween as kids.
This is what got me thinking. The spark that lit the flame. Now as a kid I wasn’t much one for Halloween costumes (not too sure why because I live for them now at my big age) but I was one for tv. I spent hours a day watching, studying, and mimicking my favorite characters from my favorite shows and movies which I still do to this day. So while I couldn’t relate much to the costumes I thought to myself, have my favorite tv shows and tv characters been the blueprint for my future career? Are they still?
When I think back to all of my favorite shows and movies a common thread runs through each program, all of them have had something to do with my perspective career at the time. Now whether it be my practical and analytical Virgo nature or my hyper fixation on achieving my future goals but my favorite, most rewatched shows all leave me with some inspirational or excited feeling about my future, particularly my future career.
For instance, when I first discovered a love for fashion That’s So Raven and Jane by Design played nonstop on my tv screen. When that evolved to big city dreams in the magazine industry you’d best believe that I rewatched Living Single, Sex and the City, and Ugly Betty ad nausem. And I anxiously await the arrival of the Starz series Run the World for that exact same reason. This isn’t even half of it, I went through many prospective career choices in my childhood before landing here. You don’t even want to know everything I learned when I thought I wanted to be a CSI detective.
But really think about it, we’ve been saying that the Simpsons have been predicting the future for years now. So is it so hard to think that other tv shows can do the same? And yeah I know that might be a stretch and I’m probably reaching for the stars, but no one can tell me every time I sit at my laptop writing articles that I’m not channeling my inner Khadijah James or Carrie Bradshaw.
All this to say that though it may not be a Halloween costume, little me surely knew what she wanted. The inner child in me, I’m sure is screaming with excitement at where all those tv shows got me today. I’m just hoping I make her proud.
Photo by Mollie Sivaram
