You’re at a restaurant. Maybe you’re eating with your family, perhaps you’re on a date. The lights are dim, some smooth jazz glides through your ears, the food is delectable, the wine is slightly bitter yet fruity, candlelight illuminates the faces of your loved ones across from you — nothing could be more picturesque, more romantic than this. And then, just when you think life couldn’t get better, the illusion shatters at the sound of one far-too-loud noise.
“Cocomelon!”
You hear this blaring, jarring sound from the table next to you. Some parents have brought their four-year-old, who definitely doesn’t get out much, to dinner. And the child has brought their massive iPad with them, and as fate would have it, didn’t bring any headphones to keep their Cocomelon to themselves.
iPad kids are a public nuisance, as I’m sure everyone very well knows or has experienced, and yet, they might be onto something: there’s just something about a massive screen with endless easy access to all kinds of entertainment — could be YouTube, Netflix, eBooks, or anything, really. My point is that when it comes to entertainment in the comfort of my home (not a public space!), my iPad becomes my go-to. Here are some of my recent iPad watches, along with some pro-tips if you’re trying to lower your screen time.
The Summer I Turned Pretty
Any close friend or relative of mine can attest to my absolute insanity over Amazon Prime’s The Summer I Turned Pretty. From reading the books growing up to being so astronomically excited for seasons 1 through 3 of the show, my beloved franchise now comes to an end. It’s become a routine of mine to stay up and watch the episodes as they release. I watched all of season one the night it was released, hosted watch parties for season two as they began to air weekly, and am now suffering from grueling impatience as season three releases on Wednesdays at 3 a.m. (brutal). My iPad has been a witness to my The Summer I Turned Pretty obsession all the way through and has even suffered some physical abrasions as a result of my passion for the show. As TikTok user @charlotteohara said in a post about TSITP: “I f*cking hate this show. It’s the highlight of my week.”
Mina Le Video Essays
My truest iPad kid form is fulfilled when a plate of food is in front of me and a fun YouTube video plays while I enjoy my meal. I’ve recently been watching a ton of Mina Le’s video essays. Mina Le is a content creator who makes commentary videos on pop culture and fashion. My favorite videos of hers focus on unpacking recent beauty trends and tracking down their origins. Breaking down trends such as the pilates trend in her video “the myth of the “pilates body”’ and investigating recent upticks in facelifts in “goodbye fillers, hello…facelifts?”, Mina Le’s videos are not only very insightful, but also a friendly reminder that trends are cyclical and explicable — breaking things down, especially beauty standards, in such a digestible and almost scientific way takes away the pressure to fit into trends desperately, creating a new lens to watch the trends go by without desperately trying to submit to them!
TikTok On My iPad
As the new semester begins, my free-reign of screentime for the summer has come to a close. Time limits are back on, X (formerly Twitter) is deleted and TikTok has been discharged from my social media roster for the time being. At least, that is, on my phone. Before coming back to school, I kept getting videos in my YouTube recommendations of people going off social media (ironic, right?) and getting rid of their phones. While getting rid of my phone completely seems impossible as a student living far from home, I could stand to rely on it considerably less. In these videos, they suggested getting rid of the “fun apps” on my phone and just keeping the necessary “boring apps”— in turn, you would keep all the fun and addictive apps and websites on your laptop or iPad. I’ve found that my phone is too easily accessible for apps like TikTok and Instagram, where I can mindlessly scroll for hours with no clear end. Deleting these apps from my phone and transferring them to other devices, such as my laptop or iPad, has been a great change. I’ve also found that the sheer size of my laptop/iPad makes me feel kind of ridiculous, especially to just go on TikTok, so I get size-shamed but in a good way! I can still enjoy the many, many The Summer I Turned Pretty edits I’ve saved over time while preserving a limited amount of screen time — keeping both of my addictions at bay.
Taylor Swift Website Countdowns
Last, but certainly not least, in anticipation of Taylor Swift’s upcoming album The Life of a Showgirl, I’ve been tuning in to her mysterious countdowns. As part of the album’s rollout, Swift has created several countdowns leading up to announcements, CD and vinyl variants, and more! These countdowns have appeared multiple times, each with a different background and spanning various lengths of time, from five to two hours. While I don’t tune into the full five hours, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I set an alarm for each time a countdown goes off. Each time, I’m excitedly hoping it’s a lead single announcement, but alas, yet another variant.
Paulina Delgado is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at pmd99@cornell.edu
"Are You Still Watching?” is a column spotlighting what the Cornell community has been streaming. It runs every Wednesday.
