Media Diary Entry 4: The Text that Changed my Life Week – iCarly

When I was younger, I had generally never watched the TV shows that my friends and cousins were watching. However, one day, when my cousin turned over to the TV show channel ‘nickelodeon’, he told me about the shows that he enjoyed to watch; one of these TV shows was ‘iCarly’.

iCarly is an American kids TV show that follows the lives of four main characters: Carly, Sam, Freddie and Carly’s older brother Spencer. The three teenagers film a weekly web show that they stream live on the website iCarly.com for an increasing number of viewers as the series progresses. They film the show in Carly’s attic as she lives in an apartment with her brother Spencer while their father is away at seas in the US military. There are a total of seven seasons to this show, starting in 2007 and ending in 2012. The teenagers find an interest in creating their web show in the pilot episode, where a video of Carly and Sam goes viral and they gain a lot of attention and fans. Carly owns the website and co-hosts the show with Sam. Freddie works behind the scenes, doing all the filming and special effects that the girls cannot do themselves. Spencer guest-stars in the show from time to time as he does not have a job or many friends his own age.

I personally found the first episode that I was shown very intriguing because this was the first show that I knew a lot of people watched. As I have previously stated, I had never before engaged with the same TV shows as my friends and cousins. I was entertained by the characters of the show and saw them as role models. This is because watching the girls on screen encouraged me to become a lot more talkative and outgoing. I saw how people see them for being confident and easy to talk to and this was a personal goal that I had given myself to achieve. The onscreen teenagers were ideologies for how someone like me show act and speak. I also believe that my new found confidence gave me the opportunities that I had never had before such as I was chosen for bigger speaking parts in the school because I had the confidence to nominate myself to get up and do it. I felt as though I could fit in with my peers as well because we all had a TV show in common to talk about. This shows that I could have been classified into the audience group ‘mainstream’ because I watched the show to fit in and have a social discussion.

I also blame the onscreen characters for my current fashion sense because when I was younger, I had never been interested in fashion or wearing clothes that were ‘on trend’. Now, I love to go shopping and I feel as though iCarly was the first thing that made me interested in fashion. By watching the show, I could see what the girls in it were wearing and they would be my style icons. I again see the teenagers in the show as ideologies for how girls should dress. Both girls in the show dress modestly and well covered up, leading me to think that this is how teenagers should dress. Obviously, there is a stereotype in the show that all teenagers in America dress this way because in the school that the teenagers attend, there are not many individuals as they all dress in a similar way. I saw this as a good thing because this was how I wanted to look and what I wanted people to see me as. I feel as though the show has helped me to be an individual and stand out a lot more than I used to. The encoded message behind the show is that teenager should be able to express their own individuality without feeling as though they are strange in any way. I believe that the producers have put this message across well because I now do not feel like I need to hide the person that I am.

In conclusion, I feel as though the TV show ‘iCarly’ has changed my life because of the ideologies the producers had put forward about how teenagers should have confidence and be as different as they want. This show has helped me to be the person that I am today because I think that watching this show was the main starting point for my future.