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.
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