seeing yourself in stories

I can’t be that unique.

In my almost 26 years of life, I have rarely seen a fictional character and felt like I truly related to them. I struggle to think of any representation in mainstream media that reflects my lived experience. Is this normal?

The only example that comes to mind is Miguel’s episode in the final season of This is Us. It depicted the story of a divided man, an immigrant who’s identity was torn between two lands. That struck a chord with me. But beyond that one episode of television, I’ve not come across much media that reflects who I am.

Maybe I should be more specific. At present, I’m only thinking in terms of my racial identity.

When it comes to blackness, America sets the global standard. Growing up I engaged with (and continue to engage with) African American culture, but I do not personally live the African American experience. And as for the Black British experience, a lot of what we see on TV is specifically the London experience. A part of the country that is very diverse and has a thriving black population. The issue is that I didn’t grow up in London either. In the part of the country where I grew up, black people were few and far between. So few in fact, that I have a core childhood memory of taking a weekend family trip to London and realising that there are numerous black people in this country as we walked down the streets of Peckham. It blew my little 7 year old mind.

A friend of mine once said that she didn’t fully deep that she was black until she got to university. By that she meant, while she was aware of her skin tone, she was not moulded by a black culture, per say. Like me, the dominant force in her upbringing was her Yoruba, Nigerian identity. Our parents didn’t carry a black identity because, they were raised in a land where they were the ethnic majority, so they had nothing to pass down to us. It wasn’t until university exposed us to people that grew up surrounded by people that looked like them, that we were made aware of a Black British subculture. A subculture that we weren’t a part of.

So, where does that leave us? Where does that leave me?

Honestly, I don’t know.

Returning to my original thoughts about not seeing stories that resonate with me, I would be remiss to overlook content that is shared on social media. For all the chaos that these apps bring, the ability to share and connect with peers across the world has it’s upsides. You see creators share tales of childhoods that feel eerily similar to your own, stories that unlock long forgotten memories and remind you that though your experienced things in isolation, you weren’t the only who went though it. It’s nice. It’s why representation matters. It provides a sense of belonging, it makes dreams and aspirations feel more attainable, it also shows others that there is more to those who look like you than the flattened stereotypical narratives they’ve been fed. It’s a reminder that I’m really not that unique.

While it’s nice that we get to experience this on a small screen, am I being greedy by desiring to see some of these stories play out on big one?