Pop Culture as a Coping Mechanism (and Other Delusions That Work)

At this point, I’m not sure if I process emotions or just assign them to fictional characters and call it healing. If Lorelai Gilmore can deliver a monologue while emotionally imploding, surely I can survive one awkward work meeting. Right?

Pop culture has always been more than entertainment for those of us who grew up queer or isolated or anxious or simply too online. It was a mirror, a lifeline, a permission slip to feel things big and ugly. And over time, it became ritual. More than just coping. More like emotional infrastructure with reruns and eyeliner.

When Rue spirals, when Villanelle yearns, when Scully sees, when Meredith loses another loved one, something inside me feels witnessed. These characters aren’t just avatars for feeling — they’re emotional support projections, metaphors for grief, trauma, or rage we weren’t allowed to show. They get to scream. We get to feel through them.

We return to the same shows, not just for comfort but because they offer structure. They give our chaos an arc. The pain has a rhythm. Even if the ending hurts (hello, Six Feet Under), at least we know how it ends. There’s control in that. A kind of safety in knowing which scene will break you and when.

Sure, maybe rewatching Fleabag after a breakup isn’t psych-approved therapy. But pop culture offers what real life rarely does: closure, catharsis, and the chance to cry in sync with a fictional woman who just punched a priest or lost a sister. Sometimes that’s enough. And even better if it’s done with a banger tune playing over the top.

And it's not just prestige TV. Animated teen witches, overdramatic vampires with diaries, even reality shows with contestants crying over glitter and wigs — it all counts. Any story that makes you feel something and gives you a soft place to collapse is doing holy work.

So yes, it’s a delusion. But it’s a working delusion. One where messy girls survive, and queer people aren’t just tokens but titans of feeling. Where breakdowns come with cinematic lighting and healing is only one season finale away.

And frankly? That still works for me.