What is YOUR Guilty Pleasure?

Everyone has one. I have one. You have one. Heck, even your own grandparent has one.

Guilty pleasures are things that bring us comfort, bring us joy; we can’t help ourselves. It’s an obsession that makes us so happy we keep going back to it.. over and over and over again. 

What is your guilty pleasure…

1. TV Show.

Although I do have enough favorite TV shows to fill up an entire novel, I do have a few of them that are a lot closer to my heart than most.

The one show that comes to mind instantly the second I begin to even think about my "favorite" tv show is a show that means the absolute world to me; Shameless.

The show Shameless had two versions; a UK version and a US version. Although I tried to get myself into the UK version a couple times in my life, it never spoke to me the way the US version spoke to me. There's just something about the US version that keeps bringing me back to its roots, over and over again.

Shameless is about the life of a dysfunctional family (The Gallaghers) who live in the South Side of Chicago. The show aired from January 2011 to April 2021.

Honestly if you haven't added Shameless to your list of things that you MUST see, you really do need to. Netflix just added the eleventh (and final) season to it's streaming service, so don't be shy - go binge it today.

2. Book.

Growing up, I was obsessed with reading. I read every book I could find from Dear Dumb Diary to Diary of a Wimpy Kid to even the Shadow Kids or Warrior Cats series. As I grew older, I slowly ween out of reading. Of course, I still read. I loved it too much to drop off cold turkey. I moved on from my childhood favorites to series such as Divergent.

Now that I am twenty three years old, I am slowly getting myself back into the habit of reading as much as I did when I was a child. As a kid, just the thought of going to the library made my eyes twinkle because I knew that I'd be able to pick out a new book (or fifteen new books, because I'm extremely indecisive).

So instead of stating my all-time favorite book, I'll recommend the book I am currently reading/obsessing over. This book is a mystery/thriller by the author Chevy Stevens and if you are also a mystery/thriller type of person - I definitely say you need to add this book to your reading list.

Now, the story does have a trigger warning for child abuse, kidnapping, and rape, so I do have to say that you probably should read at your own risk if those can be triggers.. but the story is good nonetheless.

The Plot of "Those Girls" by Chevy Stevens: Life has never been easy for the three sisters; Jess, Courtney, and Dani. They lived on a remote ranch in Western Canada where they worked hard and tried to stay out of the way of their father's fists. One night, after a fight had gotten out of hand, the sisters were forced to go on the run only to be caught in an even worst nightmare when their truck breaks down in the middle of a small town. Events spiraled out of control and an encounter with the wrong people gets them into a horrific and desperate situation. The three sisters were left with no choice but to change their names and create all new lives. After eighteen years go by, they are still trying to figure out how to forget what happened that summer when one of the sister's goes missing and pulls them back into their past, but this time.. there is nowhere else left to run.

Good, right? Now you probably can understand why I became so obsessed with reading this book so quickly.

3. Song.

I don't think I have a favorite song. It's such a weird thing to say but I just love too many songs at one time to favor one the most out of all songs. So instead.. let's just create a list of songs I've recently obsessed over and over again that I absolutely DESTROYED the replay button:

• Happier Than Ever - Billie Eilish
• Happier - Olivia Rodrigo
• Deja Vu - Olivia Rodrigo
• Mr. Perfectly Fine - Taylor Swift
• Easy on Me - Adele

and that doesn't even top the cherry on the cake.

Without music, I have no idea how I'd ever be able to cope with life. If I'm not sitting with headphones on and Spotify on repeat, what am I even doing?

4. Band.

That's easy. Every since 2012, there has mainly been one band and one band only on my mind; and that band is..

*drumroll please*

One Direction.

With or without Zayn Malik, One Direction have always been that one boyband I can go to to cheer me up.. no matter what. I've made best friends thanks to this band.. I've endured getting bullied simply for liking this band.. they took me on a ride through life and I held on for dear life, afraid that if I was to let go, I'd fall off. I never did.

To this day, almost ten years later, I am still holding on for dear life to the boyband who saved my life.

5. Purchases.

Fun fact about me: I am a shopaholic. A complete shopaholic. If I have money and see something I like/want, there is a huge chance that I am going home with that item. If I see something I like/want and I don't have money, there is an even bigger chance that I will either be extremely upset or take a mental note to come back once I did have money to be able to purchase the item for myself during another time.

Currently, I have a few "guilty pleasures" when it comes to my purchases.

I absolutely love growing my merch collection for all things The Office.

In just one year (2020), I went from owning probably about five funko pops for the tv show The Office to having an entire corner of my bedroom dedicated to all things The Office. It also didn't help that Culturefly teamed up with The Office to make a subscription box that comes out four times a year with iconic items inside.

Another "guilty pleasure" I have to purchases is my love for adding onto my The Walking Dead collection.

Through the years, my TWD merch collection had slowly grew into a firm collection that took over another corner of my bedroom (much like my The Office collection). Just like The Office collection I have, this collection of mine is something I have that means the absolute world to me. Finding new items for the collection just gives me some kind of serotonin that nothing else could ever give me.

The next thing on the list of "guilty pleasure purchases", isn't really a collection as much as it's more of a 'must buy anything that involves this one man on any part of it'.

Yes. I'm talking about Johnny Depp. Ever since I could remember, I've obsessed over this man. Like obsessed. That's not even an exaggeration. If it was possible, I would be best friends with this man. This collection of mine started off as me created a build a bear to resemble Johnny Depp, to me buying every movie/TV show he's ever been in on DVD, to now I must own anything with his face printed on it. I literally brought an entire collection of Pirates of the Caribbean toys from someone on Facebook Marketplace simply because they had a Jack Sparrow clock with, you guessed it, Johnny's face imprinted on it. I wasn't even sorry.

And lastly, but certainly not least, let's discuss my most recent "guilty pleasure" purchases that deserve to be on this list:

Squishmallows.

This collection of mine is something that I've had loved for a while, but just started being able to add into a full collection recently - mostly due to the fact that it got way hyped up online and was impossible to find in stores. Luckily, thanks to internet hype, all internet trends die out eventually which helped me start to be able to find them more and more in stores near me.

Can you believe I found my first two squishmallows for only $5? All because my first one was from someone giving it away for free, and my second one was found for $5 at a Good-Will while I was thrift store hunting. Pretty sure those two finds turned me into a monster when it comes to Squishmallows.. but it's a pretty fun hobby to have. Let's be honest.

Although I have only the smallest of a collection, boy do I hope my Squishmallow hunting can build up to an army!

6. Activity.

Honestly, I never really know what to say when someone asks me "What's your favorite activity?". I don't know why. Yes, I do have favorite things to do.. clearly, if you read #5, I definitely can add online shopping to this list.. but favorite activity? Any time I'm asked this, my mind always goes blank.

Let's just discuss things I like instead:

• online shopping
• photography
• writing (if you looked at my profile, you can see that my absolute favorite thing to write is most definitely fiction.. or the mystery/thriller/horror genre)
• dogs; probably not an "activity", but they can be involved in them (for example: taking care of dogs, playing with dogs, going to dog parks, etc)

7. Habit.

Do we have habits that give off guilty pleasure vibes? Yes, we all have habits.. I sure do. But to say my main habit is a guilty pleasure.. is that really so accurate? The main habit of mine is this weird noise I can unintentionally make with my mouth, but this is more of a burden habit of mine rather than a guilty pleasure of mine.

8. Movie.

Just like I said about TV shows, I have so many different favorite movies I could put on this but let's narrow it down to my absolute favorite movie of all-time. This movie choice of mine is something I can watch over and over again without getting bored.

That movie is:

Beyond the Prairie.

To this day, I'm still pretty certain that this movie became my all-time favorite comfort film because the actor who plays Almanzo Wilder (Walton Goggins) resembles a man from my childhood who left such a positive impact on my life. Not to mention, growing up I was obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder and her life (during 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade I used to go around calling myself "Rose" and pretending like I was Rose Wilder; Laura and Almanzo Wilder's daughter).

9. Game on your phone.

It's not on my phone, but on my mom's ipad I have this game called Happy Color that is pretty much just an online coloring book to help destress yourself. It's pretty addicting, I won't lie. If I can't go on this app at all during the day, I feel a little off. This app not only gives you new images to color daily, but they also occasionally give you bonus images every now and then based off different holidays throughout the year, or just to give you extra/bonus images to color.

10. Website.

I won't even lie. It's this website; Vocal.Media. I've tried a few other writing sites (medium, wattpad, archive on their own, etc) but I've never loved any other writing site as much as I love this site. It's just so easy to write and post, and there's not really a pressure on what to write. Of course, you need a good SEO when writing but I never really care about that.. I just write to write and if a story gains views, that's like a win to me.

Not to mention, Vocal also does different challenges to possibly win money and even if you don't win.. writing and entering into the challenge is still just as fun - especially when they create those fictional story challenges.

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Thank you for taking the time to read my article. Feel free to check out my profile if you like my writing for more articles and even fiction stories I have.