ABOUT ME: I am a constant learner + analyzer...

Matthew Tepedino

CSET 3215 – The Art of Blogging

About Me

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I am a constant learner + analyzer, always trying to discern objective reality apart from misinformation and avoid the abyss of indoctrination + self-inflicted biases that many fall into. By being cognizant of these psychological weapons of mass destruction (confirmation bias, groupthink, availability heuristic, etc), and through a diverse array of media intakes, I have built a multidimensional & balanced perspective about the world. Presumably, I am enthralled by the various streams of media & seemingly infinite content that sculpt our worldviews in this exponentially evolving digital age. For the past half-decade, I’ve been an avid movie + documentary watcher, podcast listener, book reader, stand-up comedy aficionado and social media browser, especially in this new era of enlightening bite-sized information and 3rd party media; but I wasn’t always this way. It wasn’t until after high school, namely when I decided to take a gap year, that my introspectivity skyrocketed and my inclination to absorb an ensemble of profound media sources became commonplace.

On August 12th, 2020 Johns Hopkins University sent an email to its students informing us, after leading its student body on for months, that campus would be shut down for the semester and they would switch to a fully remote learning system amidst the pandemic (just a couple weeks after we had been told our football season was canceled). I cerebrated on my options – take my classes from home or take a gap year. My dad took a classic businessman stance on the issue, laying it out simply for me - he told me there were three components to my upcoming college experience: to study, to play football, and to meet new people. After all, that is how I made my college decision, and I couldn’t argue his point when he told me I was getting no football, no social life, and a ‘half assed attempt’ of online learning, “basically 0 for 3” he told me. On the other hand, my mom thought of the idea of a gap year as daunting. It was too “out there” for her and she needed more time to think about it. I agreed with both of them. It was daunting, but it was also the right decision – four years later I’ve realized that it wasn’t just the right decision, but maybe the best one of my entire life. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I decided to take the road not taken.

I’d like to think of myself as somewhat of a go-getter in life. Someone who’s motivated and driven and works hard to achieve goals. Someone who doesn’t wait around for life to play them but someone who plays the game of life as an active player rather than a bystander. Never had I ever imagined myself taking a gap year. I thought it was for people who were ‘out there’. For people who claimed they wanted to ‘travel the world’ as an excuse to avoid college. For people who were afraid of ‘the real world’. For people who were not like me. But that’s not what it was about. I was tired of letting the pandemic dictate my every move. I was tired of waiting around and blindlessly hoping for things to change. It was about playing my life rather than letting it be played out for me. I could detail and reflect on my ‘transcendent’ gap year experience of moving to Boston and interning for four months, starting my own tutoring and sports coaching business, and traveling to Costa Rica for three months, but that’s not what this is about.

Up until my gap year, my life was pretty straightforward. I’d spent my whole life living with my family, hanging out with friends, studying for school, and playing sports. I maintained a high GPA while balancing sports, family and social time with ease. And everything seemed to culminate during my senior year of high school; sports championships and awards, committing to play for Hopkins, a fervent girlfriend, unlimited fun with my best friends and a cohesive family. My life had reached its first climax. I was on cloud 9 and it felt great...how could it not? I was the big fish. But all of sudden the pond of high school became the ocean of the entire world. I was stripped of literally everything I had grown accustomed to over the 18 year course of my life – my family, friends, school and sports were all gone, and I was all that was left.

It wasn’t until my gap year that I truly became a podcast listener, movie + documentary watcher, 3rd party media merchant and thus an introspective thinker. “When you’re thinking about your immediate problems all the time and all the bullshit people have to deal with this in this world it’s hard to remember what this world really is sometimes - if you ever start taking life too seriously, just remember that we are all talking monkeys on an organic spaceship hurtling through the universe”. I vividly remember hearing this Joe Rogan podcast quote in my cubicle, staring out a 40th story window in the financial district of Boston, pondering what I wanted to do with my life and who I wanted to become. Quotes began to resonate too much and information normally thought of as esoteric became too important for me not to write down. This was when I started to take notes on podcasts/docs and rank + review my favorite movies, shows, stand-up comics, books and social media brands. I wasn’t quite sure why I was doing this at the time, but now I am on the precipice of my own website + podcast, an app that’s in the works, and a media brand that will hopefully become my entire future.

Since my days in Boston ideas have been building, content has been evolving and the vision has been crystallizing. I am now the spearhead of a google drive, shared with 20+ co-workers/friends, filled with hundreds of pages of deliverable content that will serve as the foundation for my website upon its launch. With content ranging from written analyses and organized information catalogs regarding a plethora of ‘BigTime’ topics including: Covert Intelligence Operations, the UFO Phenomena, Ancient Civilizations, Quantum Physics, Ai, Psychedelics + Geopolitics as well as diverse rankings and in depth reviews on movies, tv shows, podcasts, stand up comedy, books, documentaries, social media profiles, music, websites, apps and research papers, I am optimistic that my brand will fit the description of my slogan: “A goldmine for content and a guide to superior media consumption”.

Because of my infatuation with these sources of media, and belief that our perceptions are a direct result of our media consumption, I contend that it is of the utmost importance to be able to decipher unbiased news from narrative-driven hype, the interesting from the boring, the intellectually stimulating from the mind-numbing, the entertaining from the mediocre. We must actively engage with the content we consume in order to learn and grow, rather than getting caught in a cycle of brainless scrolling, passive watching and wasting time. My ideas for my brand are based on the notion that purposeful media consumption is integral to our cognitive development and absorbing content from both sides of the political aisle and all walks of life is key to analyzing the world from an objective point of view, behind our Veil of Ignorance.