As a person living with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (which you can read more about on my newest blog post), it’s imperative to me to not use up too much of what little energy stores I have. This also means I’ve had to adapt to playing different kinds of video games than I used to, in different doses, as well as tailor the shows and movies I watch to how I’m feeling any given day.
With that in mind, I’ve come up with an energy rating system I will be using for all media reviews moving forward. It will take into consideration how stimulating the media is and therefore how much mental, emotional, and physical energy it takes to enjoy. The energy rating system will account for:
- Visual stimuli, such as flashing lights, fast moving objects and quick edits that cause a flickering effect, bright colours and intense psychadelic imagery, and jump scares.
- Auditory stimuli, such as gunshots, explosions, loud vehicles (such as during a chase scene), loud music, and jump scares.
- How brain fog-friendly it is in terms of the plot, how many characters there are to remember, and whether there is any reading involved (such as with subtitles).
- How emotionally draining it is — very sad, traumatic, anxiety-inducing, or if it causes lots of laughter.
- If it’s a video game, how physically involved you need to be with your hands on the controller, and whether there are accessibility settings for ease of use.
The mental, emotional, and physical categories will be rated from one to five spoon 🥄 emojis, with one being the lowest energy and five being the highest energy. I will be using spoons as a nod to Spoon Theory, which I explained in a video back when I was still able to do Youtube. I recommend checking it out if you don’t know what Spoon Theory is!
I hope this energy rating system will be helpful for those of you with energy issues who still want to be able to enjoy different kinds of media. Please look forward to seeing it in all upcoming reviews!
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