ItzSarah: Media Breakdown

Discouraged but Never Defeated

Itz Sarah — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:02:11 GMT

Discouraged but never defeated is one of my favorite lines.

Discouraged can mean to feel a loss of hope or confidence, often due to a perceived lack of progress.

Discouragement puts me in the mind of a roundabout.

Just because you miss your exit doesn’t mean you can’t go through a different one—or even go all the way around again to get to the one you missed.

Meanwhile, being defeated is to be overcome or vanquished.

Defeat can put you in the mind of failure.

The key difference between defeat and failure is that failure is attempting something and not succeeding, but with defeat, you surrender and stop trying.

Once I distinguished the difference between the two, I realized I couldn’t be defeated in any aspect of my life.

Neither can you.

A perfect example of this would be the movie The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith. He played the character Chris Gardner.

He was a single father who endured many hardships.

Some examples would be financial hardship and homelessness.

Despite everything that discouraged him, Chris Gardner had a dream.

He strived to have a better life for his son and himself.

There’s this specific scene that sticked with me.

It was the scene when Chris Gardner was at his lowest.

He had an awful and tiring day and went back to his apartment with his son, just to find out they were evicted.

With nowhere to go, Chris Gardner and his son went and slept in the bathroom at a train station.

Chris could’ve easily given up on himself.

What We Remember Isn’t Always Real

Itz Sarah — Sat, 16 May 2026 16:44:04 GMT

The Backstory

The other day I was on TikTok and I came across this video about a man creating a portal with frequency.

The video was blurry and looked as if it was taken in the early 2000s.

You may be thinking what’s so special about that?

To answer that, it was the comments that I came across.

People were actually confused on if the video was AI or real.

It’s been moments in the past when AI has tricked me.

The videos itself and the people in the video looked so real.

Theres challenges with AI being used. For example, the dancing baby trend.

Even trends that involve adding other “people” in them.

Circling back to what I saw in the comments, it was someone saying they seen that video before.

As someone who is always laughing harder at the TikTok comments than the actual video, I’ve seen this happen multiple times.

Someone posts a video that looks ”old timey”, but looks like it could be AI.

After that they debate in the comments if it’s real or fake.

Then there’s someone who “remembers” seeing the video or photo.

I’ll also add, I’m not saying whoever says this is lying.

It be a collective that agree, they’ve came across something specifically before.

The Global Glitch

What is the Mandela effect?

The Mandela effect is a psychological phenomenon where a large group of people collectively and vividly misremember the same detail, event, or historical event.

For example, the fruit of the loom symbol and Curious George.

Some people remember there being a cornucopia behind the fruit, some remember there wasn’t.

Some people remember curious George having a tail, some remember that he didn’t.

Which one do you remember?

The Creepy Rise of the Tech Human

It’s crazy to watch all this unfold. AI is evolving and it’s evolving quick.

People are even getting scammed by AI over the phone because their voices sound real and convincing.

It even take pauses, like it’s taking a breath.

Which in my opinion is creepy, because AI is starting to mimic human imperfections to gain trust.

AI was created to be used as a tool to assist humans. It was made to replicate human intelligence and problem-solving abilities in a machine.

AI can easily change an original photo to fuel false memories, which means, it can also dissolve them by showing the original source.

In a way, it makes it a tool to manipulate human memory and perception.

The Ultimate Question

That’s what AI and the Mandela effect share in common.

The fact they both exploit the human memory.

We are not our phones, our brains don’t remember memories like a video.

It remembers them in pieces.

Where there are no pieces, there is space for imagination or manipulation.

If our memories can be shaped this easily, by repeated observations, a persuasive algorithm, or a synthetic voice, we are looking at the wrong threat.

The real question isn’t just “what is true?”

The real question is who decides what we remember?

Thank you for reading 🌷

Here are two suggestions:

The Cost of Two Selves

Itz Sarah — Sat, 09 May 2026 17:25:50 GMT

As I rewatch my favorite childhood tv shows, I began to realize something about Hannah Montana.

Hannah Montana is a Disney TV show that first premiered March 24, 2006. It’s about this girl named Miley Stewart who lives a normal teenage life by day, but by night she transforms into the famous pop star Hannah Montana.

She hides her celebrity identity from her friends and school to maintain a simple life.

In summary, she’s a girl with a double life, who wants to keep her two worlds separate.

Miley didn’t want those around her to see her as Hannah Montana, or treat her differently because she was a star.

Miley was different from Hannah.

Yeah they are the same person, but Hannah is most definitely her alter ego.

Miley was teased in school. Had school rivals, Amber Addison and Ashley Dewitt.

They made fun of Miley and her best friend Lily popularity status, and constantly called them “losers” and “nobodies.”

Little did they know she was a whole pop star by night.

The same “A-list” pop star they adored.

Hannah was adored, not to say Miley wasn’t, but Hannah was seen to be more valuable because of her status.

There has been times, people almost caught on to the fact Miley and Hannah were the same person.

In the midst of that she would be scrambling and panicking, like her life would be over if someone found out the truth.

Imagine constantly switching identities to maintain a persona. It looks as exhausting as it sounds.

Something to ask yourself is, what actually kept her life separate?

Was it her taking on and off a wig?

Was it her changing from regular clothes to pop star attire?

Or was it her carefully hiding a version of her self from the rest of the world?

To later find out, the people close to her loved all of her— not just the versions of herself she kept unhidden.

How could she allow herself to be loved fully, by those around her if she wasn’t even comfortable enough to let that version of herself shine.

In the Hannah Montana Movie there was a scene, when she was trying to be at two different places at once. Trying to get the best of both worlds, all pun intended. Hannah is supposed to be at dinner with the mayor and Miley is supposed to be on a date with Travis, her childhood best friend. At the same time and location. After switching back and forth, she gets tired and lets her guard down. Travis witnesses her transitioning and becomes heartbroken. He felt betrayed because he believed Miley lied about who she really was and how she really felt.

That alone showed that her secret wasn’t protecting her, but causing damage to the ones who cared about the real her.

When Miley finally came to terms that balancing two worlds was unsustainable, she found peace.

The two worlds within herself, who were kept by separation, disappeared.

That goes to ask, what if what we hide to be accepted ends up preventing us from being known?

Thanks for reading 🌷

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Here are two suggestions, you’ll also enjoy:

He Didn’t Want a Bone. He Wanted the Whole Hog.

Itz Sarah — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 03:11:22 GMT

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“Being satisfied with a bone someone done thrown you when you see them eating a whole hog.”

That line was said by Leeve Green, played by Chadwick Boseman. In the movie Ma Rainey Black Bottom.

The character Leeve Green had a bigger dream than playing the trumpet for Chicago recording studio. Leeve’s dreams included him wanting to further his career outside of the band he was part of, so he could create his own.

Leeve had the fear of being trapped. He feared staying with the band because he thought he would be settling. He wanted everything that came with being a big, talented musician.

Leeve craved the fame, money, and respect. He wanted his name to be known.

Although Leeve’s had ambition for his big dreams, the extent he took to reach them were dangerous.

Leeve was young and talented, in Ma Raineys band. He played music with older musicians, who were more accepting of their limiting roles.

Even though he was apart of a band, he wasn’t satisfied that he didn’t have his own. He didn’t want to settle for being a member, he wanted to be the leader.

Leeve eagerly wanted his talent to be rewarded. He wanted his spot at the top, but had the false idea that Chicago recording was going to make him a star.

Chicago recording praised him for his work and gave him hope that they saw his potential.

They wanted him to keep creating valuable, profitable work, without them having to give him anything more in return.

Leeve remained replaceable, desperate, but also hopeful.

Leeve remained hopeful due to Chicago recording always throwing him a bone. They’d give him a few more dollars or a session and keep it moving.

Ma Rainey Black Bottom was set in 1927, in Chicago. This era was the peak of race records, which is when white owned labels were making a huge amount of money off of Black music.

Race records was created by white-owned companies. Instead of integrating Black music with the mainstream market, music labels, segregated the music and controlled distribution.

This put a limit onto how far Black artists could rise.

Black musicians were rarely allowed ownership, control, or credit for their music creations.

Leeve faced and witnessed these injustices. He watched white producers profit from Black sound, Black culture, and Black brilliance.

That angered him.

Leeve stated, “Being satisfied with a bone someone done thrown you when you see them eating a whole hog” , out of frustration with the system.

The “bone” Leeve was describing represented receiving bare minimum opportunities and gratitude used as a leash.

Leeve knew that he deserved better. He knew he could have “a whole hog.”

He thought if they could, why couldn’t he?

Why should he have to settle for crumbs, when he has hunger for a whole meal?

His heart was in the right place, but his approach was fueled by being blinded by desperation and having faith in someone else’s validation.

Leeve Green statement was powerful because he put what everyone in the band was feeling into words. He was young and didn’t know how to survive the industry as well as the older musicians and Ma Rainey did, but he had the ambition and courage to advocate for more.

Happy Black History Month 🖤