The world – including our country, Indonesia – has been facing a pandemic for the past 2.5 years. Something called COVID-19 developed and started spreading at the very end of 2019. People were passing illness from one to another rapidly, hence public mobility was limited. Workers worked from home, as well as pupils who had to learn through online meetings. There was almost no direct human-to-human interaction. As we all know, 2 years isn’t a short period. The impact of this “zero interaction” is quite observable when the situation is fairly managed. Especially, teenagers who are entering their character development phase. For example, teenagers who entered the pandemic when they were in 9th grade are currently facing the 12th grade, which means they have to prepare for college soon while adapting to the “normal” social life as the COVID-19 regulation has been loosened.
Some study says there are changes in the behavior of adolescents due to the pandemic, such as screen time management, sleep pattern, and lacking outdoor activities that could lead to several health problems -- physically and mentally (Kaur and Sukhija, 2021). The symptoms of pandemic quarantine-related mental health issues are increasing anxiety level, emotional disturbance, insomnia, stress, low mood, and in severe cases could lead to depression (Chau et al., 2021). Those symptoms are found in most pupils of the pandemic. Knowing their problems, teenagers automatically adapted to their conditions by creating coping mechanisms. Simply, doing something to relieve their concerns. Coping mechanism varies on different individual or problem (Algorani and Gupta, 2022). People could relieve stress by doing their hobbies, talking to their family, or even just being idle.
Nowadays, there is something called Alternate Universe (AU) -- a fan fiction genre -- which is tremendously popular among teenagers. It tells a story that resembles the role-playing concept, where the author changes some elements from a real-life story to create the fiction (Agustine et al., 2020). Mostly, the authors of AU are fans who made stories based on their idol's life to combine it with their imagination and creativity. It is usually served as a thread on Twitter with fake chat screenshots or customized pictures of the main character to make it seems real. Despite the unreality, AU has beneficial impacts during the pandemic. Particularly, in relieving stress and increasing society's interest in literacy. AU is a kind of light-written story that is perfect to read in leisure time. After having a long hectic day sitting in front of the computer with back pain and fatigue, reading stories about your favorite idol would be relaxing.
Here are some AUs that has been everyone's favorite as they have abundant admirers. They gained thousands of readers by creating fiction with K-Pop star characters. Not to forget to mention how the authors creatively made the video and fake chat screenshots to polish their plots. These add-ons allowed readers to feel like they were living in the universe of the story. That's why people tend to read AU as a get-away from stressors in their real life. What's more unique is that reading AU becomes a way of self-rewarding for some people. They impatiently wait for the new chapter to read it at the end of the day. Therefore, society has a new routine to read a chapter – or more – of their favorite AU to end their day in a good mood.
References
Agustine, A. et al. (2020) 'Analysis on Alternate Universe Popularity's Effect on Digital-Era Society's Reading Habit in Philosophical Perspective'.
Algorani, E. B., & Gupta, V., 2022. Coping Mechanisms. In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing.
Chau, S., Wong, O., Ramakrishnan, R., Chan, S., Wong, E., Li, P., Raymont, V., Elliot, K., Rathod, S., Delanerolle, G. and Phiri, P., 2021. History for some or lesson for all? A systematic review and meta-analysis on the immediate and long-term mental health impact of the 2002--2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak. BMC Public Health, 21(1).
Kaur, S. and Sukhija, J., 2021. Commentary: Behavioral changes in school-going children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Indian Journal of Ophthalmology, 69(12), p.3630.
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