Hannah or Miley?

The super successful show Hannah Montana when began I was a teenager. While navigating through college, studies, future, dreams, and worries, Hannah Montana felt deeply relatable to me.

Let me get this straight: I am not a singer. I do not have a secret identity. I am not famous. Then why would Hannah Montana feel close to me? I have really good reasons.

The show depicts Miley Stewart as a regular teenager, who goes to the school. Miley has only a few friends. She does not belong to the popular group of her school. She is mostly considered one of those boring students of the school. Her life is nowhere close to interesting. She struggles with her daily life as a teenager and student. This is real identity.

But then she also has a secret identity - Hannah Montana. She is a famous teenage singer. She is popular among masses. She is confident and performs on the stage in front of huge crowd. Celebrities are looking forward to collaborate with her. She is among the cool people. Everyone aspires to be her.

Hannah is completely opposite to Miley is.

In the show there is a running gig. Miley is trying to keep the identity of Hannah Montana secret and how she struggles to do so. To show this they had used very relatable scenarios where the protagonist has to choose between a normal life or the glamorous life. Such as whether she should appear for an examination or perform on the stage.

As a teenager I used to watch this show regularly. Several times I could relate to Miley especially for her teenage struggles. Just like her, I too did not have a lot of friends in college. I was not considered among the cool crowd of the college. I was neither a bottom level student nor a top level student. I was somewhere in between and hence was invisible. I wanted to be seen but at the same time I was afraid of the attention. I did not want to be visible, I did not want any supervision from the teaching staff.

Miley would often would get bullied by her classmates. Gladly I never got bullied, but I would always feel inferior to the popular students. They would make me feel inferior because of their demeanor.

The struggles at college would make me sad sometimes. I would feel as if there was no bright future. Then I would turn to Miley. I would see how similar our struggles were. That is when I would realise that I do not need a big group of friends, my small circle is sufficient. I do not need to be among the cool kids because I would not fit that group. The struggle to fit in would be worse than not being a part of them. Being invisible is not bad, maybe I would build my future in silence and allow my success to speak volumes.

Hannah Montana was no longer an entertaining show for me. It was my safe place. It served as a motivation. It pushed me to carry on when just being there was painful.

It was more than just a show, it was my adolescence in a nutshell.