The Monthly — November 21, 2019

December 2019

Busy Being Free

Food for Thought

Communication senior explores the life of Joni Mitchell with new project p.5

NU alum, Broadway star Adam Kantor tells stories through interactive meals p.8

Curating a Culture

Best of the Decade

Does the Northwestern meme page exacerbate toxic productivity habits? p.10

Cultural landmarks that defined the 2010s p.12

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CONTENTS Staff of The Monthly

Busy Being Free

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Food for Thought

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Curating a Culture

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We Didn’t Start the Dumpster Fire: Best of the Decade

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Open Tab

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Reel Thoughts

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Issue 24

Maddie Burakoff Catherine Kim Alex Schwartz Monthly Editors Jacob Fulton Siying Luo Roxanne Panas Carly Schulman Designers Wilson Chapman Grace Luxton Ally Mauch Owen Stidman Writers

Cover photo: Evan Robinson-Johnson/Daily Senior Staffer

Editors: The end of a decade brings some amount of meaningful, level-headed reflection. But as this most recent 10-year dumpster fire comes to a close, the internet has managed to ruin even that.

Last week, Twitter user @stfutony tweeted, “there’s only ONE MONTH left in the decade. what have you accomplished?”

At first, people responded either genuine lists of things they did between 2010 and 2019 that they were most proud of, or a litany of cynical yet lighthearted versions of “Absolutely nothing!”

Then, as is usually the case with anything on Twitter, folks began to feel crappy. Seeing the glowing accomplishments of others made people feel self-conscious about their own experiences. The desire to compare yourself to others is an often invisible pillar of social media, so it’s no surprise that, when asked to do that directly, things didn’t go well.

“Realized most of my list was about survival and not accomplishment,” one user wrote. “Now I feel like sh-t.”

Let us say definitively: Survival is always a worthy accomplishment. Especially during these volatile times, when the world feels like it’s about to explode at any minute, keeping yourself from descending into chaos and ruin is a lot harder than it used to be. So, in the spirit of Oprah Winfrey interviewing Lindsay Lohan, let’s celebrate that!

It’s easy to look at your past like a highlight reel — emphasis on high — and gloss over all the lows. But don’t forget that living through the struggle got you here, too.

College-aged folks have come of age in this wacky world. Back in 2010, when we were still in middle school, our biggest concerns were the release of the latest iPod and getting hair in scary places. As we grew up, social movements raged around the world and the internet proliferated, overwhelming us with both possibility and angst. Everyone’s mistakes became ultra-visible, making many of us cynical of the adults running the show. Now that it’s our turn to be those adults, we can have a better idea of the world we want to create for ourselves.

Take inspiration from the artists who have created opportunities for themselves, whether it’s Tucker DeGregory writing a performance study of his musical hero Joni Mitchell or Adam Kantor bringing together food and storytelling in StoryCourse. Doing your own thing requires you to be fearless, to unsubscribe from outdated notions of what it means to be successful. Things will only get crazier from here, so now is not the time to hold back.

Here’s to the next 10. Keep on surviving.

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busy being free Communication senior explores the life of Joni Mitchell with new project

by wilson chapman 4

W

hen Communication senior Tucker DeGregory was growing up, Joni Mitchell was a constant presence.

The music of the acclaimed singer-songwriter provided the soundtrack for many milestones in his life. When he was a toddler, his mother would sing “Little Green” to him as he went to sleep; his father played “The Circle Game” at his preschool graduation, and he would sing the same song at his high school graduation; and his freshman year of college, when he was homesick, he would listen to her albums to remind him of his parents.

“I’m amazed at how she wrote all of her songs from her personal perspective, but was able to make them so universal,” DeGregory said. “It’s amazing that she can capture as complex and poetic stories as she does and make them so universal. She’s able to produce work that anyone from an old man to a young girl to anyone in between can find something in.”

Now, DeGregory is honoring Joni Mitchell through his upcoming project “Joni: Busy Being Free,” a presentation that chronicles the life of the Canadian songwriter.

The project is DeGregory’s Capstone research project for his Music Theatre Choreography module, a program in the School of Communication for students interested in pursuing choreography.

“Busy Being Free” is presented as a concert, with three actors representing Mitchell at different ages, acting out and discussing moments from her life and singing songs to the audience. When the actors sing, several dancers will perform choreographed routines to the songs in front of them. According to DeGregory, the dancers and actors complement each other but don’t directly interact with one another onstage.

Communication junior Susie McCollum, who plays the middle Mitchell in the performance, said the singer has been one of her all-time heroes, and she was excited and intimidated to step into the role. McCollum said that, as someone who writes her own music, Mitchell’s storytelling ability has had a huge influence on her.

“Her entire life is one that celebrates and redefines art and the way that we use words and how we see the world,” McCollum said. “She’s an incredible figure of musicianship and artistry that we all should know who she is.”

DeGregory said most people wouldn’t consider Mitchell a musician whose work lends itself to dance. That’s why, when he pitched “Busy Being Free,” he was interested in figuring out how dance interacted with her music.

While researching for the project, he learned that when Mitchell was growing up, she wanted to be a professional dancer –– but her dreams were ruined when she developed polio at age 9 and lost functionality in her lower back and legs.

She continued to dance for fun at sock-hops and clubs and referenced dance in many of her songs as a metaphor for freedom.

“The show is about freedom in many pursuits,” DeGregory said. “Freedom romantically and sexually, professionally and also physically. She had this weird confine put on her by polio and was always thinking of dance and singing about dance as a way to free the body and to express herself and freedom.”

DeGregory said this context helped inform his choreography for the project, which he describes as a physicalization of her lyrics. While the actors are singing, the dancers use their bodies to depict her lyrics and the story being told. For example, during the performance of the song “Woodstock,” the choreography is meant to reflect the themes of counterculture reflected in the lyrics.

Communication senior Cailyn Johnson is one of the dancers in the production.

Before being cast in the show, Johnson was unfamiliar with Mitchell’s life, but knew some of her music, having figure-skated to her song “River.” However, she said she has grown impressed by the raw emotions of her work, and is excited

to see how she can use dance to convey the themes and stories told through the songwriting.

“Dance can sometimes be overlooked as a way to tell really powerful stories, and I think she has a lot to say,” Johnson said. “And dance can say a lot too. So marrying the two will yield some really awesome creative results.”

“Joni: Busy Being Free” is the first work of theater DeGregory has ever written. He said in the process, he first did extensive research into Mitchell’s life, and then mapped out the basic story based on her biography. DeGregory said that he is still finishing up writing for the production, and has mixed and changed the order of songs to suit the mood of the scenes.

DeGregory said that while working on the performance, he wanted to make sure many women were involved in the process, as much of the story deals with how Mitchell grappled with her femininity and how she was treated by the media as a woman in the public eye. The media often failed to give her proper credit as a songwriter in her own right, and instead defined her through her relationships with male musicians.

According to DeGregory, all of the band members, one of his producers and several key members of the production team are women. DeGregory said that working with them and the women in the cast has helped generate conversations about how Mitchell balanced her desire for love and family with her wish to be independent at a time when those were often seen as two incompatible concepts.

“They speak to the topics and the experiences way better than I can,” DeGregory said.

Like many other recent musicals about famous female music artists, such as “The Cher Show” and “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical,” “Busy Being Free” uses three actors to represent the different periods of Mitchell’s life. DeGregory said although he initially didn’t plan to take this approach, he realized it would be hard for one actor to embody the entire life of someone who changed as drastically as Joni Mitchell.

One of the Jonis represents her from her childhood to right before she released her acclaimed album “Blue.”The second portrays her middle period, as a folk artist, while the third represents her as an older, experimental “vagabond” musician.

Communication sophomore Ruby Gibson, who plays young Joni in the productim, said one of the most difficult aspects has been working to divorce popular conceptions about Joni Mitchell from her performance. Although the actors have the benefit of knowing about Mitchell’s life story, their characters don’t, I hope her personal so it’s important that they play their characters as real people living in the pursuit of freedom moment.

“Finding the difference between the encourages others to three Jonis and what they discover and when, what one Joni knows that another find their own. “That's Joni doesn’t know, what one Joni can say that another doesn’t know how to say yet, really important to me.” has been really challenging, but really amazing,” Gibson said.

DeGregory said he hopes in watching the presentation, the invited audience will be able to understand the pressures Mitchell faced –– and her struggles to find liberation.

“I hope her personal pursuit of freedom encourages others to find their own,” DeGregory said. “That’s really important to me.”◊

"

Evan Robinson-Johnson/Daily Senior Staffer

CHAPTER ONE

food for thought NU alum, Broadway star Adam Kantor tells stories through interactive meals

by Maddie Burakoff

E

mpty calories have no place at Adam Kantor’s table. Kantor (Communication ’08) is one of the co-founders of StoryCourse, which brings a new meaning to “dinner theater” by crafting elaborate, multi-course dining experiences that express real stories through food.

So far, that’s included tracing one chef ’s journey from Korea to New York City; crafting an interactive retelling of a Passover seder; and celebrating the diverse experiences of LGBTQ people in honor of Stonewall 50.

Before he was masterminding these immersive meals, Kantor stepped straight from the NU campus onto the Broadway stage in 2008 when he was cast as Mark in “Rent.” He’s also played Motel in the 2015 revival of “Fiddler on the Roof ” and originated the role of Telephone Guy in “The Band’s Visit.” Now, Kantor has just finished shooting a film (for which details are still under wraps) and is preparing to star in a new off-Broadway musical (which he also can’t talk about yet, beyond the fact that he’s learning to play piano for the role). And he’s still hungry for more. Kantor said his team wants to take StoryCourse to the next level by buying their own space and serving up year-round experiences.

How did the idea for StoryCourse and these interactive dining experiences come about?

Shortly after I finished doing “Fiddler on the Roof ” on Broadway, (composer) Benj Pasek called me. Passover was going to be in a couple months, and he was like, “Do you want to throw together a Passover concert?” And right around that same time I had started talking with a guy named Brian Bordainick, who had a company

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called Dinner Lab. He and I were talking about combining the worlds of food and theater in immersive settings. I'm a theater dude who loves food, and he's a food dude who loves theater, so we were like, “Can we combine our worlds in a way that feels really integrative and experiential?”

We took the essential elements of the Haggadah, as it's called, which is on every Passover seder you tell the story of the Jews' exodus from Egypt through this kind of script.

So we basically deconstructed the Haggadah, said, “OK, what does this mean today, in 2017 at the time?” And it was sort of wonderful and beautiful and moving.

After the first seder, Brian, Benj and I were thinking about this story of exodus and realizing that story told through food can be very powerful.

There are so many immigrant chefs who have this journey. If we take the template of the seder, this journey of slavery to freedom, there are so many contemporary stories we can tell through food. There was another chef from Dinner Lab named Jae Jung, and I spent many hours interviewing her and hearing her story of migration from Korea to New York and her relationship with her mother along the way. We collaborated with playwright Hansol Jung to craft an interactive script where just like Passover seder, the guests at the table would read. But

instead of the story of the Jews escaping Egypt, they read the story of Chef Jae leaving Korea, told through five courses that Jae cooked. That became "How Do You Hug a Tiger.”

Since you started out with StoryCourse, how has its growth compared to your early expectations?

We always thought it was a great idea, and we were really excited by it. But I don't think we were expecting in the beginning to tell such personal stories. We've realized how personal food can be, and how emotionally moving an experience can be when you excavate the stories underneath the food that you're eating. Brian and I joke that we didn't set out to have people be crying into their food by the end of the meal, but we guess that's a good thing.

It's exciting to find how these worlds can really merge. It feels like creating a new form, in a way.

I hope that it continues to evolve, even after our lifetime.

Where did your own love of food come from?

For me, I've had some powerful experiences, first of all, just tying food to culture as I grew up.

In June, five LGBTQ chefs shared their stories at StoryCourse’s “PrideTable,” a celebration of World Pride and Stonewall 50. Kantor broke down how each course served up a deeper meaning.

For CHAPTER ONE, trans chef Charlie Anderle cooked up oysters, whose fluidity (they naturally change sex during their lifetime) rang true for their understanding of gender identity.

CHAPTER TWO featured a remix of a traditional borscht by by Dima King, who escaped from Moscow after the Russian government enacted anti-gay laws.

My mother is an amazing cook, my grandmother is a great cook. And as a Jew, you come together around food often. This idea of telling stories around food felt in my blood, with Passover and even with Shabbat.

Experiences with travel and food as well just opened my mind and palate to what's possible in the different cultures out there, and how food relates to them. To tie back to Northwestern, actually, I was in THUNK, and when I was there we started the Cape Town Project. I remember the first time we went down to Cape Town, it was my freshman year, we were in a rural area and the locals invited us to share food. It was just delicious, and very powerful — I'd never tasted anything like it, I'd never been anywhere like that.

We were interacting deeply with each other and profoundly, even though we didn't speak each other's language necessarily.

Any all-time favorite meals?

I mean, there's nothing like Jewish soul food.

My grandma making me just a simple nova on challah bread with some cream cheese.

And do you have a favorite thing to cook?

I don't really cook!

Why do you think it’s powerful to bring the dining experience together with these narratives?

So often, food is seen as something kind of secondary. Every day, we are consuming stories without knowing it. We are consuming deep and powerful stories without giving them perhaps the attention that they deserve.

And when we stop and allow food to be the device to experience a deep story underneath it, it makes the act of coming together and eating so much more intentional, communal and vibrant.

What types of stories are you hoping to tell moving forward, whether through StoryCourse or through acting?

I'd say the kind that open people's minds and hearts and perhaps the kinds that leave people somewhat changed. To reframe their sense of empathy. ◊

CHAPTER THREE focused on hearing-impaired Filipino chef Woldy Reyes. For years, Reyes pretended to be fully deaf like his twin brother; when he left for college, he came out as both hearing and gay. Reyes created crepes with a hard shell that cracked open to reveal a colorful, vibrant stew.

In CHAPTER FOUR, Mellissa Santiago served up her cinnamonspiced “voguing chicken wings,” a meal she shares with her community after a night out.

And for CHAPTER FIVE, Martin Boyce designed a “broken glass pudding” to reflect his experience in the original Stonewall riots. The dessert was topped with burnt sugar shards to represent the glass that Boyce said “glittered like diamonds” as the sun rose the next morning.

Source: Matthew Brown

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by grace luxton Content warning: This story discusses mental health and the SAE sexual assault case.

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n “Northwestern Memes for Technically Top Ten Teens” — formerly “Northwestern Memes for Networking Teens” — a Facebook group made for students to post and bond over jokes about NU, there’s always something to talk about.

The group acts as a mirror to Northwestern’s undergraduate culture, having recorded each joke du jour since its founding in March 2017.

Through the common tropes of the meme page, an outsider can catch a glimpse of what it means to be a Northwestern student. (Many prospective students now join meme pages to get a sense of where they want to go to college.) But at what point does reflecting the Northwestern experience through memes turn into the group telling students how to behave? Can a meme page rooted in humor and lightheartedness be partly blamed for reinforcing toxic elements of Northwestern’s culture?

“There was a meme posted that asked, ‘Did you eat today? Did you sleep?’ and then a response that read something like ‘No, that would be against what Northwestern students should do.’ I responded to it,” said Weinberg senior Deborah Shoola, “because people were laughing at it, hearting it, and I thought, this is not normal.”

Shoola, who joined the meme page in its infancy — the group now has nearly 16,000 members — is critical of the insidious messages at the root of some of its popular content.

“There’s always a competition of deprivation at Northwestern,” Shoola said.

“Someone said, ‘I didn’t sleep until 1 a.m.,’ and then someone else said ‘I didn’t sleep at all,’ and that second person is seen as someone doing really well, which isn’t really true all the time.”

Since the page’s founding, members have laughed together about everything from the cockroach infestation of Joy Yee to the yearly migration of Canada Geese. But a

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Graphics by Grace Luxton

few topics have become a constant drone, said Communication senior Julia Tesmond: notably, Northwestern’s work-hard, play-hard culture.

“The memes are all recycled, fifth-use memes that have been around for weeks and weeks, which is decades in meme time,” said Tesmond, former editor-in-chief of campus satirical publication Sherman Ave, “just to perpetuate sayings like ‘haha when you haven’t had a sip of water in 12 days because you’ve been in the library’ next to Pikachu with his mouth open. It’s not particularly funny — it just makes you feel like you should be doing that. If you don’t know any better, especially if you’re a freshman, watching those memes makes you internalize those narratives

whether you believe them or not.”

One trope born from, or at least exacerbated by, the meme page, is interschool rivalry. Jokes often center around ranking majors in terms of difficulty, associating STEM majors with intellect and success while punching down “easier” curricula like those offered in the School of Education and Social Policy and the School of Communication.

“The whole SESP vs. McCormick dialogue that happens every week on there is kind of related to the deprivation culture,” Shoola said. “The idea is that if someone is studying something else they’re not working hard enough. Because they’re not up late all night or they’re eating, so their work isn’t as valued as the people doing those things.”

For seniors like Shoola and Tesmond, the tropes put forth by meme-posters online are not indicative of reality at Northwestern. But in reflecting on their college experiences, they weren’t always so comfortable ignoring the noise. During her freshman year on campus, Tesmond felt immediate pressure to overextend herself.

“Things are going on all the time, so you don’t really have to take a break if you don’t want to,” she said. “Coupled with people telling you that you shouldn’t take a break, it’s really easy to lose sight of the need to take a break, even though in your head you know that it’s true. Even if you don’t believe them, they’re in your head and you’re acting accordingly.”

Psychologists call this the sleeper effect, said Weinberg Prof. Renee Engeln. “You’ll often remember a message but forget the source. If initially it came from an unreliable source, or from a joke, you might forget where you heard that thing but remember it anyway.”

The phenomenon suggests that when students encounter a barrage of messages that tie success at Northwestern to constant stress and over-productivity, they may internalize that lifestyle as the norm on campus — and eventually aspire to it — regardless of where those messages came from.

“We think more people are engaging in negative behaviors than actually are,” Engeln said. “When you keep seeing the stress memes, it can give you a sense that the norm is to feel terrible all the time.”

Though Engeln thinks humor is one of the healthiest ways for students to cope with feeling stressed and overwhelmed, she said it’s important for them not to idealize those negative habits.

Shoola agrees.

“There’s a very fine line between using jokes to cope with your situation and normalizing very unhealthy habits,” Shoola said. “At the end of the

day, the moderators have to distinguish what they consider to be a meme and what they consider to be just forcing narratives on Northwestern students.”

Weinberg junior Evelyn Roth is a member of the five-person team that manages “Northwestern Memes for Technically Top Ten Teens.” In this role, she filters requests for membership into the group, maintains a respectful environment, and, most importantly, accepts or denies memes that students request to publish. Unless a meme request is blatantly hateful or irrelevant, she said, it gets approved.

“We try to help people be more mindful by suggesting posters add trigger warnings or content warnings to their content,” Roth said. “If someone requested to post something alarming in a mental health sense, I would reach out to them, but that’s never happened.”

As a transfer from the University of California, Berkeley, Roth’s previous college experience colored her opinion of Northwestern’s meme page culture. Poor mental health on campus, Roth said, “is not as prominent (at Northwestern), but it’s still an issue. The memes definitely draw attention to it. In some aspects, memes destigmatize it.”

Talking about stress and its effects on mental health can reduce the shame that often surrounds psychological illness. For Shoola, the difference between a meme that helps reduce instead of reinforce stigma is whether the author tries to generalize their experience to the entire student body.

“It comes down to the line between talking about your own experience versus trying to project what you think the Northwestern experience should be,” she said.

For Tesmond, whose list of Northwestern comedy credentials is becoming too long to enumerate, memes are a way for the community to grapple with systemic injustices on campus. Recalling the

sexual assault allegations against Sigma Alpha Epsilon in 2017, Tesmond remembers students’ frustration towards administration feeling “like a collective rallying cry, a catharsis in some ways. Some of the most biting comedy came out of the collective issues Northwestern students felt really passionate about.”

“I always try to satirize whatever is upsetting to me,” Tesmond said. But there’s a caveat: “It’s about attacking the concepts, and not perpetuating them. The implications of your words still exist when you make comedy.

The joke still has a seed of truth to it. You have to be careful about what message you’re ultimately sending to other people.”

Tesmond and Shoola recognize most people who post memes won’t be doing so to change the culture at Northwestern. Perhaps that was never meant to be their role.

If The Daily is a mirror to Northwestern’s culture, “then the meme page would be a funhouse mirror,” Roth said.

“It definitely emphasizes the things that everyone can relate to and that you can draw humor from, but it’s not necessarily going to be a direct reflection of everything,” she added. “Some memes acknowledge stress but don’t give good tools for how to deal with that stress. But I also don’t think people come to the meme page looking for tools.”

If “Northwestern Memes for Technically Top Ten Teens” has a role in promoting toxic elements of Northwestern’s culture, might it be the place to reverse that culture?

Shoola isn’t so sure.

“If people are more open about challenging those narratives, we can have more of a conversation about the culture,” she said.

“That conversation is not going to happen in the meme page.” ◊

2013

High school show choir. Matthew Morrison rapping. Epic musical battles set to the “Wicked” soundtrack. For artsy types and repressed queer kids alike, Glee was the world we dreamed about when we went to sleep every night after rehearsal. We’d laugh at Sue Sylvester’s witty insults, passionately ship Klaine and download the show’s iconic covers onto our iPod nanos.

But the death of Cory Monteith, who played beloved jock-turned-singer Finn Hudson, put a damper on the whimsy. In October 2013, the show released “The Quarterback,” a special episode that came to terms with Finn’s death. The old and new casts’ rendition of “Seasons of Love” was the catharsis we all needed to get over the loss. — AS

After months of counting down, obsessively re-reading, squealing over casting announcements and trailer drops, the day of reckoning has arrived: It’s the premiere of the first “Hunger Games” movie. You and your squad pile into the back of your mom’s minivan on the way to the theater (and on a school night, no less!). Instead of Katniss, you’re all dressed up as Seneca Crane — the villain with the perfectly groomed beard — because you’re quirky like that. You elbow out the other tweens on your quest for the best seats; you shriek when Peeta shows up onscreen in all his white-boy-ofthe-month glory; you lift your three fingers to the sky as the credits roll.

You’ve never felt more alive. — Maddie Burakoff

2012

While a lot of not-so-great stuff has come out of the “viral” media landscape, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a reminder we can use the power of the internet to do some good. The challenge asked participants to dump a bucket of ice water on their heads and film it, pledging to donate money to ALS research and nominating three other people to do the same thing. In the summer of 2014, the challenge went so viral that more than 17 million people showered themselves with frigid water, raising $115 million in the U.S. alone.

Not everything on the internet sucks! — AS

2015

2014

Already riding high off the “Glee” hype wave, theater kids achieved peak power when “Hamilton” barreled into cultural dominance in 2015.

I was an orchestra kid in high school, and therefore theater-adjacent, and happily jumped on the bandwagon. By late senior year, I could rap (“rap”) through most of the soundtrack by memory and spent my lunches plotting a trip to New York with my similarly obsessed friends. In all the hype, I think sometimes we forget a) how revolutionary it was to see an incredibly diverse cast bringing hip-hop to the Broadway stage, a space that’s often only accepted certain people and art forms, and b) that “Hamilton” is just really good. Plus, now I know a lot about the Federalist Papers, so there’s that. — MB

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Source: TNS

we didn’t start th

the decade:

cultural landmarks th

2016

No song since The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” has united all college students in a sweaty frat basement like “Closer” by The Chainsmokers. The intro brings back memories of sweaty freshmen, sticky floors and clumsy dancing. Sounds gross –– but then again isn’t all of freshman year? Do you not remember screaming “Of the mattress that you stole / From your roommate back in Boulder,” even though you’ve never stolen a thing in your life and you most definitely do not go to Boulder? Has there been any other song this decade that brings back such vivid memories of gross, grimy college life like “Closer”? –– CK

2011

It’s 2011. I’m a middle schooler obsessed with Twilight. I’ve read all the books a billion times. I spend all my time with 8,000 other Twilight fans on an online forum, where all we do is design bad merch for the book. I somehow end up becoming a moderator for the group, a big responsibility for a middle schooler, but one I’m willing to take on. I write a long, sappy post about the release of “Breaking Dawn Part 1” on Nov. 18, 2011 –– the beginning of the end. It’s a sentiment I shared with many other fans at the time. We were sad to see the curtains fall on a cultural phenomenon that grew with us throughout our teen years. All I can say is: Team Edward forever. –– Catherine Kim

rt the dumpster fire

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This past decade marks the most volatile years of our lives: puberty. Over the past 10 years, we’ve experienced the embarrassment of middle school, the grind of high school and the absolute chaos of college. Every memory is sprinkled with good YA books, bad fantasy movies and questionable social media trends.

Here’s a collection of the cultural landmarks that defined our 2010s.

rks that defined the 2010s

I didn’t play many video games growing up, but Club Penguin was my religion. Launched in 2005, the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) was a way for users around the world to connect through penguin personas. We threw snowballs, made the strangest pizzas imaginable and even saved the world from an evil polar bear. Occasional memberships let me live like the bourgeoisie for a month, buying outfits and candy-colored igloos to flaunt my temporary wealth. And though I never beat the lighthouse jetpack game or participated in an attempted tipping of the iceberg, Club Penguin was the first time I ever lived on my own. It was chill. — Alex Schwartz

2010

2018

The fangirls were right all along. When hordes of Directioners first started obsessing over Harry Styles during his early boy-band days, “adult” society scoffed at them and, by association, the shaggy-haired object of their affection. But when Styles dropped “Sign of the Times,” even former skeptics treated the operatic rock ballad — and eventually the rest of his self-titled debut album — with a grudging respect. I was never a rabid 1D fan myself, but in 2018, I found myself blasting Harry’s album on repeat, and finally came to understand the girls who spent their middle school years devouring fanfic and buying up merch. Screaming along to “Kiwi” as Styles tore up the stage on his first solo tour was absolutely one of the best concert experiences I’ve ever had. So maybe teen girls have always had good taste, if we’d just stop to listen. — MB

After Harvey Weinstein was accused of predatory sexual behavior, many more people shared their experiences with sexual harassment via #MeToo. It led to the downfall of Weinstein and several other famous and encouraged several states to broaden their harassment protection laws for workers. It also decreased stigma around talking about sexual violence by raising awareness. The movement hasn’t been perfect: progress has lagged for low-income women of color and the LGBTQ community and some survivors have faced repercussions for speaking out. But it’s undeniably changed the way we talk about gender and power, which is a step in the right direction. –– CK

2017

Like many of my fellow millennial-Gen Z cuspies, I downloaded TikTok mostly as a joke, and immediately found myself sucked in by the infinite scroll. Of course, TikTok is home to the ridiculous Vine-like clips that get picked up on other platforms, which are often genuinely creative and hilarious. But there are also whole other thriving subcultures — my own feed is full of adorable animals (including one very tame raccoon), talented artists, world travelers and riverside chefs, among a million other things. I’ve learned the Mariah Carey “Obsessed” dance and the ASL sign for “pumpkin.” So even with all the hours I’ve spent on this app already, I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time. — MB

2019

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Siam Splendour’s pad thai will keep you warm through the winter

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ince Chicagoland has already had half a foot of snow and more than a couple bone-chillingly cold days, it’s clear that winter is here to stay. To get through the next five or so months of constant cold, you need a variety of strategies: vitamin D supplements (gummies only), an endless supply of hand warmers, holiday scented candles from Target and Siam Splendour’s spicy pad thai.

As the days get shorter and the temperatures lower, it’s important to have regular doses of comforting, indulgent meals — Siam Splendour at 1125 Emerson St. provides just that. The Thai restaurant is inconspicuous, tucked in a strip mall on the corner of Emerson Street and Ridge Avenue right by a dog wash, chiropractor and a Pizza Hut. The interior of Siam Splendour is perfectly ordinary, decorated simply and often devoid of a crowd. But you’re not here to sit and eat a meal — you’re here to pick up takeout and devour your noodles in the warm safety of your own home, preferably while watching TV under a mountain of blankets.

Alternatively, take advantage of the fact that Siam Splendour delivers and avoid leaving home altogether.

Ally Mauch/Daily Senior Staffer

I suggest ordering the pad thai, stir fried with whatever level of spice you can handle (mild, medium or hot). Mild is good and has no trace of spiciness, but if you’re looking to really warm up, go with medium or hot.

Sometimes I find myself needing to take breaks between bites of the hot noodles — but they are also extremely flavorful. As an added bonus, the spicy pad thai will clear up that stuffy nose you’ve been suffering with since the temperature first dipped below freezing.

You can find pad thai on almost any pan-Asian menu in Evanston, but Siam Splendour’s version is hands down the best in the area, especially because the addition of spice is not typical of the dish. The combination of hurts-so-good spiciness with the perfect amount of refreshing bean sprouts and crunchy peanuts is made even better by

— by Ally Mauch

the fact that the sizable noodle dish comes in at under $10. If I’m really indulging, I’ll also order Siam Splendour’s Thai iced tea, perfectly creamy and sweet, to supplement my meal and offset the spice.

If pad thai isn’t your thing, the restaurant has a long menu of soups, Thai curries, rice and noodle dishes and much more. The Kuay Tiew Kee Mao (also known as drunken noodles) are very good and provide a similar spicy kick to the pad thai.

So whenever winter gets too overwhelming and you just can’t make another frozen Trader Joe’s meal, order spicy pad thai from Siam Splendour, steal your roommate’s Disney+ password and try not to look at the ice and snow out the window. You might as well just save the restaurant’s number in your phone now — trust me. ◊

Reel Thoughts The final season of “BoJack Horseman” is shaping up to

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by Owe

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be one of the show’s best

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This piece contains spoilers for Season 6 of “BoJack Horseman.”

CW: mental illness

F

ive years ago, Netflix released an animated series about a middle-aged anthropomorphic horse struggling to find meaning in his life after a brief moment of sitcom fame. I can only imagine how persuasive creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg must have been to successfully pitch this concept, which is one of the most absurd TV setups of all time.

That show, of course, is “BoJack Horseman,” and after half a decade on Netflix, it has established itself as one of the most heartfelt and intelligent shows of the 21st century.

Although it centers on a fictional Hollywood populated by cartoon animals, “BoJack” is TV’s most accurate portrayal of loneliness, depression and the dark side of the entertainment industry.

Its combination of clever, laugh-out-loud comedy and genuinely tear-jerking moments makes the series one of the best of all time.

Sadly, “BoJack” is coming to an end. Netflix released the first half of the final season last month and will release the second half in January. But fortunately, the writers are at the top of their game in the first half of Season 6, which is shaping up to be one of the show’s best. The beginning of the final season has everything that caused viewers to fall in love

with “BoJack” in the first place. The comedic moments poke fun at capitalism, Americans’ obsession with celebrities and more, while the darker moments continue to peel back the layers of BoJack’s troubled psyche.

Although BoJack’s character arc is unprecedentedly uplifting for most of the first half ’s eight episodes, the final moment of the last episode is one of the series’ darkest and most powerful.

The supporting characters’ arcs are also excellent. Among other plotlines, Diane starts coming to terms with her depression and Princess Carolyn finds new meaning in life as a single mother. As a result, there’s not a dull moment in the season — all eight episodes are emotionally affecting in one way or another.

And although none of the season’s episodes are series-defining standouts — like Season 5’s “Free Churro,” Season 4’s “Time’s Arrow” and Season 3’s “That’s Too Much, Man!” — they’re consistently entertaining. In other words, while “BoJack” writers aren’t doing anything groundbreaking with the first part of Season 6, they’re sticking to what the show does best.

And when that show is among the best of the century so far, there’s nothing wrong with that.

What truly makes “BoJack” stand out is its portrayal of mental illness, and Season 6 continues that trend. BoJack and Diane both struggle with depression, and the show continues to provide a refreshingly authentic portrayal of their mental health issues. While

both characters are starting to recover, it’s a long, complicated process, and we can see that neither of them will ever be completely “cured.”

For a show whose main character is a horse, “BoJack” is one of the most human shows on TV. Season 6 also explores how society’s treatment of mental illness mixes with celebrity culture. Diane, for instance, receives little support for her depression from anybody except her boyfriend because she’s not a celebrity. However, media outlets are quick to name movie star Mr. Peanutbutter, who doesn’t actually struggle with mental health problems, as “the face of depression” because he feels bad about cheating on his girlfriend. This is a cynical but painfully honest commentary on the negative effects of celebrity culture.

While celebrities get support from millions of adoring fans for problems that don’t really exist, ordinary people often suffer in silence. It’s exactly the sort of profound truth you wouldn’t expect to see in a cartoon about a horse, and that’s “BoJack” at its hilarious, biting prime.

Season 6 of “BoJack” started off on a nearperfect note. With the show ending in a few short months, I’m both dreading and looking forward to January. In a show characterized by rapid ups and downs, it’s impossible to know whether the finale will be heartwarming or tragic. Regardless of the note on which the series ends, Netflix will feel emptier in a post”BoJack” world. ◊

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