Presents:
10/10
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What is
Loco Mag? Loco Mag is an independent, online magazine that aims to showcase the ideas and talents of young adults in the Philadelphia region. We focus on culture and lifestyle relevant to students, emerging creatives and new professionals and emphasize this perspective in our tone and content. Loco Mag aims to cover a broad range of subjects, including the arts, offcampus social events, entertainment, travel, and political news. Our main goal is to bring a publication to this campus that will not only work to connect students to one another, but with the world around us. We want to learn your stories and hear your opinions, whether that is through writing or photo journalism- we want to broadcast you. Loco Mag is completely independent and we pride ourselves on showcasing writer’s honest, unfiltered voices. We are uncensored and open to hearing fresh perspectives.
www.locomag.com
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About the gallery
We've set up this gallery to proudly showcase 10 years of Loco Mag's work. A decade of fantastic articles, hard-working editors, and competent leaders have compelled the team this semester to create a tangible representation of this work. Each part of the gallery represents an era of the magazine, headed by editors in chief who worked so hard to help produce the content you are seeing. Whether it be pizza party events, selling ice cream, creating print editions, and more, Loco has a long history of working together to make things happen. We hope you can recognize our dedication and enjoy our exhibition today.
Meet the Staff Executive Staff
Danita
Julie
Editor-in-Chief
Editor-in-Chief
Belle
Ryan
Social media manager
Copy Editor
Bella
Scribe
Writers Ethan
Jewel
Eve
Lauren
Gabby
Luke
Jake
Scrap
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Check us out on LinkedIn!
www.linkedin.com/company/locomag
Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, Starting out with new editors-in-chief and almost an entirely new staff this school year was really daunting. In addition to learning how the magazine worked and improving upon it, we put out issue after issue and planned events to promote the magazine. From pizza parties to a gallery to a reunion, we’ve never stopped working hard to make Loco even better than it was in times past. With great excitement and pride, I present to you this print edition, which showcases all of the work we’ve done this year, and we see as a reminder that no matter what’s thrown at us, we can do great things. See you in the fall, Danita Mapes Co-editor in chief
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Pandemic Phrases BY: Gabby
In these unprecedented times, I am begging companies and institutions across the country to stop using these “Pandemic Phrases.” In every email, headline, or speech I’ve stumbled upon, there’s always three key phrases that are being repeated ad nauseum. One such phrase, “In these unprecedented times” sticks out rather spectacularly, as it’s been used everywhere from official Arcadia emails, to government PSAs, to even presidential speeches delivered by both Trump and Biden. The main reason this phrase irks me so much is simply due to the fact that it’s incorrect! Unprecedented, according to the Merrimack-Webster dictionary, means “not done or experienced before” and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is certainly not the first pandemic the U.S. or the world has expeerienced, nor will it be the last. Let’s rewind the clocks a bit and
visit 1918 real quick. A lot is happening this year. The First World War is coming to an end, America’s wartime production has skyrocketed our economy, and people are getting sick! Wait, people are getting sick, you say? That’s right! People are reporting increasing cases of a new flu that is steadily creeping its way across the globe and being in no way particular about who it infects. This global flu, or the Spanish flu/influenza, was up until very recently known as the most severe pandemic in modern history. (This flu is also what Edward Cullen, the vampiric main character of the Twilight series, was suffering from prior to him being turned into a vampire.) Anyways, the importance of me mentioning this prior pandemic is to highlight the fact that what we’re going through now isn’t unprecedented, in fact, there’s an incredible amount of precedent! Up next in the top three pandemic phrases I am sick and tired of hearing comes phrase number two, “The new normal.” I cannot recall the first time I heard this phrase, but I do remember that it was early on in the pandemic and I was naively
hoping for it. However, now almost two years into the pandemic, it causes such a visceral reaction in me that I wanna take these three words and throw them into a blender until they’re nothing but mangled shreds. My main issue with “The new normal” is that it feels dismissive and insincere, as it is both impossible and inadvisable to return to the “normal” that we once knew pre-pandemic. The reason I say this is because the pandemic has brought so many issues to the forefront of the public’s attention. Be it the issues in our medical infrastructure, the importance of mental health, media misinformation, public cleanliness, the treatment of essential workers, and countless other aspects. With all of these issues brought forward, it’s vital that we give them the attention they deserve and try to address them, rather than just ignoring them and hoping they go away on their own. This is why when I hear people push for “The new normal” I can’t help but roll my eyes at the sheer absurdity and improbability of it. The third and final pandemic
phrase I have had enough of is the call for “An abundance of caution” which I think is rather redundant and was taken a bit too literally by some people. In regards to it being redundant, I think the wording conveys that people aren’t being cautious, and thus, need to ramp it up. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, per se, but it falls a bit flat when everyone I know and myself have been minding Covid precautions. In regards to people taking the call of “An abundance of caution” too literally, I would like to harken back to the beginning of the pandemic when people were stockpiling and hoarding toilet paper, sanitizer, and other such materials. This is the biggest reason as to why this phrase bothers me so much simply because it conjures up unpleasant memories of empty shelves and crazy shoppers. All in all, I know there are many things the pandemic has brought about: the good, the bad, and the crazy. However, I would love it if people could stop overusing these pandemic phrases and let us know some peace.
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“I miss summer” By: Bella Tullio
According to Google’s English dictionary, the term broken record refers to “a person’s constant and annoying repetition of a particular statement or opinion”. When our theme for this issue was chosen, I tried to think of phrases that I myself say often or even things that I hear others say a lot. Personally, I am not the most opinionated person. I love listening when others have super intense opinions, but I’m not one of those people who have such strong beliefs, on just about everything, that no one, no matter what they say or who they are, can change their perspective. However, something I do have a strong opinion on is that summer is the greatest season and the beach is one of the best places on earth. And this is one of, if not the only opinion of mine that no one can change. I
will constantly complain about how much I miss summer, especially this time of year when it is freezing cold and the sun sets at 5pm making me miserable and depressed. And I will never turn down an opportunity to rant about how much I love summer and the beach every time it is mentioned. Those that know me well would probably say that my biggest personality trait is loving the beach, especially considering that my dorm room last year was beach themed. And I wouldn’t take this as an insult or even disagree. I am very proud of my love for the beach and summer season and I think this is because it is a very commonly shared opinion. And I think the reasons why so many people love the beach and summer are very commonly shared as well. The beach brings relaxation and peace —unless of course you are a mom and bring your complaining children who require all of your attention every single second and constantly need to be doing something or else they will be even more annoying. For me, sitting by the ocean in a beach chair with my feet in the sand and the sun shining is the one of the things that brings me
the most joy and the best feeling of ease. During the school year, I am often stressed out with academic obligations which I hate. But summer symbolizes the end of the school year. School is something that I have always cared a lot about and I have put a lot of pressure on myself to get good grades. I love not having to worry about this in the summer. Going to the beach is something that I have always done in the summer. I live only 45 minutes away from the beach, in New Jersey. My Grandma also lives down the shore, which gives me the convenience of not having to worry about driving home or finding a place to stay if I want to (which I always do) stay down for a few days. The beach brings me a sense of familiarity, bringing me back to memories of going on walks with my grandma collecting sea shells, or playing mini golf with my family, which I think is another reason I (and many others) enjoy it so much. Although going to the actual sand and ocean beach is my favorite part, going to the beach doesn’t have to just mean going to sit in the sand and stare at the ocean for hours. There are
countless activities to do at the beach. Parasailing, surfing, fishing, playing games like Kan Jam, getting ice cream on the boardwalk, going on amusement rides, going to the arcade, mini golfing, and shopping at surf shops are just some of the things you can do at most beach towns, proving there is something for everyone. My dad hates the beach for the sole reason that he hates the feeling of sand, but he loves seafood and fishing so he always comes along on family trips, even if he doesn’t go to the actual beach. These are probably the biggest reasons why I have such a deep rooted love for the beach and summer and why I think so many other people do too. There are a few others that I wanted to include that may not be so obvious or commonly thought of, but that still make the experience of going that much better for me. Personally, I love the feeling of sunshine and I just laying down and tanning on the beach. Seeing that I have become tanner, automatically boosts my mood and makes me feel 100x more confident. I swear that food just tastes better at the beach. Eating boardwalk pizza or a hoagie and chips
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can only ever get at the beach. Lastly, sunrises and sunsets at the beach are beautiful and always worth seeing. Summer please come sooner :)
Sunrise in Brigantine, NJ at 5:34 am
Say You’re Sorry BY: Jewel
Earlier this week I went out to breakfast with my dad. You don’t know my dad, of course. But if you did, you would know that he has done quite a few things worth saying sorry for. You would also know that I’ve spent a good portion of my life being upset about it (rightfully so, to some extent). We could’ve easily never spoken again, and probably would have if the situation called for it. But somehow we ended up here, having an awkward but not unpleasant conversation over waffles. Forgiveness is such a difficult topic. Not only is it hard to deal with but also to talk about. People try to sugarcoat it and beat it into a box with phrases like “forgive and forget!”. I hate this phrase by the way. It grossly oversimplifies the way we experience interpersonal conflicts. Not only are there an infinite
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number of ways in which somebody can be wronged in any kind of relationship, but there are also an infinite number of ways to respond to that pain depending on the situation. Deciding how to respond to being hurt by someone is hard, especially when you love them. It becomes far more complicated than simply letting someone go, or just forgetting about it. Can I forgive this person? Are there actions that are unforgivable? Can I continue this relationship without disrespecting myself? What if I can’t just ‘forget’ about this thing that someone did to me? And even after you figure all that out: Where do we stand now? This is hard because there isn’t really a clear cut answer for anything, but I do have some thoughts. There are a lot of ways to define the word ‘forgiveness’. When I was younger, I always heard people say that “forgiveness is for yourself ”, and I still like to think about it that way today. It’s a personal thing, an act that will benefit you as opposed to anybody else. When I was a little kid, we even had this index
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50 card taped to our fridge that had a Nelson Mandela Quote on it: “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies”. My mom put it up there to remind my brother and I not to waste too much time hating other people. It isn’t always easy to not resent people, that’s for sure, and I definitely don’t think anyone’s resentment should go unvalidated. Sob into that pillow. Blast that rage-filled breakup song. Vent to that friend. Spew your anger and pain through poems or journals. Feel your feelings and all, of course, but then make a decision about just how much of your life you’d like to spend being angry about it. For some people, that ends up being their whole life. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be like that.
That stings for everybody. I guess there are rare situations where ‘forgive and forget’ does somehow work; both parties put the bad behind them and things are exactly the way they were before. There are also times when people most definitely should not continue to be in contact with someone who hurt them and is going to continue to hurt them. In between both of those, however, is this weird gray area of trying to fix a relationship that has been cracked. I’ve been in this situation an unfortunate number of times (As everyone probably will be throughout their lives, on both sides of the apology), and while I don’t know everything, I do know two things for sure:
The process of reconciliation usually starts with an apology and a question—that awkward (and sometimes unspoken) ‘is everything okay again?’ or ‘are we good?’.
First — Apologies are important! Being able to acknowledge that something you’ve done has truly hurt someone else goes a long way. Being able to not only acknowledge your mistakes, but sincerely do better can also significantly impact whether or not an apology is accepted (and the relationship continues).
Sometimes the answer is just no.
Second — The Merriam-Web
So you’ve made it through that step of the process. What next?
ster definition of ‘reconcile’ is “to restore to harmony; to resolve”. But resolving a conflict doesn’t necessarily mean returning to the way things were before, or could have been. This is probably how it should be. (See above about apologies. I mean if you’re trying to rewind time and act like something never happened, are you actually acknowledging the pain that was caused?) Maybe your version of reconciling with someone is deciding that you’re both better off going your separate ways, and that’s okay. Maybe you do end up making amends and continuing to build a stronger relationship from there. That’s okay too. Earlier this week I had breakfast with my dad because, after undergoing the awful process of deciding not to torture myself anymore by resenting him, I decided that I did still want him in my life. We ate together and took some time to catch up in between periods of hesitant silence. This isn’t quite the same relationship we had before, or could have otherwise had. It’s something new, and that’s okay.
“...resolving a conflict doesn’t necessarily mean returning to the way things were before, or could have been.”
Featured Image by mark tulin on Unsplash
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Here We Go Again: The Ice Age Franchise Won’t Die By Belle
Let’s take a look back for a moment, shall we? In 2002, a beautiful family film about a mammoth, sloth, and saber-tooth tiger delivering a baby back to its family was released. The animation wasn’t incredible, but the story and characters were so fun and full of heart. Almost everyone who has seen it looks back on it fondly, remembering the beautiful story of three outcasts bonding and finding family in each other while they brought this baby back home. Four years later, a sequel came out adding a few more characters to the family dynamic. It felt disconnected
disconnected and not as genuine as the first, but it isn’t a bad movie. It’s still sweet and fun. A third movie would come out in 2009, a fourth in 2012, and a fifth in 2016. They got progressively worse and worse, the third being not totally awful and the fifth being absolutely absurd. There was even a short film about the little squirrel Scrat in 2006 but no one gives a shit about that. In my freshman year of college, a little over two years ago, I was tasked with watching all of them and writing about it. So I did. And that was the end of it. Badda bing badda boom. I can go on with my life. WRONG!!! Disney fucking hates me apparently! The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild was released as a Disney+ exclusive movie on January 28, 2022. This dead horse has been beaten to hell and back, but apparently it must suffer an eternal punishment. Buck Wild was the tour guide around the dinosaur world and feral friend to the herd (the name of the main group of animals in Ice Age) in the third movie Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. He was an
eccentric character and an entertaining addition to the movie. But after that movie, he wasn’t really in either of the other movies apart from brief moments in the 2016 movie. As it would seem, NONE of the original cast wanted to do a sixth movie. The only voice actor seemingly willing to reprise his role was Simon Pegg, voice actor of Buck. So, Disney thinks, why not recast the entire main cast, make Crash and Eddie— the two most annoying characters—the center of attention, go back to the dinosaur world, and make another movie! Also, they decided to close down Blue Sky Studios, the original animators of the Ice Age franchise, as the movie was being made! Also, Disney lost a legal battle with Scrat’s original creator Ivy Silberstein and can no longer use this character that they stole in the first place! Shoutout Ivy Silberstein, by the way, glad you got the rights to the little guy taken away from the big guys who took him. This movie was doomed from the start. So of course, I watched it. And somehow, it was worse than the last movie.
The animation did NOT look finished. Occasionally it looked fine, but for a majority of the entire movie it seemed so rushed and like some steps in the process were skipped entirely. It was slapped together by some poor animators who probably had no choice but to rush. I felt like I was watching the making of The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild. Like the story I wrote in middle school that I stopped writing because I was afraid my mom would read it and saw that I wrote about kissing, this movie was unfinished and likely never will be. Crash and Eddie are so fucking annoying, dude. Oh my god I never liked them. Until the end, UNTIL THE VERY END, their existence as the protagonists was ENTIRELY pointless. They wandered into the dinosaur world to gain independence, run into Buck, and are dragged along in his adventures of ending mammal discrimination as they sit back and do jack shit. If anything, they make things worse for him. They spend their screen time (that isn’t spent causing Buck and Z—Buck’s female weasel companion who surprisingly doesn’t look like
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50 she was given weasel boobs— problems) they are discussing ways they can potentially improve and develop as characters but immediately ditching them or making things even worse in their attempts to. They dance around potential character development until the very end where they go “Oh right! We’re leaving to be more independent! Almost forgot!”. They are the main characters but the story is not ever about them. I do not give a shit about these twin ferret-shaped possums. Stop putting them on my screen. The villain was so boring. Just a dinosaur who was bullied for his big ass brain that protrudes out of his own head. By the way, I would also bully him. That’s not where your brain goes. It goes inside your skull, dumbass. He takes his anger out on mammals who I don’t think were even the only animals bullying him. I think the dinosaurs were equally as awful to him. Why does he want to discriminate against the mammals when the dinosaurs were equally as bad? Did mammals have like anything to do with this? Did I watch this movie wrong? His motives were so boring and he was so annoy-
ing. I hate nerds too so I think that didn’t help. God, I fucking love bullying nerds haha get in the locker, idiot. The backstory between Z and Buck wasn’t explored enough. They were supposed to have tension because of the rest of their superhero group being dead or whatever. But they spent no time on it. Their fighting felt like I was watching the most boring high school couples shit talking each other on social media. I didn’t ask to be roped into it and I honestly don’t know a lot of what’s going on and it’s not interesting enough for me to care. Another thing to point out is that so many characters that were important in the two previous films were not even remotely mentioned in this movie. Diego got a tiger girlfriend with titties in the fourth movie who appeared in the fifth movie. Manny and Peaches had a baby in the third movie who got married in the fifth movie. Peaches, Peaches’s malewife, and titty tiger were not even spoken of. Did they do something? Are they dead? Did they commit some heinous crime that even Diego cannot stomach?
“God, I fucking love bullying nerds haha get in the locker, idiot.”
I would take the absurd clusterfuck that is Ice Age: Collision Course over the adventures of Butt Wild any day (that’s a funny joke about Buck that was somehow never in any of the movies he was in. Clearly I am a better writer). This was a boring mess of gags that ran on for too long and half developed plots and characters.How did we get here? How did a beautiful, simple story about family and finding yourself turn into a movie that just felt like a poorly written Ice Age fanfic adapted to film? You know what, it’s worse than that. My friends and I went to see if Ice Age fanfiction did exist because it was funny and somehow the bullshit we found was better than this. I am so filled with rage over this story progression. I want to sob in front of the writers. I want them to know my wrath and feel my sorrow. This is the darkest timeline. Ice Age wasn’t meant to be like this. Leave now, I am in mourning. I’m done writing, I’m booking an appointment with my therapist and unpack the utter shit this movie has taken on my brain.
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BEER
BY: Julie
I figured, if I was going to try this, I should make sure I’m doing it right. I wanted to give the experience a fighting chance. Before going into the research, here are my stipulations:
If you’re as chronically online as me, you may have seen the recent conversation surrounding “shower beer.” It’s taken off recently, and has it’s own twitter hashtag and Phoebe Bridgers lyric mention:
“Scott Street” Lyrics on Genius
It is, in fact, exactly what it sounds like. Drinking a beer in the shower. There’s an entire subreddit dedicated to it (warning for some NSFW shots), and there are even beers made to be drunk in the shower. I’ll admit that I was skeptical. I’m no stranger to a glass of wine or a rum and coke in the bath, but the schematics of an open container in the bathtub is a lot different than an open container under running water.
I was only going to use beer we had in the house. I wasn’t taking a trip to the liquor store in the middle of a pandemic to buy some overpriced IPA. Our options were slightly out-of-code Sam Adams or Budweiser. No hour-long showers or dramatic changes to my shower routine. A lot of articles described the shower beer as a time-saving situation, and I’m not keen on wasting water. The science behind a shower beer is that both showers and drinking alcohol activate the pleasure centers in your brain, so combining the two things is a two-hit time-saving combo. Plus, who doesn’t like a cold beer when they’re hot? Huffpost has an article with tips, a few of which I had to disregard (notably, finish the beer in the shower and don’t drink out of a glass container. Whoops!) Despite the advice, I had a lot of
concerns. Watery beer was one of them, especially since I don’t have a shelf in my shower to keep the bottle above the spray. I had to balance it on the side of the tub and pray. The other concern was the underlying fear of the bottle slipping out of my hand and ending up with broken glass at the bottom of my shower. While I was in the shower I also discovered that my Sam Adams Summer Ale actually stopped being fresh in November of 2020. Whoops. Once I figured out I could put the bottle beside my shampoo bottle without water pouring into it, the experience got a lot less stressful, and the fear of glass would be eliminated by drinking out of a can instead. And there I was, standing in a hot shower, questioning the decisions I’d made that led me to cautiously eyeing up an open container to make sure it didn’t end up with shampoo in it. Honestly? It was better than I’d expected. I thought that the beer would
warm up pretty quickly from the humidity, but it stayed cool the entire time. It was a little bit like drinking a cold beer on a hot day, but if it were also raining incredibly hot water and you were naked. There were a few downsides, one being that I don’t take long enough showers to drink an entire beer (that, or I don’t drink beer fast enough to finish it in the shower), so I only finished half of the beer by the time I’d finished showering. That being said, it was, at the very least, a change, which is something I’ve been desperately hankering for after nearly a year of living through Groundhog Day. So whether drinking a beer in the shower actually elevates the experience of drinking a beer, or if drinking a beer in the shower elevates the experience of taking a shower, I’m not sure. But it was nice to do something different for once. So I vote: go for it. Even if you hate it, change can be good.
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Spider-Man: My Way Home
By: Ryan Being “good” is a relative term. Sure, I might have a good day or feel good once I make it to the weekend. But am I really “good” overall? I don’t know. I don’t even know if I know what that means. I’ve definitely felt worse, but I feel like I’ve felt better too. I don’t know if this is a side effect of pandemic amnesia or maybe there’s just really no answer when it comes to questions like this. Who knows? What I do know is that I wouldn’t have gotten this far and been able to say “I’m good” without certain “comfort media” that helped me to make it through nearly 21 years (including the last two years of hell). Many things come to mind:
comfort movies of mine, like Corpse Bride or My Neighbor Totoro, or some shows like Adventure Time or Regular Show. Sometimes comfort is found in music, and I’ll listen to Mac Miller for hours on end until I feel “good” again. There are plenty of things that have brought me comfort over the years, and I love them all for their help. However, there is one that stands out above the rest: The 1967 Spider-Man cartoon. Spider-Man first premiered on September 9th, 1967 and it’s last episode aired
on June 14th, 1970. It was originally created by Stan Lee himself and starred Paul Soles as the voice of Peter Parker and Spider-Man, and Paul Kligman as J. Jonah Jameson. The cartoon only ran for three seasons, but it was incredibly successful at the time, helping to pave the way for hundreds of other superhero cartoons to follow. This was also the cartoon that unveiled one of the most iconic theme songs of all time. My dad used to sing the song to me instead of a bedtime story when I was very young, and I still remember every word. Check it out below: Lucky for me, these cartoons ended up being pretty popular and I was still able to watch
them when I was a kid just over 30 years later. I’m honestly a bit surprised that mine still work after all this time, especially with how much use they have gotten over the years. Every single time I was home sick from school as a kid, I would get out my set of DVDs and put Spider-Man on the TV. This never really went away I guess, because no matter how many days I missed over my 12 years of public schooling, I always went back and watched the same 6 volumes (52 episodes in total) of that show. As the world changed, or at least the way I saw the world, so too did my need for my comfort show. I grew up, as much as I didn’t want to. Those days playing outside until the sun went down became all I could see from my window while I pushed myself further into adulthood. The youthful bliss of not knowing the world we live in is killing itself by the hour eventually faded away to
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50 reveal the horrifying truth. I began placing the weight of the world on my shoulders, piece by piece, until it was unbearable. And then my best friend, my Nanny, passed away. And then I left everything I knew behind and went to college. And then I had a brutal breakup that I still haven’t recovered from. And then we had a slew of global crises in 2020. And then we had more in 2021. And now we’re on the cusp of World War III. It’s been a hell of a run recently. I’m amazed every time I take a second to see how far I’ve made it, all things considered. I’m not a positive person. In fact I’m quite the opposite, and all of these continuous crises have really led me to believe the end of the world is lurking around every corner. These hopeful thoughts come with many days where getting out of bed feels insurmountable, and on those
days I need comfort. It’s not always easy to find comfort in our current world, and it’s even harder to ask for help to find some. So, I’ve looked elsewhere for it. Thankfully, I didn’t have to look far because while I might’ve grown out of sick days, but I never grew out of Spider-Man. The show isn’t anything extraordinary. It’s about what you’d expect from a cheesy cartoon from the late 60s, but there’s something endearing about how dated it feels. I think that a part of me enjoys this simpler version of the hero more than our current cinematic version of him. Plus, it’s just simpler. There aren’t any alien invasions or time travel scenarios or a multiverse, it’s just the good old friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. There are also scenes where Spider-Man is swinging through the city, and the same shot is reused over and over again with a new background slapped on it. Check it out:
The onesie was a bit big for a 3 year old Ryan.
The animators probably drew it once and thought no one would notice, but we did. I’m okay with that. Does it look goofy? Sure! But it was something that was probably crazy for the time. Both the thought of how far things have come and not needing to pay attention to every frame of the show is comforting to me.
Things change over time, that’s always going to be true. However, not everything changes. No matter how hard things might get, there will always be something to provide comfort. That could be a show, like in my case, or it could be any combination of other things that serve as a reminder of better days or hope for a warmer future. It’s been a shitty few years, but thanks to my family and of course our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, I finally think I’m “good”. Featured image credited to Marjan Blan via Unsplash.
However, what really does the trick are the memories. Sometimes it’s just nice for me to listen to the theme song or the bad voice acting with my eyes closed, as I go back to those days as a kid in my Spider-Man zip-up onesie and slippers (pictured below). I can’t go back physically, but I can still grab some of those feelings through the memories.
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Defining Good Vibes By: Jake
Everybody’s heard some iteration of the phrase “good vibes” right? Whether it be at a party, hanging out with friends, or in an Instagram post, this phrase has taken over social media as well as the way in which we describe the things we like in recent years. This popularity begs the question: where did the phrase “good vibes” come from and why is it used so much? Good vibes developed as a phrase from the saying “good (or positive) vibrations”. The neurology behind this phenom-
enon comes from the idea that everything is made up of energy that is able to vibrate depending on its surroundings. When the energy of an environment vibrates in a certain way, as a result of the people and objects in a space and their individual energies, it creates the feelings that we all experience as vibes or vibrations. Now, depending on the energy being expressed or the environment created by said energy, different feelings may arise. These energies can often be thought of as a spectrum between good and bad vibes,
also referred to as positive and negative energy. The things that cause people’s feelings of “good vibes” can actually have deeply personal meanings, depending on what energy or environment makes them happy. Introverts may find intimate and generally cozy environments to have good vibes, whereas extroverts may find social settings or louder, more crowded spaces to have good vibes. It truly depends on who you are as a person and what you value. Some things that might give off good vibes to the masses could be experiences such as hanging out with friends, shopping, and going on vacation, but these vibrations could also be found in environmental factors such as soft lighting, quiet music playing, or the smell of cookies baking. Essentially, anything that makes you feel happy is something that gives off good vibes. It’s interesting to see a phrase that has such personal meanings to each and every person, become so popular across all social media platforms as a blanket term for something fun somebody did. It’s inevi-
table now that on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat you’ll see posts or stories of someone getting together with their friends captioned with some variation of good vibes. This inescapable social phrase has also made its way onto the shelves of big box stores nationwide donning anything from a t-shirt to a throw pillow, and even cheap neon signs. It’s truly not that the phrase “good vibes” is particularly annoying nor is the concept behind it of creating an environment that one feels perfectly happy and at home in. However the way in which the general public is consuming the idea of good vibes en masse as just a quirky saying is what I feel the public is taking advantage of in their thoughtless use of good vibes. Sources: https://jaydearchives. com/2019/09/what-good-vibesreally-means/ https://www.neurologylive.com/ view/how-real-are-vibes-goodand-bad
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