Issue 3 Fall 2022

ISSUE THREE COVER ART

Front Cover: Saffron Forsberg

Back Cover: Emerald Goldbaum

Saffron Forsberg and Teagan Hughes Co-Editors-in-Chief

Reggie Goudeau Features Editor

Fionna Farrell Opinions Editor

Raghav Raj Arts and Culture Editor

Julian Crosetto Layout Editor

Isabel

Hardwig Bad Habits Editor

Skye Jalal, Zach Terrillion, Catie Kline, Anna Holshouser-Belden and Max Miller Staff Writers

Maia

Hadler Art Director

Frances McDowell and Molly Chapin Production Assistants

Just Heal Bro: The Importance of Brotherhood and Community

Goudeau Features Editor

TW: Suicide

I attended the recent “Just Heal Bro” Workshop held on November 6th in Obie Xing (Price Hall), and for the most part, I’m pleased with how the event turned out. Before anything else, let me give context to this event and why it was held at Ober lin. The MRC (Multicultural Resource Center) has long been a space meant for supporting POC on campus. Still, the Assistant Dean for Inclusion and Belonging, Chris Donaldson, recently shared an event to support Black men and male-identifying students specifically. This was “Just Heal Bro,” a company made by an African American woman named Hope Allen, who wanted to cultivate a space for Black male-identifying individuals to heal.

Both the tour itself and its name were inspired by the tale of Jay Barnett, a two-time suicide at tempt survivor, current mental health therapist, and former NFL player. Currently, the two travel nationwide to provide advice, support, and other foundational techniques that Black men can use to improve their mental and emotional well-being. While here, Jay Barnett was also joined by Dr. O’shan Gadsden, a specialist in the psychological development of Black masculinity and the psychol ogy department chair at Hampton University.

The programming varies slightly from institution to institution, but here, it was relatively informal and structured like a group discussion with all par ticipants in a circle. While I do appreciate struc tured programming in many instances, I felt that this event being framed as a conversation made it much easier to be open with the other Black male-identifying individuals there. Also, I’m go ing to stick to mentioning the overarching themes and topics that we discussed in that space without details or names out of respect for each attendee’s privacy.

During the first part of the workshop, one of my best friends mentioned homophobia within the Black community and feeling unsafe in many spac

Illustration by Maia Hadler Art Director

Reggie

es that are supposed to be affirming. I was over joyed to see this be met with genuine empathy from other Black queer men there, as well as a desire to understand and do better from the straight Black men present too. Besides that, many present, including me, frequently mentioned an almost unwritten need to succeed without appearing weak or inadequate. This is especially true in many on-campus spaces such as the Science Center or the Conservatory. In these loca tions, there are typically not enough Black students or professors around to make the few in attendance feel welcome. While various parties present talked about these issues in different disciplines, the patterns men tioned still remained true for most of the group. Some of the other common issues for Black men that came up included stereotyping, maintaining an image of mascu linity, and generally maintaining mental wellness in a world where we’re socialized to ignore it.

The only part of this event that felt mishandled was the incorporation of the few (primarily Black) women attendees. Each of them are notable figures on campus that guide many Black students and others, and I was saddened that they could not participate. I understood Mr. Barnett and Dr. Gadsden’s reasoning for asking them to be in a separate room for the duration of the programming. The two even communicated how the last portion of this workshop was supposed to feature them returning to the space for deliberation. Unfor tunately, the female partners there weren’t able to participate because of a lack of communication with the two main presenters.

I do not believe this was intentional, and two facts make me believe this. First, the head presenters and facilitators of that space indicated within the first fif teen minutes of the meeting that both this tour, and the ideas and wellness techniques they promote, should be attributed to the work of Black women. Secondly, Chris Donaldson sent out an email apologizing for this over sight and thanking each individual Black woman and non-man who came out to support the event. Even with these facts in mind, I do still feel bad for the six women there, and hope that they’re able to fully participate in all future programming here. To Ava Brown, Candice Raynor, Darian Gray, Katie Graham, Maya Akinfosile, and Nicole Williams; thank you for coming to support me and other Black people in proximity to manhood. Your work is appreciated, and I hope it continues with more recognition in the future.

Despite that one issue (and the event ending several minutes late when I had a meeting afterward because of Black-people-time), I still thoroughly enjoyed myself there. I felt seen and supported by everyone in atten dance, and was relieved to know that there are Black men, women, and many others here who do want to see students like me succeed. Although it may not seem like it at times, I do want Oberlin to be a safe space for low-income, Black students. The problem is that my many unfavorable experiences here over the years have left me jaded and without much faith in the staff here meant to help me. Through attending this event and hearing others’ stories, I remembered that many of us both face similar issues and have access to overlapping resources to help us (even if they’re imperfect). Ideally, I and those who attended will stay in contact with one another, support each other, and remain connected with the many community partners at Oberlin meant to assist students. Only time will tell if that actually hap pens, but for whatever it’s worth, this was a pretty good start.

A Message from SLAC –It’s Time to Be Real

Brandon Denton and Izzy Sanchez-Foster Contributors

Isn’t it funny that once a day, a $600 mil lion app tells us, “It’s time to Be Real?” Like the other social media apps, BeReal markets to us something we’re desperately craving: real ness. Created in 2020 and popularized in 2022, the app’s messaging seems to be in response to our desire for change. This desire is a natu ral response to experiencing Covid, which has infected us, alienated us and heightened the inequalities of capitalism. More than ever, now is the time to be real… for real.

Our campus’s Covid policies and Student Health services are terrible. After hearing per sonal stories, we have created a form to docu ment student experiences with health issues on campus (available at oberlinslac.org). In the first week, we’ve already received many ex tremely disturbing responses. Seventy-two per cent of respondents say they are not comfortable with current Covid policies. Multiple students have reported sleeping in common rooms or hotels off campus to distance from roommates with COVID. In one instance, a student said that S&S kicked them out of the common room they’d been sleeping in, and they weren’t able to

receive safe, stable housing until their parents got involved.

Another student wrote,“I find it deeply dis turbing that Crisis Counseling is the most reli able service at Student Health right now….This service is only reliable because it literally MUST be for life-and-death reasons -- and forcing that responsibility on workers where there is no reli ability elsewhere is alarmingly careless.”

This behavior is incredibly violent and unac ceptable. By documenting the issue, we hope to hold the school accountable and spread the word about what’s happening here. Not only are these conversations important for making change in the world, but also within ourselves. Realness is a way of living, something that can’t be sold to us by multi-million dollar corporations. To be real, we must engage in serious discussions with one another about the issues affecting our com munity. Realness is honesty, care, and action; realness is survival.

Please fill out and share our survey at oberlinslac.org

Illustration by Julian Crosetto Layout Editor

In Pursuit of Cheap Pizza

Cleveland Pizza Week and the Places It Takes You

Max Miller Staff Writer

Every day of Freshman year of high school, my friends and I would head over to the dollar pizza place on 42nd St in Manhattan. We would get the deal they had for $2.75 - two oily, cheesy slices and a canned soda (Dr. Pepper for moi). We never missed a day, despite clear signs to not go back. One time, another pizza customer inexplicably punched me in the stomach and walked away. We went back the next afternoon. It was an affordable, tasty option for the group. We were loyal until we inevitably decided to switch our patronage to the local deli upon realizing our consistency was detrimen tal to our health (so many breakouts!). Now, I look back on dollar pizza and miss it in a twisted sort of way. There is not much in this world I love more than inexpensive pizza. So, when I found the Facebook posting for Cleveland Pizza Week, where participating locations sold full pizzas for $8 a piece, I was ecstatic. I recruited some equally pizza-loving friends to come adventuring with me and started planning with a particularly enthusiastic friend and opinions writ er for an unnamed inferior rival paper Neva Tayler. We began to pick the pizzas we found to be the most outlandish and started to plan our route.

At around 4:45 on Thursday evening, six of us piled into Neva’s truck and set out for Avon in hopes of getting our hands on a personal-size Pierogi Pizza. After about 30 minutes of driving, we pulled into a small, dark green strip mall. The light was just starting to fade as we parked and made our way into Old School Pizza and Wings, where we were quickly seated at a back table with a plaid tablecloth next to a wall-size mirror. This was our first time sheepishly telling the waiter that we were, in fact, not seated for a full meal but instead, getting one $8 pizza to split among six people. As we waited for the pie, we looked around. It felt like a place that grandparents would take their grandkids, tacky in a cute sort of way. There was a big clock to our left and several old couples on dates surrounding us. It was sweet, wholesome, and classically pizza place-y. Eventually, the pizza came, and we dug in.

It was a transcendent experience. It was truly shocking; I mean no disrespect to Old School Pizza and Wings, but my expectations were not exactly high for an Avon-born pizza made to replicate the taste of potato pierogi. But they saw right through my silly New Yorker preconceptions and absolutely delivered. Somehow, the pizza tasted exactly like pierogi, both texturally and flavor-wise. We all agreed it would be hard to top as we continued on our journey.

Next, we drove alongside Lake Erie to Eat Me! for the “Tree Lovers Pizza,” passing quiet homes prematurely adorned with Christmas lights. The name “Eat Me!” seemingly indicates a funky, silly place that doesn’t take itself too seriously. We did not expect it to be a classy establishment. But, boy, were we wrong! We walked up to the host’s desk, where we were promptly greeted and asked if we had a reservation. The place was dark and mostly empty, aside from a few tables full of patrons clad in business suits and fancy dresses. We were handed the menus, which had several other restaurants’ options on them, effectively making it a swanky food court. Eat Me! was the most silly place to only spend $8. It felt like we were getting away with something. The oval-shaped, haphazardly-sliced pizza arrived. In short, it was ok. The Tree Lovers Pizza was a bit flatbread-y and void of a lot of the promised toppings. (The description on the website promised “sautéed spinach, mushrooms, [and] onions.” See picture for true topping proportions.)

The building we accidentally stepped into was well worth our $8. We exited out of the food court’s side door into a turfed area complete with cornhole, oversized Connect 4, Jenga, and a pong set made out of garbage cans and a volleyball. Oona, Shain and I absolutely dominated both pong and cornhole. In a quick postgame interview with Oona, she stated, “This one made up for its lack of mushrooms with fun games.” The whole place felt like we had walked into a break room for some tech company in Silicon Valley.

After cornhole, we headed into Cleveland for the last leg of our four-pizza voyage. Our third stop was Beerhead Bar & Eatery, the most normal restau rant of our trip. We went for the Street Corn Pizza, which had a queso base and was topped with roasted corn, poblano peppers, pickled onions, cilantro, Cotija cheese, and Cajun-lime crema. It was the majority consensus that this was our second favorite. I especially appreciated the pickled onions, although it is very possible that I just love pickled onions in any context. The place was cute and filled with twenty-somethings grabbing dinner together. It wasn’t particularly noteworthy, but only because it wasn’t as strange as other loca tions. Definitely a solid option.

The last place we went to was a true oddity. We drove over to Mulberry’s to try their 10” Big Baller pizza, which was chosen specifically for the hilarity of the name. We pulled into the parking lot, which was lit by a single floodlight on top of what seemed to be a warehouse, and walked up the stairs to the dimly-lit bar. We quickly noticed an interrogation room-style window directly to the right of the entrance. The window overlooked an indoor volleyball court where league matches took place. Monster Energy banners picturing a shirt less man with sunglasses and a goatee diving for a volleyball hung on the walls of the courts. As we waited for our 10” Big Baller, we watched the games happening beneath us, making up names for the players and getting strangely emotionally invested in the match’s outcomes. We were mesmerized at the idea of a sports bar providing in-building live sports. It was hard to walk away from the window when our pizza arrived.

The 10” Big Baller was a pretty normal pizza compared to the others. It was billed as a pizza with meatballs on it and proved to be exactly that. It was pretty simple bar food, but that was okay; we were not expecting a gourmet meal of some sort. Sure, it was the worst pizza out of the four, but it felt tan gibly real. It was the true opposite of Eat Me!, which felt strangely manufac tured. We had unknowingly stepped into an environment so unbeknownst to us and yet so clearly commonplace to Mulberry’s regulars.

Thus is the beauty of Cleveland Pizza Week. In the pursuit of $8 pizza, we found ourselves in seemingly random places around Northeast Ohio, as if we had thrown a pin at a map and let chance drive us to our destination. On such an insular campus, it can feel daunting to find exciting new places to visit. It’s easy to feel isolated. But, sometimes, if you find yourself deciding on a whim to try the 10” Big Baller purely because it sounds funny, you can fall into a pocket of culture, taking solace in its newness until your next journey into unknown corners of the place you call home.

Big Joanie’s New Album Back Home Encapsulates the Magic of Punk

Catie Kline Staff Writer

Big Joanie has the distinct sound of a band that’s too good to be true. Headed by Stephanie Phillips and her mystical vibrato, with Estella Adeyeri on bass and Chardine Taylor-Stone on drums, the band embodies the goodness of punk. Their first record, 2018’s Sistahs, drew upon the sounds of 90s sista grrrl and grunge while as serting the band’s wholly unique and modern voice. Big Joanie’s sopho more album, Back Home, explores the palpable pain of searching for home and belonging while expanding into a technicolor instrumental palette. Recorded at Hermitage Works Studios in North London and produced and mixed by Margo Broom, the album marks their arrival to Kill Rock Stars, record label home of Sleater-Kinney, Team Dresch, and Bratmobile.

Equipped with deep electronic synths and strings, the opening track “Cactus Tree” is a heart-wrenching lofi dive into sorrow. Among the gothic dissonance of a crunchy electric guitar and the pummeling heartbeat of Taylor-Stone’s drums, Stephanie Phillips unravels the pain of abandon ment. The upbeat smash of “Today” encapsulates the sense of deep des peration that comes with wanting to be loved. Among the muscular driv ing beat, Phillips begs, “Please if you want me to go, if you want me to stay, just let me know/don’t turn this love away.” On “I Will,” Phillips makes the ultimate confession: that she’d stay with her unrequited love no matter what, with Taylor-Stone and Adeyeri echoing her admittance in haunting

Illustration by Maia Hadler Art Director

backing vocals reminiscent of both The Ronettes and Sleater-Kinney.

Back Home embodies the very ethos of Big Joanie, a band that looks down the barrel of our insecurities and dances and stomps alongside them with the knowl edge that pain is what binds us together. What’s more punk than admitting we want to be loved? Big Joanie also embod ies the spirit of punk by working to uplift fellow BIPOC non-men queer artists, fiercely discarding the ugliness in the his tory of punk while embracing the beauti ful potential at its core.

“Confident Man,” a song written in response to Jia Tolentino’s essay “The Story of a Generation in Seven Scams,” criticizes the trope that we must become the image of a confident, capitalist, pow erful straight white con man in order to ‘defeat’ him. Estella Adeyeri works with Girls Rock London, a group that works to empower young women and nonbinary musicians. Phillips and Adeyeri both help run Decolonise Fest — an annual, volun teer-run, non-profit event organized by and for punks of color. Chardine TaylorStone, drummer and author of Sold Out: How Black Feminism Lost Its Soul, told NPR, “I think these kinds of ideas that we had in the past about what punk was were really patriarchal ideas of rebellion. Our thing is about changing that completely to be like, OK, so what is it that we want our society to be like, in truth, not just like a fantasy that looks good on a poster?”

The track “In My Arms,” a grunge-pop earworm on missing your ex, was released with an accompanying music video on the truthful universe Big Joanie works towards in earnest. The video features a heartwarming story of young pure real queer love, where a couple and their tightly-knit friend group dance to Big Joanie at a small show meant solely for them.

This ethos, which shines throughout Back Home, is spirited and comforting all at once, a vision of punk at its warmest and most welcoming. As Chardine Tay lor-Stone said to DIY magazine, “I don’t ever think of us creating a scene around us, but then I sometimes forget we do represent that for a lot of people. When we play shows, we see older Black women in the audience who’ve been into punk for years and it’s almost like, by coming to see us, they’re coming home.”

The Amateurs Are Actually Pretty Great

Zach Terrillion Staff Writer

At the start of the second act of The Amateurs, the recent student-directed effort from the Oberlin Theatre department, the audience seemed prepared for the worst. One of the cast members came out in street clothes, calling for the lights to be turned back on. They wanted to provide some context for the show we had seen so far, supposedly responding to audi ence members dipping out during the intermission. I felt terrible that the cast member had to make such a bizarre announcement; any exit from the space would more likely be attributed to how freaking hot it was in Kander during the show.

Still, the audience became more comfortable as we realized we were in the middle of one hell of a 4th

wall break. The 20-minute-or-so tangent from the main story became a rumination on art and represen tation itself. How does one express agency in their own stories? That the show pulled off this interlude was a telling sign of the production as a whole, as one that asserts its agency the way our faux-playwright talked about.

Ultimately, The Amateurs could not be a worse title for this production, as it seemed to get everything right. Jordan Harrison’s 2018 play centers on a group of kooky actors trekking across medieval Europe for safety from the ongoing plague. They perform various “morality plays” adapted from biblical stories, hoping to receive a safe haven in a royal hall. Premiering at

Illustration by Molly Chapin Production Assistant

the Kander Theater this past week end, the darkly comedic show was directed by student Maeve Hogan ’23.

Hogan’s direction placed her six actors in some bold positions to terrific effect. I especially loved her motif of having the cast pray several times throughout the show, with some strong parallels drawn in their positioning. The staging of the metamorality plays was fun to watch, with chaotic spectacle leading the charge and tons of fun details to notice wherever you looked. The same ap plied to the more intimate scenes, where background actions revealed significant plot developments. The direction demanded your attention throughout.

The sets and costumes were also excellent. They were shabby in a way that charmingly reflected the show’s DIY peasant setting. The wooden visual effects were quaint and gave

some great backstory about our scrappy troupe. A central wooden structure with a forested background reflects the isolated, potentially cruel, yet homely world that the charac ters must live in. The costumes were styled to the period and had the proper dose of theatricality. I espe cially loved the fake beards worn in the production of “Noah’s Ark.” The lighting was also compelling, with single beams capturing characters in their darkest moments and making sure confrontations were as dynamic as possible. The sound design was precise and chilling, setting up a genuinely terrifying and demonic Act One finale.

The actors were all fantastic. Their characters run the gamut from a humble dreamer of a production designer to a domineering director to an elusive psychic. The whole cast understood the assignment, both

theirs and each other’s, which led to a strong group chemistry. No matter the show’s direction, you could be invested because you felt an actual connection to these people. True life was injected into them, also helped by occasionally gnarly make-up jobs. Still, this production’s sheer ambition stood out to me the most. It didn’t just break the 4th wall; it demolished it. During the 2nd act in terlude, the dark comedy we had been viewing evolved into a queer-tinged art history lesson with references to closeted tennis teachers and A Christmas Carol. It would then move back to the plague-era setting in the very next scene. It was a play within a play within a play. In the wrong hands, it probably wouldn’t make a lick of sense. Thankfully, the hands here are graceful. The transitions be tween tones are distinct and allow the audience time to catch their breath.

They were clearly explained thanks to costume changes and chameleonic work from the cast.

From my experience of Ober lin productions, the more content warnings a show has, the more it will likely hit the spot. The house man ager at The Amateurs announced a whopping 11 — the perfect show for kids to watch with their parents (which I did). The sweltering heat in the Kander Black Box was not so much due to the insulation, but more so the raw energy this produc tion exhibited. While the show has unfortunately closed, it exemplified Oberlin’s natural talent on deck. Ultimately, The Amateurs asserted its own agency as a play to remember, refusing to get on the Noah’s Ark of a by-the-numbers work.

Illustration by Emerald Goldbaum

Her Loss, and Ours, Too

The Possibilities Were Endless, The Reality Was Limited

Max Miller Staff Writer

Drake’ and 21 Savage’s collabora tive album Her Loss exists in duali ties; It is simultaneously exciting and disappointing, catchy and irritating, fun and dull, energetic and monoto nous. For the most part, each song is at the very least serviceable. And yet, the album still leaves something to be desired.

My expectations for this album were fairly high. Every time Drake and 21 Savage have collaborated, they have demonstrated their own unique hit making abilities; playing off of each other’s strengths to consistently create highlights on whatever album the collaboration happens to appear on. Drake’s crooning and at times sing-songy delivery and strangely charming corniness matches seam lessly with 21 Savage’s Atlanta-bred deadpan delivery and tongue in cheek lyrics. Creating fun, sonic environ ments that are sure to be played in nighttime car rides and frat parties alike. The combination of the pol ishedness of Drake’s image and the grit with which 21 Savage raps, as well as the pairing of an established music legend with a rising star, has tantalized what seems to be an entire nation. There have been so many glimpses of the potential the two have to create a classic project. It felt like it almost had to be excellent.

And, truth be told, it’s not. It’s ok. This is not to say that the album isn’t enjoyable or that it lacks high lights; there are several fun songs on the project. The hypnotizing Daft Punk interpolation on “Circo Loco” is a personal favorite, and the en ergy on “Pussy & Millions” is end lessly fun. “Jumbotron Shit Poppin” has a bouncy Playboi Carti-inspired charm to it that plays to Drake’s lyri cal strengths. (There is an adlib in “Jumbotron Shit Poppin” that never fails to make me laugh. Drake lets out a high-pitched, staccato, “Bih!” over the lyrics “Brr, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr / Brr, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr.” It’s funny to think about Drake in the studio squealing in the booth.) There is nobody else that can say the things that Drake says and somehow get away with it. “Middle of the Ocean” has several prime examples of this, with lyrics like, “She could be givin’ me head and somehow you not top

pin’ me” and “Feel like an AMBER Alert the way that I can take her to the mall and she find Tiffany / I’m like a cup holder the way that these dimes stick to me.” What other artist

could say that and somehow come away looking endearing?

It’s worth mentioning that 21 Sav age absolutely shines on this proj ect. Lyrically, he is as on his game

as ever. His pen is proven, but his performance on Her Loss displays a continued progression as his career continues its ascent into stardom. Lines like “I don’t show ID at clubs, ‘cause they know that I’m 21,” and, “Two sticks in my hand like I’m playin’ the Wii” are endlessly enter taining. Yes, they make the listener smile, but they are delivered in such a deadpan manner that you can’t help but to don a stank face.

So if Drake and 21 Savage both do well on this project…what’s the problem?

The most glaring is the strange lack of variety throughout the album. There are several songs that share a similar sound primar ily due to everpresent Drake-style trap beats that begin to clog the album the more you listen to it. You can only have so much moody trap with hooks that are effectively only repeated phrases before they begin to wear on the listener.

The issue with Her Loss is that it is so much more of a Drake album than it is a 21 Savage album. Ev erything about it exudes Drake, from the beat selection to the hook styles to the lyrical themes. It is not as collaborative as one might assume. Sure, 21 Savage and Drake are technically sharing the hypo thetical stage. But they don’t exist in the space between their sounds. In short, it is not anything that we haven’t heard before.

Her Loss is good, but not great. It falls short of perhaps unrealisti cally high expectations, and for that, it is disappointing. I know that I will return to it every once in a while, much like the rest of Drake’s discography, nod my head, and fall in love with one song at a time. I am sure that I will grow to love this album in time. I will accept it for what it is. But right now, I am dis appointed in the failure to realize what could have been.

Illustration by Derya Taspinar Contributor

Guys, please be more uncool: Oberlin should be open about its guilty pleasures

Zach Terrillion Staff Writer

What defines a guilty pleasure? According to the ever-reliable Urban Dic tionary, a guilty pleasure is when you “enjoy a type of music or particular pro gram, but you are ashamed to admit you listen/watch it to your friends and family.” It’s a paradox of a phrase. Why do we find shame in something we en joy? Shouldn’t things we love just be called pleasures? Either way, it’s the type of take where disclosing it would get you, at best, a roasting. At Oberlin, guilty pleasures are hard to find. Obies are open about their tastes. Still, a definer of those tastes is how refined they are. I, and I assume a lot of you, wanted to come to Oberlin because it was refined. The students here were “cool AF,” and just soaking in their “vibes” would give one the power to also “be cool.”

I realized Oberlin’s coolness was both alluring and intimidating. In the summer before school started, my first-year class set up an Instagram account for everyone to introduce themselves. It was my first impression of my peers, and it seemed like I’d be arriving on a foreign planet. Folks posted clever memes that had some “liberal artsy” thought put into them. To me, they felt hip and eccentric—something out of a Marxist New Yorker. Meanwhile, I posted a picture of Raini Rodriguez photoshopped onto a Wicked poster. People listed artists I had never even heard of, while I just dropped ABBA as my favorite group. Was I just uncultured?

This experience foreshadows the ultimate culture at our school. College review website Niche polls students from various colleges, including Oberlin. One question asks, “What one word or phrase best describes the typical stu dent at this school?” 15%, the third highest response, found Oberlin’s student body is “so different that they’re all the same.” In other words, many of us may think we’re trying too hard to set ourselves apart.

This is quite noticeable at our school. While all tastes are seemingly valid, students sometimes use their tastes to assert their status rather than their real personality. “Yes, I listen to ‘obscure artist’ with less than a million plays on Spotify, which makes me particularly cool and different.” I have had expe riences where I’ve attended club meetings based on a particular interest. Still, that interest is taken to an elite level to where the club becomes inaccessible, and leaves you isolated in your interest. “You love movies, so let’s discuss French experimental cinema instead of Amazon’s Cinderella” (which one left a greater cinematic mark, I’ll let YOU decide). Of course, this is not the club’s fault but Oberlin is a crunchy school. To be crunchy, one must have a strong bite, a strong edge that only high-brow media tastes can provide.

People often get dragged when talking about their tastes that aren’t exactly high-brow. Yes, I have admitted that I unironically like Twilight. For this, I’ve been attacked, dammit. These attacks are just fun jokes, but there are other times when people’s sillier takes have been harshly criticized for being too weird or “not good.” A friend of mine recently said they had been getting into

The Bachelorette. It’s entertaining for them, but they must justify their view ing around others. “I always just say it’s an interesting sociological experi ment,” they attest.

When Oberlin students admit their pleasures, they always cover them with academic terminology. They’re also sure to preface their confessions with phrases like “unironically” or “ironically” to categorize further what media they consume. People say they like the media, but they look at it with a critical eye. It’s an assignment for a class—a detached, analytical, or cheeky perspec tive rather than an authentic engagement. Just enjoy the thing, man.

Elitism in media taste is intrinsic to Oberlin’s culture, whether we like it

Illustration by Ginger Kohn Contributor

or not. To tear it down, we must be more honest about what we consume. We, as Obies, need to shed our “coolness” for just a little bit and admit to what we are ashamed of. We need to share our truest, guiltiest pleasures. We should also start calling them for what they are. Our “pleasures.” We should let them exist on the same plane, not putting some above or below the brow.

Admitting these guilty pleasures is a tool for community building. Oberlin is such a great place because people are open to anything. Sexualities. Sub cultures. This openness should include tastes. There is a camaraderie from liking the same shitty thing; you form a community out of raw vulnerability. Such an idea counteracts the poll on Niche. Rather than people trying to set themselves apart, we learn to come together. So different in our tastes that we become alike.

My favorite memories at Oberlin are taking excos tuned to everyone’s strange and random hyperfixations, whether trashy YouTuber drama or fan fiction. For me, a guilty pleasure is the television show Glee. It’s one of my favorite shows, ironically or unironically. I aim to teach a Glee exco before I graduate because there is a community of Gleeks here, however closeted it may be. A will to gravitate around something you love that is otherwise uni versally hated. Oberlin could always use more community.

One of my major conduits for shameless likes is a Spotify playlist. It’s titled “Guilty pleasures but I mean it.” Every song on this list is certified hot garbage. Among the “hits,” you find “JAM” by Kim Kardashian, songs from

RuPaul’s Drag Race, the Cash-me-Outside Girl (aka Bhad Bhabie), and Seus sical. Whether I’ve listened to the songs “unironically” or “ironically” is beside the point. I listen to all of them in my free time. I’ve exposed myself here, and it’s relieving. I mentioned this playlist to a friend, and they said they had a similar playlist. A highlight of theirs is “Dolphin on Wheels” by Kill the Noise. With my persona thoroughly discredited, I don’t want people to think they should feel bad about having “elite” tastes. It’s ok to be pretentious! Be proud of it! I am too at points! As cheesy as this sounds, it makes you stand out. However, don’t worry about suppressing some things that make you look “uncool.” Let them coexist. Make space for both. When one embraces the “cool” and “uncool,” one sparks a firework of a personality. I want to meet a person who reads Socialist theory for a beach read while listening to Cupcakke on the radio.

Knowing one’s guilty pleasures, or pleasures in general, may be the best way to understand a person. Someone at their most vulnerable is shed ding the layers to expose the soul’s recesses. On the Niche page referenced earlier, a phrase ranked even higher than “so different they’re all the same” is “quirky.” Oberlin is “weird in the best way possible.” That’s why we come here. Weird doesn’t mean cool. It doesn’t mean guilty, either. Be weird. Be shameless. Admit you listen to Glee in your off-time. Our school will be better because of it.

I Never Had Twitter, But I’m Leaving Twitter Forever

Fionna Farrell Opinions Editor

It’s hard to underestimate the role that Twit ter has played in the average Obie’s lifespan—that is, until now. Despite how revered we are for our social prowess, it’s common fact that it’s very difficult to find real community within our milewide rural idyll. The tragedies of the socially maladapted stretch for less than five blocks, but destroy lives. Every day, a freshmen friend group excommunicates its least-talkative member to the Balkans. A brazen Azzies wave at crush #5/enemy #4/#3 heir to the Belizean throne goes unrecipro cated. Eye contact with a situationship makes for a very uncomfortable Poetry 101 reading. But we are Obies. As Winston Churchill once declared from the Tappan bandstand, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Send tweet.

Yeah, Twitter used to make the time spent within this hellscape just a bit easier on the soul. I should know, because I barely use Twitter, and my happiness has been plateauing for years. But going off general sentiment and what my friends have said, Twitter used to make freaks feel like they (we) might genuinely matter in this cruel world, that stretches far wider than our homely mile. I can’t help but agree—all the in-jokes and competitivelyclever usernames aside, I do genuinely believe that Twitter might have been the objectively greatest social media platform PBR (Pre BeReal).

It was a place where we could be desper ately unwell together. Whereas Instagram feeds on jealousy and spite, Twitter feeds on collective misery. What a beautiful thing! It was a place where the unhinged, the micro-niche, the intrusive and the obtrusive could shape a utopian commu nity together, open to all except trolls, normies, and haters. In this way, Twitter became a bloom

ing agora of intellect and culture, a place where truth was not only found, but created. It’s a shame that anyone would ever take advantage of that by spreading disinformation and hate.

It’s an even greater shame—and much more—when disinformation and hate become (Obie word incoming) normalized. If you haven’t been living under a cyber-rock lately, you’ll know exactly what I’m not-so-subtly referring to; Grimes’s ex-boyfriend-turned-comedian took over Twitter a couple weeks ago, and with it has been vehemently waging war with all of us cancel ing woke moralists. Musk seems to have a vision for Twitter like the internet version of a Cormac McCarthy novel. For those of you who don’t read because you were too busy on Twitter: it’s become a lawless land, old pal. Be careful where you go rid ing your NFT horse.

Just days into his nightmarish reign, the owner of Monopoly Tesla stock tweeted “Comedy is now legal again.” Musk, who shares the honor with Rudy Giuliani as one of the worst SNL hosts ever, clearly has a very liberal interpretation of what counts as “comedy.” A self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” his ostensible defense of civil liberties is a pretty flimsy front for what the billionaire does best—-stroke his own ego with the tenacity of a thirteen-year-old who’s discovered their first chest hair. It comes as no surprise that Musk’s defense of free speech has spawned an upsurge in the noxious “isms” across Twitter; anonymous accounts have materialized from the ether armed with their slurs and fried Nazi memes. Within the first 24 hours of Musk’s takeover—between the 27th and 28th of October—usage of the n-word across the platform increased 500% from the previous average. Other slurs wielded against gay, transgender, and Jewish

people also spiked astronomically across the plat form, despite execs like head of trust and safety Yoel Roth claiming that there had been a reduction of hateful language across the platform. “We’re continuing our work to make Twitter safer every day,” Roth said at the time. He resigned from the company on November tenth.

Roth is just one within Twitter’s mass exodus of employees who previously oversaw departments like security and content modera tion. Adding insult to injury is the fact that, finan cially speaking, Twitter is in the shitter, big time. They are currently running a negative cash flow of several billion dollars, bankruptcy appearing to be a not-unrealistic possibility. In response to these dire fiscal straits, Musk has really cracked down on employees; the half of them that weren’t laid off (including the entire communications department) are now being encouraged to focus on generating revenue as a top priority, as well as “finding and suspending any verified bots/trolls/spam.” Despite the wifi-password names he gives his children, the bots are definitely Musk’s kryptonite.

All of this is to say, Twitter has gener ally become something of a hellscape—and not the good, distracting kind. Us socially-conscious people are now hard-pressed to answer: what is the point of staying on Twitter, if it has become a vehicle for hate and the corporate interests of the 21st-century boogeyman? Why not transition to Mastodon, whose original source code is not only publicly available, but was also named after an cient elephants? It’s very tempting not to reclaim our last morsels of dignity and post “I’m leaving twitter forever.” I was never on Twitter, but I’d be damned if I ever went back.

Yes, you are very, very brave for leaving

Twitter, and you definitely deserve a medal. Like the bird, are you also now free? Bad analogy—birds aren’t real.

Of course, the virtue signaling temptation is extremely powerful. It sometimes claims even our strongest of soldiers. But I find that, during times like these, you must ask yourself whether “leaving” Twitter is a form of rejec tion or complacency—in our limited attention span brains, it is very hard to tell the difference. Consider, though, the evil that exists within Twitter. It was always there, percolating beneath the surface, but Musk’s takeover has only allowed it to manifest free from the obstacles of an incel and bigotry-resistant society.

Anarchy unveils the darkest truths of our world. Under Musk’s new paid subscription laws, a fake Eli Lilly (one of the world’s biggest pharmaceu tical companies) account posted that insulin is now free—as a result, the real Eli Lilly had to clarify that, no, insulin is not free, and their stock plummeted. Now, I’m not saying this is always the best way to get genuine conversations started. But it’s what we have with what we’ve got—and the effects, on some of the largest corporations around the globe—are real and tangible. Musk’s Twit ter has rebranded what we consider to be discourse and brought it to a chaotic new ideal; the solution isn’t to turn away, but to fall in and listen. When the hellscape is open, the demons stand naked. Or something like that. So please, don’t just abandon Twitter like an old friend who’s turned to a lifetime of gambling, drugs, and Twitter. Maybe give her up for Lent. Delete the app for a week and trudge up to Vermont to find your headspace. But, for those of us who have Twitter as much as those who don’t, leaving forever definitely isn’t the way out. Turning Musk’s mercurial logic against itself is—and, to a certain extent, it’s already been working. On its current path, Twitter is out to destroy itself, leaving its nutrients and waste alike for the birds.

You’ve Got Mail (a ton of it): How Substack is Changing the Way we Interact with our Inbox

short they almost don’t exist. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday I feel like a dairy farmer, rising before the sun for my 8am and getting back to my dorm after the sun sets. During these darkened times, all I really want to do is curl up in my bed and watch rom coms and eat chocolate in my pajamas. You’ve Got Mail in particular has been calling my name lately, with its scenes of warm bookstores and New York in the snow. In classic Nora Ephron style, Meg Ryan (local bookstore owner) plays opposite Tom Hanks (evil chain bookstore CEO). In a Shakespearean twist, the two fall in love anonymously via AOL while simultane ously becoming mortal enemies through their in person interactions.

The plot of the movie hinges on the novelty of the email, a technology very different from the ancient telephone, where one could re ceive letters instantly (!!!) right to their desk top computers. The particular excitement Meg and Tom feel upon receiving an email (accom panied by the sing-song notification: “You’ve got mail!”) evokes a particular nostalgia—the

yearbooks at the thrift store or reading about the New York art scene in the ‘80s. Perhaps it’s longing for a time and place you have never experienced and in all likelihood never will. Technology in today’s world no longer invites that same excitement. It has become commonplace, a fact of existence. We tap our watches against card readers to pay for our coffee and regularly send messages that travel hundreds of miles without a second thought. The novelty of technology, specifically the novelty of email correspondence, is something that has faded into obscurity, forever trapped behind layers of cranberry pyrex.

Rather than the heart wrenching excite ment Meg and Tom feel upon receiving a new email, every time I see an email notification I feel my stomach drop into my shoes. I don’t think I’m alone in my apprehension. Email has become a place where all the stressors in our lives converge and accumulate. Email is the place where we are contacted by our em ployers. Email is the place where we receive notifications about upcoming assignments

place where many of us receive our most up to date news coverage, bleak think pieces about the recession (which we evidently are in?) and insane American military spending and recent election results (why so red, Ohio?). Somehow email has transformed from an exciting new frontier of interpersonal connection to a cess pool of the things we dread most, all vying for our limited attention.

But the restructuring of the email newsletter may be able to pull us out of this pit of obliga tion and worry. Rather than the known email marketing newsletters that do little to restruc ture or positively shape our email experience, Substack a (semi-)recent app that invites us ers to write and/or subscribe to email newslet ters, proposes a new way to curate your email inbox to interact with and directly support writers you are actually interested in. The app is notably minimally censored, a factor that has been a source of much controversy among both users and critics. It supports a diverse body of writers from ex-New York Times journalists to uber specific recipe blogs to my

personal favorite self-defined internet princess, Rayne Fisher Quaan. Substack is unique in that it participates in an almost parasitical internet existence. While there is a Substack app you can download on your phone, Substack’s main purpose is to curate the content user’s receive on an entirely different application – in their email inbox. No longer does every email you receive have to come with the caveat “in these unprecedented times.” Your endless emails about Blackboard updates can now be broken up by newsletters from your favorite pro vocateurs and internet sweethearts.

While I still admit to avoiding my academic and professional emails, I have begun to anxiously await new Substack installments filtering into my inbox. They feel novel in a way that technology hasn’t in some time. Though I know that Tal Lavin (The Sword and the Sandwich: Covering far right extremism, sandwiches, and everything in between) and Amy Halloran (Dear Bread: Letters about bread, flour, and people) and Christopher Mooney (Hexagon: In France, there are six sides to every story…) aren’t writing to me directly, there is something personal about receiving an email—an instant letter that has been intricately crafted and sent across hundreds of miles of cyberspace just for you to read. I have started checking my inbox in the same way one might check the mailroom or their front porch when awaiting an expected

package. Substack has transformed my email into something antici pated rather than something routine.

Substack subscriptions follow a trend of new social media that at tempts to move away from the instant gratification older social media relies on to survive. The previous generation—the Snapchats and the Instagrams and the TikTtoks and the Facebooks and the YouTtubes— rely on a constant stream of content to draw their user in. There is always a post to look at or a person to talk to or a video to watch or an opinion to evaluate. Starting with the popularization of quick bites of easily consumed video clips, these sites have coalesced into a singular mass of similar sites, each borrowing popular techniques from one another until they have become almost identical interfaces in slightly different fonts. The sites’ original use as a means of interpersonal con nection seems to have taken a back burner to FOMO that spreads like wildfire and consistent product promotion (for some reason Instagram really wants me to buy a pair of fleece lined—but still chic and sexy-— tights.)

What I am calling the new class of social media-—the Substacks and the BeReals and the BopDrops (the BeReal of music that has not yet gained the same popularity, but for which I am still holding out hope)-—caters to a desire to escape this constant barrage of informa tion and more intentionally consume our media.

Rather than be subjected to the temptation of an ever updating feed, Substack requires the user to wait for updates from their favorite writ ers and submit to limits on their consumption. BeReal and BopDrop limit user interface interac tion to once and twice a day, respectively. Even streaming companies seem to be heading in this same direction. DisneyPlus and HBOMax have both demonstrated a shift away from releasing an entire series at once in favor of weekly install ments that call back to an era, not too long ago, where waiting for a new episode each week was the main form of media consumption.

I’d like to think that this media shift is the result of a larger cultural shift towards slowing down and trimming up our media diet. However, I’m more inclined to think that this development is temporary, a mere indicator of the cyclical nature of trend culture. A new update through the Substack app allows writers to directly con tact their subscribers through a “Chat” feature reminiscent of Instagram DMs or even Twitter threads. While one could argue that this feature only increases the intimacy of the in-app experi ence, it threatens to move the platform’s user ex perience towards that of traditional social media with its constant stream of continually updating content. I worry that this kind of evolution is an indicator that these social medias are soon to be co-opted by advertising companies and cor porate greed that will take them down a similar path as Instagram, Twitter, and even email. I’m interested to see if these apps will stand the test of time or if they too will be forced to bow down to America’s fast media consumption culture. In the meantime, I’ll wait by my computer for that familiar banner notification letting me know that I’ve got mail.

Illustration by Frances McDowell Production Asistant

Who Killed Z-Library?

Saffron Forsberg Editor-in-Chief

On the morning of November 4th, user-be loved book pirating site Z-Library was seized by the FBI. The massive “shadow library” had been up and running, uninterrupted, since 2009, when it began as a simple file-sharing mirror to earlier site Library Genesis or Lib Gen. Soon, though, Z-Library grew to become its own sprawling entity. Where once one could find journal articles and academic texts one could now find, well, anything. At the time of its seizure, the site hosted around 12 million titles.

Predictably, devastated Twitter users com pared its shutdown to the burning of the Li brary of Alexandria. And while Z-Library was far from the only active book-pirating site on the web, its shutdown is startling. During its 13 years of cult success, Z-Library reigned with a comforting sense of untouchable dependabil ity. It was safe and easy to use. It didn’t even really feel like pirating, but more so…tending to the contents of those expensive syllabi every semester. It lived out its days resting warmly, loyally, in your Bookmarks Bar. You could mention it in class in front of a professor with out seeming too sleazy.

Even compared to other popular media pirating sites like 123Movies, Z-Library was a breeze – it was easy to forget any of it was even illegal. And its presence online since the aughts made those raised on the internet nearly take it for granted. It had just…always been there. Oh Z-Library? We all seemed to say. Nah, they wouldn’t take that down. They wouldn’t do that to us. And then, one day, it was all gone.

The thing is, Z-Library was always an il legal pirating site. Its governmental seizure sucks – especially to college students – but it’s impossible to argue that it doesn’t make sense. Those involved in the publishing indus try have seethed about its very existence since its conception. At the same time as it was a beloved and even wholesome resource to so many, Z-Library was a fat and infamous tick on the already sickly animal that was (is) the publishing industry. And while the site might have been permissible as a cute little word-ofmouth trick in the twenty-teens, in the rapid TikTokian age of our year 2022, it was a differ ent phenomenon entirely.

Many of Z-Library’s devastated widow(er) s have decided, in the wake of such lateinternet-age complexity, to single out a pri mary culprit: “BookTok,” which is sort of just what it sounds like…but with some qualifiers. Firstly, BookTok tends not to be as general as,

say, a community platform like Goodreads, which, while primarily hosting readers who enjoy popular contemporary titles, still hosts a relatively diverse user base. Goodreads is not based in content creation – except for maybe the occasional methodically preened review of some Donna Tartt manifesto – but self-doc umentation. BookTok, in contrast, is a usercreated content-creation community. And a pretty new one at that. Because of this, its user base is far less diverse both in identity and in terms of preferred literary genre.

BookTok is led predominantly by young women who enjoy romance and YA novels. Sometimes their content feels very by-the-

books in its literary analysis – something akin to YouTube video essays…which belong to an other thinkpiece entirely – while other times it feels more breathlessly personal. Users are known to document themselves weeping upon reading a particularly poignant romance novel, for instance. Watching BookTok feels like watching young women discuss the joys of reading with other young women. And because of this, their often obsessive meditation on particular authors like Colleen Hoover, Sa mantha Shannon, and Ali Hazelwood, can feel less like that of a dedicated reader fan base and more like predominantly-teen-girl-gov erned fandoms like those belonging to Harry

Illustration by Molly Chapin Production Asistant

Styles or any assortment of Kpop boy bands. Still, though, as we already know, young women are society’s loudest tastemakers. And BookTok is absolutely massive right now. It’s propelled authors out of anonymity and into millionaire status. Colleen Hoover, the com munity’s biggest success story, was a selfpublishing Texas mother before BookTok fell for her. Now she presides over the New York Times Bestseller List.

And it’s not just Hoover. Right now, on the Barnes and Noble website, you can shop spe cifically for titles featured on BookTok. Target, Thrift Books, and Books A Million have their own BookTok offerings, as well. And as Glam our and NPR churn out their own BookTok lis ticles, brick-and-mortar bookstores host dis plays of the week’s most sought-after BookTok titles. What a great time to be a contemporary novelist! Or even that guy who designs the millennial-pink and corporate-smooth cover art that graces every mainstream novel of the past, oh I don’t know, three years! Screw the New Yorker, screw the Times and its critics; BookTok calls the shots. And it’s nearly as viral as that kid who loves corn so much for some reason.

But seriously, BookTok is a good thing… right? It’s a Gen-Z revitalization of the pub lishing industry, getting young people off of Muskian Twitter and Westian Instagram and into the loving, attention-span-reclaiming arms of a paperback (or e-book). So what if BookTok books tend to be mostly corny, trope-driven YA novels or sudsy romance genre-lit? Shouldn’t we just be happy reading has found new mainstream popularity, espe cially on a platform so massive as TikTok?

Well, that’s sort-of the thing: TikTok is massive. Nothing so far-reaching and influ ential as TikTok existed on the internet in 2009, when Z-Library came to be. Telling your friend in middle school that, if they wanted, they could just search up that particular YA tome on this crazy new site instead of buying it in a store, simply did not have the impact that making a TikTok instructing millions of people to do the same does in 2022. Even YouTube looks primitive compared to the supersonic rapidity of trends, the dispersal of information, happening on TikTok Popular TikTok users weren’t only instruct ing their massive BookTok audiences to pirate books, either; they were tagging these videos with “#zlibrary” – making these vast illegal instructions a much bigger problem than they ever were five years ago. These videos were going viral. And they were instructing people who had never before considered pirating to pirate. Any hush-hush subtlety once allotted Z-Library seemed to have been thrown out the window. It has me wondering: do some young people, those online their entire conscious

lives, know that pirating books is illegal? Or did they just think Z-Library was immune to any feasible legal consequence?

In response to #zlibrary becoming a top trending hashtag, TikTok began block ing videos that tagged or mentioned it. But it seems the fire had already spread. Z-Library’s strong 13-year run was cut short in a matter of months. Most blame BookTok – specifically Hoover fans, perhaps the most vocal commu nity of young romance novel enthusiasts on the platform – for the sudden demise of the site.

So let’s return now to this whodunnit. Did BookTok kill Z-Library? Colleen Hoover fans? Colleen Hoover?

Kinda, sorta, but not really.

You and I can grumble all we want about the ridiculousness of BookTok users spreading pirating information for millions of fans on line in a space widely known to be stalked by corporate interests, but in the end, BookTok is merely the most concrete and contemporary example of new cultural phenomena bobbing to the surface. It’s not who killed Z-Library but what. So what did? The massiveness and rapidness of the new web.

It’s not 2009 anymore; the real problem here is the incompatibility of 2009’s Z-Library and 2022’s BookTok. The culprit is a change in culture. BookTok – and its legion of vocal fangirls – is just the easiest figurehead on which to pin such rapid cultural shifts. The internet is simply too massive, too supercon nected and constantly in fluential, to accommodate a large illegal space like Z-Library. Z-Library, on its deathbed, was no longer a hush-hush undergrad cult site, but a widely recog nized illegal space – its existence was continuously hemorrhaging money from the publishing industry. It’s like if we all shoplifted together out in the open and then made videos about it, filming ourselves and sharing our exact loca tions – but on a scale so huge and instantaneous as the web. I wouldn’t expect to get away with that for ever, would you?

But what about 123Mov ies? You may wonder. 123Movies is arguably

more well-known and just as old as Z-Library. It’s right out in the open. And movies and TV are even more sought-after and more eco nomically damning at this cultural moment. Well, to that I say: have you used 123Movies recently? Even despite the malware, porn, and comically aggressive pop-up ads, 123Movies domains are constantly dying and being resur rected. Unlike the once-glorious Z-Library, 123Movies has no central site. That’s why it’s never been user-friendly. It’s completely ungoverned. It lacks the organized and userfriendly generosity of Z-Library – a beautiful anomaly who shalt be missed.

And I guess there’s a chance Z-Library may be unseized and returned to us, The People. But I doubt it. Looking back, it’s incredible it lasted as long as it did. Something like the phenomenon of shadow libraries – and their increased surveillance – definitely speaks to the increased de-Wild-West-ification of the internet. The web is more a corporatized com modity than ever. Z-Library is far front the only casualty here, but still I must say: Rest well, Z-Library (2009 - 2022).

Illustration by Molly Chapin Production Assistant

I’m out sick this week, but want to draw attention to a recent issue within Grape leadership. Stay Horny!

Hangry For Hole: The Ethics of Showing Sphincter in The Centerfold

Dr. Hugh G. Rection Guest Writer

Recently at the Grape, Oberlin College’s alternative student newspaper, there has been a growing move ment to include “hole” in the Grape centerfold. Traditionally used to showcase nude photos of student groups, it has only ever been half naked; no dick, no balls, no vaj, and certainly no butthole. Until recently, this has been shocking enough; it takes unsuspecting readers by surprise and gives ev eryone a good laugh. For some, though, the abrupt boob shot in the middle of the paper is no longer satisfactory; they say it has lost its shock value. Holevocates (hole advo cates) have been hanker ing to see those puckered flowers. “We want more! We want to see your hole!” they preach. But should we really be showing such inti mate details of our anatomy on such a public forum? Are we even allowed to?

Ben Dover, the man spearheading the Hole in The Grape movement, advocates for the uni versal relatability of hole. In a recent statement, he

by Dr. Hugh G. Rection

wrote:

“People have to wake up and realize that hole is the ultimate tool for the democratization of the body. Not everyone has dick, or boob, or vaj - but everyone, EV ERYONE, has a stinky little hole. By showing hole in the Grape centerfold, everybody flipping through it can see themselves represented and think: ‘that person’s hole is bold and beauti ful, and so is mine.’”

It’s a beautiful senti ment, but it doesn’t negate the social im plications of revealing your rosebud in the school paper, let alone the legality of spread ing what some might consider pornographic content around campus. While we all may dream of a world where we can show our holes with pride, that is but a dream. But maybe, just maybe, with enough work and dedication, we can build a world where every Grape centerfold is a magnificent panorama of stink stars.

Illustration

Stock Photos Where It’s Pretty Obvious That One of the Models

Just Died and the Others Are

Try

ing to Pretend Nothing Happened

Flip Ptarmigan Contributor

It must be difficult to be a stock photo model. It’s a lot of pressure to embody emo tions like “surprise,” “disgust,” and “woman in backpack” on command, and that’s not even getting into the pay. What’s even worse is when you’re just getting settled in for a long shoot, and one of your fellow models just keels over. It’s hard to know what you would do in this situation. For every stock photo model who says “we absolutely can not continue this Men Frying Eggs shoot until we get another living man,” there are at least eight or nine who say, “sure! Let’s give this Men Frying Eggs thing a shot. I’m sure nobody will notice.” And until right now, nobody did.

Here are a couple stock photos where I’ve recently noticed that one of the models died just before the picture was taken, and the others are trying to pretend everything’s go ing according to plan.

First, there’s the classic “businessmen around a long table” photo, which has been used on countless billboards and Power Points since its capture. Despite its wide reach, nobody has ever commented on the fact that the third man on the left is no lon ger with us. Many observers might have been fooled by the fact that he seems to be talking to the other businessmen, but when you look closer, you can see that the model next to him is blatantly moving his jaw with one hand.

Another photo like this is the one that’s probably supposed to be a couple having an argument. It’s a little hard to tell, because the woman has been propped against some kitchen cabinets and isn’t moving, but the man seems to be attempting it. In fact, he’s probably arguing extra hard to make up for her lackluster response, but once you con sider that she might have died unexpectedly a few minutes before the photo was taken, it becomes all you can see.

There are several stock photos of funerals and crime scenes. It’s a little harder to figure out who’s alive and who’s dead in these. There’s one where a guy in a police costume is lying facedown on the pavement, and the guy next to him is also lying facedown on the pavement, but he has one eye cracked open and a look on his face like this wasn’t part of the plan and he isn’t sure how to proceed. We’ve all been there, man!

There’s one stock photo of a unicycle marathon that is a lot of fun and that I used

to enjoy looking at 2-3 times a day. Recently, though, I took a closer look and realized that at least five of the racers must have moved on before it was taken. This is most of the people in the picture, and you can tell that the ones left are having a hard time enjoying their pre tend unicycle race. A couple of spare photog raphers are crouched behind the unicycles of the recently-deceased models and are holding their feet on the pedals, but it takes some of the whimsy out of the scene once you notice them.

Again, definitely not every stock photo has a fully-dead model in it and a few others who are trying to pretend that nothing happened. But once you know where to look, you’ll start seeing them everywhere. Regardless of your personal feelings on this issue, it’s good to be aware of these things when you’re making your presentations, memes, and fun email signatures. It can definitely change the mood of an image once you figure out that not all of the models involved are still alive, and the vibe gets weirder when the other mod els are clearly just trying to awkwardly push through. There are still plenty of stock im ages out there, and I wish you all the best in finding them.

Best 2048 Games

The Kid In Front of Me Has Played in Class

Isabel Hardwig Bad Habits Editor

I have never played 2048 myself, and have only the vagu est understanding of how it works, but I only decided to go to college in the hope that somebody’s screen would change color in front of me. Let’s give some recognition to the guy who made it happen.

5. The One Where He Put Two Sixteens Together it’s like, can you even do that????

4. The One Where He Made A Color That Was Yel low, But Not the Same As Some of the Other Yellows He’d Made this was a big deal for both of us, I think

3. The One Where I Thought He Was Going To Get 2048, But It Turned Out He Was Playing Minecraft it’s okay buddy, you’ll get it next time!

2. The One Where Instead of Numbers, It Was Puppies!

The joy of creation is always present, even when it feels unreachable. There issomething in you that is just waiting to delight over something, to make thingsthat are delightful. You can feel it shuddering inside you, like an insect strikingoff its pupa. He has combined two puppies to make a third, incalculably betterpuppy.

1. The One Where He Got 12,000 Somehow nobody really knows what happened here

Illustration by Ginger Kohn Contributor

Best and Worst Mayas At Oberlin

Maya Denkmire Contributor

There are too many Mayas at Oberlin. I am sorry, but it had to be said. There are only so many times I can turn my head during a co-op meal only to be forestalled by another Maya before it be comes a real problem. It’s not just in my co-op either. Every single group project I have done this year has had at least one other Maya in it. And to top it all off, last week my advisor told me she’s going to change her name to Maya to “make herself more relatable to her students”???

In the face of what is frankly a Maya Crisis, I have compiled a list of the top three best Mayas and the top three worst Mayas at Oberlin College so you know which ones are worth your time and which ones you should not bother adding to your Maya repertoire.

Best Mayas:

Maya Who Is Going To Trader Joe’s Later This Week

Now, this is a Maya you freeze-dried-straw berry fiends will want by your side. She totally has room for you to come along if you’re okay with sitting in the trunk on her friend Drew’s lap!

Maya the Ghoul

You might be thinking, “Maya the Ghoul doesn’t even talk! She just moans and sort of squelches through the walls of the Peters basement. Why on earth is she the second most worthy Maya on campus?” Well, that may be true. But what is also true about Maya the Ghoul is that, like all ghouls, she can print for free!! Need to print an obscene number of handouts for your creative writing class? Look no further! Printing quotas simply do not ap ply to ghouls (look it up) and thus Maya the Ghoul is an invaluable companion.

Maya My Therapist Knows At Oberlin

Personally I know nothing about this Maya other than that my therapist casually men tioned knowing another Maya at Oberlin the other day, but I am absolutely certain that they are the best Maya of all.

Worst Mayas:

Maya Who Only Got a 3 On The Kinsey Scale And Is A Little Upset About It

This Maya is grumpy. Maybe her only re lationship was with her long term highschool boyfriend and that is skewing her results a little!! Did you ever think about that, Mr Kin sey?? And where is the question about wheth er or not you lied to your Close Female Friend in fourth grade and told her you couldn’t find the shirt she left at your house when really you knew exactly where it was and kept it and treasured it for years? Does that not warrant a bit more recognition of gayness?? This Maya has a lot of self-reflection to do and will not have time for you.

Maya Who Punched You In The Face

Ouch, that smarts. You do not want to cross Mayas as they can be quite strong and feisty, but it looks like it’s too late for that advice and now you have to reap the consequences.

Maya Who Wants You to Know They Are Too Sober

For The Jellyfish Parade

Some Mayas should be seen and not heard.

Illustration by Maia Hadler Art Director

ative Writing Capstones And This Is What It Wrote

Captain Ruffles Contributor

Between Here, There, and Everywhere : Fragments of Disorganized Heterotopia

*Best read aloud, preferably to your overworked advisor or a STEM major who hates reading*

You aren’t the person you say you are. You aren’t the person you see in your head. The person you craft in the private corners of your own mind. You go to your parties, your classes, your social events, and you are always a shell of the person you crafted in the corners of your consciousness.

You wonder why. Why can’t the person in here - the brilliant, witty, effortlessly charming person in here - why can’t they be out there? Why is it that the ‘me’ in that room, the ‘me’ talking to him, to her, to them, is drafted out of every offhand cliche I ever saw on sitcom reruns?

That’s the pain isn’t it? Witnessing yourself fumble in real-time, wit nessing yourself fuck-up your being in real time as you are both complete ly aware and yet so utterly helpless.

Why? Why these constructions? Con-struction. Con.

Lines, labels, categories, centers, peripheries, provenance. What would a border-less world look like? A world where we aren’t trapped in the dream of the Other. The author is Dead, and we have killed him.

Who’s we? We, two letters, one syllable, a word, a floating signifier of an imagined community.

It isn’t the mere cliche that we are all products of a society. A capital ist society. A racist, sexist, cisgender, heteronormative, ableist, capitalist society. We are torn asunder into fragmented pieces of an inculcated, inef fectual, ideologically bound state apparatus. It is the fact of existence that cannot be overturned. It can’t be overturned. Can’t be overturned. Can’t be. Can’t.

Words are all that stands between us and the next fall of society. Com munication rests on this vague symbolic network of signs. Signs leading nowhere. Signs meaning nothing. Sign-posting oblivion.

Are we merely caught in cycles of our own making? But every repetition, no matter how precise, is not a stagnant action but an opening into a field of multiplicity. A rhizome of radical freedom.

Didn’t anyone ever tell you? Under the corner of the edge of the cliff of despair, lies the boundless brevity of being.

This is the truth. That there is none. Between 1 and 0 lies Infinity.

1+1= 2… but maybe not…

This is the founding myth, the pure ideology, the con-struction of capitalism.

End.

Illustration by Saffron Forsberg