Issue 3 Spring 2023

Vol. 69 NO. 3

OBERLIN’S ALTERNATIVE STUDENT NEWSPAPER EST. 1999 MARCH 17, 2023

ISSUE THREE COVER ART Front Cover: Julian Crosetto Back Cover: Maia Hadler

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

Raghav Raj Arts and Culture Editor

Julian Crosetto Layout Editor

Reggie Goudeau Features Editor

Isabel Hardwig Bad Habits Editor

Maia Hadler Art Director

Fionna Farrell Opinions Editor

Skye Jalal, Zach Terrillion, Ollie Axelrod, Ellen Efstathiou, and Max Miller Staff Writers

Frances McDowell and Molly Chapin Production Assistants

Hello all— Happy spring break!! Or, if this reaches you once it’s already over, I hope it was fun & restorative. I will, unfortunately, be spending the first part of my spring break weighing my options for the future (a huge stressor, among many other stressors). I’ve been hugely busy—a good busy, but busy nonetheless—and I am looking forward to a mostly obligation-free break. I am, as always, grateful for all the wonderful ways I get to spend my time; among them, Good Talk, the Acapelicans, and, of course, The Grape. This issue’s a super exciting one for us. Thank you for checking it out, and we hope you enjoy it. If you want to get involved, shoot us an email at thegrape@oberlin.edu.

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The Big One: Behind-the-Scenes of this year’s Big Parade Zach Terrillion Staff Writer At the end of next month, a great tradition comes rolling around Tappan Square—the Big Parade. Last year’s featured waves of community organizations, performance groups, and regular townsfolk and students rode in food-themed floats and costumes. It was a moment of unity. A meeting between Oberlin the College and Oberlin the town in a way we don’t always see. It was a culmination of months of work by student and community organizers, who facilitated the construction of elaborate costumes, floats, puppets, and more. This year, the Big Parade plans to go even bigger.

The event was founded in 2001 by two community members, Donna Coleman and Claudio Orso, who remain involved with the Parade every spring. Coleman and Orso are local artists who lead workshops with residents to construct the event’s elaborate designs.

The Parade started in the Oberlin community, only later merging with the college to become a student organization. This mixed origin connects to a broader mission to “...create a space for creative collaboration and celebratory spirit by bringing together Oberlin students and Oberlin community members.”

Seniors Mayu Evans, June Thoren, and Audrey Burkey inherited the club this year, thrown into the process as some of the first leaders post-COVID. They started planning right with the start of the Fall semester, taking inventory of supplies and laying out expectations for the future. A key focus was brainstorming for the year’s theme, with “under the sea” eventually being selected for 2023. According to Evans, “Most themes get picked on what would make a good main float.” This year’s trademark creation is a giant shipwreck. The Parade also tends to be a rain-or-shine event: “If it does end up raining, it will work with the theme.”

According to the club leaders, Big Parade depends primarily on the work of its community partners: “The parade just wouldn’t happen without them.” The group plans a workshop with local creators for each fall and spring semester. This semester will feature artist Sharon Henry, who specializes in multimedia and crochet. It is an opportunity for Oberlin artists to showcase their work and foster community connections. Town organizer Laura Dahle has been involved with the event since its 2001 start and often brings in community members who the leaders haven’t even

Photo by Mayu Evans

spoken with. This long-standing work maintains the club’s institutional memory, even as student members depart every few years. To the three leaders, it shows the value of community members. “Students’ main interactions with the town have to do with coffee or food.

The Parade is a chance to spotlight different members of the town,” Evans declares.

There is some nervous excitement heading into the Parade. It’s an intricate process that requires reserving Tappan Square, coordinating between community partners, and more. The leaders say they’ll likely be standing by until the day of the Parade. “It’s a bit of a fingers-crossed moment,” according to Evans. Still, the group remains confident about this edition. A particularly exciting addition this year is a live band set to perform during the post-fair activities. “I think it will make the celebration that much more festive,” Burkey says.

The club will also collaborate with local businesses like Watson’s Hardware and Black River Cafe (which plans to install a wine tent). Kendal will return with its annual “lawn chair brigade.” The organization will use supplies from Ginko’s, relying upon local art shops as

much as possible. Some planned floats include a giant paper-mache crab designed by June and Mayu and a clamshell for a costumed mermaid to sit on. They also hope to collaborate with organizations like WOBC and O-Steel, emphasizing Oberlin’s distinct college-town synergy.

“Everyone is just excited for the chance to celebrate,” according to Thoren. Community members who have seen the Parade since the start of the century will be ready to come again—a true tradition. The organization feels very confident about its future: “There are so many people who are so passionate. The Parade’s definitely gonna continue.”

Starting after Spring Break, the club will begin hosting open build days at its build space near 247 W. Lorain Street. Any organization or club can come by and work on its very own aquatic-themed float. On April 13th at 6 PM, the club will hold an event at The Feve restaurant to commemorate the celebratory season.

The big day will be on April 29th; the actual Parade will start at noon and go until 1 PM. A big celebration will kick off in Tappan from 1 to 4—there’ll be hot dogs, popcorn, and maybe even a cotton candy machine.

March 17, 2023

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At Oberlin, Professional Tattooing Happens in Dorm Rooms Sadie Wilson-Voss Contributor

Photo from @__doomscroll

Self-made tattoo artists Yoyo and Brooklyn are proving that anywhere you can fit a bench, you can tattoo. This idea foreshadows the success of their independent business model, which is radical, accessible, and portable. And it works.

It’s Yoyo and Brooklyn’s flexibility that established their popularity at Oberlin, a campus with a vibrant tattoo culture. Instead of going to the local shop Trustworthy Tattoo, Oberlin students are increasingly opting for tattoos from these independent artists. I interviewed Yoyo and Brooklyn to learn how they’re overshadowing regular parlors in popularity.

Yoyo, a college student, invited me to talk in a dorm room. It’s one of many places he uses to tattoo customers. Sitting next to them is Brooklyn, a Cincinnati-based artist, who’s crashing at Yoyo’s for the collaboration they planned together. Sharing their spaces with one another allows them to travel with ease for customers in different cities and is an essential part of their DIY business.

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Photo courtesy of Brooklyn

“I feel like the community aspect of our DIY community is so much more than any other artist group because everyone’s so willing to share all the resources they have,” said Yoyo, explaining how they often pool resources with mutual DIY artists they’ve met online.

Brooklyn and Yoyo originally met virtually too, and are building a network of shared spaces to work from and sleep in when they travel to tattoo. This process often involves meeting customers halfway in cities around the Midwest, which is not normal.

Most tattoo artists have residencies in tattoo shops and infrequently travel to reach customers.

But in the Midwest, where artists and shops are separated by great distances, Yoyo’s self-taught practice relies on an unconventional setup. He’s transformed a dorm room into a well-decorated stop for traveling DIY tattoo artists and customers. Yoyo adds that Brooklyn has influenced their approach to sharing space for tattooing and that “Brooklyn cares a lot about location accessibility.” Accord-

ing to Yoyo, that’s really important for customers.

“They’ve tattooed people from Indiana that come to Columbus to tattoo, and then work it out so I can come to Columbus and meet in the middle.”

Brooklyn and Yoyo’s awareness of space stretches past travel barriers. Yoyo contacts their customers beforehand to ask what kind of lighting should be in the room, whether they want to converse during the session, and invites them to describe any other needs they might have.

One anonymous customer said that “I never saw anything like what Yoyo offered, and [Yoyo’s space] made me feel so much better about the tattoo I got.

They considered everything I might have needed.”

It’s no wonder that Yoyo and Brooklyn’s selling point is so strong. Many people getting tattooed don’t feel welcome to speak up about their needs.

Yoyo recalls his frustration about that environment; not knowing it’s ok to need a break, that you’re supposed to eat beforehand, that the music playing is stressful or too loud. All of these things can ruin an

experience for someone, and can contribute to people feeling that they’re just not cut out for the culture.

According to Yoyo, people feel more comfortable in DIY shops because of their attention to comfort, which is a crucial aspect of their business’ success. “It’s such a stark difference between a traditional walk-in shop vs a DIY shop, and it’s super inspiring to be in that space,” he said.

According to him, artists working in DIY shops are more attuned to issues of autonomy and comfort. This is because they’ve been subject to overstepped boundaries or uncomfortable assumptions that ruined their experience in traditional shops.

“My first machine tattoo was at a random shop in Springfield, Massachusetts, run by these older white punk guys,” Yoyo said. “He tattooed me so hard that I fainted seven minutes into the tattoo. It was my first machine tattoo, so I had no idea what the experience should’ve been like. Thankfully I had a friend with me, but he told my friend that ‘If I were a man, he would’ve just slapped me awake.’” Yoyo added, “Asking for breaks while getting tattooed is such a normal thing, but traditional tattoo guys won’t let you know that’s an option or make time for that.”

Brooklyn talked about how feeling uncomfortable in regular shops is normal because of toxic masculinity, especially related to bodily autonomy and personal comfort. They summarized the cultural issue with an experience they had with a traditional artist: “He told me once you get a tattoo by him, that means to him he has full consent to do whatever he needs to do to your body, like force it and move it in any way he needs.”

And the unorthodox space they’ve created directly combats the objectification of customers that so often sours the experience. By viewing “I have this sort of script that I follow when someone first steps into my room before they come to get their tattoo,” Yoyo says. They bring up a lot, such as making sure customers are well-rested, know to dress comfortably and bring food if they want. “I’ll ask if there’s anything they need beforehand. I’ll ask about skin allergies and pain tolerance, and always offer numbing cream and numbing sprays free of charge. If it’s their first tattoo. I ask if there’s anything they want to know beforehand. While I’m placing a stencil, I take time to make sure they love where it’s at. We go through aftercare carefully, asking consent if it’s okay for me to photograph them. I’m always fine with nudity when I tattoo, but I’ve made people pasties from paper towels if they want that. I just try to check in and make sure they have everything they need.”

You can book with Yoyo and Brooklyn through their Instagram handles, @__ doomscroll and @endless__adornments, respectively.

Photo from @endless__adornments,

Photo from @__doomscroll

Photo from @__doomscroll

March 17, 2023

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Bikes of Oberlin (And the People Who Own Them) Maya Denkmire Contributor Now that it’s getting warmer, it feels like there are more bikes than people on this campus sometimes. Whether they are resting beneath a tarp behind the Bike Co-op, lined up and gleaming in front of Mudd, or weaving wildly around pedestrians on a crowded sidewalk, bikes are a staple of Oberlin’s community. Seeing all of these bikes around got me thinking about the special connection one can have with their bike. What kind of stories do the bikes of Oberlin hold? In this piece, I’d like to introduce you to some of them!

Maya Miller’s bike runs in their family. When I asked them if their bike had a story, they leaned closer to me as if imparting a great secret.

Maya: My bike was my grandmother’s; my grandmother who I never met because she died before I was born. Before she got sick, she rode on it all the way across the country with my grandfather. Then my grandfather kept it in his garage for forty years. When I was going to college I was like “I think I might want a bike at Oberlin,” and he was like [here, Maya put on a gruff voice, reminiscent of a fairytale troll] “I have one for you!’ He brought it out, we fixed it up together, and I put it on the roof of my car and we drove it to Oberlin from Connecticut.

It was in the middle of a Keep meal that Ilana McNamara approached me to ask if I was still looking for stories about peoples’ bikes. When I told her that I absolutely was, we ventured off into a quieter corner to talk. They commented that the interview felt very official, and made sure to state their name and our location before beginning their tale.

Ilana: When I was a first year, which was before Covid, I was like oh, I want a bike. I live in J-House, I wanna be able to bike. So I was like oh I’m gonna check

out this thing called the Bike Co-op, that sounds fun. So I came to the basement of Keep, crazy, and I was just talking to the people that were involved in the Bike Co-op; I was like so what’s the deal, what do you guys do? And they were like “we rent bikes! You can also build your own bike.” I was like what’s…what is that.

How would I build my own bike? And the person that was helping me was like oh, well, actually, I can just show you right now, you wanna see? And I was like sure, I guess…and so we went back into the depths of the Bike Co-op, all the way back here where we’re sitting on top of, but underneath. They were just kinda rummaging around and they were like “and sometimes…” they were talking to me, and whatever, “and sometimes you find, like, a whole bike basically already made for you, like…THIS!” And there was this kid’s red bike and basically the only issue was that it didn’t have a seat, so we just put a seat on it and then they were like okay, you made your own bike!

‘Cause we just found it in the back of all of these dead bike parts. And so I got a bike, basically. And the chain was awful, like it would crank every single time I pedaled. . .I felt like I was gonna fall off.

But it worked!

Lili Clarke’s bike story, told to me as we both walked to class, details the trials and tribulations but mostly rewards that come from the journey of trying to obtain a bike from the Greater Oberlin Area.

Lili: Okay, so I was on Craigslist searching far and wide for a bike under 200 dollars, basically, and by far and wide I mean in Lorain County. Or Cuyahoga county. And I came across this bike. It was 130 bucks or something and it had a basket, a water bottle holder, all that. All the bells and whistles! But then

Illustration by Frances McDowell Production Assistant

I was like wait…I don’t want to meet a random man by myself, so I brought resident man of Keep Cottage, Avi Moses, to Cleveland to go get my bike. And we kind of just pulled up to this random Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot and the guy gave me the bike.

I had been trying to track down June Curtis for quite a few days to interview her about her bike’s story because I had heard it was an excellent one. When I finally did, she was sprawled on the floor of the Keep lounge, her legs kicking in the air above her.

June: So the story about my bike… is that…[giggles] well, I left it outside Warner one time and I went in to do my dance class and I got back and it was

gone, because I left it unlocked. The one time I left it unlocked, someone stole it!

And I was like okay, well, guess I don’t have a bike anymore. Two months later, I find it, outside Decafe. . . locked up!

With my lock! So someone knew my combination, or someone like, ‘cause I left my lock unlocked, they knew what combination it was and they had been riding it around. so I was like that’s mine now! I took it back to Keep. A week later, it’s gone again! I find it outside Mudd, locked up. I bring it back to Keep. Another week later, someone took it again!

I found it outside Mudd again! And I was like alright now, this is getting really silly, and I said to myself I have to change the lock. But I haven’t done it yet.

iFunny: The Land of Anti-Woke Warriors Dude Dudunsparce Contributor Social media is very prominent in today’s society.

So much information—and so many people’s opinions—can be easily accessed through it. This can be very good, but also very dangerous depending on how it’s used. This brings me to an app called iFunny. Many have heard of it, or even had the app while in middle school. For those who don’t know, iFunny is a mobile social media app meant for sharing memes.

The main content of the app is memes (or other things) that are placed in the “featured” section. All

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of the posts that don’t get taken down are put into the collective. Here, one can see a variety of things, from pictures of people’s pets to long diatribes about a user’s opinion on something. Similar to Instagram, everything must be a picture. One of the things that makes iFunny different from other social media is that there is very little pushing people to follow each other. Users can follow specific accounts and talk to people privately or in chats, but this is a minor part of the app.

I have had the app for over 4 years, and have seen the main demographic that uses it. Most users are between the ages of 16-25 (even though the app is

18+), and there are fewer users as age increases. It is mainly used by men, specifically straight white men from the United States. There is also a focus on Christianity in many of the posts, leading me to believe that the app has a large Christian population. This means that the majority of the opinions on this app come from a demographic that does not experience the hate and struggles that POC, queer, or other marginalized groups face.

Additionally, there is a strong right-leaning political affiliation on iFunny, which is notably different from the arguably left-leaning politics on other mainstream social media apps. All of these factors

combine to make the app a dangerous place full of conversations regarding straight white male supremacy and hate against minority groups.

Mixed in with the cute puppy videos and popular meme formats is propaganda against anything not included in the app’s main demographic.

The most common things featured in this category are queer—especially trans—hate, misogyny, and fatphobia. Many people on iFunny like posts about how trans people should not exist, or about how women are, in some way or another, inferior to men. These posts can be “boosted” in likes, so more people see them by spending money. There are also featured posts containing racism—mainly against black people—xenophobia, and antisemitism. While these posts are not the majority of the app’s content, they are still harmful and influence how people think about others. Since many of those using the app are younger, their opinions can be more easily persuaded by posts like these.

While the posts are harmful, the real problem is the comment sections.

Comments on hateful posts and even regular posts consist of people arguing the agenda of straight white men. Posts that simply include black people or someone who is overweight have commenters saying the nword or saying that someone is ugly for being “too dark” or being bigger. Commenters trying to counter these arguments usually get downvoted until their replies are taken down. This creates an echo chamber of ideas revolving around white supremacy, homophobia, and misogyny. I have seen comments saying that all queer people should be killed or that women shouldn’t have rights, and far too many will respond positively to them. These comments will have hundreds of likes, if not over a thousand. The worst part about it is that these people are completely serious.

I have seen entire accounts based on stories of black people committing crimes, or of scandals involving the LGBT community just to push their own ideas of how other people are. The combination of posts like these and the comments that come with them create a dangerous environment full of hateful ideas.

It’s obvious that iFunny is an app full of terrible things, so why do I still use it? The reason is that I feel it’s important to have a look at what people like this think. It’s impossible to form arguments against behavior and thinking like this if we don’t understand where these people are coming from. In their own fucked up way, they think that what they are doing is best for their community. Being able to combat these ideas leads to more learning than just yelling about what we feel is right. I have been able to help people in homophobic communities come out and help people on the borderline of believing in propaganda turn towards less hateful ideas. This doesn’t work with most people, but helping anyone who needs it is worth it to me. I also think having more people with differing opinions on the app forces people to think about something besides the usual white supremacy they are used to seeing. To make a change in this community, we need to speak up and not let users get away with echoing straight white male supremacist ideas.

Illustration by Emerald Goldbaum Contributor

The Load-Bearing Short Stories of WOBC Ellen Efstathiou Staff Writer

Illustration by Emerald Goldbaum Contributor

The Computer Science and Creative Writing departments do not have much in common. One involves a lot of math and data and the other involves hiding your emotions inside characters that definitely don’t have anything to do with you. Needless to say, there isn’t a lot of overlap.

Although, Computer Science isn’t as removed from the arts as it might seem.

According to the Oberlin website, Computer Science has the most double degree students in the college, so there is clearly some connection between Computer Science and the arts. The TIMARA department is a perfect example of this. Even outside of Oberlin, there are video games, graphic design, and many other fields that combine the two mediums—including something I found on the WOBC website.

The other day, I was on the WOBC website curious if the online streaming happened to be working yet. I went to the “Recorded Shows” link. At the top

of the list of recorded shows there’s a link that’s labeled “Parent Directory.”

I thought to myself, “Huh, I wonder what’s under that link,” and clicked on it. What I found was a bunch of other links to various interactive short stories.

The page is labeled “Index of /~jmeltzer” and from what I’ve been able to find through the short stories and from googling, the short stories belong to Julian Meltzer. He graduated from Oberlin in 2018 with majors in Creative Writing and Computer Science. He was also the Operations Manager at WOBC from 2017 to 2018, which is how I assume the WOBC website and these short stories ended up just a few clicks away from each other.

There are a few things that all the stories have in common. They are all about family and complicated relationships with family members. They are also all presented in fragments, though there is some variation in how the fragments are shown. Some of the stories will show you everything in chronological order no matter where you click. For example, All the Fish have Died shows dialogue one line at a time on opposite sides of the page to indicate different speakers.

Another story, Reincarnation, shows a different paragraph depending on which word you click on. I still haven’t figured out how all the paragraphs fit together for this one. Then there’s We Were Sirens. This story took me a while to figure out how to read. It flashes between three different stories and scrolls sideways instead of down. If you pause while scrolling for too long, the story changes.

All the Creative Writing classes that I’ve taken at Oberlin have emphasized being experimental with your work. This can mean being experimental with what you’re telling a story about, the form that your story takes, or how the story is presented. This sentiment is emphasized so much that the class I’m taking this semester, Experiments in Narrative Fiction, hasn’t felt that different from other Creative Writing classes I’ve taken. It’s just more overt in this class than others.

The short stories that I found through WOBC are a great example of being experimental in your Creative Writing.

They’re also a great example of Creative Writing and Computer Science being used together, and go to show that science and the arts are not as far away as they sometimes seem.

March 17, 2023

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Kali Uchis Confuses Me The Highs and Lows of New Album, Red Moon In Venus Max Miller Staff Writer At her best, Kali Uchis is intoxicating. Her crooning over slower soulful drum pads and subdued bassy synth chords is breathtaking at times. The Virginia native’s airy vocals give the feeling that she is telling the listener a secret story not to be heard by passerby. Uchis seems to float on top of her wonderfully crafted instrumentals, like some sort of mystic goddess of air.

She sounds as though she is on a cloud, whispering to the listener about the trials and tribulations of her love life. At her worst, though, Kali Uchis will leave you scratching your head in confusion.

This is the story of Uchis’ latest album, Red Moon In Venus. It is good enough to fall in love with. Uchis sticks to her strengths for the most part, providing her signature light vocals over steady, relaxed instrumentals. The 28-year-old has developed her own sort of vintage sound, pairing old themes with new. There are certainly moments on this album where this sound feels seamless and wellpolished. On “I Wish you Roses,” the first single on the album, Uchis is in her prime. The shimmering chords, repeated lyrical motifs, harmonies, and simple, catchy lyrics makes the song one of her best. “I Wish you Roses” shows Uchis’ strong suits perfectly. It is clean, polished, well-produced, and vaguely nostalgic. Many of this comes from the matching of spacy keys with drums that resemble rhythm and blues tracks from the 1960s. These qualities are featured throughout the album (especially on cuts like “Love Between…” and “Moral Conscience”), making it

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not only easy, but fun to listen to.

And yet, along with everything that makes this album awesome, there are several moments that will have the listener slightly dazed. For example, the moaning in the outro of “Como Te Quiero Yo” is so uncomfortable to listen to. It feels so unnecessary. (This is a pointless observation, but artists moaning in a top-level recording studio is a funny image to me.) Also, the rap on “Hasta Cuando” is so forced and awkward, particularly the lines, “At the end of the day, she’d eat my pussy if I let her / At the end of the day, she’d trade lives with me if God let her.” The spoken outro does not do “Hasta Cuando” any favors, with Uchis saying, “Everybody hates me / Please, don’t ask me about no old shit, peace.” It comes off incredibly corny. Overall, the album explores themes of heartbreak, true love, and sexual encounters in a seemingly haphazard order. It feels like a collection of songs rather than a cohesive body of work.

Red Moon In Venus has its highlights and its lowlights. There are parts that shine. But, in general, the album plays without the listener really noticing.

Each song has a way of blending into the next, not intentionally, but because they all have similar lyrical themes and sonic profiles. It sort of passes you by as you go about your day. It’s an album you can put on and half-listen to while folding laundry or cleaning your dorm room. It’s pretty good, serviceable at worst, but not great necessarily. It’s not particularly exciting by any means.

It’s just kinda… solid.

Illustration by Julian Crosetto Layout Editor

Young Nudy’s Gumbo: Fresh and Full of Flavor Reggie Goudeau Features Editor

Illustration by Julian Crosetto Layout Editor

East-Atlanta rapper Quantavious Tavario Thomas, more commonly known as Young Nudy, has been on an upward trajectory for both his career and music quality in recent years. Very fittingly, Gumbo is a perfect mix of the many ingredients that make for a pleasant Nudy track. He’s well-known for his songs with food-related titles being bangers, such as “Loaded Baked Potato” and “Hot Wings.” This album is no different, featuring verses with nothing but momentum, excellent instrumentals, and spare but well-placed features. Even the cover art is fitting, featuring a snake on a table with various foods referencing the project’s tracks (and, of course, a gun). These portions all combine to make a fine meal for any trap music fan. I’m unsure of when he started cultivating his recipes, but Chef Nudy is undoubtedly cooking.

The project begins with a healthy addition to the mix of flavors here in the form of the track “Brussel Sprout.” It featured a technique typical in Nudy’s discography where his vocals are pitched down. The track has a laid-back vibe, while Nudy still rides the beat effortlessly. Like many of the following songs, it features his usual lyrics about gangbanging and getting money. Verse two notably had a more playful flow, and one of Nudy’s moments where he takes a break from rapping to talk shit over the beat. I understand that this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I like the almost slam-poetry energy that comes with it.

The second track, “Pancake,” had a low-key hook that was still effective, and it felt like Nudy announcing his plans of robbery and debauchery to his gang.

Meanwhile, “Pot Roast” is the first certified banger of the project. The hook, Pierre Bourne’s instrumental, and Key Glock’s stellar performance each work together. Key Glock also made me laugh when he said the line, “Short lil thick bitch my little pony.” I’ve been enjoying a fair amount of Glock’s newest album, Glockoma 2, so maybe that’ll get a review before the end of the year.

By the time I was listening to “M.R.E,” which had a beat that made me feel like I was in outer space, I processed the incriminating nature of Nudy’s lyrics.

I can only hope that he’s being mindful as Atlanta’s rap scene continues to suffer from the loss of Young Thug to the slammer. This concern aside, though, I’m absolutely here for how nice his scenarios of drive-bys and other various crimes

are to listen to.

While I can’t review every track individually, I guarantee that there wasn’t a weak link among them upon my many listens to this. “Peaches and Eggplants” was another classic collaboration between Young Nudy and his cousin, 21 Savage. Hearing it made me once again question why they do not have a collab tape out yet, especially given their pre-existing relationship. Regardless, it was also one of many moments on this project where Nudy perfectly utilized onomatopoeia. Here, it turned a hook entirely composed of gun sounds into something compelling. Even the songs I wasn’t crazy about initially, like “Portabella,” grew on me with time. Speaking of that song, both it and the final one, “Passion Fruit” (which absolutely washes Drake’s version), mention taking shrooms.

This makes me think that he was partially inspired by a shroom-induced epiphany, but this is only speculation.

The production across this entire thing was also phenomenal, and the producers nearly outshined the rapper here despite both giving their all. Most of them were produced by COUPE, a longtime collaborator with Nudy. Still, everyone else with production credits on here, from Pierre Bourne and Naestro to Cicero and Travis Marsh, did a fantastic job. It shows since I don’t think there’s a single weak beat on the project. Whether it be the dark and threatening atmosphere of tracks like “Okra,” “Pancake,” and “Duck Meat” or the psychedelic vibe of tracks like “M.R.E.” and “Portabella,” this project sounds very cohesive.

Nudy is well-versed in making satisfying, motivational, and catchy tracks, but even with these positives, he’s always had a blessing and curse by being the cousin of 21 Savage. While having that connection in the industry as a talented artist individually sounds excellent, it also set him up for inevitable comparisons with Mr. Savage. Thankfully, this conversation is finally shifting, with this album generally being received positively. Many users on social media platforms like Twitter note that Nudy is not just your average rapper or a clone of his admittedly more popular family member. He’s Chef Nudy, the Zone 6 Rich Shooter, and he’s quickly cemented his place in hip-hop with his recent track record.

March 17, 2023

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Confession: Good Will Hunting is (Still) My Favorite Movie Fionna Farrell Opinions Editor If there’s anything integral to the Obie experience, it’s becoming deeply ashamed of the normal things you once liked. For my 18-year-old self, whose ghost still haunts my uncoolest hours, it was Gilmore Girls and exclamation points. It was soccer. It was a generally positive outlook towards life. When you come to Oberlin, you are expected to give up these things, in exchange for the small reward of knowing that you are better than everyone else.

For a while, this meant I had to give up one of my favorite movies. I won’t tell you the title just yet, in case the title of the article eluded you, but let’s just say it is about a working-class, highly lump-brained individual in the greater Boston area. It may or may not have won a writing award at the Oscars, beating out Boston contemporary Mark Wahlberg’s dick-flick, and it may or may not be soundtracked by the vocal sunshine of Elliott Smith. It’s hard to say, in a word, what I admire so much about this obscure, hardly-ever-quoted gem of ‘90s cinema. It’s easy to say what I love.

I first saw G*** W*** H****** at the taste-impressionable age of twelve years, when I was at the nadir of my middle-school suffering. But, circumstantially, life was good — parents, gainfully employed, young pup healthy, and Radiohead undiscovered. It was that peculiar moment in life where sleep grew plagued by the query: who am I becoming as a person? How, besides listening to The Clash, might I swim against the current? The answer to this to twelve (and twenty-one) year-old me was to find another thing (besides The Clash) to commit myself to.

For no other reason than that I watched it with my tear-concealer dad, that my teacher had recently called me “actually very bright”, that I had a once-removed aunt who lived in Boston, and that I needed to hear that it was “not my fault” during recess for causing the team to lose the soccer match — did Good Will Hunting become that thing. I am only being halffacetious when I say these things, and with my better half; when you are that age, when the maelstrom of teenage drama and heartbreak hasn’t had time

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to destroy your inner-essence, Matt Damon really becomes the only lens through which you see the world. I became enamored with Boston-speak, before I was subsequently forced to watch “boy movies” like The Departed and The Town, a little bit older. The Town is a movie I will pretend to hate and not be pretending — with Good

“Would I look good with a dyed undercut?” At fifteen, so acquainted with no cinephiles beyond the Tarantino variety, I was not regurgitating Fellini or even Charlie Kaufman at that point.

But the stars in my eyes were growing dimmer, forming far fewer constellations. We all feel like we are living in Russian novels by the time we are

Illustration by Molly Chapin Production Assistant

Will Hunting, the pretending only started more recently.

I cannot pinpoint the exact moment in time when my unquestioning faith in the wicked smaht religion began to dwindle. But let’s just say it was somewhere around the third or fourth watch, around the time when I started wondering not “Who am I?” but

fifteen.

Do I blame Mr. Kaleemuddin “Kale Muffin,” who taught fourth period biology? Do I blame my parents’ silly intransigence to stay together despite the text messages I had chosen to read? Do I blame my best friend who made Robert Smith pinterest boards, or was it the (5’9”) goalie who made

garbage earrings? It’s never easy to say what exactly is making you so bitter until you find yourself floor-toass in a UPenn dropout’s basement cuddling a cat named something like Bong Water. What movies did twentythree year olds even watch, anyway?

Gone with the Wind?

Needless to say, as I grew older, I started thinking that Good Will Hunting was not only uncool, but also unforgivably corny. And for the artistically-minded, where the only true laugh is one of schadenfreude, corniness is the original sin. Allow me to illustrate Good Will Hunting’s portrait of unimaginable cringe: first off, Will Hunting is basically the Academy’s wet dream. He can bench…like, a high number…enjoys getting into fisticuff brawls with his kindergarten bullies, and lives in an abominable shithole of an apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. Will is working class and would happily defenestrate anyone who dared besmirch the sanctity of Casey Affleck, yet he also displays a degree of rugged sensitivity, a “damaged” man waiting for the right Harvard hottie to hammer away at the impenetrable—but not too impenetrable—shell shrouding his heart. And did I mention he is a MENSA-shattering genius with a bowl cut?

Let’s face it, too—there’s no way that Skylar, aforementioned Harvard Hottie of the film, and Will end up together for more than, like, six months.

That still seems like a really generous estimation to me; I think that Skylar would get the “ick” as soon as she saw the car that Will had driven to California for her in, because Skylar is rich as shit and can’t hide behind the congenial British sheen for long.

But, of course, despite the borderlineobscene prominence of Mr. Smith throughout the film, no one ends up getting stabbed by the end. We are left with an ad-libbed Robin Williams oneliner to shed an errant tear to, as Will drives off to see about his girl. They will remain together until Will joins the CIA or goes too far at the next Little League rumble. And don’t even get me started on the “It’s not your fault” scene—let’s not even go there.

Despite all of my grievances with Good Will Hunting, though, which could easily serve as fodder for the

most cutting Letterboxd reviews, this doesn’t change how I feel about the movie. I can’t help but laugh at the jokes I have heard like sixteen thousand times before.

They don’t exactly grow funnier, but they don’t grow less funny, either. It is jokes like these that make up the constants of our lives, especially when they’re spat out second-nature by the ones we love.

It can be something of a kneejerk reaction to label something as corny or insufferable if it’s not trying to cure cancer. This does not mean that the corniness accusations are unfounded; they do have their basis in observable reality and not Letterboxd la-la land at times. Some parts of Good Will Hunting do make me want to throw up, and in many ways, I like Boogie Nights a lot better. I do have my days where I think the movie should never have been made and that Matt Damon’s fingers should be cut off Banshees-style so he can never write again. But the potency of my feelings proves that Good Will Hunting is not just some innocuous thing to me. In his review of the film, old goat Roger Ebert said It’s the individual moments, not the payoff, that make the movie so effective. The little moments, not the ending, are what makes Good Will Hunting my most rewatched movie of all time. In each moment, there is something new to experience each time, even if that’s seeing it make someone else laugh.

We need those shareable movies to hold onto, lest we need a break from our growing, fleeting selves.

Illustration by Molly Chapin Production Assistant

Like A Good Armchair Skye Jalal Staff Writer In conversation with Sam Adams at the AMAM last Thursday, designer Norman Teague described an incident at a recent exhibition. Upon seeing an empty chair of his, a small child took it upon themself to sit upon it. Teague described the horror of the parents and curators as they noticed the offense with a chuckle to the audience, saying, “It’s a chair! You’re supposed to sit in it!”

He then continued, suggesting that all museums should buy two of his chairs: one to display, and one for visitors to sit on. My friend Max, sitting next to me, mentioned how that comment made him sad. Something about it made clear how strange the museum space is, how an empty chair is an invitation to sit down in almost every situation — that is except for when it’s covered in plastic or in a museum.

Teague’s work “Africana Rocking Chair” is part of a greater exhibition at the Allen entitled Like a Good Armchair, which unsurprisingly explores the Allen’s modern art collection through images of chairs. The exhibition begins with a section entitled, “Wartime Anxieties,” comprising works from the early to mid 20th centuries. It seems counterintuitive for an exhibition on chairs to commence with war images, many of which

actually have a pretty loose relationship to physical chairs. However, this introductory section serves as an invitation to think of the symbol of the chair, as I think it is defined in the exhibit as a whole — as a discussion of ability and rest in artwork.

The first two images of the “Wartime Anxieties” section both feature portraits of reclined female figures. The works are presented as a pair, one hanging directly above the other and they mirror each otherwith figures lying on their left sides, right arms outstretched overhead and outward. The uppermost work is an oil painting by Giorgio de Chirico, and below it is a black and white photograph captured by André Kertész. Visually similar, they both speak to ability from a wartime perspective.

There’s an emptiness that dominates the Chiroco painting.

The space that the figure inhabits appears as if built to host multitudes — yet the painted statue figure lies there alone. A high sun

casts dramatic shadows down upon the painted sculpture, emphasizing the contrast of the work of the whole, between light and dark, and the statue and its empty surroundings. The only other sign of life is a train intercepting through the distant background, invoking a post-industrial discomfort.

The Kertész is more lively. Hungarian dancer Magda Förster lies playfully upon a couch in a contorted position, with an image of an armless female figure framed on the wall to her left, and an armless female bust to her right.

What do these works have to do with chairs? In The Aesthetics of Human Disqualification, Tobin Siebers discusses how WW1 was one of the first modern events to majorly bring disability into American consciousness. The war was a mass disabling

Illustration by Ophelia Jackson Contributor

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event, and images of soldiers left amputated or otherwise wounded by it were circulated widely in the zeitgeist. These images along with artwork by disabled soldiers made disability much more visible, and served as an important counterweight to the idealized, masculinized image of the soldier body that had been previously revered.

Siebers puts this discussion of WW1 in context of “disability aesthetics.”

According to Siebers, disability aesthetics is that which “refuses to recognize the representation of the healthy

body–and its definition of harmony, integrity, and beauty— as the sole determination of the aesthetic.” Under disability aesthetics, disability has never been absent from the art-historical record, it just goes unrecognized. For example, classical armless busts such as depicted in the Kertész image, are cited by Siebers as being of the disabled aesthetic. The Kertész photograph gains depth and beauty from the disabled bodies within it, yet they are not explicitly acknowledged as disabled. This usage of the disabled body without acknowledgement, is

what allows the aesthetic to be revered in art, while disabled people in life are actively persecuted.

It’s really important to say that I am not disabled and can’t speak for that experience, but I do think that Siebers’ framework is an interesting one to consider this exhibit throughin thinking of how museums utilize the aesthetics of marginalized bodies, and then deny those bodies access to them. Having these artworks in an exhibition about chairs, is an interesting discussion of how museums will display images of disability in rooms

where those same bodies cannot even sit down in.

The scope of the exhibit expands past disability, into discussions of artistic appropriations of other marginalized bodies, and the space in museums that is left behind for them: black bodies, brown bodies, trans bodies, female bodies. The notion of chairs in the exhibit was, to me, a discussion of whose images are up on the walls of museums, whose images are acknowledged as being there, and who is allowed to sit comfortably in front of them.

Chris Rock Refuses to Let a Dead Joke Rest Reggie Goudeau Features Editor One of the most exhausting but potent discourses that happened within the past year occurred on March 27, 2022, nearly a year ago, when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock silly at the Oscars. For those who do not remember, Smith did so after Rock opened the show with some jokes about his wife, specifically about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s hair.

He referred to her as “G.I. Jane,” despite her alopecia, in an attempt to get cheap laughs before Will Smith gave him an expensive reality check.

To be fair, the two days following the incident (and the day of the Oscars) were more hilarious than those to follow.

One of my favorite memes based on the situation featured Smith cartoonishly smacking Rock several feet through the air in a short animated clip. This already funny scenario was elevated since this video was animated in the style of the popular anime Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Anyways, this was cool, but the joke got beaten into the ground quickly.

This news was inescapable no matter what social media platform one would traverse at the time and grew extremely tiresome as more supporters of respectability politics began treating Will Smith as a criminal. While many average Twitter users and a fair amount of Black celebrities simply laughed at the situation and moved on, many were disappointed in Smith or even angry.

For instance, comedian Judd Apatow did not seem to find the humor in this situation and chose to instead lambast him with many laughable statements in a series of now-deleted tweets. Some of my favorite quotes from his thread included: “He could have killed him,” along with,“That’s pure out of control rage and violence,” and the simple but effective, “He lost his mind.” If I were Apatow and posted this, I wouldn’t be shocked if every Black friend of mine was scared I’d call the police on them for existing.

Even with many takes similar to and combatting this one floating around for months after the incident, I assumed this “beef” would never resurface. After all, Chris Rock had most of white America on his side already, and Will Smith lost enough business and personal opportunities from public scrutiny following the slap. Unfortunately, Rock simply couldn’t help himself and has recently gone off on both Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith, in his newest Netflix special, Chris Rock: Selective Outrage. In all fairness, he

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only alluded to the incident once at the show’s beginning and then dropped it until the last ten minutes. Still, the rest was mainly about cancel culture and selective anger, which is always a fantastic sign that comedians are on an upward trajectory for their careers. Look at Dave Chapelle; evidently, he’s only gotten funnier with his transphobia, and hasn’t completely lost any respect he once had.

The pettiness of this special’s existence aside, I at least hoped some of the comedy would be solid, before checking out the material via Twitter (because he’s not getting my money). Unfortunately, that was not the case, and even the special’s least horrendous jokes were simply lukewarm.

One of the first tasteless jokes about the situation was about how he apparently watches Emancipation, a new film featuring Will Smith as an enslaved person, to see him get whipped. I refuse to explain the hypocrisy of a Black man spitting material like this to a primarily non-Black audience. All while simultaneously critiquing Will’s decision to smack him in a room full of white people.

Oh, and of course, he had to take some shots at Will’s notably rocky public relationship with Jada. It’s not like the entanglement material was getting old, either.

I’ll simply let the evidence of why everybody hates Chris speak for itself.

In just 2011, a video went viral in which Chris speaks to Louis C.K. while C.K. repeatedly uses the nword in jest.

While Chris had all of the opportunity in the world to say something, he instead laughed right along with “massa.” Jerry Seinfeld, a white man, had to be the one to check C.K., and even then, Chris defended him. It’s hilarious that this is the man

trying to have authority, over Will Smith no less, on how Black people should act in white spaces.

In short, this special doesn’t need to exist, this beef shouldn’t still exist, and Chris Rock’s career might do the same if he keeps fucking around and inevitably finds out once again. This entire saga has been a mess between joking about Jada’s condition during one of the most significant events of last year and gaslighting Will into apologizing before reviving the beef the moment it seemed convenient for his career.

It’s funny that he repeatedly calls Will a bitch throughout the special’s last ten minutes as if he didn’t make the most bitch-made move possible on that Oscar’s stage. He ate the slap, didn’t fight back, and chose to be mad once Will wasn’t around to recheck him. I think I speak for all of us when I say that Rock needs to get some more sense smacked into him because otherwise, we’ll never hear the end of his terrible material about the inci-

dent.

Illustration by Molly Chapin Production Assistant

Abandoned Art

Julian Crosetto

Molly Chapin Saffron Forsberg

El Poeta, Eduardo Castro Muñoz

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Molly Chapin

Cancel Busy Culture: Reject those Project Offers.

Please.

Zach Terrillion Staff Writer Obies like being busy. As prospective students, we were advertised hundreds of opportunities. Clubs.

Sports. Employment. These ads were coupled with a promise of outstanding academics. To somehow live both a life of the mind and the heart. And the legs. And the arms. And maybe certain other areas. This holistic promise continues to be advertised throughout our four years. In King and Mudd, giant posterboards cover the walls, revealing diverse clubs to check out. Specific times to jump on and fill in for our calendars. These clubs could be great opportunities to find nice niches in our personalities. Overall, this can be defined as Oberlin’s “busy culture.” An Obie’s need to do as many things as possible, often to their detriment. It’s a drive we all get and encourage in one another. This school gives us plenty to chew on. In response, we bite off way too much.

My foot pounds into the ground anxiously as I write this article. I can’t give it my full attention because of the many other commitments bouncing about in my head. I have a work shift in the Writing Center an hour from now. After that, I am sending administrative emails and finishing history homework that has taken me way longer than the hour-long slot I planned out, which disrupts my plans to apply to that one summer internship, which then forces me to delay my plans to research for another project by yet another day. I can’t even think about asking my teachers to be references for a completely separate job application because I have to deal with all this other stuff first. This isn’t a flex; it’s a slightly manageable nightmare.

I got into this mess to make as much of Oberlin as possible. This school has flaws, and we spend a lot of cash to attend. I tried not to let a single opportunity go by the wayside. To do so creates a seething guilt complex. For example, I once wandered by a poster advertising a pretty cool club. I automatically wanted to be a part of it. The impulse was to join and invest in it.

Always keep your options open as it “could be a great experience.” I didn’t think at all about the other stuff I

was doing. Somehow, my several other commitments faded immediately into the background. What made this whole event worse was that I technically missed the general interest meeting, seeing the poster after the day advertised. By god, I was devastated. I felt like a failure—a NEET with no academic or extracurricular fulfillment. I melodramatically messaged the club head, desperate to get into this thing I had not heard of 15 minutes ago.

This case epitomizes Oberlin’s busy culture. I failed to consider all my other commitments at a particular moment and thus decided to add another. We reside in an external world. Social media gives us plenty of ideas for how we present ourselves. Everything is moving. Everything is upcoming. There is no chance to sit, breathe, and ponder the now. This overstimulation allows other priorities to slip to make way for what is most relevant in a given moment. We are also insecure. We need to say YES to things to avoid disappointing others. We can present our best selves through a thorough resume to show employers. We can present ourselves as the life of the party by doing all the things. To show we are worth being around. What we can’t do is be flawed to anyone.

The problem with busy culture’s overdoing is that it stretches us too thin. I had always heard this term, but until this semester, I didn’t get what it meant. How can you do so much yet get so little done simultaneously?

As you saw from my earlier anecdote about writing this Opinion piece, such a thing can happen. It’s hard to focus on a single thought when you have other things to work on simultaneously. You can time manage, but we aren’t Hermione with a time-turner. Our days are finite. You may be doing a lot of projects, but few are up to snuff if you aren’t spending the proper amount of time on a specific one.

The thin spread of “busy culture” also stretches to our enjoyment, and that stretches to poor mental health. Frankly, many of us Junior/Senior Obies seem pretty miserable. We are jaded and tired. At the start of this semester, my usually enthusiastic attitude started

Illustration by Emerald Goldbaum Contributor

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to shift. I was down, dreading my slate for the next day. Even the funnest things seemed tedious, obstacles on the way to get the next thing done. This included social activities with friends and jobs that I loved last year. When you ask students about their semester, they’ll probably say “busy” and leave it at that. Not “fun.”

Not “meaningful.” To be busy doesn’t mean to savor.

Oberlin’s busy culture is debilitating and based on a toxic cycle. It is something you can’t just halt but rather must actively disrupt. I disrupted it just this week when I was offered an additional project. It checked all the boxes. It would let me hone skills that would look nice on a resume. It seemed like a lot of fun.

Most importantly, it would fill a nice gap in my schedule, satisfyingly filling up my week. It was a great opportunity! I then started reciting my activities with my friends. They did not say, “that sounds fun,” but instead cast an intense look of concern, like I was going through a list of crimes rather than clubs. “Please drop the things, Zach!” They proclaimed.

Drop the things, and miss out on this great opportunity? How could I? I was reluctant until pulling my first-ever allnighter. I was convinced to try out this “dropping” thing.

The process was ugly, like a casual withdrawal. I writhed in guilt over my decline of the offered project. I felt now like I wasn’t doing enough. I was an underachiever. An unemployable loser. A slacker student. It was busy culture triggering a guilt complex. Still, I couldn’t turn back now. I already sent the email declining the offer. I’d just have to seethe and deal with it. As the days went by, I noticed a shift. I had a spare couple of hours a day. I had more time to revise that article, making it closer to my ideal vision. I was having more fun too. My clubs were clubs instead of chores. All because I said “no.” Turning the project down was difficult because I wanted to do it, but I realized there were many other things I wanted to do.

Overall, Obies are playing a cruel game in adding up their activities. The capitalist mindset of “more, more, more” is ingrained in our minds to some degree, no matter our Marxist politics. We are taught the more activities, the better.

This semester, I’ve begun to realize it’s not that simple. I thus must request: Say no to projects if you already have others scheduled. Recognize you have limits.

Look at those hundreds of posters and think about the 1 or 2 that most matter, then go from there. It’s a fine balance between being bored and overworked.

Still, it’s something each of us Obies has to think for ourselves outside of external influence. To cancel busy culture is to go in and learn what “busy” means to us.

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Self-Improvement and Isolation During COVID-19 Katherine Doane Contributor When COVID-19 first plunged the world into isolation, a new wave of self-improvement messaging swept through the internet like a wildfire.

At first, like a spike on a seismograph, hobbyists soared to new heights in hashtag counts and views. Breadmaking, painting, and home improvement projects enjoyed trending status for a happy couple of weeks, and the internet became a friendlier place for grassroots creatives. Maybe, just maybe, the pandemic had broken through the algorithm’s iron curtain, and small business owners and artists would finally be able to profit from global interconnectedness in the way they were always meant to be able to.

That was until self-improvement gurus stormed into social media with a seemingly endless armament of trendsetting cheatcodes. In a matter of days, my instagram for-you page was no longer a seething incubatorium of new creators, but a chillingly harmonious conglomeration of yoga routines, standing desks, and smoothie recipes. It was as if some faceless software engineer in the deep ranks of the silicon valley digerati had sat down at a laptop one night in March 2020, cracked his knuckles, and set about correcting the temporary deviance from carefully-scheduled influencer boom-busts, Martha Stewart stock market scandal-style.

How did this shift happen, and how did it happen so quickly?

Hobbyists — arts and crafts creators, diy-ers, people doing what they could with what they had — were filling a new need for predictability and reassurance in our media diets, but self-improvement content could fill it faster. Like any trend, it was self-sustaining. I certainly played a role in saturating my personal audio-video enclosure with this endless betterment propaganda. Friday afternoon bakery visits became meditation classes, Saturday morning farmer’s market trips turned into 10k runs. Of course, the new wave of betterment content reinforced and validated my new habits, so the walls of my echo-chamber thickened.

The problem with the rise of self-improvement content during early lockdown was that it compelled us to isolate ourselves emotionally at a time when we were already isolated physically. When morning routine videos and “coronapreneurs” flooded into creative offshoots on social media, there was no room left to process the collective grief and anxiety that the pandemic had brought to so many. We were instead compelled to turn our grief into productive output, and retreat into the private sphere to process the pain of loneliness and personal loss. This new wave of content sneakily satisfied our need for stability by telling us that we could achieve normalcy and mental resilience just by working on ourselves, while creating new expectations for the kind of work we would produce with more time on our hands. When we failed to meet these expectations, self-improvement told us our failure could be overcome through further introspection, forcing us to withdraw further into ourselves and away from our communities. Twitter user Mr_Considerate’s description of a job interview in the second spring of the pandemic went viral: “I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I’ve just been asked in a job interview if I used lockdown ‘to pursue any passion projects or personal development,’” he wrote.

“The market really does want us all to think we’ve just had a generous sabbatical.”

Before the pandemic, I was a regular at my local bakery. I knew the staff and whenever I stopped in, we would talk for a while about local news, college, or my dog, Seamus, who they also knew on a first-name basis, while I decided what to get. I went so regularly that I had once watched one of the attendant’s tattoos go

Illustration by Emerald Goldbaum Contributor

from half-inked to fully shaded to healed over the course of several weekly visits. The bakery opened with PPE barriers and strict guidelines a few months after the nationwide lockdown. I went much less frequently when it reopened. The leisure time I once spent idling through downtown businesses was now time spent training, networking, doing homework. I realized the habits I had picked up from the self-improvement craze were sustaining the loneliness that physical distancing had imposed on my life long after those restrictions had lifted. Making pointless conversation with the bakery folks, falling back into the rhythms of small-town communality when global interconnectivity was crumbling before our eyes — that’s where collective healing was going to happen, and I had retreated into myself to do the work instead.

Maybe it was just my for-you page playing tricks on me, but if this tendency towards rat-race self-betterment was widespread enough to warrant coverage in the Guardian and Vox, its consequences were likely just as widespread. The expectation for pandemic productivity enhanced the “work or die” dichotomy of American consumerism to a — dare I say it? — unprecedented level. The only excuse for not operating at maximum capacity was catching a life-threatening illness. Otherwise, there was nothing about you or your life that could not be improved, monetized, or learned from.

I might be a few years late, but it’s worth restating how ridiculous this indoctrination was during a global crisis, so to anyone with lingering doubts: you weren’t supposed to learn anything from any of this. The narrative that the pandemic was just a generous staycation ignores the reality that COVID-19 took millions of lives, put hundreds of thousands out of jobs, and many didn’t have the luxury of staying home. The truth, contrary to the soothing affirmations of privileged instagram self-help gurus, is that we are not in total control of our lives. To argue the counterclaim is to ignore not only a worldwide outbreak of a life-threatening illness, but systemic inequalities and generational poverty. The pandemic wasn’t a chance to mine ourselves for more work or profitability.

The only thing you needed to do during the pandemic was survive.

The Way of Malaise: Exploring “Apathy” in the Oberlin College Student Sebastian Cruz Contributor Nothing beats the disillusionment of finding out what the American dream really is. Or perhaps, what it really isn’t. That’s quite a lofty comparison to make when it comes to a sub-3,000 student liberal arts college, but for a good majority of its attendants, it may as well be that weighty.

There’s a reason why Oberlin College is the sort of paragon of that liberal arts fantasy—a never-ending melting pot of creative types that forgo a more traditional college experience in order to dig deep into their experimental tendencies. Study the ethics of the music industry. Take up pottery.

Sleep with a member of the same sex.

What isn’t there to do here? I wanted that sort of community away from anything that may impinge upon it. So why do I, and so many others, feel so disconnected from the “dream”?

The liberal arts model also factors into why some are lost in the weeds some of the time. The model is a double-edged sword of freedom and pushing one’s own boundaries—yet indulging in those freedoms could make one feel directionless. Taking too many disparately-related classes that may be interesting in some capacity but altogether do not further one’s academic progress engenders antipathy towards one’s studies. Where is it all leading to? This friction and antipathy almost diminishes the focus taken towards academics. Of course most if not all students still try their best, but there’s little actual passion for what they’re learning. At best, it can feel like a neat detour, and at worst, a simple waste of time. When all you have left is the rest of your day, eating, studying, bumming around with friends until 1am—an ouroboros of routine that’s ultimately closer to real adult life. But faker. And smaller. And without some sense of “purpose.”

These structural issues are not the complete answer, however. Though the culture at Oberlin College is at the very least colorful, we must consider the locale. In many peoples’ minds, Oberlin is not a fun place to live in.

To take the people out of the equation, Oberlin, both the town and the college in this instance, are predictably limited when it comes to what one can do when out on the town. If one wants to eat at the same restaurants, day in,

day out then there’s hardly anyone to stop them—but many opt to avoid them in order to conserve funds, and vie for whichever campus-sponsored dining service is nearest. A local record store may be a neat pit-stop, yet when that’s the most interesting portion of the block, it sort of loses its sheen. And a lot of this, admittedly, could be chalked up to the percentage of students being big city expats— bigger cities than Oberlin, at least. In a world that they inhabited where each street branches into a smorgasbord of thrilling nights on the town, tripping the light fantastic across what is one long intersection is not many peoples’ idea of a sterling Saturday evening.

I am not too dissimilar from these expatriates. Oftentimes, I find myself dissatisfied with the lack of normal stimulation I normally achieve all the way back home just outside of Washington, D.C., so there’s this almost ubiquitous craving to be anywhere else, blocking ourselves from making the most of what we are given. And we are actually given kind of a lot. I’ve noticed that this feeling is especially common in incoming freshmen, and based on what I did (and didn’t) do in my semester and a half here, there’s a mass hesitance to participate, to go out of one’s way to do something.

There are a multitude of extracurricular events and shows and showcases and nutcases, all presented for us to indulge in! Yet a prevailing mindset that I have is that I just need to “get by” until I have enough experience to become more involved. I need to be more deferential to the ones who are a year, two years, three years ahead of me because they understand everything better than I can.

Liberal arts colleges are meant to encourage branching out, and yet… some of us don’t. Some of us scoff at the notion, even. My friends and I are guilty of walking past the ‘Sco chalkboard and snorting at whatever theme they chose for a Tuesday night, but then complain about how this school lacks something to do, somewhere to go to.

This is a small example, however, it betrays an underlying feeling of paralysis, the feeling of not being enticed by anything, so, we automatically assume that it’s the fault of the organizers, or

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the school, or God, or whomever.

As it happens, though, this “apathy” is more or less a substitute for the fear that is common amongst most new arrivals. It is the easiest affectation to put on because it requires the least amount of effort to do so.

This is not really a damnation, because it’s an affectation that’s scarily easy to slip into when you’re not sure where to go.

We’re still figuring out how late the dining halls stay open and how to tell our roommates they’re eating too loudly. The acclimation to this strange, wonderful and yet still strange place comes slow—just like anywhere else. Some could attribute this to a (somewhat) post-COVID depression period, but that’s still not an affliction specific to Obies. Everyone says that we still have time to figure it out. And we still have time to figure it out. We just can’t believe it yet. Sometimes, or oftentimes, it’s best to stick to what we know now. And what we know bores us. Our friends are still our “college friends” because there’s a reticence to really be sure about anything, so the reticence begets reticence. Reticence to open up, or be oneself fully, however it manifests. So we close ourselves off for the sake of appearances, and at some point, it bleeds into even what we put true passion into.

The worst thing about this all is that it has to take time, and that’s just really fucking annoying sometimes. So it’s good to revel in this smallness. I pour my heart out in every acting audition on campus that I can find and every small role that I am given. At the beginning of this semester, I felt an urge to lock myself away from what I wanted to explore further. Ditch my radio staff position, skip the plays and hope for a prosperous next year, because I didn’t feel “ready” enough to do any of it. Who am I to say that? Who am I to decide how “good” I have to be to do something interesting? I am lost, I am a little bit confused and I am going to do it anyway. I recognize that this “apathy”, “malaise”, unnamed sense of dread, is hard to step out of.

It’s not a destructive feeling so much as it is a cautionary feeling. And like any other feeling, it’s not preferable to become consumed by it. It’s not the only tool in your toolbox. You’ll know people better, you’ll know the clockwork of the school better, as well as the clockwork of yourself.

It’s one big clock chock full of cogs.

Sometimes it’s nice to be a cog in the machine for a bit.

20

The Grape

Torture Porn, Puriteens and Finding a Way Out Catherine Gilligan Contributor Sam Levinson, son of filmmaker Barry Levinson, has gotten himself in trouble once again. Perhaps best known for his sparkly teen torture-porn series Euphoria, Levinson is now responsible for yet another behemoth of an HBO program by the name of The Idol. The show stars eating disorder Twitter’s favorite nepotism baby, Lily-Rose Depp and Canadian pop sensation Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd. In it, Depp’s character Jocelyn, a troubled pop star begins a complicated relationship with Tesfaye’s character, the leader of a new-age cult. Director Amy Seimetz filmed about 80% of the first season before leaving the project altogether last April, supposedly due to the fact that Tesfaye felt she was giving the show too much of a “female perspective.” After Seimetz’s departure, Levinson took over as director and chose to essentially reshoot the entire project, blowing 75 million dollars in the process.

Production nightmares aside, the show is now catching even more flack for reports of various violent sexual scenes included in Levinson’s revised script. Among them include a scene in which Tesfaye’s character beats Depp’s character, giving him an erection, and a scene in which Depp’s character is made to carry an egg in her vagina and told that if she drops or cracks said egg that Tesfaye’s character will refuse to “rape” her further (though it’s worth noting that both of these scenes appear to have been cut).

Levinson is no stranger to including controversial sex scenes in his work. Euphoria, one of the most popular teen dramas in recent memory, contains explicit depictions of high school girls participating in BDSM, DDLG, and webcam “domming”. Sexual content that you likely would’ve had to seek out on a handful of seedy websites 15 years ago can now be viewed from the comfort of your living room every Sunday night. In my mind, it’s not wrong to characterize significant swaths of contemporary American pop culture as pornographic. It’s easy to dismiss the increasing ubiquity of graphic sex scenes in shitty teen melodramas, but it really does seem reflective of a larger culture of sexual exploitation in the internet age. “Pornsickness,” as the term has been coined, is a uniquely 21st century affliction, one where the sheer saturation of violent, exploitative pornography accessible online warps people’s perceptions of sex in ways they likely aren’t even aware of. As said pornographic content permeates more and more into the mainstream, one can imagine that this is a problem that will only worsen with time.

Due to all of these factors, there’s a growing number of young people attempting to push back against the “pornification” of the media they consume. Unfortunately, most of them seem to be woefully misguided at best and troublingly censorious at worst. Pejoratively dubbed “puriteens,” there is a growing online movement of Zoomers who oppose what they perceive to be gratuitous sexual content in television and film. It’s not uncommon to stumble across threads with tens of thousands of likes discussing why sex scenes in movies are unnecessary, problematic, or even “violating” in some sense, as the audience did not “consent” to them. It’s also not uncommon to see 17 year olds with Picrew avi’s espousing rhetoric about on screen “indecency” that wouldn’t be out of place on a “Moms for Liberty” Face-

Illustration by Julian Crosetto Layout Editor

book group, sans the Tumblr cadence and a few choice buzzwords.

As someone who has both a hatred of the porn industry and a love of vile, perverted cinema, I find myself caught between a rock and a hard place when discussing shows like The Idol. On the one hand, I find most of Levinson’s work to be unimaginative, high budget fetish content, the multimillion dollar wet dream of some Hollywood jerk-off whom I don’t feel particularly inclined to defend. On the other hand, when a piece of media is condemned for containing graphic sexual content, I feel wary. Levinson is not, and never will be Waters, Solondz, Cronenberg, Araki, or even Korinne - but when he’s labeled a pedophile on Twitter for showing teens having sex on screen, I can’t help but feel that so many more compelling, groundbreaking filmmakers are being condemned alongside him. Typically, I’d say that no one who’s frontal lobe is still the consistency of cottage cheese should have their online opinions scrutinized too harshly. However, this “puriteen” movement seems to have unfortunately coincided with a much larger, much more insidious national push to remove “explicit content” from books, TV, movies, advertising and more broadly, public lifewhich when we read between the lines, essentially refers to anything gender-bending, queeny or worth something creatively.

So what’s a girl to do? Don’t watch The Idol (or do, I don’t give a shit). Stop spending so much time on social media reading the opinions of people who are still in Algebra 1. Donate money to LGBT organizations in Tennessee and Florida. Watch that awesome scene from Crash (1996) where two characters have kinky lesbian sex in the wreckage of a car accident. And pray that boring pornsick perverts like Levinson are replaced by a fresh crop of innovative, artistic perverts expeditiously, if not for the sake of culture, than at least for the sake of my Twitter feed.

The Tale of the Uncancellable Superstar When the NBA Pits Morality Against Victory Max Miller Staff Writer Every few years, discussion surrounding the idea of “separating the art from the artist” gains popularity. Normally, these dialogues are prompted by some sort of musician’s controversy and culminate in a polarized audience, ultimately (in some cases) having permanent effects on the musician’s success, playability, or at least reputation. Nobody wants to hear any R. Kelly, not because his music is bad (it’s unfortunately very good), but because he has committed absolutely awful acts and is a terrible human.

It would be easy to compare the fields of music and sports. Both industries’ top performers are placed on a strange pedestal. But, there are a few core differences between the two industries that particularly illustrate how society treats athletes.

With an artist, one can simply listen to other music. But, if one subscribes to the notion that a given sport is important, it is impossible to avoid whoever the beholder views as a transgressor. (Of course, the outcomes of adults playing a kid’s game are not important in the grand scheme of things if one does not make the active decision to care.) Let’s say you have decided to follow the NBA. Even if you choose to watch a team full of saints, you are also bound to watch your share of “sinners,” so to speak.

If I did not want to listen to R. Kelly, for example, I could simply listen to Taylor Swift. But, in sports, if I do not want to watch Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving play basketball, I would have to abstain from watching any Dallas Mavericks games, including those that my favorite team plays against them.

This is unsustainable and, frankly, impossible, given how many players have committed morally reprehensible acts.

Because of this inevitable interaction, many frequently call for the suspension or expulsion of players to be enacted by the NBA itself. This is where morality, skill, and marketing comes into play.

The NBA is a product. Its success hinges on TV deals, jersey sales, and the marketing of its stars.

It exists to make money, whether the viewer likes it or not, and thus the NBA’s front office will make whatever decision it deems to be the most beneficial financially. This is not particularly hard to grasp; corporations almost always make the most profitable decision. (The NBA is not a corporation but, as Marquette University law professor Nadelle Grossman writes, effectively acts like one.) But, most corporations do not have the NBA’s unique relationship to their employees. Each player is lauded as an “ambassador of the league,” in one form or another.

The outward appearance of the NBA focuses on its players.

The crux of the issue is skill, or at least marketability. In a way, players are able to play themselves into a position where they are allowed to do bad things by being, well, really fucking good at basketball. Take the case of Meyers Leonard and Kyrie Irving.

Meyers Leonard was a backup center on the Mi-

ami Heat. He is 7’0” with a 87 inch wingspan and can shoot the three at a success rate above 40%, the standard for excellent three point shooters. It is worth mentioning that this is a valuable skill set in the NBA; teams value big men that can shoot because defenders must stay glued to them instead of being able to leave them to help on other players driving to the basket. When a big man can shoot, it opens up the lane for more ball-dominant players to drive. Meyers Leonard fit this

Illustration by Emerald Goldbaum Contributor

profile perfectly, also providing serviceable enough rim protection to be a productive role player for the Heat. That is, until March 9, 2021, when he called someone a “fucking kike bitch” while streaming Call of Duty on Twitch, kike being a deeply offensive slur for Jewish people. Because of this, within a few days, the Miami Heat announced that he would be “away from the team indefinitely.” Leonard only came back on February 22nd of this year on a ten-

day contract with the Milwaukee Bucks.

Kyrie Irving, on the other hand, is one of the NBA’s biggest stars. He is a household name, and has been since he was drafted to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2011. He is easily a top-25 player in the league, wowing audiences with fancy dribbling moves and difficult shot-making. Irving is widely considered the best dribbler of all time. In October 2022, Irving posted a link to “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” a movie that denies the Holocaust, includes quotes from Adolf Hitler, says that Jewish people worship Satan, and claims that Jews controlled the slave trade and control the media. Irving was suspended by the Brooklyn Nets, his team at the time, for two weeks.

The suspension came after he was asked at a press conference whether he had “any antisemitic beliefs,” to which he responded, “I cannot be antisemitic if I know where I come from.”

The primary difference between the two players? Kyrie Irving is a huge part of the financial success of the NBA. Kids wear his shoes and look up to his ball-handling ability. Meyers Leonard is an easily replaceable role player.

This is not to say that one of these punishments is expressly right and the other is expressly wrong. This is simply to note that the NBA does not truly care about these issues, but rather how these issues affect their bottom line in terms of PR. Kyrie’s beneficial marketing outweighs his negative; Leonard’s does not.

Society seems to have a tendency of divorcing players’ characters from their athletic bodies. At the end of the day, one’s ability to aid or thwart the simple act of an orange ball going through a basket is more important to NBA teams’ front offices than how good of a human one is (as long as you aren’t actively taking away from locker room culture). Sports fans and media talk about basketball players by their dimensions and physical abilities. This is the shameful nature of athletics.

In order to win in an athletic event, front offices must prioritize physical abilities. I would like to think I’m a fun guy who would be a nice hang in an NBA locker room. I can guarantee you that if any NBA team played me rotational minutes, they would lose every game. All that said, it is upsetting to the extent of which players are discussed. The NBA media does not discuss players as people almost at all. It is also important to acknowledge the problematic racial undertones of the separation of athletes’ body and personhood, as 71.8% of the NBA is Black as compared to over 80% of sports media being white.

This is the upsetting nature of the conflict. Teams want to win, especially given its monetary incen-

March 17, 2023

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tive. In a gross, twisted, extremely uncomfortable way, front offices seem to view each player as worth something monetary. If the positives of them contributing to winning outweigh the PR negatives, teams will take that chance.

If they don’t, they won’t.

These aspects of the NBA can be easily compared to the music industry.

No matter how controversial or problematic, if somebody is selling records and thus pulling in money, major music labels will not drop them. But on a social level, when an artist becomes known as reprehensible, it is almost impossible to interact with their music without weighing moral consequences.

This is largely due to the prominence of voice.

Basketball is a team sport, meaning that one can interact with basketball in a non-individual way that is impossible with music. When we listen to music, we connect with the person who wrote the song, often hearing a singer’s voice.

It is much more attached to the individual. With basketball, however, one does not see the individual as much as they see the team. Even though Kyrie Irving helps the Mavericks win, he is not the Mavericks. Thus, one can easily consume Mavericks games without deeply thinking about the morality of watching Kyrie Irving play basketball.

This entire article is to say that we do not treat basketball players like regular people. Athletes are treated like gods that can do no wrong when they are playing well and monsters when they are playing poorly. Admittedly, I am occasionally guilty of losing sight of athletes’ personhood; I have many a time been angry at various Philadelphia 76ers players for not performing well (particularly Mike Scott and DeAndre Jordan). Many, including me, at times, talk about athletes as though they are emotionless. But, I argue, this is intrinsic to sports media’s structure.

Viewers are supposed to see players this way.

So, is there any way to change this dynamic? Or is this framework so baked into sports that it is virtually impossible to alter? Frankly, I am unsure whether there is an answer.

Nonetheless, on an individual level, we must be cognizant of how we interact with athletes, especially in the midst of controversy. I implore the basketball fan to not lose sight of their morals in an attempt to justify wrongdoing. Try not to fall into the trap of putting morally reprehensible people on pedestals.

And do not forgive players for horrible acts simply on the grounds that they are 6’7” and play lockdown defense.

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The Grape

We Are What We Wear: Oberlin Changing Being & Becoming Through Dress Ben Burton Contributor One hundred and twenty-three of my Instagram mutuals follow an account called @oberlin_in_the_00s. Obies of the moment love the account—a collage of twentyyear-old vintage snapshots, posters, and art oddities. The page is a strikingly personal archive; every photo looks like it was taken by and for a friend. To the modern viewer, the page encapsulates hidden traditions and old ways, carefree wannabe hippies from a time when Harkness was freaky and Built to Spill played the ‘Sco. “They” say Y2k is back and on trend, but this does not totally encapsulate the page’s appeal. To look at this page is to see yourself in a different generation—to see doppelgangers, lookalikes, and relatability in an era before. To the modern Obie, this page is also a testament to all that has been lost culturally and practically, and in tracking its posts one can begin striving for something they never knew. Violent Hark bowl Bike Derby, public nudity, camping out for art rental, and hookah smoking in Tappan.

This is not 2023’s Oberlin. We embody this past in more ways than staring at this page.

We use it to play dress up.

In my first year at Oberlin, I found myself learning to read an unspoken dress code. In many ways, it was a landscape truer to that of @oberlin_in_the_00s than now. The breed of city kids seemed aspirational for the wild and natural, and they dressed for mud and dirt and basement moshing and arb escapades. This translated into a stereotype now as insidious as the 2010’s IPA Red Wings Brooklyn hipster. The people wore Blundstones and Dr. Martens, used workwear, the occasional band tee (strictly obscure or ironic), New York-related tote, and thrifted or handmade statement. If that all reads as stereotype it’s because it is, but it was born of reality and necessity.

The tattered Unsound Rags Carhartts were only just becoming chic, and most of the time the dirt on your pants was yours.

A fundamental aspect of this style of dress seemed to be a very Oberlin style political clothing consciousness that implied that clothing was not, or should not be, more about status than pragmatism. A pair of Nike dunks or precious jeans may appear on an @oberlin_in_the_00s figure, but they are worn in the same light and context as a pair of anonymous boots.

The materialism of heavy branding from

Illustration by Maia Hadler Art Director

whatever brand is popular seemed uncool, adverse, and antithetical to Oberlin’s leftist overtones. To care or think about your clothes this way, as opposed to as a uniform of creativity, utility, and “Oberlinity” would be met with raised eyebrows and quiet shaming.

I came into Oberlin an obsessive of a few indiscreet brands, my laptop covered in Golf Wang stickers, and my tee shirts often graphically inclined. I kept my logos covered, left my sneakers at home over break, and began learning how to comfortably perform my Oberlin identity. That’s what moving to a new place is about, that’s going to college; allowing yourself to be transformed and mutated by your new environment, and learning new contexts in which you can see and know yourself. I was comfortable with this compromise, with how I felt I was seen, and how I fit into Oberlin’s puzzle.

Then, as students returned to campus post-Covid something fascinating happened: the brands. It started with coastal elite mainstays like the occasional Supreme or Brain Dead piece, the newest New Balance silhouette, or a niche collab.

Dirty Air Force Ones became Off White Dunks which became Off White until the fateful day I saw Louis Vuitton sneakers at Stevie. It’s not simply that brands suddenly arrived at Oberlin—it was the taste and display of brand that was so fascinatingly mainstream. Stussy pieces emerged almost in conjunction with their Tik Tok boom, Brain Dead at the same time as the opening of two new stores, and New Balance with their two year streak of hyper-saturation. It was almost consciously mainstream - as bizarre a sight here as if Remi Wolf was headlining Solarity. Oberlin has only grown more and more branded. Walk around campus today and count the brands you see, the sneakers that pop, and the expensiveness being flaunted.

When we analyze what the pandemic disrupted about “old” Oberlin many tend to use phrases like “institutional memory” to chart the shift. This isn’t wholly misguided—time away from campus, the graduation and separation of Obies learned in the old ways, and the ending of countless clubs and traditions is a viable culprit for changing definitions of institutions. But then,

is the nature of true subcultural dressing completely annihilated in the globalized information internet age? Is any philosophized uniform or dress protected, or are we destined for frustrating homogeneity?

These answers elude a very intentional shift in Oberlin’s very intentional efforts at maintaining a very… certain homogeneity.

Institutionally, the college struggles to pay professors well while pouring money into athletics or new residence halls, and finds new ways of threatening the place and influence of OSCA. In other words, many of the centers of Oberlin alternative selfhood are far less stable post-pandemic than before.

Diagnosis can only do so much; Oberlin has already changed. It would be hypocritical and unhelpful for me to claim this can only be negative. Institutional change is inevitable, but I do question the Oberlin to come. Will you joust in a bike derby in designer? Will you be so worried about your $400 Aime Leon Dore 550s that you refuse to bike to the cemetery for witchcraft at sunset? Are you prepared for the incredible irony of reading Marx in a Supreme hoodie, complaining about Ohio behind a Brain Dead fleece?

When we look at @oberlin_in_the_00s

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Continued from page 23

we see a way of dressing that is both natural and relatively unified in its philosophy of wearing. There was continuity and precedent for this philosophy, with students in the ‘80s and ‘90s emulating and reproducing subcultural codes and alternative thought which may have itself been a reproduction of Oberlin’s ‘60s reputation as a countercultural center.

While I can’t define the exact nature of why that boom happened in Oberlin, it could certainly be related to a vision of the town and school as a center of more progressive action and thought. But was that ever completely a reality? How long did Oberlin truly embody a center of counterculture in the ‘60s, and how much were these fantasies of philosophical purity ever true? If unified dressing existed at Oberlin, it may have simply been the case of the same histories being yearned for. In this case, perhaps this change is thanks to new ideas of what Oberlin is and can be, and these codes

enforce nostalgia, not history.

I realize now that the subtle dress coding I experienced during freshman year was simply an appeal to the nostalgic. In the absence of subversive subcultures with intrinsic dress codes to influence Oberlin’s brand of rebellious thought, Oberlin’s uniform became more and more ephemerally bound. Without the firm intersection that subculture allows in crossing politics, art, and philosophy, Oberlin was left only with the idea that clothes should mean… well, something. Clothing was newly charged with reflecting the values and worlds that Oberlin could hold, and to rebuke the unthinking or imperceptibly malicious.

For a time, a visible logo of a certain genre meant corporate/capitalist subservience which certainly would translate to an unintended or unthought hypocrisy. Today, it’s unclear if this understanding of brand meaning is too one sided (particularly with regards to certain subculturally

minded “streetwear” brands), but clearly the logo and the indiscreetly branded is no longer seen as malicious.

The clothes we wear make up more than our identities; they define the places we are. What do these changes suggest about what Oberlin is, was, and was lost? What is the real power and implication of this new aesthetic? I’m still considering whether I’m a senior waving their fist at the clouds, bemoaning all that was lost and the superiority of arcane ways. I’m willing to accept this if there are actual, positive results of this shift, and that it isn’t a sign that Oberlin’s rebellious edge is dulling. Regardless of the answers to these questions, I hope clothes can be a conduit for Obies for a love and enthusiasm to be where they have chosen to be and live. I hope clothes are part of a conversation with Obies who seek to question, critique, and better their world. I hope my idealism is not unfounded.

Succession Season 4 Predictions: I’m Not Sure What Will Happen But I Am Still Horny for Kendall

Fionna Roy Opinions Editor

Kendall Roy is obviously the best character ever created—-if you don’t know who he is then you don’t watch Succession, and if you don’t watch Succession then how old are you, four? There are many things that make Kendall an incredible individual and my dream ex-husband. His hobbies include crying to LCD Soundsystem in the shower (me), leaving cocaine on his children’s iPads (give it a few years), and committing vehicular manslaughter (no comment). He speaks through awesome one-liners of mystical revelation, like “I’m looking for pussy like a techno Gatsby” (I go by Daisy now). He is also very sad and kind of ugly with huge daddy issues, so I don’t know how he could be more perfect.

As a representative of the un-institutionalized cohort of Kendall Girlies (all five of us), here is what I think will happen to daddy’s #1 boy in season four, based only in the reality of my own delusion and obsession: Kendall and Stewy will finally explore each other’s bodies: the sexual tension between these two far surpasses that of me seeing people my age at the airport. Kendall and Stewy have been undressing each other with their eyes since long before the vote of no confidence in season one, way back in their Harvard days. K and S will finally pursue their forbidden lust this season, but Stewy will break it off for Suki Waterhouse in episode seven.

Kendall will be permanently banned from Twitter and Hinge: Kendall will get into a public row with Elon Musk, Greta Thunberg, and Bethenny Frankel on Twitter, which will cause him to be permanently banned from the platform until daddy buys it. He will also be banned from Hinge for his voice memos that may or may not contain insider secrets recorded during a Ken.W.A reunion.

Kendall buys The New Yorker, sets New Yorker headquarters on fire: Obie tote bag manufacturer The New Yorker notoriously called Kendall (or his psychic host, Jeremy Strong) ugly and insufferable last year. Obviously that is unacceptable behavior and New Yorker writers are as insightful as a lobotomized koala.

Kendall must support the Logan Roy School of Journalism, a proud supporter of the Jack the Ripper Women’s Health Clinic, so The New Yorker must go.

Kendall will remember his child’s name: Kendall is too busy blasting the patriarchy to remember his children’s names at times. I don’t blame him, because he did name one of them Iverson. However, in season four, Kendall will remember Sophie’s name, and even her birthday!

Kendall will be fatally stabbed by the dainty-wristed hand of Gregory Hirsch: Last season, Jesse Amrstrong was threatened by a small Kendall Girl uprising when he made us think Ken killed himself on the floatie. Kendall obviously needs to die in a much more honorable fashion. As we also all remember from last season, Kendall bought Greg that $40k watch but then pulled the old Uno reverse and was like “Hey, where’s my $40k?” After finally copulating with Red Scare girl, Gregory will work up the courage to stab Kendall in the sternum area over this indiscretion, and Waystar Royco will become German (Gerri & Roman) territory.

Greg will then start going to the gym and eating only red meat.

Obviously this is all just conjecture, the aimless ramblings of my bored HBOcrazed imagination. But if there’s one thing we can agree upon: Succession might be ending this season, but Kendall…Kendall is forever.

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NEW BUBLY FLAVORS Flip Ptarmigan Carbonation Connoisseur When I came across the panoply of new Bubly flavors in my favorite Bubly cooler in Decafe Market, I couldn’t believe it. Where I had previously believed that the Bubly empire had no legal claim to anything other than grapefruit, I came to understand that things like Orange Cream, Coconut Pineapple, and yes, even Lemon Sorbet can also be bubbly. Mind thus broadened, I embarked on a mission to discover the other flavors that Oberlin College is hiding from us. Here are a few of the Best of Bubly: - Clementine Strings (Just the Strings)! Bubly - Legally Distinct Dr. Pepper Bubly - Bratwurst Bubly - Water Bubly (the only sparkling water that closely approximates the taste of water) - Opaque Bubly Pesto Mayonnaise Bubly - Tea You Forgot About In Your Travel Mug For Three Weeks Bubly - Elton John Bubly - Mysterious Ashes Bubly - The Bitter Tang of Grad School Rejection Bubly - Soup Beans Bubly - Bubly Bubly (the only sparkling water that closely approximates the taste of Bubly) - Peeps Bubly - Thick Bubly

After much investigation, I was able to distill the rest of my findings into the following chart:

What kind of “girly” are you?

Skye Jalal Staff Writer

Every kind of girly has her special way of making her man go crazy for her! Which one are you?

What would you wear on a first date? a. Something fun and flirty! A day-to-night red top and a pair of heels! b. A flowy dress I can dance in! c. Perhaps a large tulle dress resembling a dead bird strewn around my neck, with a giant matching egg to carry with me all night as a purse. d. A black turtleneck.

2. Who’s your celeb crush? a. Idris Elba- classic hollywood babe! b. Ryan Reynolds! Being a good dad is so sexy! c. Who is open chested And who has coagulated Who can share and Who has shut down the chances? Who is open? And who has shut up? And if one feels closed How does one stay open? d. Bernie Madoff 3. If your friends could describe you in one word what would it be? a. Fun! I always know how to have a good time! b. Sweet! Everyone always tells me I’m the mom-friend of the group! c. Stonemilker. d. I’ve been hearing “convicted” from a lot of people lately. Also “warm-hearted” 4. Okay! Now for a spicy question! What’s your biggest turn on? a. Sue me! I love a man with broad shoulders b. Kindness is the only real turn on for me! c. An ACKhoooooooooo, a staaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnn d. Lying to the press. Wait no, I’d have to say defrauding investors. Or stealing money from sick people- yeah, final answer. That’s my biggest turn on.

5. What is your dream vacation-spot? a. Venice- I want an Italian man to serenade to me on a boat b. Paris! The city of love!<3 c. I WILL WADE OUT TILL MY THIGHS ARE STEEPED IN BURNING FLOWERS I WILL TAKE THE SUN IN MY MOUTH AND LEAP INTO THE RIPE AIR ALIVE WITH CLOSED EYES d. Well, if you ask the IRS, I’ve spent a lot of time in the Cayman Islands

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The Grape

6. What’s your favorite hobby? a. Playing video-games and watching sports, you could say I’m a guys-gal. b. Baking! The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach! c. Recording vocals in bat-infested caves. d. Opening my eyes real big all the time when people talk to me so that they can’t tell if I’m on DMT or a wax figurine.

Illustration by Emarald Goldbaum Contributor

Answers:

If you answered mostly A’s: you might be a Hot Girly! You like fast-cars, hot guys, and beer! Guys love you because you’re chill, and don’t cause all that “drama” like other girls do. Next time you’re with him, tell him that you love football and know what an emissions test is- I promise he’ll fall march-madly in love with you.

If you answered mostly B’s: you might be a Girly-Girly! You like painting your nails, watching romcoms, and eating ice-cream. Guys love you because you remind them of their mothers! Next time yu’re with him, offer to do his laundry or offer a warm bottle- he’ll never leave your side!

If you answered mostly C’s: you might be Bjork! Augun þín, augun, steina Mitt, þitt, mitt Þú, hvað ég meina Augun þín og augun mín Ó, þeirra fögru steina Mitt var þitt og þitt var mitt Þú veist hvað ég meina If you answered mostly D’s: you might be Elizabeth Holmes! Hide your keys, hide your trustfund- this hottie’s coming for your pension! You’re the hottest babe on the cell-block. Guys love to be teased, so start first by withholding his shareholder returns.

Before long, he’ll be begging for you in court!

BEST SPRING BREAK MOVIES Isabel Hardwig Bad Habits Editor

Guy who only knows about a cappella from Pitch Perfect attends Study Break: “When are they all gonna throw up?”

Dominominic Haunches Critic-in-Residence

Illustration by Molly Chapin Production Assistant

College spring breaks are known to be legendary. To prepare yourself for this upcoming week of booze, beaches, and nonstop babes, here’s a list of classic spring break movies that feature students just like us.

BIBS AND STINKY GO TO VEGAS Sixth in the inimitable Bibs and Stinky series, this 160-minute film forever alters the personal and psychological landscape of Stinky (and Bibs!)

SUNROOF David Cronenberg’s nostalgically jingoistic road trip movie, and the first feature film to answer the question, “Can I get the dressing on the side?”

On March 14th, 2023, Oberlin’s five esteemed a cappella groups descended upon the Science Center’s Dye Lecture Hall to treat the gathered audience to an assemblage of auditory delights. Nothing But Treble, Pitch Please, Round Midnight, the Acapelicans, and the Obertones performed an assortment of various and sundry tunes, ranging from ‘70s staples to contemporary crowd-pleasers—and boy, was the crowd pleased!

But for sophomore Coin O’Toss, the overall takeaway from Study Break was a gnawing, deep-seated confusion. He later recounted in a tone of bafflement: “I just kept wondering: ‘when are they all gonna throw up?’”

O’Toss, 19, of Lansing, Michigan, says that he rarely encountered a cappella growing up. “My high school didn’t have a group,” he said. “I didn’t even know what it was until I saw Pitch Perfect.”

O’Toss recalls seeing Pitch Perfect for the first and only time at a middle school slumber party. “I had had a lot of sodapop, I think, and I wasn’t paying a huge amount of attention. I don’t really remember any singing or anything. The only thing I remember is just, like, so much vomit.”

In Jason Moore’s 2012 film Pitch Perfect, group leader Brittany causes her a cappella group, the Barden Bellas, to lose an a cappella competition by projectile vomiting into the audience. The 2012 film Pitch Perfect shows this event in excruciating detail.

“I mean, really, that’s what I thought a cappella was all about,” O’Toss says. “That’s how they won that competition. What do you mean, they lost? They lost? Like, the whole thing?”

Despite everyone’s chuck remaining safely un-upped, O’Toss says he enjoyed Study Break and is looking forward to the next one. “It wasn’t what I was expecting, that’s for sure. But there’s clearly a lot of skill and talent going on there, and it was cool to see.”

SEVEN MINUTES 24-year-old EGOT winner Sal Tlick steals the show in this dark comedy, filled to the brim with saucy secrets and worms that got cut in half so now they’re two worms.

ROUTE 21 Set in a beat-up VW Bus but filmed in a decommissioned nuclear submarine, this movie follows dynamic duo Colin and Doug as they trek across the East Coast in search of someone who knows if green and red bell peppers are different peppers, or the same pepper at different stages of ripeness. Guaranteed to tug at your heartstrings.

FREE AMOS Though technically a documentary about the down-on-its luck DePaul rodeo team, this movie makes the list for breakout star Ron Lonnis’ iconic line, “How are we supposed to find 25 heifers before spring break?”

SPRING BACK A haunting, persistent film about a group of D3 gymnasts who get stuck in a time loop just as they’re crawling out of the foam pit at regionals.

BIBS AND STINKY TAKE BISMARCK A love letter to North Dakota, Weezer, and, as always, whatever weird thing Bibs and Stinky have got going on.

Illustration by Maia Hadler Art Director

March 17, 2023

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New Leap Days Ellen Efstathiou Staff Writer

November 31st For some reason, I always think November has 31 days already, and I’m tired of getting confused. Now I won’t have to argue with random strangers about how many days November has.

August 32nd It feels like every month has a holiday associated with it except August, and that’s sad. Putting a leap day in August will make it feel more included with the other months. That way, when all the months are hanging out and talking about their holidays, August can join in the conversation and not just stand in the corner and mutter “I have National Raspberry Cream Pie Day” when someone asks what’s wrong.

Leap Week At least once a year, all of us have a week that we just want to skip. Now we can! With Leap Week, you just choose a week you want to skip and skip it. For legal reasons, I cannot disclose how you skip the week or offer any information about how much brain damage you will get from Leap Week.

Second January 1st You know how at the beginning of every year you try and start doing your New Year’s Resolutions, but for some reason or another you don’t get around

to it on January 1st and then you just give up? Well, now you have a second chance! Use the first January 1st to regroup and recover from possible hangovers from the previous night, and then start your resolutions on the second January 1st. You’ve still started your resolution on January 1st, so you can say you did it all year.

Standing Still Day This one deconstructs the entire idea of a Leap Day. Instead of “leaping” in the year, we will “stand still” in the year.

October 15th This day should now only happen if twenty babies born the previous day sneeze within the first five minutes of being born.

Immorta-month 1st-30th I’m going to be honest, this one is for selfish reasons. For Immorta-month, we ignore the entire month of April. Then make a new month that we will be calling Immorta-month that will also have 30 days. The reason is that a few years ago, I had a dream where I was told I’m going to die in April. If there’s no April, I can’t die, thus making me immortal.

A Word Search!

Words:

• HEY • I’M • TRAPPED • IN • THIS • WORD • SEARCH

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The Grape

Isabel Hardwig Bad Habits Editor March 17, 2023

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