02.04.21

February 4, 2021 | 34st.com

LASTING SCARS: Albert Kligman and the Holmesburg Prison Experiments Penn’s most celebrated dermatologist experimented on incarcerated people. The University still hasn’t owned up to his legacy.

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Letter from the Editor 3 WORD ON THE STREET A Word to the Verbose

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City Councilmember Helen Gym

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Live Music During Covid

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Albert Kligman

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Promising Young Women

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uzzwords are sweet nothings.

I realized this after reading the word “adulting” a thousand too many times on BuzzFeed articles, listicles, and quippy Forever 21 T–shirts. When everything is adulting — paying taxes and having a savings account but also getting out of bed before noon and wearing jeans — nothing becomes adult. The bar moves lower and lower with each lukewarm accomplishment, which paradoxically makes doing things like dishes and laundry feel optional and Herculean.

The same can be said of activism, a word thrown around so much in the past year that it began to feel like water off a duck’s back, passing over us with no real meaning. When everything is activism, nothing really is. When everything is activism, activism becomes synonymous with doing the fundamentally right thing.

And, paradoxically, when the bar is simply boycotting Goya or selling sweatshirts with pithy sayings for $100 a pop, it becomes harder to hit — and even harder to raise.

Is the University of Pennsylvania quietly removing the name of a doctor who conducted unethical experiments on majority Black prisoners activism? No. Is a bunch of Redditors shorting GameStop stock in the same way insider traders do activism? Hardly, but it gets closer to the definition. Is posting a black square to your Instagram grid while Black Americans are being brutalized for peaceful protest activism? No, but it does make some people feel like revolutionaries. Perhaps that’s the problem.

Activism is purposive. Activism is premeditated. Activism takes effort, and it sure as hell doesn’t include righting a wrong or saying sorry for systemic ills while still causing them. Demonstrations, boycotts, and pro-

Beatrice Forman, Editor–in–Chief Chelsey Zhu, Campus Editor Mehek Boparai, Culture Editor Karin Hananel, Assignments Editor

17 ARTS

Philadelphia Museum of Art

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Lily Stein, Features Editor Denali Sagner, Features Editor Julia Esposito, Word on the Street Editor Hannah Lonser, Special Issues Editor Kyle Whiting, Music Editor Peyton Toups, Deputy Music Editor Kaliyah Dorsey, Focus Editor Emily White, Style Editor Eva Ingber, Ego Editor Aakruti Ganeshan, Arts Editor Harshita Gupta, Film & TV Editor Isabel Liang, Design Editor Alice Heyeh, Street Design Editor Mia Kim, Deputy Design Editor Jesse Zhang, Street Multimedia Editor Caylen David, Street Audience Engagement Editor

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tests don’t exist to ease the guilt of the white and rich. They exist to cause enough earth–shaking discomfort that systems eventually change, but change doesn’t happen if satisfaction starts and ends with black squares and canceling Robinhood.

Yes, we need to hold the line. But we also need to move it.

This issue of Street attempts to tackle the nebulous nature of activism and accountability, of what it takes to move the needle on American culture and who’s actually doing it. We investigate Penn’s response to its role in Albert Kligman’s Holmesburg prison experiments and if hiding his connection to our legacy is enough.

We also examine Claudia Conway’s brand of internet shock value and the nature of trolling Wall Street.

But, if these things aren’t activism, then what is? For City Councilwoman Helen Gym and senior Skye Lucas, it’s something along the lines of civic engagement.

Illustration by Alice Heyeh SSSF,

Music Beats: Emily Moon, Allison Stillman, Nora Youn Film & TV Beat: Arielle Stanger Arts Beat: Jessa Glassman Style Beats: Tara O'Brien, Naomi Kim Features Staff: Sejal Sangani, Angela Shen, Lindsey Perlman, Mira Sydow, Amy Xiang Staff Writers: Meg Gladieux, Aidah Qureshi, Jillian Lombardi, Kathryn Xu Multimedia Associates: Dhivya Arasappan, Sage Levine, Sophie Dai, Sophie Huang, Samantha Turner, Sudeep Bhargava, Sukhmani Kaur Design Associates: Gillian Diebold, Felicity Yick, Sudeep Bhargava Audience Engagement Associates: Kira Wang, Samara Kleiman, Shana Ahemode, Stephanie Nam, Yamila Frej Copy Editor: Brittany Darrow

Cover Design by Isabel Liang Contacting 34th Street Magazine: If you have questions, comments, complaints or letters to the editor, email Bea Forman, Editor-In-Chief, at forman@34st.com. You can also call us at (215) 422–4640. www.34st.com

©2020 34th Street Magazine, The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. No part may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express, written consent of the editors (but I bet we will give you the a–okay.) All rights reserved. 34th Street Magazine is published by The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc., 4015 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Pa., 19104, every Wednesday.

"She beat teen pregnancy!"

WORD ON THE STREET

A Word to the Verbose

A reflection on my relationship with the English language | AAKRUTI GANESHAN

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implicity is hard.

From a very young age, we are taught the value of grammatical complexity. The importance of varied syntax.

The necessity of a rich vocabulary. In our foreign language classes, we trudge through the echelons of conjugations and tenses. Each new grammatical rule we learn is ticked off on a mental to–do list, an imaginative accolade for knowledge that translates into a higher number on our transcript. In high school, I spent hours in frigid classrooms modified for the sake of exam season, lined with rows of plastic indigo chairs and desks that quivered under the weight of A4 pages. Perched on the precipice of my seat, I underlined every verb I used in my French writing exam. I knew the quantitative value of my words by heart. Two points for imparfait, three for futur–parfait. I spared my teacher the indignity of having to scour my paper for advanced vocabulary,

highlighting the words so they stood out.

In the language that comes to me most easily, the process is no different. My grasp of English, my truest mother tongue—though ironically, it’s my colonial forefathers I have to thank for it—is predicated almost entirely on an understanding that complexity reigns supreme.

I would describe my prose as a very, very poor man's James Joyce. All the befuddlement of a stream of consciousness narration with absolutely none of the literary value. Every time I read a book, I make a note of the words I don’t know. The well–rounded words, longer than two syllables, the ones that provoke raised eyebrows when you slide them into daily conversation. Brobdingnagian. Concomitant.

Phantasmagorical. For a month straight, I used the word “diatribe” in every other sentence because I liked the way it rolled off my tongue.

Suppose I were to commit a crime and take it

upon myself to leave a note at the scene of the offense. A linguistic analyst would have no trouble finding the culprit: A cursory scan of every article with my name in the byline would reveal obvious patterns. The persistent use of the word “ubiquitous,” jammed into phrases that seem created solely for the purpose of using that word. Adage. Prosaic.

Analogous. My sentences are jagged, a mess of sharp edges and jumbled commas. I have trouble taking ownership or claiming them. Everything is written in the passive voice.

I don’t know how to avoid the formulaic. The formula was created for a reason, I think; it’s etched into everything I write with an odd kind of permanence. My former English teacher used to refer to it as PEAS: point, evidence, analysis, so what?

Make your point, throw a quote in, list the stylistic devices, and explain why it matters. There’s no room for anything else on my plate. It’s stifled by all the PEAS. I used to get angry when I was called out on it. My Street editor’s suggestions became a battleground as I defended every dispensable word I used in the Google Docs comment section. I went to war over “egregious” and “banal,” advocating for every comma in my lengthy sentences. For me, the combat was personal. It wasn’t just an attack on my writing style, but the perception I attached to it. I wanted to sound smart in the only way I knew how.

Finally, my editor sat me down and explained it to me the only way I would understand.

“Nobody understands what you mean.”

Somewhere along the way, I had decided that the appearance of words was worth more than their definition.

But as it turns out, Nietzsche was right. Confronting your crisis of faith is the only way to transcend it.

“Transcend” is a word I use liberally because I’m still working on it. Things can’t be unlearned overnight. But I’m working on it, working on untangling my lexicon and smoothing out the didactic knots.

Working towards believing that the easiest way of saying things is often the best.

Illustration by Alice Heyeh

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Meet Helen Gym—Penn alum, community organizer, and trailblazing Philadelphia City Councilmember The councilmember looks back on her journey in activism and encourages Penn students to help shape the future of the city | MADDIE MULDOON

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o Philadelphia City Councilmember Helen Gym (C '93, GED '96), the most honorable thing a leader can do is be the first to take action. As one of Philadelphia's fiercest on–the–ground politicians, Gym upholds this value in all aspects of her career.

"You don’t meet moments of uncertainty and crisis by waiting on the sidelines until you hope things get better—you step into the fray," she says. "That means that you don't ever slow down, that you recognize the importance of stepping into things when it feels uncertain, and that you bring as many people as you can with you.”

Gym is a Penn alum and the first Asian American woman to serve on the Philadelphia City Council, where she’s been seated since 2016. She's a community organizer, a former teacher and journalist, a mother of three, and the chair of the council’s Children and Youth Committee.

The councilmember's parents immigrated to the United States from Korea in the 1960s. Gym was born shortly afterward in Seattle, but she spent most of her childhood living in Columbus, Ohio.

“I then moved to Philadelphia at age 18.

The decision was mostly made by drawing a 500–mile radius around my hometown and picking the first school that let me in.

I’ve now been a resident for over 30 years since my days at Penn,” Gym says.

Reflecting upon her time in college, Gym recounts that her heart and soul lay in her work as a writer and editor at Street and The Daily Pennsylvanian. Upon graduating in 1993, the history major was committed to pursuing a career in journalism, which inspired her to take a job at the Mansfield News Journal, a small newspaper between Columbus and Cleveland. After the 1992 Los Angeles uprising sparked by the police beating of Rodney King, Gym decided that she wanted to do more direct community work. The councilmember took some time off, studied Irish literature

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and poetry in New Orleans for a semester, and then found herself back in Philadelphia.

Gym says that her life and career since then have been an "evolving journey."

“I look back, and what I’ve come to recognize is that a lot of my life, whether I acknowledged it or not or was explicit about it, was political," she says.

Upon arriving in Philadelphia, Gym found a home in Asian Americans United and became a teacher at James R. Lowell Elementary School. The 2007 Philadelphia Inquirer Citizen of the Year award winner also led successful campaigns against the construction of a proposed stadium and casino in Chinatown, as well as against the inhumane deportation of immigrants. Additionally, Gym co–founded both Parents United for Public Education and the Philadelphia Public School Notebook.

“Most of my work was with young people in Philadelphia and organizing with parents. That [work] is—whether we choose to be explicit about it or not—inherently political," she says. "I think that what we have to do is ... be political in the sense that you can build out communities to work with one another, that you can speak to issues and make them resonate far beyond your own boundaries, and that you can make links to people's lives. That is what I think it means to be political."

One of the main reasons that Gym decided to run for City Council was to help build a broad movement around education justice. Even though Gym works on much more than just schools, she says that education reform is one of the main reasons that she is still a part of the City Council. “The throughline from the moment I arrived was a broader vision for education and a bigger justice movement thriving in Philadelphia," she says.

Gym describes her role on the City Council as part of a larger movement towards building up the communities that

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Design by Alice Heyeh Credit: Philadelphia Magazine she came from. She points out that the work she does as a member of the City Council is equally important to the work that grassroots organizations are doing— both focus on education, justice reform, climate, housing, and countless other important issues, but in different ways.

Looking at the difficulties that Philadelphia and the world have faced throughout the past year, Gym argues that government matters most during times of crisis.

“This is when society and government were meant to exist, to lift individuals up who can’t do it on their own," she says.

The councilmember has moved quickly on supporting housing and renter protections, a safe return to public schools, and labor rights that protect essential workers and ensure that Black, brown, and female workers will not be left behind. “These are the things which should guide us as we make our way out of this pandemic and through the next several years of recovery," Gym says.

Despite the challenges that the past several months have presented, the councilmember says that the new generation gives her hope. When times are most uncertain, she finds herself spending more time with young people. After the insurrection at the Capitol, Gym felt that it was important to reach out to students throughout the city.

She's visited at least a dozen schools since.

“It has been really energizing to see how engaged young people are, and how ar-

ticulate they are in recognizing what this country’s failures have been, and also what its possibilities are,” she says.

Gym's biggest hope for Philadelphia in the next ten years is that a real people’s movement will rise, thrive, and assume leadership of the city, and that the power structures within the city will become more responsive to individual communities. She believes that Philadelphia, as one of the poorest large cities in the country, can become a national leader by realizing the promise of public education, ending poverty, and eliminating race, income, and neighborhood–based disparities.

Once that happens, she argues, the city could be a model for the country and inspire change elsewhere—because if it can be done in Philadelphia, it can be done anywhere.

Gym believes that Penn also has a role to play in helping Philadelphia reach its potential. “Penn is an island of privilege in a city that is trying to stay afloat. Penn’s strength can only grow when Philadelphia’s [strength] continues to grow," she says.

"Things like the state of our public schools, the very infrastructure and aging buildings, healthcare and the gross inequities that we’re seeing right now with this pandemic—those are areas that Penn should step into and be a leader on. There's no honor in being a small island of privilege. There is honor in leading the charge towards uplifting our city."

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What Noah Silver's IMDb Page Doesn't Tell You The 26–year–old PPE major reflects on his unconventional journey from small– town French boy to Penn student and American actor | FERNANDA BRIZUELA

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oah Silver’s (C '21) Penn career promised to be unique the moment it started. Accepted when he was 16 years old to Penn’s Class of 2015, he decided to take a break from school before starting his first year of college. Many students choose to take gap years—some decide to explore the world, others spend time learning more about themselves before committing to a specific major. Noah, however, used his gap year to focus on his growing acting career.

The Penn senior moved to the French countryside from Miami when he was four years old. Sporty and interested in math and science, Noah wasn't considered the artistic theater kid. That changed when a family friend introduced him to a modeling gig when he was just 14 years old. Attracted by the prospect of having a job and gaining some extra spending money, he decided to go for it.

“I desperately wanted a nice pair of Converse and some Diesel jeans, and so I had to figure out a way to get those.

Modeling became a way to get that ... because I guess I was a cute kid at some point,” Noah jokes. “Rather innocently, my mom took some pictures in the backyard, sent them off, and I started going to Paris for auditions. Things went rather well. I started booking commercials while in high school.”

As his career began to gain traction,

Noah caught the attention of a Los Angeles casting director, who soon invited him to California during his senior year of high school.

This came around the time when he first got into Penn. However, excited by the prospect of advancing his career, he deferred his entrance for three years to work on his acting.

“I thought [I] was only going to take a year off. But sure enough, I was just really confident, and things were going really well. And I just worked—I just kept working. At some point three years [later], Penn was like, ‘We're glad your acting career is going well, but if you want to keep your spot at Penn, you have to start,’” he laughs.

In 2014, after working on six acting projects, including the Sundance film Jamie Marks is Dead, Noah began his first semester at Penn. At the time, however, Noah had just signed on to play Sammy Al–Fayeed in the FX drama Tyrant, which prompted him to alternate between doing a semester of school and a semester of filming the show.

Once he finished filming Tyrant, Noah realized the toll his acting career had taken on him.

“I was kind of burnt out because I had been literally going [since] the age of 16.

At this point, it would have been like six years," he says. "I don't think I'd spent more than four or five months in one place. And so I was kind of a little dis-

Design by Alice Heyeh Credit: IMBd

oriented and just honestly kind of lost.

I just needed a break from everything."

Noah decided to take time off from acting and from his studies at Penn. In 2017, he took a leave of absence to establish himself and find somewhere to “call a home.”

He states that the break “didn’t go very well.” He realized that even though he hadn’t fallen into the cliché problems Hollywood is known for, he felt like the world of acting might have enamored him for the wrong reasons when he was young. In 2019, he decided to come back to Penn to finish his philosophy, politics, and economics major. Noah felt like it was a good time to return to a routine, as opposed to constantly chasing after acting gigs.

“I was like, ‘Okay, this is a good time to go back to school and take the pressure off.' And so I just took a break from all that,” he says. "I stopped auditioning for the first time in ten years. And [I] decided that I'm going to focus on school for two years and just kind of do something different.”

He recognizes the irony of his statement. While most Penn students spend their years at school worrying about securing a successful job, Noah came back to get away from his career. When discussing his time at Penn, Noah makes it clear that he knows he didn’t live the typical college experience.

“I have made some very special

friends that I do think I will keep for my life. But it's not like I had the same experience,” he says. “The class idea is just really important [in college]. You go through this process with these people for four years, and you change drastically over this period of four years. You are nowhere near who you are as a senior as when you were a [first year]—you can't argue with that. And so I didn't have that. I do wish I had, looking back on it. I do wish I had that experience.”

Now that Noah will finish his degree in May, he's thinking about the future.

Although he's had a break from acting, he's ready to dive back into his career after graduation. He's looking forward to not only participating in projects as an actor, but also possibly getting involved in the production side of the industry.

After all the hard work that has gone into building his career, Noah reflects on his passion and love of acting. “To me, a movie set is a really magical thing. The ability to create a scene and a whole story in front of a camera and that energy is just really, really fascinating to me,” he says. “I come from a very small place—the world was very, very small. I didn't grow up in a city, you know. I grew up in the countryside, in small villages. So the world was very small, and acting kind of opened [up] the world very quickly to me.”

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EGO OF THE WEEK

LIZZIE YOUSHAEI HOMETOWN: MAJOR: ACTIVITES:

BY CHELSEY ZHU

34TH STREET MAGAZINE: During your first year at Penn, you ate lunch with someone new every day. How did that happen, and why was it important to you?

LIZZIE YOUSHAEI: So I ran for president my first semester at Penn, and the first time I ran, I actually lost by 15 votes. Although it was really embarrassing at the time, I realized that a real benefit of running was that there were other people who also ran and lost, and we could commiserate over that together. That year, there were 14 other people who ran for class president. I was so down in the dumps about everything that happened, so I started texting them randomly. We had never met. We were just competitors for this position that we had all just lost. But I just wanted someone who could hear me out on how difficult losing was. And so I got lunch with all of them, and I realized everyone at Penn has such a fascinating story. Everyone is here now but came from such different backgrounds and has such different experiences. One of the students I met was a former Broadway star. And someone else I met was an international student from Ghana who was able to come to the United States on a lottery. [I met] people who are working three jobs to support their families while they're here as a student at Penn.

I think with each lunch I had, I was motivated to continue meeting more people because I couldn't believe that I was lucky enough to go to school with such amazing and inspiring people. I told myself, “I only have four years on this campus, so I want to get to know as many people in my class as possible.”

And that's what drove that. I would go up to people randomly in class, at parties, and just Facebook message and say, “Hey, we're both [first–years]. Let's get a meal together.” And it went from there.

STREET: During your first year, you also joined Penn Shabbatones, an a capella group, even though you never performed before college. What inspired you to go for it?

LY: I always loved the performing arts. I was always the person singing in the shower in Hill College House. I was always a shower singer but too shy to 6

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ever do something with that passion.

Before coming to Penn, I took a gap year. I was teaching English in Indonesia, and my students loved American pop singers. Any American teacher who came in who was a guy, they were like, “It's Justin Bieber! It’s Charlie Puth!” I'm a first–generation American, and my mom always talks about how a big way she learned English was through song.

In her English classes, when she first came to the United States, they would often do fill–in–the–blank activities for English pop songs. And when I was writing the curriculum for my classes in Indonesia, I thought that that could be a really, really interesting way to approach learning in the classroom. So we would do fill–in–the–blank activities with Justin Bieber and Charlie Puth songs. “One Call Away” was their favorite song. And one day, I told my students that I loved singing, but this is probably it. Once I get back to the US, that'll be it for me. As I was leaving, they told me, “Lizzie, you have to try out for six singing groups, and if nobody takes you, then never sing again.” And so I did that. I auditioned for seven a capella groups and ultimately joined the Shabbatones. I literally cried after my first audition because I thought I sounded so bad. I didn't know what I had gotten myself into. But I told myself, “Nobody knows me at Penn. Going into these audition rooms, I have nothing to lose.” And [Shabbatones] has really become one of my greatest communities on this campus.

STREET: You mentioned that you’re a first generation American. How has your identity impacted your experience at Penn?

LY: So my parents are both from Iran. They came to the United States in ‘79 at the start of the Iranian Revolution, and they came here because they were seeking religious freedom. At that time, Jewish people were being persecuted a lot for their religious beliefs.

My parents escaped, and my mom actually escaped via donkey. She was literally smuggled out through the border. It’s a really interesting story that I'm always inspired by and always love to tell. I think so

Highland Park, Illinois Marketing, Management Class Board 2021, Penn Shabbatones, professor Adam Grant’s Impact Lab, Power of Penn, Pennacle, Authors at Wharton, Sigma Delta Tau (SDT), and three senior societies: Osiris, Shamash, and Gryphon.

much of her courage is something I really hope to embody in myself.

[Before Penn], I remember when I said to my parents, “It's time to take the ACT,” my parents didn't even know what the ACT was. And so experiences like that, when I was in high school—I wasn't so proud of my heritage. But coming to Penn was so special because I think differences are really, really celebrated here. And granted, that might just be my personal perspective and experience, but Penn was finally the place where I felt like being different was interesting and cool. People wanted to learn about the different languages I speak and the different foods I eat at home. When I was a kid, I would force my mom to pack me perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch or to only speak English to me around friends. I would rarely have friends over because I was so embarrassed and shy of showing that culture. So for me, coming to Penn has finally allowed me to own and embrace my full identity, which was something I really couldn't do before.

STREET: You might have lost your first election, but now you’re the 2021 Class Board president. What has it been like trying to lead an entire class through their final year remotely?

LY: It has been the biggest challenge. I stepped into this role because I wanted to give students, the Class of 2021, the best four years possible, and I think the culmination of college comes down to your second semester junior year and your senior year. Those happen to be our remote semesters. Being in leadership during those times and trying to figure out how to make the most of this situation—how to recreate traditions like Hey Day, Feb Club, Senior Week, Final Toast, all of these staples in someone's junior year and senior year experience—trying to figure out how to create them in a way that feels somewhat normal has been really difficult, especially given the fact that students aren't even in the same time zone. Everyone has Zoom fatigue, so we don't even want to do Zoom events anymore because that excitement from

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students just isn't there.

But I think our board has finally started to hit a stride. There are ways to engage the seniors, even if it's not in person. Last semester, we did a grab–and– go with Magic Carpet. Seniors had subsidized meals from Magic Carpet two days before Thanksgiving break. And we thought that was an awesome way to get students out of their houses, get seniors to see each other in a socially distant and safe way, and also help a local business. The Class Board is constantly thinking of ways to make this senior year as meaningful as possible for students while also supporting the local Philadelphia community. And I think from a leadership perspective, that’s been a really enriching and exciting challenge to have.

STREET: What’s next for you?

LY: I have a few things in the mix. I might be going abroad next year to teach again. It's something I really have missed since my gap year. I also might be an associate product manager at a company called Book of the Month. It's a really awesome startup based out of New York. It has about 50 employees, and it's a subscription book service. Based on your interest, you get a different book every month that's nonfiction and written by an emerging author. [Book of the Month is] working to support authors from minority backgrounds and backgrounds that are traditionally not represented in the literature space. So I'm currently deciding on that. We'll see what's next for me.

Call us home.

LIGHTNING ROUND

STREET: Last song you listened to?

LY: “Golden” by Harry Styles.

STREET: Favorite song to sing?

LY: “Santeria” by Sublime.

STREET: What's something people wouldn't guess about you?

LY: I’m obsessed with scrapbooking. I’m literally a grandma at heart.

STREET: If you were a building on campus, what would you be and why?

LY: Is it cliché to say College Hall because of the history? I'm obsessed with it. But maybe Houston Hall for the poke bowls. I'm a huge fan of Bento.

STREET: Who do you look up to?

LY: Sheryl Sandberg is a huge inspiration for me. I love badass women in power.

STREET: If we weren't in a pandemic right now and you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

LY: I’ve always wanted to go to Iran because I’ve never been able to visit, and I’ve always wanted to see where my parents grew up.

STREET: There are two types of people at Penn…

LY: Those who admit Hillel is the best dining hall and those who don’t.

STREET: And you are?

LY: The one who thinks that Hillel is by far the best dining hall on campus.

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MUSIC

Will Live Music Ever Return?

As the pandemic drags on, live music seems as distant as ever. | ALLISON STILLMAN

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magine it: the thrashing of the speakers, incandescent lights reflecting against the glazed eyes of fans, sweat saturating the air between the stage and the audience, and a euphoric aura pervading the stadium. That transcendent sensation of being in the presence of live music and exultant people. It all seems completely foreign now.

In light of COVID–19 and the essential restrictions on everyday life, live concert experiences were seemingly some of the first forms of entertainment to fall by the wayside. The failure to maintain necessary distance and circumvent super–spreader events precipitated a cascade of tour cancellations. As an

Illustration by Alice Heyeh immediate, and now more long–term, consequence of terminating stadium tours, concerts, and festivals, the music industry has confronted dire economic repercussions.

One of the first noticeable results of the pandemic in the music industry was a sharp decline in streaming figures on platforms like Spotify. With these numbers in decline, artists began to postpone album release dates. Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, Sam Smith, and the 1975 were a few artists out of many to suspend album releases in light of the added stress of COVID–19, and the prospect of losing streams. This, combined with the overwhelming loss of artists’ main revenue stream—live music and concert experiences—has devastated the music industry and its artists in irrevocable ways.

In March last year, the Rolling Stones postponed the North American leg of their No Filter tour. Then in April, the 50th anniversary

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edition of Roskilde Festival in Denmark—with an impressive lineup featuring Kendrick Lamar, Cage the Elephant, Taylor Swift, Tyler, the Creator, and more—was canceled. Soon, Harry Styles had postponed Love on Tour, along with Billie Eilish, the Weeknd, Justin Bieber, and Halsey. As this persistent surge of cancellations became normalized, the thought of live concerts resuming was seemingly hopeless. However, with a global administration of the vaccine, perhaps fans will once again be washed in the unadulterated explosions of live music.

The question at stake is: Will the music industry ever return to a state of economic and social normalcy?

Specific divisions have taken precautionary measures to ensure stability following lockdown.

The Metropolitan Opera, the National Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra offer live streaming of events to continue an influx of revenue and maintain a secure fanbase. However, for most artists, streaming online is not a viable long–term replacement for live venue performances. While it was estimated that streaming revenue would equate to $23 billion by 2022, the live music industry was expected to exceed revenues of $31 billion.

Due to the pandemic, these numbers have taken a drastic hit. This respective shutdown has caused an estimated loss of $10 billion in advertisements and scholarships, also paralleled by plummeting stocks in live concert businesses like Live Nation and AEG. Now, more than ever, it is imperative for a rebirth of a live infrastructure.

The first attempt at a return to major festival performances was in Taiwan at the Ultra Music Festival—headlined by Alesso—on Nov. 14.

This event was shockingly successful and proved to nervous fans that the gates are not completely shut on live concerts; this sense of optimism is refreshing especially following the recent cancellation of the California Roots Festival, Coachella, and Ultra Music Festival in Miami.

Nevertheless, US COVID–19 transmission rates continue to skyrocket while Taiwan has seen incredibly low numbers of positive cases.

It seems optimistic that when the US returns to a controlled magnitude of infection rates, live experiences will become progressively available.

When this day finally arrives, Ticketmaster has established a proposal for post–pandemic fan security that utilizes phone applications to confirm a fan’s vaccination report and/or negative COVID–19 test within a 24 to 72 hour window. These precautionary measures will certainly be expensive, but extend a colossal step forward in the restoration of live entertainment.

The impact of COVID–19 on the entertainment and music industry has affected artists on both an international and domestic scale. From the local musician at a bar in Nashville who has lost an audience to world famous headliners losing online

MUSIC

Arlo Parks Offers Healing on Collapsed in Sunbeams Parks' debut album exceeds expectations with beautifully brutal honesty. | EMILY MOON

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arlier this month, Street featured Arlo Parks' debut album as one of our most anticipated new releases of 2021. Slated to open for Paramore artist Hayley Williams before COVID–19 restrictions canceled the tour, Parks had garnered buzz for the handful of singles she released over the last few years as she worked on her first LP. Showcasing poignant lyricism and dreamy vocals in tracks like “Cola,” Parks’ singles inflated expectations for her first full–length project, Çollapsed in Sunbeams—and she’s somehow surpassed them.

The titular opening track “Çollapsed in Sunbeams” sets the deeply personal tone that enshrouds her album with a soft monologue. Her poeticism announces itself prominently through the vulnerable lyrics found in every song, but manifests at its most unadulterated state among the lilts of the intimate spoken word track. It’s a fitting opener for the rest of the songs to follow, as Çollapsed in Sunbeams feels like a conversation with Parks herself.

She speaks directly to the listeners as she ends the first track with a slightly ominous message of comfort: “You shouldn’t be afraid to cry in front of me / I promise.” Parks’ debut album showcases her raw ability to communicate emotions, a talent so potent that her pain becomes intertwined with ours as she sings to us. She explains this intention by saying, “Even though the stories in the album are about me, my life, and my world, I’m also embarking on this journey with listeners.”

The confessional nature of Parks' music brings us deeper into her universe until we live there alongside her. In "Caroline," we observe the dissolution of two strangers' relationship as Parks follows the reactions of a woman and her boyfriend after an explosive fight—creating a vivid reconstruction of their desperation and frustration. With lyrics like "strawberry cheeks flushed with defeated rage," Parks builds a narrative overflowing with details, a foundation to let our own imaginations run wild and immerse ourselves in the music.

Moments of vulnerability are sometimes veiled behind her soothing voice in highly personal tracks that explore heavy subjects like depression and homophobia. “Hope” encapsulates her friend Millie’s pain while simultaneously sporting a sunny, jazz–influenced beat. Parks beautifully yet tragically crafts a story of feeling so overwhelmed and

Illustration by Alice Choi broken that it becomes difficult to explain that depth of emotion, even to a loved one.

Millie “started sweating bullets when her dad asked, ‘how d'you really feel?’” and wouldn’t “call her friends 'cause she’s ashamed of being locked into bed.”

Parks responds to Millie’s struggles with glimmers of hope and reassurance, reminding her that she’s not alone without any naivety. Çollapsed in Sunbeams is unique in its ability to undercut heavy themes without sugar–coated placations. Parks understands the emotions she sings about and works through them alongside her listeners; as she puts it in “Portra 400,” she’s “making rainbows out of something painful.”

Parks leaps through a versatile and bittersweet track list, jumping from upbeat R&B pop in “Too Good” to toned–down soul in “For

Violet.” She similarly bounds from subject to subject, touching upon themes familiar to adolescence. The range of moods that Parks includes in Çollapsed in Sunbeams captures the tempestuous nature of growing up as she explores failed relationships, self–acceptance, and sexuality. She realizes the world is not as brilliant as she once believed it to be, that people are not always who she needs them to be.

The album in itself is a coming–of–age story– one that is haunting and honest, yet cathartic.

The timing of Çollapsed in Sunbeams seems appropriate given its shared themes with the COVID–19 pandemic of isolation, hurt, and uncomfortable growth. However, Parks’ success during a time of widespread suffering has yielded complex emotions for the young artist, with Parks admitting she’s “definitely had to work through feeling undeserving.” Still,

there is comfort in the allure of Çollapsed in Sunbeams and the tone of Parks’ music, especially as it uplifts without seeming dismissive or contrived. Parks' debut shines as a quiet moment of beauty, born from the pandemic’s uncertainty, to remind us there are brighter days to come. As she sings "I know you can't let go / of anything at the moment / just know it won't hurt so / won't hurt so much forever," Parks certainly sounds like healing. Çollapsed in Sunbeams is not an album of joy in the traditional sense. If you seek a message of complete and unflinching comfort, if you look for her to tell you that life is always easy and wonderful, you will search for it forever. There is, however, a different kind of solace weaved throughout the tracks Parks has poured her soul into: You’ll get through it, and you’re not alone.

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Lasting Scars

Albert Kligman and the Holmesburg Prison Experiments Penn’s most celebrated dermatologist experimented on incarcerated people. The University still hasn’t owned up to his legacy.

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very day, Yusef Anthony is forced to occupy a mangled body.

Anthony is a devout Muslim. But during his daily prayers, his feet swell up, fluid bubbling under the skin.

“We make prayer five times a day, and my brothers would have to go to the store and buy me a pack of five pairs of socks,” Anthony says. “After every prayer, I had to take the socks off and throw them away because they would be drenched in pus.”

His hands and fingernails are often bloated, making it impossible to complete everyday tasks.

“My hands wound up becoming as big as 8–ounce boxing gloves,” he says. “Inside of me, it’s like I'm deteriorating.”

Anthony obtained his injuries while incarcerated at Holmesburg Prison. Holmesburg, opened by the City of Philadelphia in 1896, housed those serving short sentences or awaiting trial, setting it apart from the maximum–security Eastern State Penitentiary. A solitary confinement prison, Holmesburg was cold and dark, with narrow, imposing concrete hallways and no windows. Impenetrable stone walls blocked off the facility from the neighborhood surrounding it.

They also kept hundreds of incarcerated men— and years of unspoken abuse—inside.

Throughout his time at Holmesburg, Anthony underwent a wide array of tests that continue to affect his health over 50 years later. Patch tests on his back left him with chloracne—a collection of lesions

Albert Kligman experiments on a rabbit in 1967 | Photo courtesy of Temple University Libraries and cysts on the skin caused by chemical exposure— and pus–swollen fingers and feet. In one trial, Anthony had to take a hallucinogenic drug and answer mathematical questions. In another test, he drank a milkshake that gave him hemorrhoids, forcing him to undergo operations to repair his damaged rectum.

“When I went into Holmesburg, I was scared to death because I saw guys walking around with bandages on their heads, bandages on their backs, [and] on their arms,” Anthony says. “I said, ‘Wow, this place is more violent than what I had heard about!’”

But while Anthony initially thought prison fights were responsible for the bandages, he would soon discover the true cause: Doctor Albert Kligman and the University of Pennsylvania.

••• Albert Montgomery Kligman (GR '42 M '47 RES '51) was born to Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia

in March 1916. Intelligent from a young age, Kligman received a bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1939, followed by his doctoral degree from Penn in 1942 and a medical degree from Penn Medicine in 1949. As a medical researcher at Penn, Kligman was renowned. In the mid–1960s, he discovered that tretinoin, a derivative of vitamin A, could treat acne. In 1967, Kligman and Johnson & Johnson patented the drug for commercial use as Retin–A. The drug was an instant and lasting hit.

Nearly 30 years after its patent, Retin–A’s sales continued to remain “steadily in the range of $100 million a year.”

As a researcher, Kligman’s accomplishments “are really unparalleled in the field,” says Jules Lipoff, assistant professor of Clinical Dermatology and physician at Penn Medicine. “He really helped medicalize and add scientific legitimacy to a field that did not have a whole lot of basic science to quantify and qualify it.”

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Over his career, due in large part to Retin–A’s commercial success, Kligman donated millions of dollars to the University, helping to develop its now well–established dermatology department. He was one of the most successful doctors to practice at Penn, bringing in media attention, major contracts and grants, and drug royalties.

Not only was the medical community enamored with Kligman’s dermatological accolades, but many were also drawn in by his eccentric personality. Jim Ackerman (D '60), whose brother worked with Kligman at Holmesburg and who vacationed with Kligman and his wife, describes him as cunning and personable.

“Some people tend to lie in a more convincing way than other people can tell the truth. Kligman was one of these people,” Jim says. “A real charmer and a bit of a conman.”

However, Kligman’s charisma and nonchalance made him more than just a hospitable party host. They helped him evade criticism—and sometimes even the truth.

but few ever stepped forward.

In 2000, 298 former study participants sued Kligman, Penn, the City of Philadelphia, Dow Chemical, and Johnson & Johnson for exposing them to “infectious diseases, radioactive isotopes, and psychotic drugs such as LSD without having given informed consent.” The men alleged that their consent was in fact coerced, as experimenters leveraged money over their heads and failed to accurately disclose possible health consequences. The case was thrown out in 2002. The statute of limitations for the participants’ charges had passed.

One year later, a large crowd gathered outside of the Philadelphia College of Physicians. The group, a collection of formerly incarcerated men calling themselves the "Holmesburg Survivors,” held handmade signs and

••• Backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, Kligman and the University of Pennsylvania began to test numerous chemicals on the bodies of incarcerated people at Holmesburg in the early 1950s.

In 1966, Kligman and Penn entered a $10,000 contract with the Dow Chemical Company, a major chemical corporation, to test dioxin, a highly poisonous component of Agent Orange and other herbicides. Dow wanted to find the minimum amount of dioxin required to elicit a reaction in human subjects. In the tests, Dow instructed Kligman to apply small doses—between 0.2 and 16 micrograms—of dioxin to the foreheads and backs of the incarcerated men.

Shortly after the study began, Kligman reported back to Dow that he had outstanding new results. After seeing minimal change with Dow’s instructed dosage, Kligman decided to apply 7,500 micrograms of dioxin to the skin of many participants—486 times the dosage instructed by Dow. Kligman left the men with excruciating and lasting lesions, blackheads, and blisters on their skin.

Dow was shocked. They had not approved this increase in dioxin application on human skin. Kligman had failed to answer the company's research question, proving only that the minimum dosage required to elicit a reaction was somewhere between 16 and 7,500 micrograms—a massive window. To make matters worse, because of Kligman's incoherent record–keeping, no one could conduct follow–ups on the affected participants. Dow walked away with no answers and left 70 incarcerated men with chronic pain.

That year, Kligman became the first researcher in the history of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be banned from testing drugs on human subjects. The FDA cited Kligman’s sloppy work and inconsistent records in their decision. Nonetheless, he was reinstated a month later.

In a 1980 hearing by the Environmental Protection Agency on the dioxin experiments, V. K. Rowe, the former director of Toxicological Affairs and Health and Environ-

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An incarcerated man is rolled out on a stretcher after the Holmesburg Prison riots in the 1970s | Photo Courtesy of Temple University Digital Archives (left) Solomon A. McBride, a medical administrator of the Holmesburg program. speaks with an incarcerated participant in testing program in 1966 | Photo courtesy of Temple University (right) ment Research at Dow, said that Kligman “was a professor of Dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania, and we had reasonable confidence that he would proceed in a manner consistent with our original protocol.”

Rowe was wrong.

Around the same time as the Dow Chemical experiments, 320 men at Holmesburg were turned “into human guinea pigs in secret chemical warfare experiments” through a $386,486 contract between Penn and the United States Army. In these experiments, Penn tasked Kligman and his associate Herbert W. Copelan, another physician at the University, with finding the MED–50, or minimum effective dose necessary to mentally disable half of any given population, for a number of mind–altering drugs. Participants were paid $12 for medical screening and up to $25 for each set of experiments they participated in. After exposure to a number of chemicals, including elements of Agent Orange and psychoactive drugs, as well as chemicals Kligman hoped would “harden” the skin, the incarcerated men experienced nausea, lightheadedness, delirium, hallucinations, and anxiety. Two– thirds of the participants in the study were Black men.

However, Kligman and Copelan claimed that “no subject suffered any toxic or harmful effect.” Like the Dow Chemical records, research documents omitted the names of these participants, ensuring no one could perform a follow–up study on the exposed. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, a memo by U.S. Army clinical research expert Lt. Col. M.G. Bottiglieri called Kligman’s medical reports “pure gibberish,” ”absolutely useless,” and “an attempt to provide a facade of competence and ability.” To this day, the University

has not been able to measure the long–term effects of toxic chemical exposure on the incarcerated men.

The long–term implications of Kligman’s tests haunt Anthony. At prison orientation, men told Anthony that he could enroll in Penn’s experiments to earn extra money. After his second test, he wanted to stop due to the painful side effects. The incentive of earning cash, however, was too much to resist. “'I ain't getting on no more tests, man,'” Anthony remembers thinking after the second experiment damaged his intestines. “But sure enough, because if you don't have no money and you want to go to movies like everybody else, you got to get movie tickets. You can get new underwear, socks, and stuff like that when you have money. And I missed that.”

Anthony says he's worked odd jobs all of his life but struggled to find permanent work. Now, he’s on disability benefits.

“I just get enough money to live from day to day,” Anthony says. “This is a nightmare.”

“I'm always asked, ‘What is your day–to–day life like?’

Just existing—existing, you know. I wish things were a little better.”

Anthony’s story—along with the accounts of many other men who live in pain—illustrates the unethical nature of paying incarcerated people to participate in medical experiments.

“The Nuremberg Code says that [incarcerated people] can't be used as subjects because they are coerced. These patients were not given informed consent,” says David Egilman, a public health expert who has served as a witness in

chanted protests into a megaphone. As they stood guard outside, Kligman received a lifetime achievement award from the College of Physicians, surrounded by Philadelphia’s top doctors.

At the protest, former study participant Anthony Edwards told the DP, “They coerced us—85% were Black and functional illiterate—to believe that tests were safe … [Kligman] owes us a debt.”

Marc Ackerman (D '98), Jim Ackerman’s son, remembers the night vividly. It was the night he was inducted into the College of Physicians as a fellow. Marc says that the doctors at the ceremony were more annoyed by the inconvenience of the protest than appalled by the accusations weighted against Kligman, the evening’s honoree.

“It was really remarkable—the reaction of the fellows of

"People who are in prison are, by the very nature of imprisonment, coerced."

- David Egilman

high–profile medical malpractice lawsuits. “People who are in prison are, by the very nature of imprisonment, coerced.”

••• For decades, the Holmesburg Prison experiments have been one of Penn’s darkest open secrets.

In 1990, formerly incarcerated study participant Edward Farrington sued the City of Philadelphia, Holmesburg, and Penn, claiming he developed leukemia from the radioactive injections that he received in prison. Farrington claimed that University researchers “enticed” him into participating in the study, assuring him that there would be no long–term consequences. Two years later, the lawsuit was settled. The University denied Farrington’s allegations and made no admission of guilt in the process of the settlement.

Penn’s response was to offer “silence or a very boilerplate statement and hope the whole thing just went away,” says Jeremy Kahn (C '96), a reporter for The Daily Pennsylvanian who covered the Kligman story in the 1990s.

In 1998, Allen Hornblum published Acres of Skin, his groundbreaking book on Kligman, which drew attention to the issue that had largely gone unaddressed in Penn’s history. In response to the book, the University said in a statement that, “to the best of [Kligman’s] knowledge, the result of those experiments advanced our knowledge of the pathogenesis of skin disease, and no long–term harm was done to any person who voluntarily participated in the research program.” Subsequently, the University offered free medical care for formerly incarcerated participants with lasting injuries,

Yusef Anthony was incarcerated at Holmesburg Prison and underwent tests administered by Kligman. The tests still leave an imprint on Anthony’s body to this day. Photo by Chase Sutton

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the College of Physicians who were inside that night. [They] were sort of appalled by the protest and weren't even curious in terms of discussing … the merits of the argument,” he says. “My own observation, sitting two rows behind him, was that Al Kligman was very smug—almost with a smile on his face.”

Kligman’s lack of repentance lasted throughout his life. “It was years before the authorities knew that I was conducting various studies on [incarcerated] volunteers. Things were simpler then. Informed consent was unheard of. No one asked me what I was doing.

It was a wonderful time,” he once said.

In 2006, Kligman told The New York Times that shutting down the prison experiments was a “big mistake.”

••• Today, a large framed painting of Albert Kligman, who died in 2010, watches over one of the wings in the University’s medical center. Kligman poses with his hands in his lap, donning a bright red tie and checkered suit jacket. On his face sits a smile, the same one Marc Ackerman observed at the College of Physicians in October 2003.

Recently, many institutions have felt pressure to reconsider who they publicly honor. In June, Princeton University removed former President Woodrow Wilson’s name from its school of public policy and residential college house due to his racist history. The University of Southern California stripped the name of Rufus von KleinSmid from a major campus building, citing his role in the eugenics movement. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York revoked all titles and honors from Nobel Prize–winning scientist James Watson over “reprehensible” comments on scientific racism.

At the University of Pittsburgh, the graduate school for public health was housed in a building named after former U.S. Surgeon General Thomas Parran. Parran played a key role in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study that harmed Black men and women in the 1930s and '40s.

Gregory Dober, a professor at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, uncovered the connection between Parran and the Tuskegee experiments while conducting research for a book. His discoveries prompted the University of Pittsburgh to remove Parran’s name from the building in 2018. For Dober, Kligman’s controversial history and his close relationship to Penn mean the University needs to take strong action.

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“Kligman designed, developed, and conducted the unethical experiments, as well as sought individual financial gain,” Dober says. “If Pitt found it worth diligently deliberating on Parran’s legacy, how can Penn not justify the same?”

Kligman’s experiments were an issue of medical ethics, but they were also, indisputably, an issue of race.

In a piece published in the Inquirer, Lipoff and Adewole Adamson, a medical researcher at the University of Texas, wrote, “In a time when protests consistently remind us that Black lives matter, we must remember Kligman’s experimental human subjects, who were mostly Black men … were treated as if they mattered less.”

The atrocities committed at Holmesburg are part of a long history of the abuse of Black bodies at the

"Holmesburg is the flip side of Tuskegee. At Tuskegee, you have sick men who were not treated. At Holmesburg, you have healthy men who were made ill." - Allen Hornblum

hands of medical experts. In the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study, researchers denied care to 600 Black men with syphilis, allowing the disease to destroy their lives in the name of research. Tuskegee’s implications still loom large over medical practice. Today, Black women are more than three times more likely to die during childbirth than white women. Just five years ago, half of medical trainees in a research study falsely believed that Black patients felt pain at lower rates than white patients. Pain in Black people continues to be grossly under–managed in medical settings.

Due to this enduring history of medical racism, Black Americans have grown skeptical of medical research and physicians. With the rollout of COVID–19 vaccines in recent weeks, many Black people have remained distrustful of a research process that has left out people of color and fatally failed them in the past.

“Holmesburg is the flip side of Tuskegee. At Tuskegee, you have sick men who were not treated,” Hornblum says. “At Holmesburg, you have healthy men who were made ill.”

••• Up until recently, Kligman’s name sat on classrooms, laboratories, professorships, and lectures at the University. Some of these relics to Kligman still stand, although others have been quietly removed from the University’s website in recent months.

When asked to comment on Kligman’s legacy, Penn offered the following statement: “The Perelman School of Medicine regrets the manner in which Dr. Kligman’s research was conducted—which would not be acceptable by today’s standards—and we are committed to upholding our responsibility to ensure the protection of participants in human subjects research. To more clearly address this complicated history, a faculty committee convened by University leadership has been working to review and make recommendations regarding Penn’s recognition of Dr. Kligman, an effort which we expect to be completed in the upcoming year.”

However, for many who bore witness to Kligman’s legacy at Penn, this sentiment isn’t enough. “[Kligman’s] controversial legacy is not widely acknowledged or recognized, even amongst people at Penn,” says Lipoff. “It is really important that we honestly acknowledge our history and our historical figures for all of their great accomplishments, and for all of their flaws.”

Lipoff and Adamson’s editorial calls for Penn to cut ties with Kligman, remove his name from all honorifics, and “fulfill the affirmative obligation to teach about the full context of what was done.”

Years after his interaction with Kligman, Jim Ackerman reflects on Penn’s lack of action to condemn the experiments, especially as many institutions have reckoned effectively with problematic historical figures.

“It requires a certain amount of courage to tell it like it is,” he says. “There was not a great show of courage among people in the medical school and the University administration.”

“There are medical institutions that have found out about things that were unethical and experimental in ways that were not to a patient's advantage.

They have blown the whistle, retrospectively and retroactively. Penn has had an opportunity for a long time.”

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The Stock Market Has Always Been A Game. Gen Z Is Learning to Play.

WTF is going on with the stock market right now? | MEG GLADIEUX

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ne thing’s for certain—Gen Z is changing the The Occupy Wall Street of our generation is here, but it’s living through memes and the internet rather than protests on New York streets. For decades, financial markets have been a game enjoyed only by the white–collared and wealthy. Now, it’s Gen Z’s turn to play.

Unless you’re a finance major or an amateur trader yourself, the headlines about Reddit, Robinhood, GameStop, and all of the stock market chaos probably have your head spinning. The stock market has been upended by a group of Reddit users, mostly organized around the subreddit r/wallstreetbets to effectively lead a movement against market domination by institutional investors. It all started with hedge funds short selling GameStop shares. When r/ wallstreetbets realized the hedge funds were shorting, they couldn’t help but band together to play the big guys at their own game. They collectively bought up all of GameStop’s stock—called a short squeeze—causing Gamestop’s value to skyrocket. The hedge funds were forced to buy back the stock at astronomical losses. The Redditors made millions.

In the midst of market downturn and pandemic angst, amateur trading became the perfect pastime. “One of my quarantine things was picking up on the stock market,” says Jared Rogers (E, W '21). It started out with long–term, stable investments for Jared, until about a week ago, when he got into day trading through r/wallstreetbets. “It’s fun to be part of something this large. The idea of sticking it to the big guy and also making something for yourself in return is kind of awesome.”

That’s kind of the thesis of r/wallstreetbets: make memes, make money, and troll the financial institutions. Like much of Reddit, it’s a niche corner of the internet dominated by meme culture, but it certainly isn’t made for everyone. It’s constructed on internet slang, vulgarity, and a subtle Dave Portnoy brand of white–gamer–guy toxic masculinity. “It’s definitely a white male–oriented space ... I didn’t vibe with [r/wallstreetbets] before, but now that they’re doing something of actual consequence, I’m on their side,” says Gebran Abdulhai (C '23).

Gebran’s in it for the memes and the cash, but most of all, the justice. He was originally going to send his stimulus check to his family in Ethiopia, but when Reddit started trolling Wall Street, he decided to invest it instead. He’d been watching r/wallstreetbets and other trading subreddits, but ultimately invested in cryptocurrency, specifically Dogecoin. “It’s kind of the same thing. It’s just another

Illustration by Sudeep Bhargava meme.” But memes, nevertheless, that are taking the form of radical wealth redistribution. Gen Z may be more leftist, less materialistic, and more socially–conscious than past generations—but it doesn’t mean we’re content with our lack of economic mobility determined by the 1%. “The system as it stands was never designed to serve the people,” says Gebran. In the Gen Z mindset, it’s a rich man’s world—sometimes you’ve just got to play the game.

And that’s where the other key player enters: Robinhood, the simplistic trading app popular among amateur investors. When major hedge funds were going bankrupt after the r/wallstreetbets short squeeze, the popular brokerage app halted sale of GameStop stock, resulting in major backlash from both Robinhood users, politicians, and even Elon Musk. So why'd Robinhood do it? The platform is backed by some of the financial industry's biggest players—and they couldn’t stand losing at their own game. “They were intentionally changing the rules because they were losing money. That’s not fair,” says Derek Nhieu (W '23).

Derek had $1000 invested in GameStop and was doing well. Then, when Robinhood restricted GameStop trade, its stock value plummeted, and Derek decided to cut his losses. “I sold my three shares and lost $500, which is, like, half of what I put in.” When the stock rallied again, he realized he’d lost the money for no reason—all thanks to Robinhood’s sudden trading limits. Robinhood claims restricting GameStop trade was a move made to protect its users from an unstable market, but the reality was that the instability wasn’t a product of Reddit, but of a legacy of market manipulation orchestrated by the wealthy.

And there’s an even darker underside to Robinhood beyond its blatant corruption. Though initially a proponent of the app’s accessibility, Ollie Law (C '23) has grown disillusioned with Robinhood in the past week. “It’s set up in kind of a game–like way.

It’s a colorful display, you get notifications when things are going your way. It’s too easy for people to do very risky transactions without knowing the full consequences, especially around options trading,” says Ollie. This past June, a 20–year–old Robinhood user died by suicide after an interface issue in the app led him to believe he had incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Robinhood promised it’d do better and institute more user protections, yet it still preys on the naivete of the young people to whom

it allows market access. At its best, Robinhood has made trading more accessible, but at its worst it's a dangerously corrupt and manipulative platform à la Black Mirror.

But some young people weren’t so easily lured by Robinhood’s gimmick to begin with. Jessica Riedman (W ‘24) trades on the platform StreetSmart Edge through Charles Schwab, a more sophisticated trading software than Robinhood. “As retail traders, the odds are already against us and in favor of the institutions, so having less information to work with on basic apps like Robinhood puts us at a disadvantage when we really need an edge,” says Jessica. In other words, the game is stacked against anyone who’s using simple trading apps like Robinhood. It’s like a carnival game—it seems easy enough to win, until you realize the game is rigged. But the millions banning together through Reddit are standing up to the institutions’ crooked system. Despite Robinhood’s corruption, economic justice is the name of the game in the meme stock revolution—and it’s giving many hope for big change.

“Occupy Wall Street was a physical movement where people were congregating outside of Wall Street offices to try to intimidate them. But this online Reddit thing is impacting them much more, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars,” says Jared. “It’s hilarious to be a part of something this big.” Gebran, too, is hopeful about the impacts of the movement spurred by r/wallstreetbets. “Even if it's wrapped up in memes and stuff, it is a unique way to go about raising awareness for the cause of economic justice.”

So, what comes next? Reddit certainly isn’t stopping any time soon. The whole saga is reportedly even being made into a movie. Bank of America described Gen Z as “the most disruptive generation ever.” And with this, we’re certainly manifesting that. In this case, the way to overthrow the system is to keep playing the game. And it’s a hard game to resist: When Robinhood relaxed restrictions on GameStop, Derek went back in, buying one share. “Some people are saying the real squeeze hasn’t even happened yet. I’m hopeful. Maybe I’ll make it all back!” he says.

One thing’s for certain—Gen Z is changing the rules of the stock market. When all is said and done, it’s a game, a game we’re all still learning to play. And it’s only just begun.

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Keeping Up With the Conways Claudia Conway shouldn’t be considered a Gen Z hero—she’s just a teenager trying to navigate the realities of her abuse. | KIRA WANG

Illustration by Alice Heyeh Content Warning: Mentions of child pornography

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laudia Conway was our Gen Z young adult protagonist of the summer. From her outspoken progressive politics to her biting criticisms of the Trump administration, Conway has amassed over 1.6 million followers on TikTok through her activism and the publicization of her bitter family dynamics. As the sixteen–year–old daughter of Kellyanne Conway, former senior counselor to Donald Trump, Conway’s TikToks shed light on the personal life of one of America’s most infamous Republicans.

Like most of Gen Z, Conway was on the cusp of adulthood during the 2020 election. Too young to vote, but old enough to feel the effects of politics, she utilized her platform extensively to promote tolerance and speak out against her mother’s role in the Trump administration. After first going viral for exposing her mother’s COVID–19 diagnosis, she was hailed as a whistleblower, an anti–Trump resistance hero, and a Gen Z political icon who embodied typical teenage rebellion with an activist streak. As Conway rode on her newfound internet fame, however, things took a dark turn.

After her mother was diagnosed with COVID–19, Conway soon came down with the same virus. Due to her mother’s anti–mask stance and the large maskless social gatherings of the Trump administration, fam-

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ily transmission was inevitable despite being entirely preventable. Although Claudia Conway's own actions were not completely compliant with pandemic safety guidelines, her COVID–19 diagnosis exemplifies how Gen Z often suffers from the repercussions of a government administration that older generations voted into office.

In August, Conway claimed she was seeking emancipation to escape her parents’ abuse. In response to these claims, her mother announced that she was leaving the White House, promising that there would be “less drama, more mama.” However, earlier this month, Conway posted two compilation videos of her mother berating and hitting her for “telling people [she’s] a b*tch.” She later posted a follow–up video saying that she wasn’t “looking to hate on [her] mom,” but wanted to show people that “as a woman who has such power in this country, I don’t really think people know how she is."

Just last week, there was a scandal where her mother allegedly uploaded a topless picture of her on Twitter. While Conway denied that her mother would intentionally post child pornography, she clearly wasn’t surprised by the fact that her mother had this explicit picture of her in the first place, saying, “I’m assuming my mom took a picture of it to use against me one day and then somebody hacked her or something.” With this disturbing incident, rather than Conway being

the Gen Z hero that the internet wanted her to be, TikTok and Twitter communities were forced to recognize the toxic realities of her family. What seemed like a daughter rebelliously acting against her mother’s hateful views was actually a teenager struggling with a physically and verbally abusive household, and a politically divided one at that.

Simply put, Claudia Conway shouldn’t be considered an anti–Trump hero. Watching her capture the attention of millions by oscillating between exposing her family’s abuse and defending her mother from the media highlights the almost apathetic gaze of the internet. Rather than calling out Conway’s parents for the abuse that they perpetrate, tabloids dismiss these happenings as political drama and TikTok gossip. While Conway’s outspoken activism and reclamation of her own agency are courageous, she is still a victim of the Trump administration that her mother participated in, and is a representation of the toxic convergence between modern politics and celebrity status.

Like much of Gen Z, her childhood and youth were casualties of the Trump administration, with the horrors of this past presidency forcing her to politically and publicly mature to face the hungry, uncaring internet masses. 16–year–old Conway shouldn’t be expected to carry the burden of internet labels such as “hero,” “rebel,” and “activist” when she’s simply a teenager struggling to navigate her abuse in the public eye.

ARTS

PMA Titles that Hit Different at the Start of the New Semester

Desperate Navigators Jean Baptiste Poly, Etching and Engraving, 1770

Oscar Wilde was right—life really does imitate art. | JESSA GLASSMAN

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s syllabus days quickly pass and the semester begins to intensify, textbook pages, problem sets, and recorded lectures are piling up like snow bound to hit Locust Walk at any moment. The titles on this list of pieces at the Philadelphia Museum of Art feel just a little too apt for what we’re all going through right now.

In the Bad Lands

Desperate Navigators (1770) by Jean Baptiste Poly | photo courtesy of PMA Edward S. Curtis, Photogravure, 1904

It Is Better to Be Lazy (Mejor es holgar) Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Etching and Aquatint, 1797-1798

In the Bad Lands (1904) by Edward S. Curtis | photo courtesy of PMA

The Slaughter of the Innocents Ferdinand Piloty, Lithograph Printed with Tint Stone, 1817

It Is Better to Be Lazy (1797-1798) by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes | photo courtesy of PMA

The Slaughter of the Innocents (1817) by Ferdinand Piloty | photo courtesy of PMA

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ARTS

Praying Hermit

The Descent of the Damned into Hell

Johann Heinrich Tischbein II, Etching and Drypoint, 1783

Hendrick Goltzius, Engraving, 1578

Perspective View of a Prison Johann Friedrich Morgenstern, Etching, 1800-1804

The Descent of the Damned into Hell (1578) by Hendrick Goltzius photo courtesy of PMA Praying Hermit (1783) by Johann Heinrich Tischbein II | photo courtesy of PMA

In Full Cry Thomas Doughty, Oil on Canvas, 1820

In Full Cry (1820) by Thomas Doughty | photo courtesy of PMA

Perspective View of a Prison (1800–1804) by Johann Friedrich Morgenstern | photo courtesy of PMA

Not Dead but Tired, Tired

"Come on, Sir, Get Up."

George Biddle, Lithograph, 1959

Antoine–Jean–Baptiste Thomas, Lithograph, 1828

Not Dead but Tired, Tired (1959) by George Biddle | photo courtesy of PMA

"Come on, Sir, Get Up." (1828) by Antoine–Jean–Baptiste Thomas | photo courtesy of PMA

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ARTS

Chronicling the Corset A look at the long and complicated history of corsets, and why they may be more empowering than you think | AAKRUTI GANESHAN Illustration by Rebekah Lee

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i s u als of 19th century Europe are often awash with empire waistlines, gauzy fabric, and pearl–encrusted hair accessories.

A Pinterest search for Bridgerton—Netflix’s latest show set in the Regency era—features enduring images of stolen glances in a sea of pastel gowns. Amidst the ruffles and powdered wigs, however, one garment has solidified its status as a staple in the fashion world—transcending both time and sociopolitical borders.

The corset is intertwined, so to speak, with paradoxical notions of femininity and patriarchy. Fashion historians estimate that the first recorded corset was worn by the Minoan people from the island of Crete in Greece. The more structured undergarment iteration of a corset appeared in the 16th century. These were referred to as “stays”: stiff bodices composed of whalebone, reed, or even wood, that molded a woman’s upper body into a conical “V” shape.

Contrary to popular belief, the original corset wasn’t tightly pulled or laced to force a woman’s body into a predetermined geometric mould. Instead, women wore pads or hoops that widened the waist below the corset, providing the desired conical shape.

The corset epitomizes the creation of a “cultural body”— a term describing a physique modeled by social norms and expectations. Denis Bruna, the curator of the Bard Graduate Center’s Fashioning the Body, writes about this concept in a catalogue for the exhibition and explains that “the body is a reflection of the society that presided over its creation.” Accordingly, the actual shape of the corset has changed over time to accommodate changing aesthetics and ideals of beauty. In the 1800s, the corset took on its most distinctive and iconic model: the hourglass figure. A century later, the “S” figure became the dominant model for a consummate body type.

Historically, corsets have been a target for criticism. During the Age of Enlightenment, intellectuals argued that the corset was a means of censorship or blighting the natural form of the body. At the peak of the corset’s popularity in the 19th century, doctors began blaming the corset for a plethora of health risks, including respiratory disease, rib deformity, internal organ damage, birth defects, and

Madonna in Gaultier's pink corset | photo courtesy of Vogue

miscarriages. Eventually, prolific designers such as Paul Poiret and Coco Chanel openly denounced the corset in the 20th century, popularizing looser silhouettes and draped construction. With the advent of flapper dresses and boxy outlines in the 1920s, corsets became a thing of antiquity.

A large amount of the criticism surrounding the corset centers on the practice of “tight–lacing,” a mechanism by which the corset was tightened with the aim of physically altering body shape. However, the image of a Regency–era woman being stuffed into a resplendent gown by tightening a shoelace bodice is more artificial than real. Fashion historians dispute the actual popularity of tight–lacing, with historian Valerie Steele arguing that the descriptions of the practice may have represented sexual fantasies rather than authentic experiences.

Hilary Davidson, a dress historian, echoes this sentiment, claiming that narrower waists would have interfered with the appearance of the dresses: “The whole idea of tight–lacing is completely pointless ... irrelevant for the fashion.” While there is anthropological evidence suggesting that corsets permanently altered the spines of Victorian women, there is little evidence suggesting that this skeletal deformity encumbered life expectancy.

Inevitably, the corset resurfaced. In the '50s, Dior pioneered the “wasp–waist,” a new version of the Victorian corset that was termed the “guepiere.” The wasp–waist was central to Dior’s promulgation of the

“New Look,” a movement that eschewed the square shoulders of the World War II era for softer, more feminine outlines.

While the corset’s primary role was as an undergarment, designers began popularizing it as outerwear in the late 20th and early 21st century. Gaultier famously dressed Madonna in a pink satin corset, complete with conical breasts, while Steampunk fashion in the 2000s featured corsets layered outside of existing clothing.

Given the close association with the female body, it’s no surprise that the corset also manifested itself in the fitness domain. Celebrities ranging from Kim Kardashian to Jessica Alba famously promoted waist trainers, an elastic compression band worn around the waist, as a fast and easy way to achieve weight loss.

Though a distant relative of the corset, the list of detrimental health effects associated with waist trainers closely resembles the negative effects of tight lacing.

The history surrounding the corset is complex and rife with feminist implications. The original, explicit purpose of the corset was to promote an ideal body type. Even though women often wore them of their own volition, they at times did so to fit a regressive norm being imposed upon them. Ultimately, the corset reflects the cultural fixation on a woman’s body.

Some would argue that wearing one in this day and age is the equivalent of being laced into the fabric of the patriarchy.

However, modern feminism tells us that women can be enigmatic, autonomous, and most importantly, multifaceted. Perhaps the same can be said of the corset. While waist trainers are certainly troubling in their implications, other manifestations of the corset may actually act as a means of empowerment. A woman can choose to don a corset simply because she likes the way it looks, whether it be from Shein or Dolce & Gabbana. This implies an active agency that’s been missing from the corset’s past. With regards to the modern–day corset, women aren’t tied in. They’re the ones holding the strings.

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ST YLE

Are Health Tracking Apps Actually Good for Your Health?

Poor app design may put your medical data and mental wellbeing at risk. | EMILY WHITE

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ike many other students, my summer plans were canceled due to social distancing guidelines. Instead of spending my time working or learning, I was stuck at home, anxious and bored.

I downloaded a fitness tracking app called Lifesum because I wanted to use my newfound free time to start running—something I had hoped would be a good stress reliever and a chance to stop overthinking about the world around me. It would also ensure that I got out of bed, since I no longer had classes or an internship to force me to stick to a schedule.

I thought that the app’s little notifications of praise—“Great job on your two–mile run!

Let’s see what you do tomorrow!” or “Great job eating three servings of vegetables!”—would give me the encouragement I needed to stick to my goals. And they did. But they also made me feel incredibly guilty and even angry at myself on the days that I didn’t feel like getting out of bed, let alone jogging around my neighborhood or cooking three servings of vegetables.

At its core, the app wasn't designed to make my life better—it was designed to slowly make itself seem like a necessity. Thankfully, I was able to step back and realize how dangerous this would become for my mental health if I kept using it. I deleted the app and haven’t gone for a run or logged my food intake since.

But now that I've left health tracking apps in my past, I’m decidedly less stressed than I was when I had daily notifications reminding me of my “failures.”

Unfortunately, I’m not the only one with a story like this. A survey of 18– to 25–year–olds conducted last year found that “almost half of [the] survey participants indicated that they had experienced some form of negative experiences and behaviors” from healthy eating and fitness apps, usually in the form of maladaptive eating or exercise habits. Users would become so engrossed with the goals they set for themselves—like calorie limits or weight loss targets—that they would heavily restrict their food intake or overexercise to their own detriment. The researchers also found that gamification, or making tracking feel like a challenge with daily goals and notifications, was a key contributor to obsessive use of the app.

Fitness trackers can impact other aspects of mental health too. A 2016 study of women who used Fitbit found that 59% reported feeling like their daily routines were controlled by the device, and almost 30% actually saw the

device as "an enemy."

While these apps are marketed as tools to help us be healthier, these studies show how quickly that can spiral into damaging patterns of behavior and make us even less healthy than when we started. Reducing our well–being to a number calculated by our phones rather than how we feel can lead to disastrous consequences for our mental well–being.

The most frustrating part is that this isn’t a problem with users—it's baked into the apps' core functions. Health apps, like most other technology, are designed to keep you coming back. Repeated use equals more ad views, which means more money for the company.

Put simply, they don’t care if the app makes your life better—they just care that you keep using it.

The lack of consideration for actual users is clear with period tracking apps. As reporter Kaitlyn Tiffany explains in Vox, “This app wasn’t designed for me. It wasn’t designed for anyone who wants to track their period or general reproductive health. The same is true of almost every menstruation–tracking app: They’re designed for marketers.”

In one case outlined in Vox, the app was unable to compute a user’s pregnancy. Instead, it counted the pregnancy as a “several–hundred– day menstrual cycle” and skewed the predictions of the user's future cycles. In another, the app wouldn’t allow the user to hide the “fertile window” feature, despite the fact that she couldn't become pregnant with her partner.

Similarly, most period tracking apps don’t have great ways of tracking contraception—a problem I discovered when I, like many other people who take birth control, used the pill to skip periods. There was no way to let the app know that this was normal other than going deep into the settings and changing the start date of my current pill pack. Because I didn’t want to deal with the inconvenient task of doing that reset every three weeks, I kept getting notifications like “Your period is late!” or “You might be pregnant!” that were both annoying and untrue. Ultimately, I deleted the app, and I now use the old–fashioned method of pen and paper to keep note of any oddities.

Missing features are inconsiderate, but the most concerning part of these apps’ business models is what happens with the data they col-

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Illustration by Cindy Xu lect.

In extreme cases, poor design can put private information at risk. In 2016, a major security flaw was discovered in the period tracking app Glow that would allow “anyone who knew a user’s email address [to] access that person's data." It's a significant breach considering that the app can be used to track menstrual cycles, sexual activity, drinking habits, and contraceptive use.

Even more worrisome, health tracking apps are not regulated by HIPAA, a federal healthy privacy law, the same way that medical professionals are. This means there are virtually no privacy requirements or safety precautions aside from the often–ignored user agreements that pop up when people first download the app. A study conducted by the Federal Trade Commission in 2014 found that many of the major health tracking apps shared their data with third parties like advertising and analytics firms.

So, should you stop using these apps altogether? Not necessarily. If you feel like you gain something from any of these apps, then they can absolutely be worth your time. The key is to be smart about how you use them, and how you let them use you. In case you’re not sure what that means, here are a few recommendations from experts: Data privacy lawyer Gary Schober told The New York Post that you should opt out of sharing your data with third parties and advertisers, change your phone settings to remove targeted ads, and limit apps’ ability to track your location to when you’re using the app.

Psychotherapist Amy Morin told BBC that people should learn “not to rely on the apps and trust their own judgement instead.” Rather than letting an app tell you when or how much to eat, sleep, or exercise, ignore the number and do what makes you feel good.

Registered dietitian and eating disorder specialist Jessica Setnick told Time that “under almost no circumstances would [she] recommend calorie counting.” Instead, she suggests following internal cues and just enjoying your food rather than assigning a value to it.

The National Eating Disorders Association published a list of apps that actually promote better relationships with body image and food for people in recovery, rather than leading them to spiral back into disordered eating.

Ultimately, we should all take a step back from health and fitness apps every once in a while. Even a short break can force us to reflect on what we really gain from turning our health into a data science project. Some questions to ask yourself: Is my use of this app becoming obsessive or damaging my mental health? Do I rely on the app instead of my body’s signals?

Do I continue using the app because it actually benefits me, or just because I feel compelled to by the app’s design?

Having a clearer understanding of how an app adds to your life can be crucial for knowing when to take a break. Instead of allowing yourself to be sucked in by the enticing confetti graphics when you log your eight glasses of water for the day, you’ll know that you’re using the app in a way that is actually good for you—both physically and mentally.

CAMPUS RESOURCES: The HELP Line: 215–898–HELP. A 24–hour–a–day phone number for members of the Penn community who seek help in navigating Penn's resources for health and wellness.

Counseling and Psychological Services: 215–898–7021 for weekdays, 215–349– 5490 for nights and weekends. The counseling center for the University of Pennsylvania.

Student Health Service: 215-746-3535. Student Health Service can provide medical evaluations and treatment to victims/survivors of eating disorders, regardless of whether they make a report or seek additional resources.

Reach–A–Peer Hotline: 215–573–2727 for calls from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., 215–515–7332 for texting available 24/7). A peer hotline to provide support, information, and referrals to Penn students.

ST YLE

Lil Miquela and the Dawn of the CGI Influencer, Explained

Illustration by Sudeep Bhargava

These influencers have never had cellulite, acne, or racist tweets. But they're not human—they're CGI. | AIDAH QURESHI

'I

nfluencer' has become one of those terms that through overuse has now become meaningless. It manages to simultaneously be an aspiration and an insult, the future of marketing and the bane of many small business owners' existences. Influencer is the term we use to describe TikTokers with a decent social media following as well as mega–celebrities and well–dressed pets. It’s even how the Pope describes the Virgin Mary.

To many, the very concept of influencing is fake or contrived, with candid content that in actuality is meticulously planned and orchestrated to appear relatable.

As a result, it can be difficult for all social media users to grapple with what is real versus what is fake. Social media apps like Instagram are centered around images, and there are clear ideas about what we are supposed to look like or what our feeds should look like—there is a lot

of pressure to stick to an aesthetic. We know what we see on social media is not “real,” but the pressure we feel to present our best selves is undeniably real.

It doesn’t get any less real than artificial influencers. Meet Lil Miquela, or Miquela Sousa, a CGI influencer with 2.9 million followers on Instagram.

She’s the personification of Instagram Face and Instagram culture except for the fact that she’s not a person—Miquela is a digital influencer created using motion graphics. In the last few years, Instagram has seen the emergence of a new breed of influencer—one whose appearance, agency, and voice lie in the hands of large corporations who remain mostly anonymous to their human followers. Though their presence on social media is relatively new, these accounts have the potential to change digital marketing and also pose some concerns when it comes to the real world.

Typically, human influencers set an uncannily uniform and unrealistic standard of beauty. CGI influencers—models created for the sole purpose of gaining a following—take this to the next extreme. CGI influencers like Miquela and Shudu Gram have been featured in beauty campaigns for brands such as Fenty Beauty and Pat McGrath. They always look perfect, never a hair out of place or a blemish on their skin. These influencers will never age, never take a picture from a bad angle, and never even have a bad hair day. CGI and artificial intelligence are literally setting the beauty standards of our future.

Even though their existences are fake, the influence and money that the accounts like Lil Miquela produce are real.

Miquela has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world including Prada and Samsung, and even made out with Bella Hadid in a bizarre Calvin

Klein advertisement. She was also dubbed one of the 25 most influential people on the internet

by Time Magazine in 2018 and reportedly earned almost $12 million in 2020.

The success of digital influencers thus far is understandable. Not only are brands attracted to the novel like moths to a flame, but virtual influencers are controllable and pose way less risk than human influencers— Miquela doesn’t have any old racist tweets to be canceled over.

Along with these advantages, research has revealed that digital influencers command three times more engagement than your run– of­–the­–mill human influencer.

This brings forth the question: What is the future of the influencer industry? Many investors believe that digital and AI influencers are the future, and their goal is to have these influencers across every platform—not just Instagram, but YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat. Many of us

used to believe that performers and artists were safe from the threat of automation, but this is obviously not the case.

Every campaign or sponsorship a digital influencer is hired for is directly taking that opportunity and paycheck from real, human creators. This is especially problematic when it comes to those in marginalized groups who already might not have as many opportunities. CGI influencers are being used for diversity to represent the BIPOC and LGBTQ communities instead of real people who embody these identities.

The future of influencing and CGI influencers is murky. But one thing that the whole digital influencing movement confirms to us is that what we see on social media is literally not real.

Digital and CGI influencers already exist and we cannot stop the movement, but what we can do is think critically about what we see as we scroll.

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UNDER THE BUTTON

Vaccine Rollout Stops Immediately Due to Shocking Success of PennOpen Pass

Shoot, Gutmann Forgot To Cancel Spring Semester

Sonia Feil

Meresa García

I

Photo with edits by Sonia Feil and Pixy.org | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

n the aftermath of the Philly Fighting COVID-19 fiasco, the City of Philadelphia has announced that they will soon be partnering with a much more successful and reputable COVID-19-fighting institution: PennOpen Pass. Though the decision to let college kids handle the first stage of vaccination left Philadelphians questioning the decision-making abilities of their city officials, this promising new partnership has already restored the faith of most residents.

It’s easy to see why: Since Penn students returned to campus, the University’s positivity rate has hit an all-time low of 0.0%! This success can only be attributed to PennOpen Pass. Thus far, the symptom tracker has served as a foolproof way of asking Penn students, “Do you have COVID-19?” every day, and every day the answer is a resounding “I dunno, probably not.”

Citizens of Philadelphia will no longer be able to enter any business, workplace, or room of their own house without first

flashing a security guard that sultry green pass. This will preferably be done in hoards of 15-20 people at a time in order to maximize efficiency and keep the pay-perglance base rate of the guards down. Cost-effective!

“It’s so simple — I can’t believe we didn’t come up with it sooner!” exclaimed Mayor Jim Kenney during the announcement. “The solution has been right here this whole time.” By foregoing vaccination altogether, city officials report with near certainty that they will not be able to mishandle another vaccine distribution attempt.

Kenney is optimistic that Philadelphia will adopt PennOpen Pass with arms wide open, but he does have advice for those who are uncertain: “Just think of it as taking a fun pop quiz every morning!” Answer the three questions correctly, and — with green pass in hand — the world is your oyster. Fail, and your pass will turn red — Philadelphians whose passes turn red will be airlifted to Drexel and excommunicated.

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Photo by Meresa García | The Daily Pennsylvanian

A

s President Amy Gutmann wandered onto campus earlier this month, she witnessed something unnervingly familiar yet incredibly foreign.

She spotted a doe-eyed freshman puffing along Locust Walk, pushing a moving cart filled with all types of crap. "Odd," the president wondered to herself.

"That’s really odd." But then, she saw another one! Then another!

And another!

And here is where Amy G. had a most profound realization.

"Fuck," she thought, "I forgot to lock the front door!" This panic was quickly replaced by a less pressing worry.

“You see, I had the email all ready to go,” commented the president when interviewed. “I

mean really,” she whispered, "I just copied and pasted the old announcement, replacing a few words here and there. I must have just forgotten to press send, my b!”

The University planned to wait until a week before scheduled move-in to announce that, in actuality, spring 2021 was to be virtual and that campus was to remain closed. However, preoccupied with current home renovations, Gutmann misplaced the sticky note explicitly reminding her to cancel spring semester.

Luckily, Amy is a firm believer in second chances. She hopes to rectify her mistake in mid-March when she asks all students to return home and never come back.

UNDER THE BUTTON

Penn InTouch Found Among Ancient Artifacts During Mayan Excavation Kevin Xu

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Mayans were already well over the site before thousands of Penn students went on to use it to access all their incredibly sensitive information millennia later.

The functionality of the ancient stone tablet, frozen in time, precisely mimics the current-day website freezes of Penn InTouch when more than five students attempt to access it at once.

As evidenced by the piles of preserved food scraps and garbage around it, the

“As an anthropologist, I love to see how society has progressed over the thousands of years that civilizations have been on this planet. It never ceases to amaze me how rapidly technology and ideas change and spread across populations. It is also fascinating to see what aspects of human culture stand the test of time: foods, myths, and apparently terribly designed and outdated websites too,” remarked Dr. Carla Saunders, one of the principal researchers involved with the excavation. When asked for a virtual interview to discuss the implications of this new discovery, the University failed to respond, citing server issues and internet problems.

enn’s Anthropology Department announced a major discovery over the weekend that could shed light on a beloved aspect of every student’s Penn experience. At a Mayan ruins site in Central America, archaeologists uncovered what appears to be one of the first renderings of the Penn InTouch website. Although it was dated to be over 4,000 years old, the artifact seemed to almost exactly mirror the current design. Researchers have concluded that absolutely zero work has gone into updating the website since its inception.

Photo by Dr._Colleen_Morgan | CC BY 2.0

YAHOO! University Announces Start of Loud Period Ian Ong

B

Photo by Emily Xu | The Daily Pennsylvanian

labbermouths rejoice! Last Monday, President Amy Gutmann announced that the University-wide Quiet Period was coming to an end.

“I would like to thank the Penn community for adhering so diligently to the guidelines of the Quiet Period,” Gutmann proclaimed, switching on the megaphone in her hand. “With that being said, now it’s time to get LOUD, BABY! YIPPEE-KI-YAY!” Since the announcement, some of Penn’s more vociferous students have signaled their approval.

“HELL YEAH!” Wayne R. Alkire (C '23) shouted upon hearing the news.

“NOW NOBODY CAN STOP ME FROM BLASTING WHEEZER AT 2 A.M.” In order to ease the transition to rambunctiousness, the University has sent out complimentary

"noise pouches" to each and every undergraduate. Each neon-colored pouch contains a Penn-branded vuvuzela, cicada nymphs in a jar, a power drill, various fireworks, a blender, balloons to be blown up and subsequently popped, and "The Money Store" on vinyl.

Pretty sweet, right? Well, not everyone is having a good time. Since the loud period’s inception, students who tend to fall on the more taciturn side have been struggling to get a word in.

For instance, Timmy Cleary (E '22) reached out to UTB with a piercing criticism of the loud period, although it was honestly pretty difficult to make him out over the sound of jackhammers, electric guitars, and naval artillery outside his dorm room.

Better luck next time, I guess!

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TheDaily Daily Pennsylvanian seeks seeks studentsstudents from historically The Pennsylvanian frommarginalized historically groups interested in journalism and media for the first cohort of a new marginalized groups interested in journalism and media fellowship program. for the first cohort of a new fellowship program.

Five fellows will receive $4,000 annual stipends while working for the independent student newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Daily Pennsylvanian Five fellows will receive $4000 annual News The program offers fellows: stipends while working for the Opinion • A staff position and training in a specific DP program or publication.

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