On the morning of May 21, the University of Michigan Division of Public Safety and Security forcibly removed the proPalestine encampment on the Diag. According to Ann Arbor Police Department dispatch records, the University called AAPD to request “a unit or two to help clear out” the encampment at 6:34 a.m.
The encampment sweep followed repeated instances of police violence against proPalestine protesters on campus, including during a sit-in at the Alexander G. Ruthven Building in November and a demonstration outside of the University of Michigan Museum of Art in early May. Using the Freedom of Information Act, The Michigan Daily obtained body-worn camera footage from 15 officers who assisted DPSS in the sweep. In one video, AAPD officers drive on State Street toward the Diag before running over a curb and parking on the grass. A police officer reports over the police scanner that the Diag is “stable.”
One officer in the car says to the other, “This is the best-case scenario, we’re leaving.” The other responds, “Now they’re just going to fucking walk through the city now.”
The officer with the body-worn camera says, “Oh shit — camera,” before the screen turns black.
The fourth point in Article IV, Section A of AAPD’s body-worn camera policy states that should an activeduty officer deactivate their body-worn camera during a call for service, they must first “verbally indicate their reason” for doing so. Body-worn camera videos obtained by The Daily show AAPD officers directly violating this policy. The city of Ann Arbor allocated $900,000 for body-worn cameras and tasers in 2021, an investment Ann Arbor City Councilmember Lisa Disch, D-Ward 1, said in a June 2021 City Council meeting would “provide better safety and better transparency.”
The Daily also requested DPSS’ body-worn camera footage and incident report from the morning of the encampment sweep. The University’s FOIA Office denied The Daily’s request, saying it would “(i)nterfere with law enforcement proceedings” and “(c) onstitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
As a result of the University’s denial, The Daily could not confirm if DPSS officers recorded the sweep using bodyworn cameras or produced an incident report.
Between April and June, pro-Palestine student activists across the country set up more than 100 protest encampments demanding their colleges and universities divest from companies profiting
Chris Page, AAPD strategic communications manager, wrote in an email to The Daily that the officer in the video did not violate AAPD policy. “The officer was not taking enforcement and not interacting with anyone so there was not a policy violation,” Page wrote.
off Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Within weeks, protesters faced violent police sweeps that ended their encampments and resulted in mass arrests, including at Columbia University, The University of Texas at Austin and the University of California, Los Angeles.
The University of Michigan’s encampment was one of the longest lasting, remaining untouched by law enforcement for 30 days. In a statement released the morning of the encampment sweep, University President Santa Ono said the University decided to remove the encampment after a May 17 inspection by the U-M fire marshal, who declared it a safety hazard.
Videos of the encampment sweep posted to Instagram by Students Allied for Freedom and Equality show police using chemical spray on protesters, forcing them to wash their faces and eyes.
According to AAPD policy and procedural order 041-044, “(Bodyworn cameras) allow for accurate documentation of police interactions in the public, to facilitate reviewing of use of force incidents and personnel complaints; and serve as evidence for investigative and prosecutorial purposes.”
If and when a bodyworn camera is turned off during an active call for service, the officer must list the reason for deactivation in an incident report, as described in Article IV of the policy. Incident reports typically contain police officer narratives about the call for service they responded to and may
contain documentation of why the body-worn cameras were deactivated or not activated at all.
The Daily requested AAPD’s incident report from the encampment sweep in a FOIA request but did not receive one. Page said responding officers did not produce an incident report because AAPD was acting as an assisting agency to DPSS.
Incident reports are best practice in policing, explained Jim Bueermann, president and founder of the Future Policing Institute. In an interview with The Daily, Bueermann said it is common for police officers to record what happened during a call for service, including by writing an incident report, in order to have documentation if the police department is sued. He added that an incident report is not necessarily a requirement or legal obligation.
The body-worn camera footage The Daily received features police officers patrolling around the Diag during and after the encampment was ended by law enforcement, mainly directing foot traffic for protesters. According to Page, AAPD did not clear protesters during the encampment sweep or make any arrests following the incident.
Another body-worn camera video obtained by The Daily features a conversation between two officers patrolling around the Diag in a police car. One officer says, “How do you feel right now? All amped up, right?”
The officer goes on to say they did not know why the University had called in AAPD to support DPSS officers during the encampment sweep.
“We don’t even know what the fuck’s going on, that’s why, these idiots — it needs to be one person telling them what’s going on,” the officer says.
“Because you have two completely conflicting stories from (the University) right now. One of them’s like, ‘We’re being overtaken,’ and then, I’m like, ‘What are they overtaking? What are they overtaking?’”
The officer reaches for their body-worn camera and deactivates it, ending the footage.
Stefani Carter, chair of the Ann Arbor Independent Community Police Oversight Commission, confirmed in an email to The Daily that the commission is not currently looking into AAPD officers deactivating their cameras during the encampment sweep.
Carter also wrote that the commission could treat The Daily’s email for comment as a complaint and initiate an investigation into the use or misuse of body-worn cameras by AAPD.
“We can certainly accept your email as a complaint regarding use/ misuse of (body-worn cameras) and pass that over to the Department for initial investigation,” Carter wrote. “After that investigation is complete, we will review the incidents and any facts as they are presented. I can assure you that ICPOC’s review will be thorough.”
In its mission statement, the ICPOC states that it hopes to “enhance communication and sharing of information between the AAPD and the community.”
“When police officers are acutely aware that their behavior is being monitored (because they turn on the cameras) and when officers tell citizens that the cameras are recording their behavior, everyone behaves better,” the report reads.
Bueermann said he believes the public can no longer judge for themselves what transpired when bodyworn cameras are deactivated or go unused, affecting trust and confidence in the police.
“The whole purpose of having body cameras on police officers is to record as accurately as technologically possible, in an unbiased way, what actually occurred in a contentious incident,” Bueermann said.
“That’s why you record these things, to record what really occurred, to protect the officer and, in the case of police misconduct, to ultimately protect the citizens the police are paid to protect.”
If you are a survivor on campus who’s faced challenges in reporting, if you’ve faced discrimination or if you have information on any issue relevant to Ann Arbor or the University of Michigan, please consider sending us your story. You can reach us at tipline@michigandaily. com. This is a private tip line viewable by a small team of reporters committed to this work.
Former President Barack Obama’s 21st Century Policing Task Force — listed as a resource on the ICPOC website — says that correct use of body-worn cameras can “significantly reduce both officer use of force and complaints against officers.”
Sara Fang/DAILY
SOPHIA LEHRBAUM Managing Focal Point Editor
Trump talks auto industry, nuclear weapons in Flint town hall
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump traveled to Flint Tuesday evening for a town hall event moderated by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Speaking to a crowd of about 8,000 people, Trump discussed electric vehicles, international relations and the future of the American auto industry.
In her introductory remarks, Sanders echoed the words of JD Vance, Republican vice presidential nominee, who implied that Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris is less fit for office because she does not have biological children.
“Not only do my kids serve as a permanent reminder of what’s important, they also keep me humble,” Sanders said. “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble. You would think, after four years of straight failure, she would know a little humility.”
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In light of the assassination attempt against Trump on July 13 and another apparent assassination attempt on Sept. 15, Sanders lauded Trump’s resilience.
Jane
“You’ve literally taken a bullet for our country, and yet you never give up,” Sanders said. “The reason that you’re going to win in November is because America needs a fighter. We’ve never needed a fighter more, and we’ve never had somebody more qualified to step in and lead our country than you.”
U-M alum John Ballard, an attendee from Linden, said in an interview with The Michigan Daily he is troubled by worsening partisan hostility in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, especially with regard to recent attempts on Trump’s life.
“We’re concerned about the violent rhetoric that’s been going on,” Ballard said. “I’m concerned about everything that you hear in the media, like the dangerous things they say about what should happen to President Trump, and even sometimes Republicans say it about Democrats. I hope that that goes away soon and doesn’t get elevated anymore before the election.”
Fonda talks climate policy and 2024 presidential race at Rackham
‘Vote with climate in your heart’
campus is registered and has a plan to vote.”
About 300 University of Michigan and Ann Arbor community members gathered at Rackham Auditorium Tuesday evening to hear from actress and activist Jane Fonda and several other speakers discuss climate activism and the importance of voting. The event was organized by College Democrats at the University of Michigan, U-M Students for Harris, the Jane Fonda Climate PAC and a variety of other climate and political organizations.
LSA sophomore Aanna Farhang, College Democrats officer-at-large, introduced LSA seniors Alec Hughes and Adam Lacasse, co-presidents of College Democrats. The pair encouraged the audience to get involved with College Democrats at the University of Michigan and Washtenaw County Democrats.
“We cannot get people out to the polls without everyone mobilizing, without everyone turning out to vote,” Hughes said. “It doesn’t just depend on us at College Dems, it depends on all of us here in Ann Arbor. We need volunteers to keep fighting the good fight, we need to make sure that everyone on
Hughes and Lacasse then introduced Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, who recounted a conversation he had with his 5-year-old daughter about the power of voting. Gilchrist said, while at a park with his daughter, he explained the importance of voting, to which she replied by asking if she could vote for the grass.
“Yes, you can,” said Gilchrist. “That is what we vote for. When we’re choosing the people and the issues to organize and mobilize for, we are voting for people and ideas that will protect our water, that will protect our air, and, yes, that will protect our grass. This little person had the clearest encapsulation that I’ve heard in a long time about why it is so important that we are energized to mobilize to vote for a climate future where the destiny is controlled by the people, not to destroy the climate but instead to support it.”
Michelle Deatrick, national chair of the DNC Climate Council, also spoke at the event and asked the audience to reflect on how climate change has impacted them as Michiganders.
“The climate crisis is not coming — it is here right now,” said Deatrick. “In Michigan, we
noticed wildfires, basements and streets flooding over and over again in Ypsilanti and Detroit, crops destroyed in the fields of farmers like me and extreme heat.”
The audience erupted into a standing ovation as Deatrick introduced Fonda, who then took the stage to discuss the importance of supporting Democratic candidates to advance climate policy.
Fonda told the audience she decided to take a break from acting for the year to become more involved with the Harris campaign, but stressed that her advocacy will not end once the election is over. She urged attendees to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, but hold them accountable once in office.
“Kamala Harris provides us with a voice,” Fonda said. “She and Tim Walz provide us with a platform on which we can fight. And so we have to fight because the chances are they won’t do what’s needed because nobody does. … Get her elected and then make her do it.”
After Fonda spoke, the event transitioned into a Q&A session led by Environment and Sustainability graduate student Andrew van Baal, co-president of Student Sustainability
Coalition, and Public Policy senior Audrey Clayton, co-president of U-M Students for Harris. Van Baal asked Fonda to elaborate on how to hold elected officials accountable.
In response, Fonda emphasized voting for candidates who are willing to listen to the voices of protesters, as well as large-scale organizing after the election.
“No politician will do exactly what you want, unless you force them to,” Fonda said. “We need hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in the streets, outside in Washington protesting. And then we have to have people elected to office inside, who will listen and feel it in their heart. We have to elect people with empathy. Don’t vote for anybody that doesn’t have empathy and when you vote. … Vote with climate in your heart.”
In an interview with The Michigan Daily before the event, Hughes said the Jane Fonda Climate PAC approached the College Democrats to organize the event in hopes of raising awareness among students about climate issues. Hughes said he and Lacasse hope Tuesday’s audience feels motivated to create change through voting.
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Ann Arbor-based band VUP performs during Harvest Fest at the Campus Farm Sunday afternoon.
Campus reacts to CSG withholding student organization funding
Students react to organizations going without funding, the University’s solution
In the March 2024 Central Student Government elections, University of Michigan students elected 23 representatives of the SHUT IT DOWN party, whose platform promised to halt all CSG activity until the U-M administration divests from companies profiting off the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Almost four weeks into the fall 2024 semester, a budget has yet to be passed.
The Michigan Daily sat down with CSG members and leaders of student organizations to discuss how they are managing the pause in funding.
On Sept. 3, the CSG assembly passed the Fall 2024 CSG Budget Act, allocating CSG funding in varying amounts to the Student
Organization Committee account, the Airbus account, the Election Operations account and other funds. CSG President Alifa Chowdhury vetoed this proposal on Sept. 10. In June, Chowdhury vetoed the CSG Spring Summer 2024 budget as well. In anticipation of a possible fall budget veto, several CSG leaders — including CSG Speaker Mario Thaqi and Hayden Jackson, deputy director of the Student Organization Committee — addressed a letter to Martino Harmon, vice president of student life, and Dean of Students Laura Jones on Aug. 14. They requested that the University provide a temporary alternative funding source for student organizations and the Airbus transportation program, both of which have traditionally been funded by CSG.
On Aug. 19, Harmon and Jones responded, agreeing to establish a temporary funding source. According to their response, the funding will not exceed the amount budgeted by CSG last year for student organization funding, and the University must be reimbursed once a CSG budget passes. This alternative funding source went live Sept. 5.
In an interview with The Daily, Jackson characterized his interactions with the administration as positive, emphasizing their shared goals despite his concerns about collaborating so closely with administration.
“It’s not my ideal scenario,” Jackson said. “I believe — and I continue to believe — that it is a student government’s job to hold the administration accountable. There are certain things that could
result in a conflict of interest with those roles, but at the end of the day, we have to do what we have to do to make sure the students are getting the programs and services that they need.”
In an interview with The Daily, LSA junior Fiona Dunlop, co-president of the U-M undergraduate chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said she believes the funding provided by the University is evidence that withholding student organization funding will ultimately be effective in grasping the University’s attention regarding divestment.
“Any time you get the University on the back pedal, it affects them,” Dunlop said. “The very fact that the University feels it’s necessary to make this credit account of funding tells us they don’t like what’s going
on or that things are being shaken up.”
In an interview with The Daily, Chowdhury said she believes the alternative funding disregards the wishes of the student body.
“The veto was an act of protest, and the University is trying to cover that up by providing the student organizations with funding,” Chowdhury said. “This university is participating in a genocide in Gaza, and they consistently invest in weapons manufacturing companies to make billions of dollars. We don’t want students to think that that’s normal.”
Chowdhury encouraged student organizations to boycott the funding source, sacrificing their short-term monetary needs for the viability of the protest.
“We urge students not to take this funding and instead
continue the efforts to pressure this university into divestment,” Chowdhury said. “I think acts of protest require personal sacrifices of some sort, and to be willing to pause the activities of a student organization for a short term in pursuit of divestment and protest is worthwhile.”
While Chowdhury encourages personal sacrifice of students to pressure the University to divest, other students, such as LSA senior Ryan Grover, Michigan men’s rugby president, say they believe that student organizations are too important to the U-M community. Grover told The Daily he thinks student organizations are crucial to supporting the well-being of students.
CSG passes resolution denouncing antisemitism
‘We acknowledge that antisemitism is a large problem on our campus and on a country-wide scale’
Though Thaqi did not elaborate further on what he and Jones discussed, he said they plan to meet again next week.
sent the resolution back for review.
The University of Michigan Central Student Government met Tuesday evening in the Michigan Union to discuss AR-14-034, the Standing Up To Antisemitism Act, and a decision by CSG president Alifa Chowdhury to decline an invitation to the President’s Council, an advisory group composed of U-M community members.
During the reports section of the meeting, LSA senior Mario Thaqi, CSG speaker, recounted a meeting with U-M Dean Laura Blake Jones he had the week prior. Thaqui said they discussed CSG’s fall budget, the administration’s response to campus protests, and student life and recreational sports funding.
The CSG Executive Nominations Committee recommended LSA sophomore Hayley Bedell and LSA junior Jimmy Mahfet to the Assembly at Tuesday’s meeting. Bedell was nominated to the position of elections director by a 4-0 vote of the Executive Nominations Committee. Mahfet was nominated to the position of deputy elections commissioner for operations by a 5-0 vote.
The Assembly then introduced AR 14-027, a resolution titled Improving Counseling and Psychological Services Part 1. After the introduction to the Assembly, Rackham CSG Representative Angelica Previero
“This is actually a request from a sponsor of this resolution that thought that this resolution needed more work, and this work is more appropriate to be carried out in a community setting rather than being carried out in assembly,” Preverio said.
The Assembly unanimously passed AR 14-028, or the Protect Our Players Act. This act would allow CSG to advocate for student athletes — particularly those playing hockey and lacrosse — who suffer from injuries due to contact sports. Concussion injuries are responsible for 14-30% of all hockey injuries, and more than 10% of lacrosse players suffered concussions during the regular season.
Public Policy senior Corrigan Knittle, chair of the CSG
UMich study finds rising firearm mortality rates among youth in most states
90% of states saw an increase in child and adolescent firearm mortality rates from 2018 to 2022
Ninety percent of states saw an increase in child and adolescent firearm mortality rates from 2018 to 2022, according to a University of Michigan study published Sept. 3 In a cross-sectional analysis, researchers from the University’s Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention assessed mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wide-Ranging Outline Data for Epidemiologic Research and found that firearms are the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in 25 states, and among the top two causes of death in 42 states. According to the study, North Dakota saw the largest increase in mortality rates from 2018 to 2022, while Rhode Island experienced the largest decrease during that time.
Eugenio Weigend Vargas, primary author of the study and postdoctoral research fellow at IFIP, said the significant variations in state-to-state mortality rates were likely due to a variety of factors.
communications committee, said it was important to protect contact-sport athletes and referenced the authorization of guardian caps, a kind of headinjury protective equipment, in the NFL.
“This is just a resolution that is encouraging that the University invest in protecting its hockey players and lacrosse players, especially given the fact that they now offer guardian caps for football players,” Knittle said. “We know that contact sports are really injury-plagued with concussions, so this is essentially us saying ‘Hey University, do more.’”
CSG then discussed a resolution condemning the recent antisemitic assault on a U-M student, as well as rising antisemitism in the U-M community and across the U.S. Business junior Nate Cohen,
ADMINISTRATION
CSG finance chair, and LSA junior Lucas Korn, CSG executive nominations vice chair, spoke about the purpose of the resolution.
“It is a declarative resolution from this current body of student government to make sure that it is known that we do not support any forms of hate-based violence, and we acknowledge that antisemitism is a large problem on our campus and on a country-wide scale,” Cohen said.
The resolution passed unanimously.
The Assembly also discussed Chowdhury’s decision to decline an invitation from University President Santa Ono to join the President’s Council. Ono invited Chowdhury to join the council via email. In her reply, Chowdhury declined the offer,
stating acceptance of his offer would fundamentally contradict the SHUT IT DOWN campaign, which advocates shutting down CSG affairs until the U-M administration divests from companies profiting from the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. On behalf of Chowdhury, who was not present at the meeting, CSG Vice President Elias Atkinson read the email exchange between Chowdhury and Ono.
“As a representative of the SHUT IT DOWN campaign, I affirm our movement is rooted in the belief that we must not only uphold but also advance our students’ legacy of leadership, transparency and dialogue by holding its administrators accountable,” Atkinson read.
“There are many states, like Mississippi for example, that have very permissive gun laws, versus states like Massachusetts that have very strict gun laws,” Vargas said. “There’s less access to firearms among youth to perpetrate suicide or be involved in accidents or be involved in homicides.”
Though the study defined children and adolescents as people between one and 19 years old, it found the mortality rate increase was greatest from ages 10-to-19 years old.
Patrick Carter, senior co-author of the study and co-director of the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, said that there are a variety of other risk factors for adolescent mortality. However, he emphasized that the researchers did not establish a causal relationship between these factors and the overall increase in mortality.
“(Adolescents are) more impulsive, they’re more likely to be testing the boundaries of behavior and they’re also more likely to experience first time issues like depression and breakups,” Carter said. “New types of behaviors emerge that are pretty normal for teenagers and adolescents, but when you combine it with firearm availability and access, it can be a sort of toxic mix if not addressed in the right way.”
Carter said there is limited research exploring these increases in childhood mortality, and this study represents an advancement in the national conversation about gun violence and public safety.
“It’s just a marker that we need to do more, and we need to think
“Those states that tend to have the highest mortality rate among children and adolescents also tend to have firearms as the primary cause of death,” Vargas said. “There are socioeconomic factors when you’re talking about firearm-related mortality. There is a whole difference across states in terms of firearm ownership, firearm laws, that could be potentially driving those differences as well.” Vargas said the study found states with higher per capita mortality rates in children and adolescents usually have firearm injuries as the leading cause of death compared to states with lower per capita mortality rates that did not rank firearms among the top two causes of death.
carefully about how we do that in a way that respects the traditions of the Second Amendment, but also reduces the potential for injury and deadly outcomes,” Carter said.
“Addressing the issue of firearm injury prevention requires a holistic approach, where we think about interventions that can be done at all levels, from things that we can do individually, to one-on-one.”
LSA senior Kylie Barcino, president of the U-M chapter of March For Our Lives, said she was devastated when she first read the study.
“It’s not exactly surprising,” Barcino said. “In Michigan, in particular, we struggle a lot with young people accidentally harming themselves and intentionally harming themselves with firearms, which is why the governor recently enacted her firearm safety laws and regulations.”
Barcino explained that many people carry the misconception that most gun violence is related to criminal activity, failing to consider that a majority of all firearm deaths are suicides.
“I think we really underemphasize how big mental health is … particularly in the state of Michigan,” Barcino said. “This is a really pressing issue and I think this coming election paying attention to gun safety legislation and politicians that align with those kinds of policies is going to be essential.”
Vargas said he plans to explore how differences in state gun laws and socioeconomic factors further explain the extensive variations in state-to-state mortality rates in children and adolescents.
The Regents also heard public commentary regarding the University’s response to the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Gaza
of the Year of Democracy and Civil and Global Engagement initiative, gave a presentation on the initiative’s goals and programming. She outlined plans to enhance student engagement with voting, introduce internships and offer new grant opportunities that aim to foster a long-term commitment to democracy.
“We did not want to have just a year of events,” Bednar said. “This is a university that creates and disseminates knowledge, so we wanted to take advantage of that and … be a force for triggering a lifelong engagement with being an agent in our democracy and also build up a sense of community on campus that values democracy.” Following this, the board discussed the Committee on Diversity of Thought and Freedom of Expression, which was created in their January meeting. Timothy Lynch, vice president and general counsel, explained that a request to comment was put out to the community, and more than 4,000 people wrote back with diverse and thoughtful feedback.
EMMA SPRING Daily Staff Reporter
Arts
The Teenage B-Side
Picture this: It’s 2014. You come home from school crying because no one understands you. You run to your bedroom, slam the door, lie down on your American Apparel grid-patterned sheets and open your Acer laptop. You browse Tumblr for a while, reblogging a picture of boxed water. Then you open your free version of Spotify, back when you could do things on the free version of Spotify, and play … what? Born to Die (The Paradise Edition)? The 1975’s self-titled? Badlands by Halsey? Okay, so maybe that was just my music taste in middle school. Fine, maybe this story is
NINA SMITH Senior Music Editor
just about me! But there’s a reason I still know every single word to every one of these albums a whole 10 years later. This music was really important to me at a time in my life when not a lot of things made sense.
Maybe it’s the embarrassing young adult fantasy series we obsessed over, the melodramatic teen shows that gave us something to look forward to or even some grainy Superwholock gifs. The media that reached us in this awkward, sinewy transition from kid to grown-up is media that stays with us even into the calmer years — still speaking, still listening. In the Teenage B-Side, Arts writers present what teen media spoke to them and made that weird era feel a little more normal.
On the epic highs and lows of high school fandom culture
MORGAN SIERADSKI Daily Arts Writer
The year is 2017. I am 13 years old. My best friend has just recommended a new anime for me to watch. The trajectory of my life is about to change forever. That night, hidden beneath the covers of my bed, I watched the first episode of the “Danganronpa” anime. I was instantly hooked. Based on a popular video game of the same name, the anime follows a group of 16 high school students forced into a killing game. The students are trapped inside a massive school, and the only way out is to murder another student … and get away with it. Each death is followed by a trial, in which the students must uncover the killer and send them to their execution. As the numbers dwindle, the stakes rise, and more school secrets are revealed. At the time, “Danganronpa” captivated me. The plot was simple, the cast vibrant and the mystery engaging. This was the first fandom of my teenage years. Like me, many people spend their teenage years engaged in fandoms, or communities of fans, dedicated to a particular piece of media. From novels to anime, fandoms come in all shapes and sizes, providing a space for fans to engage with one another about their shared interests. When I became a “Danganronpa” fan, I started engaging with the fandom over the internet. I joined group chats through Instagram and Discord, all created with the sole purpose of discussing the media we loved.
In these chats, I felt seen in ways I had never experienced before. Here I was, talking with total strangers online, but somehow we were all connected through one common thread. It gave me a sense of belonging, something that I craved so deeply at the time. Fandom also provided me with a solid identity. If nothing else, I knew that I was a fan, and I knew some people would accept me for it.
Teenage years are often characterized by the struggle to find one’s identity. You’re suddenly bombarded with new freedoms and responsibilities and expected to navigate them without a clear destination. You don’t understand yourself, much less the world around you. Amidst the chaos, fandoms are solid, defined communities that can act as a lifeboat for someone struggling with their sense of self. Fandoms allow you to explore your interests however you desire. There are infinite ways to participate in a fandom: Online forums, cosplay and fanart are just a few. Some people dedicate entire social media accounts to their fandoms. Some people code entire games based on their fandoms. “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” one of the most popular horror games of all time, has over a thousand fan games. Although these games are inspired by the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” franchise, whether narratively or mechanically, each game is its own creation and a highly impressive one at that.
‘All my life I’ve been obsessed with adolescence, drunk on it’
“Tomorrow I turn 20, and it’s all I’ve been able to think about for days.” Lorde — the genius mind behind “Ribs,” arguably the most popular coming-of-age anthem of our generation — feels the weight of time passing in her 2016 Facebook post titled “A Note From the Desk of a Newborn Adult.”
maybe it is because I idolize my sister, who in my head is forever 17. I’ll never know why my desperation for the euphoric naiveté of one’s teenage years remains at the forefront of my life. Lorde describes it as a drunkenness on adolescence — that “teenagers sparkled.” And they do.
off!"
45. ___ Dhabi
46. "___ been there"
47. Network based in Ottawa
50. Scratched vinyl, as heard in this puzzle's starred clues
56. Violate, as a contract
59. Like a pilot with a fear of heights
60. *"And so on and so forth" 64. Play award
65. Apply, as effort
66. Reacts with an XD, say 67. Draft pick?
68. "Later!"
69. Riddle-me-___ (line in a children's rhyme)
1. Starts off a court proceeding
2. Volleyball team, e.g.
3. Actor Starr of "The Boys"
4. Unit of cake that's an exemplar for ease
5. Renamed Mac platform
6. Word with fire or ball
7. Corn unit
Comedian
9. Siri's Samsung counterpart
10. What a colon represents in an analogy
11. U.S. : chick :: U.K. : ___
12. 2021 hit by The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber
14. Swiss ___ knife
18. Word with hearing or visual
19. Ages
23. Org. with Lions and Bears
24. Veer off course
25. Dr. of rap
28. It's big in London
29. Played out
30. Lou Gehrig's disease: Abbr.
31. Sorrow
32. Word for when you don't know the word
33. Hula hoop?
34. My ___, Vietnam
35. Trio after K
36. Itsy-bitsy
37. Q&A on Reddit
38. Ad follower
39. African game
42. Suffix with beat and peace
43. First lady?
44. Boyz II ___
47. Lana of "To All The Boys I've Loved Before"
48. Horse's headwear
49. 'Jewel' music holder
50. Ruth succeeded by Amy Coney
51. Color TV pioneer
52. "You're totally right!"
53. Cowboy's lasso
54. Suffix with bean and brew
55. Ungreen energy source
56. Initialism on some party invites
57. Broccoli ___
58. Falco of "The Sopranos"
61. Big name in fighting body odor
62. Student center?
63. Towel (off)
Just like Lorde, I have longed for adolescence for as long as my memory endures. I always wanted to be 16 and sweet. It was the perfect age in my little head. Once I hit 16, I would have made it. I would have found exactly what life was meant to be. I would be in love with every aspect of my life, no longer forced to beg for rides or get told I was just a kid. I wanted to be frozen in time at 16, permanently locked in my beatup Honda Accord, wearing my red Doc Martens and sporting a fresh bob, feeling the weight of a boy who never saw me and a unique contentment with what was to come. The future didn’t matter. I was 16. One of my friends asked me why I’m obsessed with comingof-age stories, whether that be music, movies or books. I’ve never really been able to verbalize why I romanticize adolescence so much. Maybe it is because my media intake is dominated by teenagers — the movies I love most focus on growing into life and love. Or
Even at 13, it felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. No one could understand me and understanding was all I wanted. My emotions were far too big for my tiny bedroom to hold. I was miserable — no one had any sympathy for the problems that were huge for a 13-year-old girl and nonexistent to everyone else. But even in the misery and all-consuming pain, being a teenager was enough to make it feel like it was worth it. Because I knew that this period of my life was rare. It would be gone before I knew it.
Lorde says she spent her life building a sort of “giant
Evelyn Mousigian/DAILY
8.
Gillis
‘Pretty Little Liars,’ teenage girls and the beauty of the online fandom
REBECCA SMITH Senior Arts Editor
When I was in middle school, nearly all of my Tuesday evenings looked exactly the same.
I would get home from dance, curl up on my couch with a bowl of popcorn and devote the entire next hour of my life to the newest episode of “Pretty Little Liars.” Those 60 minutes were a sacred ritual to me — an uninterrupted moment in time where I got to return to the not-so-safe haven of Rosewood and its inhabitants.
I took my weekly watch parties very seriously. If my dad asked me to help him with something or my brother came running into the living room hoping to annoy me with some stupid joke, I always responded with a disgruntled, “I’m watching something!” Everyone living in my house came to understand that I didn’t mess around about “Pretty Little Liars,” and my devotion to the show didn’t just live within the walls of my home. I dressed up as “A” for Halloween and marched in my school’s costume parade. I cried when I found out that Toby Cavanaugh (Keegan Allen, “King Cobra”) — beloved to my preteen heart — was part of the A-team. I also spent most of my free time in 2015 theorizing with my friends about who would be revealed as “A” in the season five dollhouse finale, which, by the way, was totally creepy and still haunts me to this day. All that said, “Pretty Little Liars” definitely had a profound effect on my preteen and teenage years, and it wasn’t just me who was experiencing this phenomenon. While “Pretty Little Liars” is remembered in television history for its convoluted storylines,
countless plot holes and questionable love affairs, what is often forgotten is the sheer influence it had over the 2010s, particularly on young women and social media.
When the series finale aired in 2017, it broke the record for the most tweeted about episode of television that year, and X is not the only place where the show found a home in the online sphere. Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr and Snapchat also had spaces dedicated to the #PLLFamily.
The cast of “Pretty Little Liars” arguably set the tone for social media television promotion in the 2010s. Each cast member’s social media feed — most notably the five central “liars” — was expertly curated with a perfect mixture of personal photos and show-related content. Sprinkled throughout the weeks leading up to a new season’s release were behind-thescenes photos and teaser trailers courtesy of the show’s cast and crew members, always timed perfectly and always paired with an electric fan response.
The show’s marketing team was also notable for its dedication to interacting with fans. Live tweeting with the show’s cast and crew — including its showrunner, I. Marlene King (“Famous in Love”) — became an integral part of each new episode drop, and unlike most online fanbases, the communication went both ways. As fans watched each new episode, they would go online and tweet about their reactions and theories, and producers and writers would actually listen, sometimes even responding. In fact, King spoke out several times throughout the show’s seven seasons about how impactful online fan activity was for the show’s cast and crew. She said that she
TARLING TV Beat Editor
I’ll blow out the candles, happy birthday to me
Got your whole life ahead of you, you’re only 19
But I fear that they already got all the best parts of me
And I’m sorry that I couldn’t always be your teenage dream
The night before my 20th birthday, I paced my room for an hour. Olivia Rodrigo’s “Teenage Dream” and Lorde’s “Perfect Places” played over in my headphones as I mourned something I hadn’t quite lost yet. I thought I would miss being 19 — or anything-teen for that matter. I thought I would miss calling myself a “teenager.” I thought I would miss listening to music and watching TV, knowing that the content I loved was both for and about me. I would miss being this young. And before I knew it, I was 20. I was in my 20s. My parents got married in their 20s. I can’t be in my 20s. I still feel like a teenager.
But as I finally got into bed and accepted my 20s, I began to consider the truth — I had hated being a teenager. I had absolutely hated it.
I once read a quote that said teenagers are so frustrated because they’re “treated like children and expected to behave like adults.” Hormonal, angry and infantilized, teenagers are expected to perform to unreasonable academic and social standards. Those who are privileged enough to attend college are often reminded that the fate of the rest of their lives rests in their 15-year-old hands.
When I came home for Thanksgiving during my freshman year of college, I went driving with my best friend.
“I realized why I was so miserable in high school,” she had told me. “I couldn’t go to bed on time because of lacrosse and all my homework, and then I was up at the crack of dawn every single day. I didn’t sleep.”
Adolescence is a time when your body and mind active -
actually looked forward to connecting with fans online and hearing about how the show has helped them through their struggles and how much it means to them.
It was this that separated the PLL fandom from other fandoms like it. When I sat down each Tuesday night to watch a new episode, I knew that young women across the world were doing the very same thing, and talking about it online, which made the experience all the more meaningful and thrilling. It was more than just a show — it was a community. As much as I looked forward to finding out what was going to happen next, I also was anxious to get on Instagram after the episode finished and stalk the countless “Pretty Little Liars” fan pages I followed, reading their theories, watching their fan edits and interacting with fellow fans. This may sound boring and familiar now, considering fandoms are such an integral part of the online sphere, but at the time — especially for younger fans like myself — it was uncharted territory. “Pretty Little Liars” may not have been the first of its kind, but it certainly helped set the stage for the massive online communities that exist around the media we love today.
Whenever a new season of “The Bachelor” comes out, I find myself in a similar position to the one I was in 10 years ago — parked around the TV (this time with my college roommates), mute and laser-focused as I watch the drama unfold. I also always have my phone open, because scrolling through X while you watch “The Bachelor” is probably the best part of the whole viewing experience. The #BachelorNation comes alive in seconds, and
every breakup, Fantasy Suite and solo date is accompanied by thousands of absolutely hilarious tweets, calling out the contestants on their frequent stupidity and often poking fun at the ridiculous nature of the show itself. If I’m being honest, I probably wouldn’t even watch “The Bachelor” if it weren’t for its hilarious social media presence. The premise of the whole thing is pretty much impossible to believe, but just like fans could gloss over PLL’s nonsensical plot twists and numerous “A” reveals because of the immense community the show had garnered, I’m able to excuse “The Bachelor’s” satirical nature and just have fun with it.
This is often what online fandoms are really about, especially for the teenagers who are at their core — not critical analysis of a show’s production quality or writing, but the intentional choice to gather with like-minded individuals, forget the real world and connect over the media we love — even if it’s not worthy of critical acclaim. The final season of “Pretty Little Liars” wrapped up years ago, which was probably for the better of everyone involved. The show had gotten seriously ridiculous at least three seasons prior. But even though my Tuesday nights no longer take place in Rosewood, traces of my commitment to PLL still live in my
The teenage dream is dead
ly work against you. You’re expected to take on immense responsibility and be an active part of a school system proven to be hazardous to your health, all while having your freedoms restricted and your problems mocked by former teenagers who seem to have forgotten what it was like. And you enter this stage under the deluded assumption that you’re about to experience the “best years of your life.” So when you live the teenage years and they suck, you’re bound to think it’s just you. Everything I watched and read pressured me to have these “best years of my life” but only made me more miserable. I thought I was the only one not having any fun. I walked out of my high school graduation with no tears in my eyes knowing that if I wanted to keep in touch with the people I was leaving, then I would. I remember people asking me all night if I was sad, I just asked them what I had to be sad about. I was finally out. There are things that you
don’t notice until they go missing. Like when your best friend stays home from school sick and you realize how lonely the day will be without them. I don’t think I realized how much light I held behind my eyes until I first became a teenager and it all left. The ages of 17 and 18 were the times I recovered the personhood I lost at 14; I wasn’t all me yet, but I was closer than I was before. At 19, I felt closer to myself than I had been since middle school.
So at 19 years and 364 days old, in my bedroom, listening to “teenage dream,” I mourned 17, 18 and 19. They had been OK. They had been better than 13, 14, 15 and 16. But maybe that’s all they were — the better end of teenage-hood. Maybe the fact that I wasn’t mourning 13, 14, 15 or 16 was telling. Maybe I didn’t like being a teenager at all. Maybe what I really liked was autonomy and living on my own terms. Maybe I liked getting older.
So if I’m happier now, if I feel better, if I feel freer, if being a teenager wasn’t any fun at all, if
I have an identity outside of my clothes and the pictures I post, why am I pacing in my bedroom in the middle of the night? Why can’t I let go of something I hated so much?
They all say that it gets better, it gets better the more you grow
Yeah, they all say that it gets better, it gets better, but what if I don’t?
I can’t pretend that my inability to leave behind what I hated has nothing to do with something I loved — TV. Rory Gilmore suffered her mental breakdown from academic stress four years older than I had mine. So maybe that seemed like a college problem. And it wasn’t about the fact that Serena van der Woodsen could jet off to France at a moment’s notice before she could legally vote. It was the fact that the CW had tricked me into thinking that there was a similar level of autonomy that would come with my teenage years — that people would respect my
choices, even if they disagreed with them, because I was worth listening to. Or, being 16 at the same time as Sarah Cameron, I had least hoped it would all be fun.
It wasn’t. And social media hasn’t gotten better. Because now we’re not young women, we’re “teenage girls in our 20s” (i.e. the TikTok trend, categorizing young women who enjoy pop culture while being older than 20). Young women in their 20s feel the need to refer to themselves this way to make excuses for allowing their interests and hobbies, often related to their stereotypically youthful clothing or “fangirl” activities, to follow them into their 20s.
Adults around this age used to feel pressure to settle down and start families (pressure put on a younger demographic by societal pressures and a lower life expectancy). But if we generally have longer lives to live, why should we feel the need to infantilize ourselves to excuse having youthful joy in our 20s? Why should we feel embar -
skin. The show was certainly no cinematic masterpiece, but it was never the relationship drama or convoluted stalker mysteries that made PLL so special to me. It was everything in between — the fan accounts and edits and theories that enveloped social media and made PLL not just a show, but a lifestyle, one that I happily took up for years on end. The online community it fostered for young women set the tone for fandom culture for years to come, and helped make my preteen and teenage years just a little bit more bearable. Even with the series finale in the rearview mirror, I know I’ll be a part of the #PLLFamily forever.
rassed or ashamed for taking advantage of living our lives or reclaiming the youthful joy we denied ourselves during our teenage years? And what the hell does that have to do with being a teenager? It relies on the idea that the teenage experience is the height of your life’s fun, and that after that you’re a boring adult and a slave to capitalism. But again, who’s to say you weren’t one during your teenage years? And when you have fun or feel free during your adult years, are you “feeling like a teenager,” or are you a human adult equally as capable of having fun as a teenager, if not more so?
Maybe we pace in our bedrooms fueled by prebirthday dread because we feel like we’re running out of time — like there’s something we’re supposed to achieve by 30 and once we’re in our 20s we need to start working towards it, even if we don’t know what “it” is. So we treat the teenage years like the end of something instead of the beginning. Media has taught us that our teenage years are the peak of something, and not the messy and miserable transition period they actually are. So, the teenage dream is dead. I think someone killed it a long time ago and never told the rest of us. And I don’t say any of this negatively — 13- to 19-yearolds, the teenage dream is dead! There’s no pressure! It’s not the worst thing in the world to not peak in high school. The teenage dream is dead. If high school wasn’t the time of your life, then the time of your life is yet to come. The teenage dream is dead. And maybe there’s nothing to mourn.
Seeking A Ross School of Business Doctoral candidate looking for a PhD. Thesis topic in accounting. I have invented USPTO patented database technology related to double entry accounting. If interested, contact Edward at 248-848-1550. Classifieds
OLIVIA
Evelyn Mousigian/DAILY
Evelyn Mousigian/DAILY
How media homogenized the college experience
geographical and social histories of the regions they inhabit.
Architecturally, the University of Michigan is unique. While we boast the uniqueness of our customcrafted gothic Law Quadrangle or our modernist Ross School of Business, our campus and our students have lost the uniqueness that once characterized them.
Algorithmic media has handed students a curated ideal of college life and has overridden authenticity to do so. These algorithms are carefully calibrated formulas designed to keep user engagement high. They are architects of thought and prioritize what is most likely to provoke a reaction. The result?
A stream of content that amplifies sameness.
Innovative architecture
Student movements and motions are now synchronized, and clothes and conversations appear algorithmic. This is not the natural flow of campus life. Intersecting cultures, beliefs, attitudes and displays of personality once decorated college spaces. However, in recent years, the pervasive influence of mass media has begun to strip us of our individuality. Its hold on students has been slow and deliberate, and it has proven to be terrifyingly effective.
In the past, college campuses were symbols of the region’s culture, thought and expression. The University of California, Berkeley is known for its fiery political attitudes that mirrored Northern California’s social engagement. In the same way, the University of Chicago is synonymous with intellectual rigor and curiosity in a preeminent creative hub.
Although these conventional images remain, the regional influence and distinctiveness of the college student body are lessening. Now, visiting these campuses will reveal that a sterile sameness has plagued each institution. Regionspecific clubs like the American Indian Science and Engineering Society and activities are expanding nationally. University mission statements and plans are utilizing the same language and agendas.
The culture at the University of Florida somewhat mirrors that of the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign — and the media is to blame.
Ideological, region-based
their work.
Now, campuses reflect the content shown on our feeds more than they reflect the rich
Trends and lifestyles do not just have jurisdiction over our digital lives but over our reallife interactions. Even trending hot takes are just less socially acceptable thoughts that are shared by the masses. As humans, we are programmed to favor familiarity.
The familiarity effect — a cognitive phenomenon that explains why humans favor familiarity over newness — also explains why we want our lives to be cyclical.
If something has allowed us to succeed in the past, it will likely help us succeed in the future.
Critical thinking, once a symbol of higher education, has given way to replication.
In this regression into sameness, the role of influencers is pertinent. They have become the curators of culture, dictating what students should wear, how they should act and what they should value.
Evidence of this is subtle but sprinkled throughout campus life.
Students are generally less inspired by local activists who are the backbones of campus movements or their professors who challenge them to rethink their worldview than they are by online influencers. Recent data indicates a decline in student participation with these traditional sources of inspiration.
Student activism is now organized on and through media initiatives, with similar initiatives across multiple campuses. This is positive for wide-scale organizing efforts but reduces the opportunity for regional activism that could be key to tackling regional nuances or difficulties.
Even fashion has become homogenized. Historically, Northern and Southern schools have developed unique fashion as a result of regional and historical influences. As of late, even campus style has become standardized.
Digital celebrities who push reused humor, attitudes and outfits are now idolized and copied. They promote lifestyles that feel aspirational but are unattainable and unoriginal. Homogenous collegiate culture is not accidental. Powerful economic forces have crafted this conformity that is subtle and profitable. Industries have discovered that uniformity sells. It is easier to market to a student body and age group that all aim to dress the same, think the same and aspire to the same goals. The less deviation, the more streamlined the selling process is.
Take Barstool Sports’ example.
Instagram content among @ barstooluofm, @barstoolohiostate, @barstoolindy, @tempebarstool and more all share similar sports content with occasional memes that relate to the college experience tailored to men. @ ItGirl is an equivalent to Barstool but tailored to women. Similarly, popular universities all have Instagram accounts called “chicks” that publish meme content that somehow ties into their college. Yet, all posts are in the same format. @ michiganchicks just published a meme cluster of Sabrina Carpenter kissing an alien with captions related to Michigan stereotypes.
@msuchicks also posted the same format. These comparisons may seem redundant, but they paint a bigger picture of homogenized college culture. The consequences of multicampus homogeneity reach far beyond mere shifts in fashion or lifestyle: They extend into the erosion of diverse dialogue and formative life experiences. Consuming the same content creates echoes of the same viewpoints and removes the space for genuine debate and exchange of ideas that used to occur naturally following graduation. This uniformity strips each college environment of the messiness that fosters progress.
Consider how in American politics, the lack of diversity in perspectives has led to the development of two gridlocked political parties that dominate perspective and harbor influence. Similarly, on campuses, a lack of diverse voices has resulted in stagnant environments where unique perspectives are compromised.
The mental health toll is equally concerning. A consistent pressure to conform, to be liked and to be influential is breeding an anxious generation of students who struggle to find a sense of self and inner peace. This crisis is not just about social media, but about how we define success, worth and individuality in the age of digitization.
Some may argue that media has always influenced campus culture without drastic consequences. However, the rapid pace and targeted nature of our current algorithm-driven media have transformed campuses in an obvious way. What we see today is unnatural — it is a flattening of culture. Prior to the rise of algorithmic social media, the internet incited counter and subcultures. Now, with the advancement of technology, our phones can profit from our insecurities and self-proclaimed inadequacies. This push toward uniformity is swift and chillingly uncontested by consumers of media. But, we can take steps to reverse this regression. On the university level, institutions must recognize their role in nurturing diversity of thought and expression. They must encourage spaces where student differences are celebrated and uplifted. Campus events, student organizations and courses must encourage engagement and prioritize learning history and the importance of representing a true version of oneself.
Unfortunately, the burden of change is mostly on us students. We must recognize and reclaim our rights to be different and resist the pull of digital conformity. We need to seriously question our consumption and analyze who we are listening to, why we are listening to them and what choices they are influencing us to make. Simple as it may sound: Push back against the current in seemingly insignificant ways. Wear an outfit that isn’t trending but shows your personality. Start that discussion everyone is scared to have. Own yourself in a way that isn’t prescribed by an algorithm, but by your authentic self. The significance of college has always been its ability to challenge and change us. As digitization pushes us toward uniformity, let us not forget the value of uniqueness in thought, expression and being that our collegiate region creates. Algorithms are powerful, but not invincible. Radically defy sameness to reclaim your individuality.
In discussion sections, the student should become the teacher
GISELLE SESI Opinion Analyst
Many of the lecturebased classes students take in college require a discussion section. Discussion sections give students the chance to further engage with material they receive in lecture. They can chat with their peers, ask their graduate student instructor questions or simply listen to the flow of conversation to retain courserelated information.
Different Graduate Student Instructors employ different teaching styles within their discussion sections; some of those teaching styles, however, are more effective than others. When GSIs present themselves as peers rather than authority figures, they can more successfully engage students and foster an environment that emphasizes the importance of student voices and perspectives in their sections. This semester, my roommate constantly complains about her psychology discussion section — and specifically, the GSI who
It is, to a certain extent, true that the amount one can do at the University of Michigan depends on their ability to move freely around Ann Arbor. The easier you can travel between classes, extracurriculars, jobs, events, stores and parties, the more you can experience in your limited time here. This makes whether or not you have a car one of the most significant social dividers on campus, comparable to your class or hometown. In short, students who have a car on campus have a genuine advantage over their peers — one that should be recognized and addressed.
In my three-person Kerrytown apartment, one of us has a car. If my other roommate or I want to visit our friends near Burns Park, we can either walk the 20 minutes it takes to get there, hop on a bus, pay for an Uber, ask our other roommate for a ride or just not make the journey at all. Our roommate who has a car can simply drive down to visit our friends and drive home just as easily.
runs it. She finds it difficult to engage because her GSI chooses to lecture, rather than respond to student questions or thoughts. Because discussion sections may not be everyone’s favorite aspect of their schedules, instructors should remember their audience consists of young-adult students — a mix of those who want to develop their knowledge of course content and others who just want to fulfill their requirements. Either way, discussion sections are meant to be studentcentered, not an opportunity for the instructor to talk at the group.
This semester, one of my GSIs emphasized the importance of student participation in our discussion sections. Rather than taking a more authoritative approach, the GSI introduced herself as a peer. She reminded us that, despite our difference in experience levels, we all have important perspectives to share. As a result, she created a comfortable setting that maximizes participation in class-wide conversations. During our first meeting, the class developed a rubric together to determine what quali-
fies as good participation, which showed that she cared enough to incorporate our feedback in the section grading.
My POLSCI 101 GSI is a facilitator for the Engendering Respectful Communities workshop, run by the University of Michigan’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center. In her syllabus, she applied standards the ERC developed, writing, “Everyone is a teacher and a learner,” which effectively established both students and instructors as sources of knowledge in college.
The GSI’s acknowledgment of a student’s potential to educate created an environment where students could feel even more comfortable sharing their perspectives.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Engineering senior Nicholas Stewart shared that he has had varied experiences in discussion sections during his years at the University. He ultimately favors discussion sections in which the GSI establishes themselves as peers to the students.
“I feel like if someone’s in a
position of authority, it feels like you’re more likely to tune out or not engage because you don’t want your opinions to be judged,” Stewart said. “But people are more likely to open up if you feel like the instructors are on the same level as you.”
The desire for equal distribution of power in classroom settings likely stems from a larger pattern of American distrust in authority. Pew Research Center data shows that Americans generally lack trust in people who hold positions of power, ranging from congressmen to school administrators. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that this distrust can manifest in the classroom. How GSIs shape their environment greatly affects how much students benefit from the section.
Stewart also acknowledged the relationship between age groups and authority. Since age is a factor in determining someone as a peer, it’s important to consider when thinking about the power dynamics in a college discussion section.
“We are more or less in the same age group as the GSIs. It depends on whoever is running
the discussion session to lead at the student’s level rather than at a higher position,” Stewart said.
Those who doubt the studentcentered environment do so because of its potential to undermine the authority of the instructor. This comes from a common misunderstanding that a relaxed or comfortable setting means the instructor is too lenient or easygoing. However, trust in the instructor is an important element of student education. If an instructor undermines students, fails to recognize their unique learning needs or enforces strict policies that do not encourage open discussion, they risk losing that trust and the students’ attentions.
Modern American college classrooms typically follow a student-centered structure — meaning the students’ interests and accommodations are the instructor’s primary concern. In a classroom that adheres to this culture, active participation and an emphasis on student needs are valuable.
People often prefer to surround
Cars are dividing our campus
The biggest imbalance regarding cars on campus has to do with autonomy. Having a car allows for more independence: Less time traveling means more time actually doing the activities you’re traveling for. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Engineering junior Matthew Conley cites this improved autonomy as the most important improvement in his life since bringing a car to campus.
“In the month I’ve had my car here it has substantially affected my college experience, especially being an engineer who lives on Central Campus,” Conley said. “I no longer feel dependent on other people or the buses and can finally be self-sufficient.”
Becoming self-reliant is a major part of growing up, and having a car in college can ease this transition. With a car, students hold power over how effortlessly they navigate campus. Meanwhile, a student without a car can become dependent on friends with cars or public transportation. This might not seem problematic — especially since friends with cars can drive you places and we have access to Blue Buses and the Ride — but we
need to acknowledge the social hierarchy that transportation dependence creates.
The person in the friend group with a car is revered. If you’re late to a meeting, need to shop at Meijer or Costco or want to go to a party across town, they’re the one you look to for help. Though people with cars don’t usually expect anything in return for driving their friends around, that doesn’t mean they aren’t gaining anything from it. Doing favors for others is a surefire way to increase your social capital — the value derived from connections with others.
Since college is built on connection and networking, easy transportation shifts power dynamics in friendships. By driving around their friends, students with cars take a leading role in organizing experiences, gaining an advantage in the exchange of favors and social interactions. This makes having a car one of the best potential ways to boost your social life.
Along with the social elements of cars on campus there are economic and geographical divides they perpetuate as well. At a school already split down the middle between in-
state and out-of-state students, cars make it even easier for those living nearby to return home and visit their families. On that same note, parking spots and gas are not cheap, particularly in Ann Arbor. This means that there is likely a financial component to who is bringing a car with them to campus.
Nevertheless, there could still be people who are skeptical about whether or not we have a genuine transportation problem on college campuses. Students can still walk to get to most of their activities and there are always options like Spin scooters, Uber or TheRide to quickly get around. People like LSA senior Adam Meskouri even think that not having a car has improved his college experience.
“Being generally confined to campus has weirdly made me feel more like a college student than less,” Meskouri said in an interview with The Daily.
Strolling leisurely through campus has its charm, but the challenge with relying solely on your own two feet is longevity. As the weather worsens and the semester-long stress of school tightens its grip, it only gets harder to have the men-
For most non-freshmen at the University of Michigan, living off campus is the only viable option given the limited amount of housing the University provides. Some students are able to live within walking distance of campus, but Ann Arbor’s average monthly rent of $2,043 forces others to live farther away. This leaves students to depend on commuting to campus via car or bus. Despite the substantial number of students who commute to campus, there is nowhere to park.
themselves with others like them. Psychologists provide a number of reasons for this tendency, such as validation, certainty and selfexpansion. I think this is true in discussion sections as well: If students feel a GSI is not so different from them, they may feel more comfortable sharing their views. Overall, the newly produced dynamic could improve participation and enjoyment. If students fail to find value in their discussion sections as they are, they should take initiative to shift power dynamics in the classroom. Or, at the very least, when it’s time for midterm student feedback, they can indicate on the forms if they dislike the structure of their discussion sections. Instructors should emphasize that students can teach each other through discussion by sharing their experiences and interpretations of course content. But, as a student, if you don’t feel supported in this way, initiate conversations about how you wish the discussion would function and respectfully challenge the dynamics to ensure the section benefits your education.
tal bandwidth for some activities, including the amount of time it takes to walk to them. Automobiles alleviate the struggle of traveling around Ann Arbor when the outside world starts to take its toll.
Discounting the many negative externalities of car use — carbon emissions, traffic and noise, to name a few — it would appear that the benefits of having a car on campus outweigh the costs. Even so, I am not advocating for all students to start bringing their cars — that would be unnecessary and likely
We need better parking access on campus
The lack of parking spaces and passes disadvantages students who cannot live close to campus, whether they are priced out of a closer housing market or commute for extenuating circumstances. Collectively, students give the University hundreds of millions in annual tuition. The University is thus obligated to create more equitable access to parking, by either creating more spaces or addressing the root cause of the issue:high cost of living. For undergraduate students, parking is separated based on student status. Juniors and seniors have access to an Orange Parking Permit where they can park in designated parking lots on North Cam-
pus, Ross Athletic Campus and the West Side. Students have to then take the various Blue Bus services from those lots to wherever their classes are located.
Students can also apply for Student Storage permits, which are designed for students who infrequently use their cars. If the University-provided options aren’t feasible, students can opt for Ann Arbor sponsored parking, which grants free parking on difficultto-find, unmetered streets. And, if they choose to go with none of these options, they can pay $2.20 per hour at the meter or $1.80 per hour at a structure, neither option being feasible nor cost-effective. Lastly, stu-
dents can pay for monthly permits through city parking structures for $225 per month with an additional fee for overnight parking.
This current system is severely inequitable for students. If you can’t afford the $2,043 in rent each month or have extenuating circumstances that prevent you from living close to campus, you are forced to pay more. Furthermore, it is the students who can’t afford higher rents that take on the bulk of parking tickets. Ann Arbor made roughly $20 million in 2023 parking ticket revenue. For students struggling to make ends meet, parking tickets upward of $70 can impact their ability to pay for groceries for the week.
Faced with the possibility of high parking costs and limited space, many students choose not to bring cars to campus, despite needing them. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Engineering junior Elizabeth Borg discussed her choice.
“I had a car over the summer but I figured I wouldn’t have anywhere to park it during the school year,” Borg said. “It’s too expensive, too crowded and pointless to have a car on campus right now.”
For Borg, having a car simply isn’t worth it. She would have to pay for a parking pass at the University and her apartment complex without the guarantee of a parking spot on campus. This makes it harder for Borg to get to classes, shop for groceries and even visit home on the occasional weekend off.
disastrous for Ann Arbor traffic. Instead, I am calling on the students with cars to acknowledge the divide that exists between them and their peers without vehicles. Transportation should be effortless for all students. This starts with students who own cars recognizing the privilege they possess and making a conscious effort to responsibly support their friends. From there, we can steer campus transportation toward a more mobile and equitable future for all.
This problem isn’t unique to the University of Michigan; it plagues most college campuses. Though their campus is much larger than ours, Michigan State University faces similar problems with parking access. It’s always difficult to provide enough parking for a massive amount of people all packed into the same small space. Even with the administrative and practical challenges, the University has the ability to remedy the parking crisis. First, the University needs to expand parking for freshmen and sophomores living off campus., as it currently doesn’t have enough parking spaces to give out passes to these groups of students. In order to expand parking passes, it must build more parking lots. The University could look at partnering with The Ride to expand lots on State Street near the Ross Athletic Campus. Additionally, U-M administrators could look at expanding lots on North Campus near Baits I or the Northwood Apartments. Given the limited amount of U-M-provided housing, it’s vital that it provides at least the bare minimum of resources to students forced to live off-campus. The University has forgotten these students, placing them in a weird limbo of not having guaranteed housing or a way to get to campus. But expanding parking could create greater problems. Building parking structures and lots is expensive and takes up the little space Ann Arbor still has to offer. Additional parking also invites more vehicles into Ann Arbor, which will negatively impact the University’s net zero emissions goals. There’s an argument to be made about reducing emissions. If the University wants to reduce emissions, why don’t they just make students walk? To understand the flaws in this thinking, one needs to look at the reason students are driving in the first place. The United States is built for drivers. There are currently no better alternatives for commuter students, and there won’t be unless the government starts investing serious funding into driving alternatives. Expanding parking access will not encourage more students to drive; it will simply help those who are forced to. A better solution would intertwine the construction of more parking and investment in public transportation. Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan have a vast network of buses that need improvement. Overcrowding of buses and rerouting due to construction makes the service unreliable for off-campus students. Lastly, the University needs to work to provide more affordable housing options for students. The new Elbel Field dorms provide a starting point, but the University needs to make more concrete investments in
ELIZA PHARES Opinion Columnist
MAX FELDMAN Opinion Columnist
Avery Nelson/DAILY
In the dark recesses of my mind, there is a memory of swishing wind over the top of a too-fast car on a road poorly prepared for the blackness of early night — the darkest time after sunset when we haven’t yet adjusted to our nocturnal reality. My mother is uncomfortable in the driver’s seat. Despite being a driver for more than a decade, she is ill-disposed to be driving under the guide of her headlights and curses the sun for its early retreat the entire way home. This road — where the posted speed limit is 45 miles per hour — harbors a neighborhood to its left, a place my father grew up and where the sight of police cars isn’t uncommon and to the right, a gas station. Not only does it sell the favored meal of our insatiable vehicle, but a host of basic necessities, snacks and, famously, Virginia Beach’s version of Philadelphia-style hoagies. The nearest crosswalk lies down the road, turning a two-minute walk into a 20-minute odyssey — most of one’s time is spent waiting for permission to cross.
There’s a movement in the shadows. The searching eyes of our automobile find a man, dressed in black, illegally crossing the street. It is likely that he is getting a drink or snack from the station, but his presence on the road is an anomaly.
I can feel the engine of our car roar in disapproval; it is the sound I imagine Theseus heard deep in the Labyrinth, a place where he, too, was not welcome. Yet, unlike the Minotaur, our charge is disrupted by my mother’s foot stepping on the brake. He will be able to follow his yarn home, spared the fate of
a pedestrian causing a near-fatal miss, and my mother’s response remains the same.
“Not my fault if I hit him.”
Much fuss is made about the dangers of the modern world. The specter of death hangs over us in a way it hasn’t in a generation; gun violence continues to fester disproportionately to the rest of the world and social media is rife with images of blood and carnage from distant atrocities. American life expectancy has declined to a two-decade low of 76.4 years. Yet, despite all of these threats, there is a familiar killer that stalks our streets every day: the automobile.
Vehicle collisions are the leading
entire U.S. population, car crashes maintain a spot in the top 20 list for causes of death, with risk levels decreasing the older drivers get; traffic accidents are only the 5th highest cause of death in adults 35-44, behind malignant neoplasms and heart disease. And although overall car-related fatality rates have decreased, the rising popularity of the SUV make the collisions that occur far more dangerous; a study by Justin Tyndall, associate professor of economics at the University of Hawaii, found that full-sized SUVs and trucks were far more likely to kill pedestrians in the event of a collision than sedans. Although
far more dire. Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for people aged 5-29, with more than half of all deaths including pedestrians or bicyclists.
How did we get here? How did a horseless carriage, barely 100 years old, manage to not only impose itself in every city around the world, but bypass war, famine and sickness as the greatest danger in everyday life?
In his book “Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design,” urban planner Charles Montgomery presents the preautomobile city as one of organized chaos. An idyllic Eden of urbanism, pedestrians, bicyclists,
a powerful alliance of disparate automobile interest groups driven by one desire: to make the roads a new mecca for the driver. While local governments, pedestrians and the press sought to enforce limitations on car use — a 1923 petition in Cincinnati would have required that car engines shut off if they surpassed 25 miles per hour — Motordom threw considerable financial resources into making sure their efforts failed. While 42,000 people signed the Cincinnati petition, it ultimately failed, in part due to the lobbying and political cartoons of Motordom. Over the course of the decade, these groups would
— and always look both ways. As a child, I remember my mom telling me to look both ways before crossing a street, lest I be “flattened like a pancake.” In my toddler brain, I can remember thinking I would end up like Flat Stanley, my organs compressed to the width of paper and my new flat body left to bake on the black pavement. But adults were less pliable than children, so the lobby introduced another strategy to rewrite the urban ballet. They created the jaywalker and blamed pedestrians for their own deaths.
“Today, the word jaywalker doesn’t have any sting to it, but it had a big sting to it 100 years ago,” Norton said. “It meant hick,
ELEANOR BARRETT Statement Contributor
“How am I even supposed to respond to this?” My friend shows me her phone screen, where her dad has replied to a long, complicated, logistic-filled text message with a simple “Ok ��.”
We’ve all been there — left staring at our screens, trying to decipher the true meaning behind a vague message. In moments like these, the social discrepancies of texting become glaringly obvious. Texting has become intrinsic to modern communication: quick, efficient and always at our fingertips. It is wide ranging, able to convey practical information and also the deepest of emotions. We fire off messages instinctively and without a second thought — much like how we talk — and relay real-time information across the world. But texting, unlike physical speech, lacks the nuance of facial expressions and subtle gestures; instead, it has developed a linguistic life of its own.
“Texting gives us a visual representation of linguistic information,” said Cherry Meyer, an assistant professor of linguistics and American culture, in an interview with The Michigan Daily. The letters on the screen are not just words and grammar, but instead are injected with deep cultural and linguistic meaning.
Language is a push and pull, a constant interplay between efficiency and accuracy. Ideally and given infinite time, we could describe any thought, event or experience in minute detail, perfectly conveyed and perfectly understood. However, this is not a luxury we are afforded. Instead, we must sacrifice accuracy for efficiency, choosing which details take priority over others. Texting clearly prioritizes efficiency — communicating quickly with little regard for frivolous things like grammar, formality, punctuation or formal structure.
“When we use language, it overlaps with metalinguistic forms of communication,” Meyer said, referring to external communication beyond spoken words. Facial expressions and body language are examples of such metalinguistic factors. The phrase
I always wanted to be one of those people who had a whiteboard on their dorm door, and while digging through the piles of people’s old discarded stuff in East Quad Residence Hall at the end of last semester, I found one. On move-in day this year, I proudly attached it to my door using two command strips and eventually wrote out my first poll: Joe’s or NYPD?
As I placed a tally under the NYPD column, my best friend, who lives down the hall, walked over and looked at what I was writing. When she saw what I had voted for, she said something that made me question my entire identity: “NYPD? You’d always argue so much that Joe’s was better. You’ve changed.”
STATEMENT
When texting becomes its own language: The art of metalinguistic messaging
“Shut up!” can be received very differently, depending on whether the speaker is smiling — body language loose and languid — or in a domineering stance with their eyes turned down. In general, people read and reflect on metalinguistics without much thought. Sarcasm, for example, is a facet of language that is impossible to convey without additional information. People need supplementary context around spoken speech to properly gauge what is actually being communicated. We, as humans, clearly depend on interpretive elements beyond pure linguistic information. At first glance, texting seems like pure language with no metalinguistic context. Body language, facial expressions and vocal inflections don’t accompany the words. It is raw data, a rudimentary foundation of language absent of substantive communication. But texters have developed workarounds, and metalinguistic tells have evolved. If your friend texts you “just ran into my ex,” you do not have a lot of metalinguistic factors to go off of. Are they confused, happy, distraught? “Lol just ran into my exxx , however, manages to convey embarrassment, social panic, sarcasm, feigned nonchalance and humor with only a few additional characters.
“There is a lot more ambiguity in texting, so you end up using emojis and acronyms,” Meyer said. For example, “LOL” has developed a life of its own, straying quite far from its literal acronymic definition of “laughing out loud.” Instead, LOL has developed to mimic the way people use laughter in real-life interactions. While laughter can indicate humor, it also diffuses social tension, acknowledges understanding, conveys agreement and regulates negative emotions.
“The real communicative purpose of LOL is social cohesion, to indicate to the other person ‘I’m in agreement with you,’” Meyer said.
Uses of “LOL” could be replaced with a slight chuckle, a punchy nose-exhalation which would have the same effect as laughter in verbal communication. Often, LOL will appear in all lowercase (lol), indicating a deviation from its acronymic meaning. Someone saying “Just saw my ex” followed by a huff of laughter diffuses a potentially fraught or embarrassing social situation, and “Just saw my ex lol” has a very similar effect.
Emojis add yet another layer of emotional metalinguistics.
“Most people would be in agreement of what the emojis represent, but in real life people’s facial expressions are a lot more
complicated,” Meyer said. “…There’s a lot more conventionalization, agreeance and consensus on what the emojis mean, and body language is a lot more sloppy.”
However, emojis’ streamlined approach to transferring emotional information also severely limits nuance.
“It’s an approximation, and it’s trying to replace a lot of that metalinguistic knowledge that’s lost in the signal. It’s definitely not exactly the same,” Meyer said.
Some emojis are very literal — the smiley face indicates the speaker would be smiling in a reallife situation. Others, like the skull emoji indicating embarrassment or laughter, are less obvious.
Texters also add letters, intentionally misspelling a word, in order to characterize cultural norms. Who would you think is more excited to talk to you: your friend who texted, “hey” or the friend who texted, “heyyyy?” The letters communicate the text equivalent of vocal inflection, elevated pitch and a more casual social context; you read it as an onomatopoeia, stretching the syllables in your mind.
“Lol just ran into my exxx������” incorporates these metalinguistic features to make the sender’s meaning and emotions more easily understood.
Emojis emulate facial expressions and body language, whether or not there is a literal physical translation. The “lol” serves to diffuse and soothe embarrassment and “exxx” is drawn out — an equivalent to vocal inflection. Textual metalinguistics are normalized, just like their reallife counterparts, so that texts communicate a lot of information quite efficiently. However, there are factors that just cannot be replicated in text, such as real-time feedback. In regular conversation, we can adjust patterns, gauge reactions and time responses for effect. When you say something unabashedly embarrassing, the worst possible response is that your audience falls completely silent. There is nothing meaningful in this response, but it is the very lack of response that is ultimately significant. In texting, however, timing is just a metalinguistic avenue you’re not able to use. “It’s part of the deficit,” Meyer said. Texting is an asynchronous form of communication; the recipient is not obligated to respond in any designated time frame. If someone takes a few days to respond to you, you might read into that as metalinguistic information. “But maybe they just had food poisoning!” Meyer joked, in which case your reading would prove unsubstantiated.
You are allowed to change
And, of course, none of these digitallanguage nuances are universal. One of the biggest gaps in texting culture is between generations. Younger people love to complain about older people’s usage of ellipses. But while the “...” can be interpreted as rude — a sarcastic lilt or drawl — it imitates real-life speech patterns. For example, “I don’t know … ” allows for a textual open-endedness and indicates a rhetorical statement instead of one which requires an answer. While older generations seem to use ellipses to indicate reallife speech patterns in a very direct sense, younger generations have developed texting as a dialect of its own, in which ellipses can present as suspenseful and aggressive. Although texting’s metalinguistics have translations in the physical world, they also exist as their own entities. Texting is not a direct mirror of faceto-face communication. Instead, the metalinguistics of text emulate its “spirit.”
Older generations are also less likely to use acronyms and slang in text, and when they do, it often reflects that acronym’s literal translation. If a younger person sends an older person a funny video and they respond with “lol,” this exchange would probably lead to a misunderstanding. While the younger person might interpret this response as an underreaction (the equivalent of a slight chuckle), the older person is probably using it according to its literal definition (“laughing out loud!”).
Language norms change over time; it is necessary and unstoppable. Time marches on, new terms arise, old ones die and people communicate differently. Often, the writing system is slower to catch on, still emulating language from an earlier time. But texting is different.
“The writing system doesn’t (usually) keep up with the way people talk. So texting is, in a way, the writing system keeping up with the way people talk,” Meyer said. “I don’t think texting is changing the way that we talk. I think it is an accurate visual representation.”
Text is unique in its ability to reflect linguistic information in a written form. As text becomes more and more integral to everyday life, it evolves alongside real-life communication: fast paced, dirty and ever-changing.
The more I look back at myself from a year ago, the more I see how much is different. I’m less afraid to talk to strangers. I like parties and going to the gym now. I keep more to myself. I listen to music for the sound sometimes, not just the lyrics. As I reflect, I wonder, is this change just me moving away from home and becoming independent, or is it a product of those around me?
To help me better understand this shift, I interviewed David Dunning, professor of psychology and the study of human understanding at the University of Michigan. He made a distinction between the physical and social qualities of our landscapes.
“Most of the environment you’re surrounded by is really other people,” Dunning said.
While leaving home for college can be wonderful, terrifying, and exciting because of new places and possibilities, what’s bigger in forming our identities is our social circles — not the new environment itself. In our late teens and early 20s, many of us are in college, entering our first serious relationships, making our first serious career choices, nearing the end of the full development of our brains and meeting the people who will influence our lives forever.
Humans have an innate desire to fit in. It’s what Dunning called our “superpower” as a species — our ability to adapt in social situations. Not only are we trying to become more like those around us, but we also look to fill niches in our social groups and maintain a sense of individuality.
Dunning explained that if one person is very talkative, the other has to be a listener to complement them. We may not notice it, but we
She wasn’t wrong. I used to insist that Joe’s Pizza was the best of the big three among my group of friends (Joe’s, NYPD and The Back Room), begging them to go there for a latenight bite after an outing to Cantina. But, by the time I voted in my own poll a week or so into this semester, NYPD had taken the crown. Maybe it’s my newfound proximity to NYPD in comparison to my dorm last year in East Quad, just steps away from Joe’s, or the delectable baked ziti pizza that I like to pick the penne off of before biting into the actual slice. Maybe it was the guy behind the counter being so nice when I took my mom and brother there on Labor Day and told him they’d never been before. Maybe it’s the fact that all the friends I made second semester liked NYPD best because it was closest to West Quad and, therefore, the easiest to walk to. Maybe it was all the late night walks past the cube and up Maynard Street talking with my newfound family, or the time we all sat down together at one of the tables in the second room and watched, laughing, as one of them tackled the biggest calzone I’ve ever seen in my life. Maybe I have changed.
fall into different roles depending on the social contributions of other people, constantly trying to balance distinctiveness with conformity.
I know this to be true. I’ve adapted to the groups I am part of, listening to the music they like, becoming invested in their favorite pastimes and walking with them to NYPD. I’ve also become a follower so they could lead us on a night out or in finding a room to watch the Super Bowl together, been a voice of reason laying next to them on a twin-XL mattress so they could be unreasonable about boys or homework and been an audience so they could preach to me about concepts they were passionate about. My identity has certainly been shaped by the people I’ve met.
In realizing that I’ve changed to be less like my family and my friends from high school and more like all of these people from an entirely different world, I began to fear that it was for the worse. Is it wrong to change? Perhaps a betrayal to those who love me as I am, or rather, as I was? I worry sometimes that I am moving further away from the people who are best for me and closer to those who may not be. I know that my closest friends from home have also changed since we graduated high school, but on the deepest level, where it matters, I love them just the same. Yet, I still worry that I might be leaving behind a better version of myself, or abandoning an important part of myself. I think sometimes change of the self can feel like a lie.
“There are some psychologists and neuroscientists who argue that there really is no core self; that we’re so changeable and so flexible that it doesn’t make sense to talk about a core self,” Dunning said.
In other words, you are just you, no matter how much you reinvent yourself; never the same, but always you. There’s a concept of identity
that states that we adjust ourselves depending on who our audience is, presenting a different facet of ourselves determined by our current setting and basic personality traits. It’s called the working self. And when we’re at school, discovering new “working selves” as we find completely new audiences, we might experience a feeling that we are fundamentally different, but we’re really just frequently using these new presentations of ourselves. The you who you are with your mom or your best friends from high school is still within you. You’re just not using it. Still, it sometimes feels like I’m not fully me. I worry that I am pulling too much of my identity from the people around me. Have I become too loud from all those nights sitting next to my friends and being the noisiest, most annoying people in the study space? Am I too selfish because of my one girlfriend who always tells me to choose my
own happiness? I feel as though I can’t tell. There’s too much going on to keep tabs on every piece of my personality. Going through so much change has made me feel jarringly unfamiliar to even myself, and I get scared that these differences formed by my new friends are something I will regret.
“When you’re young and also when you’re old, we spend a lot of time trying to figure ourselves out by comparing ourselves to other people… and I think people do that too much,” Dunning said. “What they should be doing is (asking) what are things I can try out? What could I be? Now compare yourself to other people and see what they’re doing, and maybe there’s something they’re doing that you could steal or try on for yourself. That is, don’t do social comparison for evaluation … do it for self improvement.” Dunning’s words made me understand this voice in the back of my head telling me that even
though I have changed and become more similar to my peers, I’m not betraying my past. I’m simply slipping into place with the people around me. I’m collecting the pieces of life that they’ve uncovered on their own and shared with me, and using them to discover who I really am. I don’t need to be afraid of taking too many traits from the people I know or changing too much. All I need to do is ask myself this: Do I like who I’ve become?
After the Arkansas State game when a big group of us were hanging out together, one of my friends ordered a pizza from Joe’s and offered me a piece. The slice was huge and piping hot, with a delightfully thin crust, flavorful sauce and the perfect amount of mozzarella, stretching in a smile-inducing cheese pull as I took my first bite. In that moment, I started to think that maybe I do like Joe’s better — or maybe I just like who I am when I’m sitting next to the people I was eating it with.
Emma Sortor/DAILY
Vivien Wang /DAILY
Kalel Mullings drives Michigan to victory with late heroics
REKHA LEONARD Managing Sports Editor
Kalel Mullings was gassed. Breathing hard, the graduate running back emerged from the Michigan football team’s huddle and lined up in the backfield. He just needed one more yard. He just needed to carry the Wolverines on his back one more time.
On fourth-and-goal at the 1-yard line, Mullings received the handoff with a full head of steam. He was met with contact right at the line of scrimmage, but as he had done all day, he smashed through it, this time all the way into the endzone. With 37 seconds left on the clock, he gave No. 18 Michigan the push it needed to secure a narrow win over No. 11 Southern California.
Mullings was the undisputable star of the Wolverines’ offense on Saturday. He rushed for 159 yards and two touchdowns, averaging 9.4 yards per carry. The Trojans knew Mullings was going to run the ball,
yet they couldn’t stop him as he rammed through them time and time again.
“He can take it the distance,” Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said. “He showed he can run you over. He’s just done everything for us. … And when the game’s on the line, he wants the ball in his hands, and he made plays happen. So yeah, he’s a star. He’s a game breaker.”
Fittingly, it was Mullings who broke the game open in the first quarter. After the Wolverines were forced to punt on their first two drives, their third drive wasn’t looking much better. Mullings just barely converted on fourth-and-1 to keep the drive alive, and on the very next play, he took the ball 53 yards to the end zone. That touchdown was the longest rush of his career — but not for long.
With the game on the line in the fourth quarter, Moore made sure Mullings got the ball in his hands. The Wolverines were on their back foot, trailing by four points with four minutes left. So they leaned on what was
working: Mullings. On third-and-1 at the Michigan 20-yard line, Mullings broke through a hole, easily picking up the first down. Spinning his way out of multiple tackles and dragging another would-be tackler with him, he kept his legs pumping and saw yards of green grass ahead of him.
“I just got up through the middle, and then I kind of spun off the safety, I think. “Really, I just kept my feet, and I was still up after I broke the safety’s tackle. So I was like, ‘shoot, there’s no one else in front of me, let me go.’ ”
His effort breathed life into the Wolverines’ offense. He embodied Moore’s signature brand of ‘smash’ football, running through contact and never giving up on a play.
“(I saw) a will to not give in, a will to want it more than them, want it more than the man that was trying to tackle him on that big play,” Moore said. “The guy is on top of him, dragging him, and he just runs, and he just breaks another tackle, another
tackle, and he’s gone.” Finally, 63 yards later, Mullings succumbed to a tackle. He set up Michigan 17 yards from the end zone, and he remained on the field to finish the job. Six rushes later — out of seven total plays
‘That’s how I live’: Through highs and lows and across positions, Kalel Mullings stays level
NOAH KINGSLEY Managing Sports Editor
It’s hard to find Kalel Mullings without a smile on his face.
Lately, the graduate running back has plenty of reasons to smile. He’s in the midst of a breakout season for the Michigan football team and is coming off of the best game of his career. After four years of flipping between linebacker and running back, waiting his turn, Mullings is taking full advantage of his opportunity.
“The best thing about Kalel is, I love the dude, he just lights up the room,” Mike Mason, Mullings’ defensive coordinator at Milton Academy and current Mustangs head coach, told The Michigan Daily. “He’s always smiling. There’s never a bad day in his world. It can be, I’m sure he has many, but you never see it. He’s always got a smile on.”
Off the field, that’s Mullings’ default — he’s seemingly always in a good mood. Whether he’s gearing up for a big game, showing someone around campus or performing in Milton’s all-male a cappella group, the Miltones, he does it with a smile.
On the field, though, Mullings approaches things a little differently. He still never strays too far from his off-field default, but his default isn’t entirely as joyful as it is when he’s going about his day-to-day life. Mullings has seen plenty of ups and downs throughout his career with the Wolverines, and not all of them make him smile.
But whether he’s going through his lowest moments
or reaching his highest peaks, Mullings always stays level. ***
Back in 2019, during his senior season in high school, Mullings had a bad day — or at least a bad first half. The Mustangs were losing 21-6 heading into halftime, and their opponents delivered a hit on one of Mullings’ teammates right before the break, which Milton collectively deemed a cheap shot.
According to Mason, Mullings was fuming. But he didn’t let that stop him from taking charge and creating a change.
“In the locker room, (the coaches) didn’t even go in,” Mason said. “Kalel and another senior took over, they spoke to the team. We came out of halftime, we scored 28 straight and won the game.”
Mullings single-handedly led the charge, scoring four touchdowns during the game. No matter how poorly the first half went, no matter how angry he was about the cheap shot, he kept his cool and moved forward.
That second half much more closely resembled the rest of Mullings’ 2019 season. Playing at running back, linebacker, wide receiver and on special teams — wherever the Mustangs needed him to — Mullings excelled in his final year in high school. To cap it off, he was named the 2019 Gatorade Player of the Year in Massachusetts.
But even as things went his way, Mullings stayed level.
“Any game we played, he always stayed the same,” Mason said. “He could score five touchdowns, and you’d think he had a bad game. He could have a bad game, and you’d think he’d
scored five touchdowns. He was level all the time.”
At Milton, Mullings found ways to stay steady through highs and lows, setting himself up for the level of public scrutiny that some of his moments have had at Michigan.
***
Mullings played linebacker for most of the Wolverines’ 2022 season, same as he had during his first two years in Ann Arbor. But when then-junior running back Blake Corum got hurt in the penultimate game of the regular season, Michigan called on Mullings to revisit his old position ahead of a top-five clash with Ohio State.
And on a pivotal third-and-1 in Buckeyes territory, Mullings reintroduced himself to the world as a running back — or more accurately, a quarterback.
Mullings took the handoff and started running up the gut, before suddenly pulling up before the line of scrimmage. He leapt into the air and tossed the ball 15 yards downfield to tight end Luke Schoonmaker, who brought it in for a key first down. For as much as onlookers were in disbelief at a linebacker being called upon to throw the ball on a trick play, Mullings himself could barely believe it.
“(I) got it completed, even though I could have led him a little bit, but got it completed,” Mullings told The Daily. “We won the game, and that’s all that matters. Just surreal honestly, and just craziness going on in my head.”
Successfully executing a key trick play in his first game at running back in three years, and against Ohio State, to boot, was about as high as it could have gotten for Mullings. Barely more than a month later,
however, Mullings experienced a similarly large low.
With the Wolverines trailing TCU 14-3 early in the Fiesta Bowl, Mullings came in on the 1-yard line to attempt to punch the ball into the end zone. But Mullings never got possession of quarterback J.J. McCarthy’s handoff, a Horned Frogs defender recovered his fumble and Michigan walked away empty-handed.
Once again, the spotlight was on Mullings — only this time, it was in a negative light. While Mullings’ confidence didn’t take a hit, he felt like he let his team down. Outsiders, meanwhile, weren’t as kind to Mullings, once again wondering why a linebacker was involved in a key play. They didn’t understand why he was getting the ball on the goal line.
Of course, Mullings had plenty of experience playing running back prior to Michigan. But that didn’t change the fact that he was a scapegoat.
And still, even with hate swirling around him, Mullings stayed level.
“Just overcoming that and working through that, and accepting that, but at the same time knowing that there’s room to grow, that was really just the biggest thing,” Mullings said. “It’s never being too down with the lows and never being too high with the highs. That’s how I live.”
***
After a rollercoaster finish to Mullings’ 2022 season, his 2023 was comparatively mellow. Both Corum and thenjunior Donovan Edwards came back for another season, leaving very few touches available for now-full-time running back Mullings. Mullings had fewer
ups and downs throughout the season, but the lack of playing time was a low in and of itself.
Just like he always does, though, Mullings didn’t get too down.
“He’s not the type of kid that said that should be me,” former Milton coach Kevin MacDonald told The Daily. “He’s the type of kid that said, ‘when my time comes, you know, my time will come and I’ll be ready to go.’ ”
After three years away from running back, and three years building a linebacker’s frame, Mullings admits that he lost his knowledge of the position a little bit. When Mullings transitioned back and refound who he was as a running back, he was no longer the speed-focused back he had been for the Mustangs. But with Edwards and Corum ahead of him, his size provided more of a pathway to carve out a role for himself.
“Looking at Blake, looking at Dono, they’re great backs, but they don’t have my size,” Mullings said. “If I’m gonna try to get on the field, I have to bring something that those two guys aren’t necessarily bringing. … That’s really when I tried to hone in on getting some power in my game, and bringing that kind of physicality”
Mullings still barely got on the field on offense during the 2023 season, totaling just 38 touches and 254 yards from scrimmage. But he got more experience under his belt as a running back at the college level, and got the chance to learn from Corum and Edwards. While others might have gotten down about the lack of playing time, Mullings took a different perspective.
“I looked at it like, if I can take this break from running
back, come back, and get any playing time with these two guys, I mean, I can’t be that bad right?” Mullings quipped. “I gotta be some type of good.” With Corum now in the NFL, Mullings is finally getting to show how good he can be this season. He has the power that he developed while staying steady last season, and has shown it by bruising his way through would-be tacklers. After two years shaping his frame back to that of a running back, he’s finding his speed once again — even if Edwards and the rest of the running backs mess with him about being slow. As the Wolverines’ offense has labored through growing pains, Mullings’ impact has only grown. No longer is anyone wondering why he’s touching the ball — they’re calling for him to touch it more. Against Arkansas State, Mullings showed just how far he’s come, totaling a career-high 153 yards and two touchdowns while breaking off three 30-plus yard runs. And for as level as Mullings tries to stay while he’s on the field, when he saw nothing but green ahead of him to score his first touchdown in nearly a year, Mullings couldn’t hold himself back.
“One thing I always say is that one of the best feelings in sports, and really all of life, is getting out an open field knowing you’re about to score,” Mullings said. “… I couldn’t do anything but smile.” Through highs and lows, through anger and jubilation, Mullings stays level. But with the way things are going for him this season, he just can’t help himself from breaking back into his smile.
Charlie Pappalardo: Sherrone Moore chose an identity with a ceiling; it’s for the best
Last Novem-
ber, in his interim head coaching debut against Penn State, Sherrone Moore came out of the locker room after halftime having made a conscientious decision. With Michigan’s offensive line overwhelmed by Chop Robinson and the Wolverines’ pass game flailing, Moore decided that he was done with forcing things. He wasn’t going to try to resuscitate the passing game and take a risk in the process, he wasn’t going to risk getting quarterback
Saturday against Southern California, Moore made the exact same choice: He pulled the plug on the passing game, and it led to a victory. After three weeks of an ineffective, turnover-ridden passing offense, he came to the conclusion that Michigan couldn’t afford to continue forcing it. So against the Trojans, and possibly for the whole season, he decided that Michigan will have to live and die by its run game. It’s a risky choice, and it’s a choice that sets a very obvious ceiling, but for the Wolverines, this is the only identity that fits.
“I love it,” Moore said of the Wolverines’ rushing emphasis.
“That’s my dream to see it. And yeah I want to throw the ball, but when you can run the ball effec-
J.J. McCarthy hurt — he was going to pull the plug. And he didn’t look back. In that contest, Moore opted to run the ball again and again and again. Thirty-two times in a row to be exact, and it worked.
tively, it breaks (them) down a little bit.”
To a certain extent, Michigan has always been run oriented, and it has never pretended to be a lightning quick offense. But on Saturday, Moore showed that he’s taking that identity to another level. Not because he’d like to, not because it’s perfect, but because he has to.
He tried to avoid this approach when he chose senior quarterback Davis Warren to start the season. But through three games, it was apparent that that wasn’t going to be enough. So as he trotted junior quarterback Alex Orji out to direct the offense Saturday, it was clear that Moore’s decision had been made. If they can’t pass they’ll run, again and again and again. Against the Trojans, the Wolverines went all in, running the
ball 46 times for 290 yards and three touchdowns. From start to finish, Michigan ran.
In the first half it resulted in riotous success with 53-yard and 41-yard touchdowns from graduate and senior running backs Kalel Mullings and Donovan Edwards, respectively. But in the third quarter, Michigan’s offense came to a standstill, gaining six yards total.
And still, Moore didn’t deviate. With four minutes to go and the Wolverines down by four, on their own 11 and needing a touchdown, any other coach and any other team would have thrown the ball. It’s common sense. You need big yardage and you need the clock to move slowly, so you throw. But Moore wasn’t going to change the identity he had chosen. So they ran, and they risked the clock running out on the contest,
partly because they don’t have the weapons to make a quick passing offense work, and partly because this is their only identity that works.
And when all hope seemed lost, that identity came through. Mullings darted for 63 yards. Then he ran up the middle six more times before finding the end zone. He clinched a statement victory for Michigan despite it amassing just 32 passing yards — its lowest game total in at least three decades.
The identity the Wolverines resorted to was tough enough and hard nosed enough to win them a stunning comeback victory. But it’s also an identity with a ceiling, and Saturday showed that.
In the third quarter when Michigan couldn’t move the ball, in the fact that only one of the Wolverines’ second half drives
was accompanied by a first down, and especially in the fact that they could only run the ball in third and longs and dire situations like clock-oriented drives — Michigan plainly showed its ceiling. It won’t ever be able to move the ball quickly, and sometimes it might have to settle for repeated three-and-outs and depending on its defense for enough points to win a game, either through scoring off of turnovers or limiting opponents’ offensive success. But that’s better than the alternative.
The Wolverines frankly don’t have the pieces necessary to pass. And so like he did at halftime against Penn State almost a year ago, Moore made a simple calculation Saturday. He could try to resuscitate the passing game, or he could pull the plug. He pulled the plug, and it kept Michigan alive.
CHARLIE PAPPALARDO
Lila Turner/DAILY
Michigan runs to victory over USC in smash-filled, statement win
With less than three minutes on the clock and trailing by four points, Michigan should’ve had a first down at its own 35-yard line.
On a crucial third-and-one, junior quarterback Alex Orji handed the ball off to graduate running back Kalel Mullings. Hitting a hole up the middle, Mullings crossed the line to gain easily. He ran into two unblocked Southern California defensive backs about ten yards in — at the Wolverines’ 35-yard line, where Michigan’s momentous final drive should’ve picked up. But Mullings simply refused to go down. Spinning out of two tackles and dragging one defender along with him for five yards, Mullings showed game-winning strength, acceleration and determination. He kept his feet under him for 63 yards, all the way to the Trojans’ 17-yard line. A few plays later, on fourth-and-goal, Mullings punched
in the touchdown that sealed the Wolverines’ statement victory. Powered by Mullings and smash football, No. 18 Michigan (3-1 overall, 1-0 Big Ten) ran its way to a 27-24 win over No. 11 USC (2-1, 0-1). The Wolverines only recorded 32 passing yards, but dominating the trenches on both sides of the ball and rushing for 290 yards proved just enough.
“We felt like we needed to possess the ball,” Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said. “We needed to be successful in the run game and keep their offense off the field. … Just (an) incredible job by (Mullings), the offensive line. Very proud of this team.” While it took the Wolverines’ offense a few drives to settle in, Michigan’s defensive front immediately lived up to its billing. Junior defensive tackles Kenneth Grant and Mason Graham consistently stuffed the Trojans at the line of scrimmage, while senior edge rusher Josaiah Stewart proved lethal off the edge. After a few punts back and forth, Michigan struck first toward the
end of the opening quarter. Spurred by a key fourth-down conversion on the previous play, Mullings found a small hole and turned it into a big one. He put Michigan on the board with a 53-yard house call. Continuing to dominate the field-position battle and the line of scrimmage, the Wolverines forced four consecutive USC punts before extending their lead midway through the second quarter. Senior running back Donovan Edwards’ patient running paid off as he contributed a long touchdown of his own, bouncing left for a 41-yard score. The Trojans put up their first points with a field goal late in the second quarter, but Michigan’s
Against a West Coast newcomer in a high-stakes contest, Michigan opened up conference play with a bang — or rather, a smash.
defense got the last laugh heading into the break. Grant broke through again and sacked USC quarterback Miller Moss as the clock ran out, thwarting a late two-minute drill and preserving the Wolverines’ 14-3 lead. At the beginning of the second half, though, the Trojans finally started to find a rhythm on offense. Helped by the return of Michigan’s long-term tackling struggles, Moss marched USC down the field and capped off the drive with a nineyard touchdown pass to Trojans receiver Duce Robinson.
But just as it started to feel like USC was taking control, junior cornerback Will Johnson snatched it right back. Johnson jumped a
route, intercepted Moss and ran 42 yards back for a pick-six, putting Michigan up 20-10 with five minutes left in the third quarter.
“It was a great play by a great player,” senior fullback Max Bredeson said, not needing many words to sum up the moment.
On the Trojans’ ensuing drive, however, a stunning turn of events — in which Stewart forced Moss to fumble, Grant recovered and started running the ball back before USC running back Woody Marks stripped the ball from Grant and regained possession for the Trojans — led to USC receiver Jay Fair wide open at the goal line, bringing the Trojans back within three points. And with just over eight minutes left in the fourth quarter, USC forced another game-changing fumble. Trojans linebacker Eric Gentry punched the ball out of Edwards’ hands and recovered it on the Wolverines’ 18-yard line. USC quickly capitalized with another passing touchdown, this time to Ja’Kobi Lane, earning its first lead of the day at 24-20. But six minutes later, on that
crucial third-and-one, Mullings took matters into his own hands. Michigan then reclaimed the lead with 37 seconds left on the clock, carrying that 27-24 advantage to the final whistle.
“That’s just a representation of who we are, always straining till the very end,” Mullings said.
“Throughout that drive, it was just grit and grinding out. … And at the end of the day, a lot of football is about what you do when you face adversity. So it feels good to be able to face some adversity and overcome it.”
On Saturday, it didn’t take long to figure out exactly what the Wolverines wanted to do against the Trojans. They wanted to play classic, tried and true, bully-ball Big Ten football. Thanks to Mullings, it worked. And against a West Coast newcomer in a high-stakes contest, Michigan opened up conference play with a bang — or rather, a smash.
