Strike Magazine Chattanooga Issue 04: BLEEDING EDGE

INCOMING MESSAGE

LETTERS FROM THE EDITORS

“With the arrival of electric technology, man has extended, or set outside himself, a live model of the central nervous system itself. To the degree that this is so, it is a development that suggests a desperate autoamputation, as if the central nervous system could no longer depend on the physical organs to be protective buffers against the slings and arrows of outrageous mechanisms....”

-Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media

Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian philosopher, is most widely known for his critical studies on media theory. He has published multiple books dissecting media of the 20th century, and examined their immense effects on society. Although McLuhan’s studies of media date back to 1951, they couldn’t be more relevant to the world we live in today.

In one of McLuhan’s books on media theory, Understanding Media, he states that speech itself is an extension of our inner-consciousness. Language has been the primary development in the evolution of our consciousness, and it is the primary medium in which succeeding technological extensions have developed. Once we developed spoken word as a medium of communication, we haven’t ceased disseminated extensions of it. From the printing press to the radio, to television and computers, we have continuously sought out ways to extend the spoken word through technology. Each technological extension has altered the way humans intake information and view the world around us.

However, in the last decade, technology has been overextended, resulting in amputation. According to McLuhan, auto-amputation occurs when we become so used to the crutch of new technology, that we become numb to the original purpose of the object we have extended. The issues of the extension begin to outweigh the benefits of its purpose.

Pre-technological extensions, such as speech, have acted as outward explosions of physical scale, while developments of electric technology, such as social media, act as an inward implosion toward shared consciousness. We have suddenly become too cramped to breathe, too aware of everything going on in each other’s lives. As we continue in the trajectory of over-extension, we must remind ourselves of the original purpose of the mediums we have created thus far. Within this framework, Strike Magazine Chattanooga’s fourth issue, Bleeding Edge is an encapsulation of McLuhan’s famous argument, “the medium is the message.”

Bleeding Edge aims to convey how the mediums we use to communicate today drastically affect the way we perceive and process messages they transmit. This issue explores the personal and social consequences of habitually consuming media through over extended mediums in the twenty-first century. Each section of Bleeding Edge will be introduced with a quote from McLuhan, inviting us to examine his analysis from the 20th century in conjunction with modern media. By probing the feelings and thought processes resulting from these mediums and critiquing them, we can better understand the magnitude of their effects.

My first ever iPhone was the second edition, a hand-me-down brick of colorful logos that should never have been placed in palms that were still half its size. My first ever Instagram account was made only two years later, with a bio listing the names of each of my closest friends in an absurd bubble font downloaded alongside a virus. Now, eleven years later, not only my name, but details about myself even I don’t consciously know, are ashamedly attached to over eleven social media accounts on an iPhone that is eleven editions newer.

It feels eerie to reflect on my childhood before that phone, a weapon of intelligence and manipulation, that found its way into my unknowing hands. I try to imagine the young adult I would be if I had never crossed paths with it. Instead, I am plagued by one image, a depiction of the concept McLuhan describes, as mentioned in my Co-Editor, Aisy Nix’s, letter of over-extension. I picture each person I know, with their distinct features and limbs having been stretched out of their natural, human state, due to the tugging on their bodies of their online identities desperately wanting to expand. I picture hyperextended arms, reaching from every direction, adjusting the collar of my shirt, caressing my cheek, and pinching the loose skin around my waist. I picture myself spread out just the same; all that I think, feel, and do needs to be reflected in outward expression. I have found it nearly impossible to distinguish aspects of my inward existence from various selves that live in all of these two-dimensional spaces.

These images have haunted me since our team began to explore this heavy concept, but they brought about three resounding questions: how can we as media users regain control of our over-extended identities and communities? Have we actually lost a hold of these versions of ourselves, or do we simply need to disconnect from them? If something has been over-extended, wouldn’t its most simple form still be found at the origin?

Thus, we find our call to action. A return to our origin.

There is hope and a sense of calm in returning to oneself and reflecting on one’s true reality. Engage your senses, indulge in expression that has no audience, spend your time mastering a skill, enjoy conversation with the people you love, walk, stretch and move your body, cry in the comfort of your bed, develop your thoughts and theories, talk about your feelings, consider lives outside of your own. There is too much unexplored potential within our limited time on Earth to feel bound or inevitably doomed to our fabricated personas.

Strike has gifted me the opportunity to reconnect with the activities and art forms I love, as I constantly learn lessons of communication, dedication, and creativity from my peers. I am forever grateful to have been allowed the time to grow and flourish alongside the most dedicated group of young artists and business people I have ever known. With that, I urge you to take your time on each page of our fourth installment, Bleeding Edge, soaking up the words and visual creations our team has carefully crafted.

JAD

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Print.

“Examination of the origin and development of the individual extensions of man should be preceded by a look at some general aspects of the media, or extensions of man, beginning with the never-explained numbness that each extension brings about in the individual and society.”

Photos by Mila Bales

Marshall McLuhan was a man of many lives: a scholar, a professor, and a theorist. In 1964, he published his revolutionary ideas in the book Understanding Media, in which he dissected the effects of media building and shaping a global culture. The relevance of his work has grown in tandem with technology, as media has edged its way into our daily lives, becoming entirely intertwined with the human experience.

McLuhan wrote, “After three thousand years of specialist explosion and increasing specialism and alienation in the technological extensions of our bodies, the world has become compressional by dramatic reversal. As electronically contracted, the globe is no more than a village.”

After decades of technological development, an entire world has condensed into the size of a 6” by 3” phone buried under the contents of your bag. From the comfort of your bed, you can travel from Thailand to Brazil in the span of 10 seconds–the whole world at your fingertips. An intense amount of exposure to information has forced centuries of research and development into your mind without ever allotting you the chance to learn organically. The media has raised you.

McLuhan goes on to say, “As electronically contracted, the globe is no more than a village.” The perceptions that society has about other cultures, countries, and even other cities in their own native regions have been shaped by the media, making all 195 countries feel like one. This globalization can be isolating as you begin to consume content through your phone screen. Your views begin to shift, adding new perspectives and knowledge into your life, only to find that these entities are ever-changing. You struggle to keep up. This phenomenon can make people feel estranged, like they’re looking for someone in a crowd, but find a hall of mirrors. You are constantly looking for your identity in a sea of forgotten versions of yourself only to find that you don’t exist anymore. You are the village, the crowd, and the mob of people that are slaves to the media.

THROUGH THE JADED LENS

by Kushi Zaver

There is comfort in this assimilation; everyone wants to feel like they belong, and the media provides a sense of home. This heartening yet unsettling feeling was discussed when McLuhan wrote, “Examination of the origin and development of the individual extensions of man should be preceded by a look at some general aspects of the media, or extensions of man, beginning with the never-explained numbness that each extension brings about in the individual and society.”

Social media can be a diary of sorts, a carefully curated aesthetic to portray yourself in the exact way you wish to be seen. This is not a realistic representation, rather the idealized version of you. How can anyone really see you, really know you, if everyone takes your Instagram post with a witty caption at face value?

This is the numbness McLuhan mentions. We are all desensitized to each other’s online presence, further disconnecting us from reality and our identities.

As a part of the human experience, media consumption seems inescapable as we are subjected to it at a high volume everyday. Media is the billboards you see, the ads you watch, the influencers you follow, and even the logos and packaging on your groceries. Media is everywhere. This idea of a unified identity is constantly reinforced without us even noticing. However, becoming jaded by this overwhelming sense of unification is ultimately a decision. In the same way we put down our devices when we are met with the intense desire to capture a euphoric moment with our most authentic selves, we can apply this practice to the everyday experience.

At the end of the day it is up to you whether you choose to let the village swallow you whole. So, what are you choosing

THE UNFAMILIAR AND THE UNCONCERN

by Hanna Bradford

YOUR SCREEN

It is the same way as being thrown into a house of mirrors. We search and try to find something different, something outside of ourselves, and we are left with the endless turning into the same sense of self. The same, unmoving notion that who we are is an inescapable force.

On the internet, human beings routinely make the same detrimental mistake of sewing themselves into what they consume from the screens. Once, you were a young child who ran faster without shoes on and preferred different colored bows on the end of your pigtails to stand out. You held small creatures with no voice in your hands, and gave them everyday names as they explored the new creases in your palm. You screamed in grocery aisles and whispered secret nothings on the playground. And somehow, in the midst of all this growing and self-discovery and chaos that is you being a part of this Earth, someone handed you a cell phone. While your skin was stretching to better suit your bones, and your brain was beginning to understand why your hands move, why your parents cry, why it hurts so bad when you fall too hard… you were suddenly soothed by this universal, and dangerously accessible piece of technology. You were entranced, and capped. As you grew, this small screen with endless ideas managed to keep up with you. You took pictures of your middle school best friends. You listened to music with foul language. You googled death. You watched porn. And as you changed and shifted, your screen remained a constant. A constant accommodation to all of your needs and wonders. You didn’t see it ripping away your individuality, because it was a piece of you. There were no warnings as to how it would fit you into a structure that was anything but flesh, because it had cradled you in your exploration of self.

How sad, how terribly mundane and sharp to realize that now you are nineteen, twenty-two, twenty-five years old and have been reduced to what your media footprint tells you you are. It is undeniably there; we all feel the dull ache of what we have let technology do to us. We sit at the foot of the grave which belongs to the version of ourselves before media. We mourn, we cry, we unlock our phones and capture the vulnerable moment. Do we seek validation and pity from those? Drawing boards for provocative captions. That is what feeds us. When we see a sunset ripping the sky apart, we don’t reach for our notepads and pens to write poetry about it- we throw our cameras up at the view and then complain about the thirty other people who posted the same, boring sky. When someone we love dies, we do not pick purple flowers and make them eternal beds of rest from the Earth, but we scrounge for the familiar TikTok sound to make others feel for us. “She died, she was one of a kind,” posted beneath the sound used for at least a million deaths.

CHANGEDAND AS YOU AREMAINED CONSTANT. AND SHIFTED,

The most disheartening part is that we find incomparable security when we eliminate our complexity. Once we strip ourselves of who we are, what makes us tick that may be out of the ordinary, we find ourselves in a community of people who can relate to us. We’ve built a false home in people we’ve never met before, sketching their faces in our minds with a sense of love and purpose we have never experienced before. We create terminology and dialogue with these fellow media consumers to further prove how alike we all really are. To what ends we will go to become a part of something seemingly greater than ourselves is bewildering and unfathomably bleak. We are willing to give our trauma and deepest thoughts to this group of faceless strangers in order to feel seen and heard.

And yet, at the end of the day, when your aching hand can no longer hold up your sacred home, your eyes cannot withstand the seduction of gravity any longer as they scrape through the lies and the love that translates through the thin pane of glass… you are not quite sure what it is you’re left with inside of your own skin.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Print.

“We grow up today in an electronically configured world. It is a world not of wheels but of circuits, not of fragments but of integral patterns.”

Photos by Mila Bales Sweater by Callie High

+ + + + +

SMILE! You’RE ON CAMERA.

by Sarah Singleton

In the background of the Instagram post of someone to whom you’ll never speak a word. As a blur on a traffic cam; you shouldn’t have been speeding. Your exact geographic location is pinpointed in your daily BeReal with a snapshot of who and what you are in a single, predetermined moment of time. You walk into a bank. Did you know your nose forms a bridge of three centimeters?

You are tired of being watched.

You too are the watcher.

The worst moment of someone else’s life plays out on your screen in a fifteen second clip. You like and scroll. You have been sufficiently entertained.

You are still watching. Are you tired of being watched? Do you notice it anymore?

In the mid-90’s, police began a widespread use of surveillance cameras in public spaces. In 2002, the first cell phone equipped with a camera became publicly available. By the mid-2010’s, social media was being used globally by almost three billion people.

In 2022, we know what it is to be watched and to be watching. Both are exhausting.

Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, known for studying the societal impact of media, believes that “...we grow up today in an electronically configured world. It is a world not of wheels but of circuits, not of fragments but of integral patterns.” Observations of ourselves are no longer limited to what we may do in the eyeline of others, but rather what we do in view of cameras and screens, which now surround us constantly. Many of us are hyper-aware of this constancy, leading us to behave and even perceive the world and ourselves differently. Maybe we don’t all stroll down the sidewalk thinking of how many security cameras capture our gait, but most of us have had our friend take a candid photo of us and upon seeing it have immediately tried to fix our hair and straighten out our posture. We’ve all thought about what our search history might look like if uncovered. Will I look stupid? Pretentious? Crazy? We know now that our digital footprint is easily traced and evermore permanent, and that is in and of itself a form of surveillance.

in preparation for the observation to which we are constantly subjected.

It’s important too to recognize the ways in which surveillance is used in a more immediately harmful and authoritative manner. Public surveillance has been disproportionately deployed in communities of color, and the bias goes so far as to engineer cameras with facial recognition software which specifically flags features of people of color. Algorithms are never as objective as we would like to believe. While surveillance methods play a role in systemic racism, the ease of access to those techniques can also be used to hold specific players in that system accountable for their conduct. Many of the incidents of police brutality that have become matters of national and legal attention have involved footage captured by civilians. When George Floyd was murdered in 2020, police first claimed that he had “died after a medical incident during police interaction.” The true context of the situation was revealed by the ten minute video shot by teenage bystander Darnella Frazier. Many, including the governor of Minnesota, recognize that that footage is almost single handedly responsible for the verdict given in the trial of Derek Chauvin a year later. While we as the general public are largely not liable for the ways in which we are surveilled, we are accountable for when and how we surveil others, and whether we do so for a societal good. Our own good is another thing entirely.

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When it becomes societally commonplace to film and be filmed, our perceptions of ourselves are altered to appeal to the outsider. Will this makeup look good in the picture? Will this activity make for a cute post? We survey ourselves in preparation for the observation to which we are constantly subjected. Those of us who have been socialized as women, in particular, are intimately familiar with the ways that we are watched. We have grown up watching female figures in the media, the women we are told we can look up to, often being depicted as attractive above all else. Many of them are relegated to stereotypes of shallow, or perfect, or sloppy, or crazy, or any other number of traits which are each configured so as to be as pleasing to a male audience. Even though we have now grown up and media has expanded somewhat to include female characters written by and for women, many of us have inadvertantly internalized this understanding of what men idealize. We look into mirrors and have an internal male voice tell us we don’t look nearly intriguing enough, or careless enough, or sexy enough. Are we bad feminists for this, for watching ourselves as men might?

It is a self-perception that takes years to recognize, much less to unlearn. To be socialized as a woman is to appeal; it is to surveil yourself even before you can be surveilled.

We scroll on our phones. The content is tailored to our tastes according to the algorithm. We make a right at the street corner; we walk into view of the next camera. Someone takes a photo in the grocery store and there we are in the background, shopping. McLuhan believed that the world as we know it is “electronically configured,” catering not to humanity but to technology. As surveillance becomes more and more prevalent in our everyday lives, it can be difficult to tamp down the overwhelming apprehension that arises in us. To be watched makes us feel somewhat violated; to be watching makes us feel sickeningly guilty, and we feel these things only when we notice our surveillance at all. Does our awareness matter? Today, we are rarely in control of how we are watched. Our responsibility lies instead in being aware of how we are watching.

t h illusi of pr

by Bria Vanwagoner

e

on ivacy

Our brains are home to an unsustainable amount of information, consistently being stuffed full; overflowing with the opinions and beliefs and life details of those you do not even speak to. We have become accustomed to being under surveillance, adapting into beings who behave certain ways to appeal to their audience. This is the new normal.

Is it not alarming that my iPhone knows exactly how far apart my eyes rest on my specific shade of skin? I want to rip free from obsessively picking apart the size of my nose in a poorly angled camera. I dream of the day where I sing loudly and carelessly during my favorite concert, without worrying about someone recording next to me.

The time I spend curiously zooming into my Find My Friends app, reading my confidantes exact geographical locations, is tracked to the millisecond. Our electronically configured world has given us the constant opportunity to watch and be watched while remaining invisible behind a screen. The cycle of adding someone you met once at a party on Snapchat, just to never speak to again, but be aware of every major milestone in their life and all the details in between. Casually stalking our own Instagrams from a viewer’s point of view, as if this is a normal thing to do. Our heads are uncomfortably expanding and becoming congested with the perfectly crafted versions we choose to share with the Internet, trying to desperately have control over the way we are perceived. To be fair, it is in human nature to crave feeling seen, and modern technology gives us the dopamine hit we desire when we feel understood.

However, we cannot survive the rest of our lives pretending to have full control over the way we are perceived. This unceasing, subtle feeling of being under surveillance at all times is inhumane and extremely abnormal. However, we have accepted the negative emotions it arouses. Endlessly scrolling through TikTok, listening to strangers’ story times, rants, and grocery hauls, eventually makes me feel empty inside. Having my location available on Snapchat made me feel violated, yet it took months to turn it off. It doesn’t feel natural because it isn’t natural. Social media has not been around long enough to evaluate the effects social media has on human connection and behavior.

On a more serious note, federal studies have confirmed that there is racial bias within facial-recognition systems. Security cameras have the ability to specifically flag people of color, disproportionately targeting certain communities. In the 18th century, Lantern laws in New York City ordered that black, mixed-race and Indigenous enslaved people carry candle lanterns with them if they took a stroll through the city after sunset by themselves. In 2022, people of color are expected to symbolically hold these lanterns by following a set of unwritten rules. Don’t look suspicious. Don’t wear a hoodie. Don’t keep hands in pockets. The watcher is always watching and in this case, the watching is threatening and prevents people of color from having the ability to live freely.

Today, there are eyes on the walls, eyes on street lights, eyes on doorbells. No text message is actually private, and no photo is safe in iCloud. We are given the illusion of privacy with the use of passwords, private accounts, and the ability to put a lock on the notes app, but our phones are always listening, and digital footprints are rapidly growing.

Surveillance was intended to protect, but instead it has become an extension of man. I am now interconnected to every person I have ever come across. With each new form of social media, comes a new environment we exist in together. In these little worlds we create, everyone is watching, and everyone can judge. Not a single mind could handle that amount of information without losing itself a little.

Courtship

“[Comfort] consists in abandoning a visual arrangement in favor of one that permits casual participation of the sense, a state that is excluded when any one sense, but especially the visual sense, is hotted up to the point of dominant command of a situation.”

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extension of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Print.

Photos by Lee Webb

by Madison Meadows

of usTHE RUIN

“I can’t seem to read you. What are you thinking about?” These words have become your biggest fear now. Instead of looking into the sea green eyes that stare at you across the table, your fingers are bent over your screen, idly scrolling through someone else’s Instagram profile. “She is perfect,” you think to yourself longingly.

You know you should focus on her questions chiding you to answer her, but you simply can’t. You feel guilty, but your mind is elsewhere, your body glued to its seat, stuck in a one sided conversation. You can’t escape, but your mind gets permission to run free. Comfortability, they call it.

This state of comfortability—shifting our visual perspective to one that is in dominant command of a situation—is one that has suited us for many years. If we don’t like the feeling of something we see, we simply shut down the application. We can flip channels, reverse scenes, and delete recordings. Being equipped with technology has allowed us to feel confident in ourselves and what we see, but these mediums of communication have run out.

What if we have become too comfortable in our own comfortability? Do we have the ability to connect anymore, especially with people beyond the walls of our devices? Do our eyes deceive us now? Are we seeing things only we want to see? I think so.

Although everyone always knows where I am, I feel like no one has really found me. My Spotify status lists the songs that circulate my wired headphones, but no one hears me. I half listen to my friend as she stresses about tomorrow… and I look up once, and say “Yeah, I get that.” Does she believe me?

I’m curating a life that I want to be mine, yet no one sees me. I wonder if my twenty year old self is in this alone?

Is it just me?

we’ve become obsessed with the illusions of ourselves in the 2-D world

This facade of comfortability has led us to only view images and meet people that make us comfortable. Our supposed elasticity that Gen Z and Millenials are known for is nowhere to be found. I thought social media was supposed to be fostering a dynamic, flexible generation: it seems as if we’ve become obsessed with the illusions of ourselves in the 2-D world.

The relationships that we could be creating are limited to how we perceive others, and how well that perception aligns with the perceptions we have of ourselves. Beyond romantic relationships, we’re ruling out potential friendships as well.

These digital footprints we all have should be leading us towards each other, yet they are dividing into opposite ends. Until then, perhaps we can forgo the “comfort” that submits us to the 3-D world every single day, and blend the strokes of our humanness; the realness, beauty, difference, and ugliness of us all.

is

she she sheshe she is is is

TT TTTT T T Th Se r s

T T T T

Te n o y SSS SS S witch T

by Sophie Hamblen

The overall influence of the media continues to grow and control our lives, making us feel trapped inside a cycle of perception. A perception which begins affecting how we view one another due the limiting of the senses that media theorist Marshall McLuhan speaks on through his studies of mass media as a whole.

The invasive screens that glare back at us late at night instigate an addiction, kickstarting our minds as our eyes fixate and pupils dilate. We allow our eyes to gaze over millions of pixels that make up an image of a potential love interest or friend. Calculating whether or not we are compatible, we let the two dimensional identities of others depict how we navigate a relationship we so innately crave. A craving that derives from the neurological need to connect with others through body language and authentic conversations. Once we take a step back to realize how prevalent media has become, we see how disconnected we really are. Yet if we are existing in this interconnected global village that McLuhan speaks of, how did we get here?

Perhaps as we have grown accustomed to this digital lifestyle, we began to depend on social media profiles and dating apps to form relationships with others. Perhaps we began to compare our realities to the romanticized love stories we see in the movies. Perhaps we view our parents as a mold for what a relationship should or should not be.

We use our eyes as the sole indicator of who we are supposed to be. With the development of technology, our visual sense is heightened and we lack depth in our relationships altogether.

It is so easy to turn to the media as a source of comfort, but as soon as you turn it off, a switch inside us flips and we begin withering away like the light dimming from the screen after you push the power button. We sit in silence and begin filling that dark, empty void within us. Filling it with the what-ifs and asking ourselves why we can’t find comfort through other senses. You want to hold someone, kiss their lips, smell them, yet all you are left with is the two dimensional images and your imagination.

The digital world seeps into our everyday lives and we wish to pull away and live out our own romantic realities with others, but then notifications emerge from the rectangular devices and we snap out of reality and we immerse ourselves back into the global village, again and again.

Where do we go from here? If we put so much time and energy into formulating our social identities and not enough time putting down our devices to engage with one another, will we ever be satisfied with ourselves? Will we ever break through or be able to embrace the global village without completely losing ourselves?

We may never know. As the heavily influenced twenty-first century individuals we are, we are immersed in this near simulation and need to consider how we are able to navigate this technologically based world. During the remainder of your introspective stay into the Bleeding Edge, consider peeling back the layers underneath your social identity and tune into reality through all six senses to connect with others, two dimensionally or not.

from here? Where do we go

S I M L U

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Print.

“Any technology gradually creates a totally new environment. Environments are not passive wrappings, but active processes.”

Photos by Marley Hillman, Emma Soefker, Aisy Nix, Maggie Schut

CREATING OUR OWN

A teenager in the 14th century would most likely receive their news via town crier. These criers would be at their local market to announce any and all important information that has reached their corner of the world. They were oblivious to nearly everything happening in the world around them, their reality limited to what they encountered in front of their faces. The first newspaper was the Oxford Gazette in 1666, and was shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to the Colonies to provide news to English residents in “the New World.” Now reality has grown just a little bit more. Stories traveled the world allowing people to form opinions on things they have not seen themselves. Fast forward over four hundred years and people are able to access almost unlimited information about the world around them. Reality is something that actually exists or happens, but now our society has been faced with a voluntary simulation. The line between what’s real and what’s not is gradually getting blurrier.

The evolution of technology has brought forth the discussion of a simulated world. Are we in a simulation? Is there a society that has become so advanced that they created our world and control everything around us? Personally, I do not think it matters either way. We are here right now experiencing this world and it is all we have. However, now we are living in a time where the majority of people are chronically online. The pandemic emphasized the use of technology and now people can have successful careers from the comfort of their home. Our devices have allowed us to become more efficient in everyday life, and as a society we will continue to invent new ways to become more self-sufficient.

UNIVERSE

by Zay Naeem

The metaverse is somewhat a new concept that seems to be the next step in technological evolution. It is a virtual reality where we can interact with a computergenerated environment and other users. This concept that will no doubt come into fruition is overwhelming to process and truly understand. Will we as a society prefer a simulated reality rather than the one given to us? It is hard to tell until that happens, but I would not be surprised. We are eager to be consumed by the newest, biggest technological advancement until an even better one is released.

This simulated reality our society has created can make us feel disconnected from what is happening in the world around us, but it also has given us a space to connect with others in a way that society has never experienced before. It takes less than a second to connect with someone on the other side of the world, but has also made it harder to interact face to face. This simulated reality is a paradox. Humans created the metaverse, so has our humanity truly been stripped away? Humans are in complete control of this simulated universe; therefore, we should not be afraid of it. It is where we are right now in history and it is neither good, nor bad. It is just how things are. It is possible to disconnect from technology, but in doing so you are disconnecting from the world. We have access to knowledge, opinions, and emotions from billions of people. This universe has allowed a different type of vulnerability that we can feel safe inside. Our lives are much different than those who lived a hundred years ago and in the next hundred years, society will be unrecognizable. I think it is safe to say people prefer access to unlimited information in bed, as we continue to choose it again and again. We have created the technology that has changed the world and will continue to do so. This simulated universe will infinitely grow, just like the universe we currently reside in.

. . .. . . . . . .. .. . . . . . . . .. . .. .. .

by Rebecca Morgan

REALITY

My gaze opened to a pitch black room, silently worn from a lonely night. Whether my eyes are open or closed, it all looks the same. The thick blackout curtains keep all mention of the sun away from an unprepared gaze, and I can hear the pitter of light rain hitting the windows. I sit up, my mattress creaking. The room’s vast emptiness begins to seep into every vulnerable part of me, my hips, knees, and trembling nerves. Anxiety racks my body, beginning from my chest and spreading across me in a series of sharp, pulsing sensations. Fumbling on the floor, my fingers close around my phone, allowing a single ray of blue light to illuminate my face and relieve my worries.

July 18th, 2055. No notifications.

Not one person needed to reach me within the last six hours? Am I undesirable? A sigh escaped my lungs, and disappointment pitted at the bottom of my stomach like a brick.

Standing up, I found my way to the kitchen where I could satiate my hunger from the night. Using my phone’s flash, I see only what I must of my surroundings: the cold, hard, tile floor. Darkness spreads across the barren walls, with only a single sign glowing in the corner: “charging station.” I visit it a couple of times a day to make sure my devices never die.

Rubbing my icy fingers in my palms, I flick on the kitchen lights. They glow blue, illuminating my pale skin, and stinging my eyes. Hunger climaxes in my stomach and nausea depletes the energy behind my movements. A frozen package of eggs and sausage are my chosen breakfast for the day. I microwave and eat it, the bland texture reminding me again of the life I am forced to live: gray, and without pleasure.

Tucking my feet into my sheets, I think about how I ended up in this blank, lonely room, my only contact with others being my phone. Does anyone know how restless I truly feel?

A rush of rage and sickness reaches from my stomach into my throat; if not for this bleak room and my mid dle age, of course I would be doing things differently! Agitation I pushed to the back of my mind resurfaces and weighs me down, begging that I force my existence past this emptiness.

Outside, the storm brewed heavier than before, cracking at the windows and beating on the roof. My mind was elsewhere.

I have lost myself entirely to a society run by the expec tations of my online persona. I long to feel the heavy weight of a film camera in my palms, or the fresh kiss of a crisp breeze stinging my cheeks.

Back to bed; back to my phone.

Back to bed; back to my phone.

The activities I participate in are scarce, and I don’t know many people personally anymore. Thankfully, I can keep in touch with relatives through my phone. I saw that my little brother just turned thirty, so that must mean, what…I’m 33 now? It’s easy to lose count; most days have blurred together. Last time I checked, I was 19 and surrounded by the people I love most.

I push back the curtains and fling open my window, letting the harsh rain hit me in a vicious spray. My drenched hair sticks to the side of my cheeks and salty water streams down my nose. Frustration drains out of me into the puddles on the ground.

After a moment, I again shut out the outside world.

Within the hour, my hair is dry and I am working on my laptop. I know that I am chaining myself to the augmented materiality that consumes our society, but what can I really do? I am here now, this is my reality. Sighing, I let the thoughts go for the millionth time.

The next few hours go as usual, scrolling, eyes fixated on the source of my income and entertainment. I am captured from a distance, the online vacuum never truly losing its grip.

A pretty good day......

What more could you really ask for in life ?

H

Hello? H ?

ATION

“Man works when he is partially involved. When he is totally involved he is at play or leisure.”

McLuhan, Marshall, Moos, Michel. Media Research: The Agenbite of Outwit. London-Routledge, 1977. Print.

Photos by Lee Webb, KateLynn Fronabarger, Marley Hillman, Emma Soefker, Maggie Schut, Aisy Nix

3D Rendering by Jeremy Ramirez

l a m a t

i o n

by AK Anderson

“Hello?”

The words echoed across the canvas of my mind, reverberating back to my center. Who was speaking? Was I the person speaking or was I the person receiving the message?

Who am I? Is this even my mind?

In my brain, every word rotted inside. I stared into the sky with the words dripping down the walls of my mind and out my eyes. I did not know why I was crying, but as I did, I wished someone could write these words down for me.

I imagined a man, brows furrowed, and shoulders scrunched, bent over a desk in the sky who writes down every word I think in haste. I just wished for anything I did to matter. It only mattered when others knew about it online.

As the rumiations increased, I was in a washing machine of my mind. Thrown in a circle, controlled by something else, and ending up in the same place all over again. I grabbed my phone. Scrolling with my thumb across the screen, my breathe steadied. I put my phone down beside me.

The ghost of my phone was still in my hand. I could feel its weight. It had become a part of my being, the hum of electricity becoming the thrum of my heart. Merging into one within me, it pushed me back into the far corner of my mind, an afterthought.

I felt the buzz that never occurred, the people who didn’t need me. I needed to turn my brain off. Reality pierced my eyes like a bright light. Life could not fill the hole I had made. Social media had changed me and technology was created so I couldn’t live without it.

I had overconsumed. All my life I had aimed to create a fake world to escape my real one. I was told to live within social media and to live by its rules. If I didn’t live within this online world, I could not communicate in the real one. Jokes, trends, current events would fly by me and I would remain isolated to my brain.

“Who is there?”

s n ev

my mi nd my i ?

The applications I touched created a world within my phone. I looked at the girl I had created. The one who could be perceived, yet you never saw me. You saw who I wanted you to see. You saw the most perfect forms of myself. Still, I was flesh. I felt every ounce of blood thrushing through my veins, but again I stared at my two-dimensional face with anguish.

I lived within my mind. Isolation within only proved my dissonance of life made and lived. I wanted to reclaim my energy. I deserved to live a life. My life that was shared for everyone was not even mine.

I had to heal my mind, feel the beat of my heart over the thrum of electricity. My body feels a range of emotions and I was the one who observed them. To feel a complexion of connection with those around me, I had to meet and learn who I brought to meet them, myself.

The feeling swelled inside of me. A wave that loomed over me, threatening to crash down. The salt sprayed my face in promise of destruction.

Life was nothing without the love that I could give and receive. First, the new reverberation I could articulate had to be within myself.

“Hello?”

This time the reverberation was an answer.

“Hello,” in the form of a statement.

Hello.

Director’s Letters

Director’s Letters

Emma

Soefker__Creative

Director

I have been on Strike since the founding issue and it has been the best experience. I went from being on the Graphic Design Team to, now, the Creative Director of Issue 04. I have had so many learning experiences and have met so many creative people that I appreciate and look up to. My time on Strike thus far has been an experience that I will treasure forever. I have met some of my best friends while being on Strike.

Marley Hillman__Assistant Creative Director

Strike has been the highlight of my collegiate experience. Having the opportunity to explore and execute creative visions alongside such incredible individuals since Issue 01 has been nothing short of wonderful. Designing and now Assistant Creative Directing is a dream; I’ve always craved a community where everyone involved can passionately and collectively create a project from conception to production. I have boundless love for everyone involved with Strike, and am so grateful I can experience and create with my best friends.

Maddie Nunnery__Art Director

This issue is my second time being the Art Director for Strike Magazine, Chattanooga. I started out as a graphic designer and was immediately in awe of the creative people I was surrounded by. These people have become my best friends, and I am so grateful to have landed here. I had just transferred schools from Knoxville when I joined Strike, and I don’t think that I could’ve made a better decision to jump-start my life in a new city. Strike was an incredible way for me to meet people outside of school; they have taught me so much about how to form connections with people in a creative workplace. Strike has provided me clarity in what I want to pursue out of college as well. I think there is so much to be said about being part of a project like Strike— it has taught me so much about responsibility and commitment and has pushed me out of my comfort zone in the best way possible.

Erica Benton__Digital Director

My introduction to Strike Magazine was the Red Shoot for Issue 02. I loved the environment the staff created and how they made an effort to make everyone included and comfortable. I knew that was when I wanted to join Strike Magazine. I joined issue 03 as a stylist because of my love for clothing, hair, and makeup. The excitement and pride of being a part of something influential in a community of young and creative individuals captured my interest. After my position as a stylist, I wanted to be more involved in the magazine process with the addition of styling, so I applied for the role of Digital Director. The Strike community of Chattanooga is genuinely one of a kind; there is an overflow of passionate, caring, kind, and creative individuals striving toward one goal. I am so grateful to be included in that!

KateLynn Fronabarger__Social Media Director

I joined Strike during the founding issue here at UTC, and I fell in love with the creativity and community that Strike embodied. I originally joined the staff as a graphic designer for the first three issues, however, for Issue 04, I wanted to expand my creativity and take on more responsibility and leadership as the Social Media Coordinator. As the Social Media Coordinator, and with the help of Social Media Outreach, I have had the privilege of curating a social media presence for Strike that reflects the values and interests of our chapter’s brand and identity. This position has allowed me to have opportunities to collaborate with various members of the Issue 04 staff and involve them in our chapter’s social media presence. Being a part of such a creative and driven staff has been so insightful and inspiring, and I’m so thankful for all of the friendships I’ve made through this close knit community.

Madi Ammons__Production Director

This is my third issue of Strike being in production, and this issue I have had the honor of being the production director. It has been an absolute blast being able to work with such a creative, kind, and diligent group of people. I am truly inspired by each and every person and their natural ability to create something that we will all cherish forever. I am so thankful for the people that Strike has brought into my life and the friendships that I have made. Moving to Chattanooga was a frightening step for me, but I am so thankful that I was able to join Strike and make memories that I will never forget.

Director’s Letters Director’s Letters Director’s Letters

Maddi Thompson__Events Director

Before the founding issue of Strike Chattanooga, I was working a job that completely drained me postgrad with no motivation or direction for my future. I had always felt that I wanted to pursue a career in a creative field but I never knew what, and the skills I was interested in never completely stuck. However, when Marli Giedt, the Co-Editor in Chief of Strike and one of my closest friends approached me about starting Chattanooga’s branch of Strike, I felt as if it was the creative outlet I had been asking for for so long. I started as the Fashion Director in Issue 01 and then worked as the Production Director for the following issues. I was able to develop and execute my ideas with like minded creatives working towards the goal of creating an editorial magazine that made people question how on earth people made this with limited experience and budget. I had not only created something I was fully proud of, but also made a ton of new friends and deepened existing friendships. For the Issue you’re reading now, I had the privilege of working as the Event’s Director and am so thankful for the skills it’s taught me and the challenges I’ve overcome as a communicator. I’ve been so lucky to have such a bright, dedicated and tight-knit team and I’m excited to see where the future takes us and Strike as a whole.

Hanna Bradford__Writing Director

As a writer and someone who enjoys the richest of human experiences, it has been my greatest joy working for Strike Chattanooga the past four semesters. It has fed my deepest passions for creation, craft, and connection. Issue Four for the writing team was viewed as a challenge but embraced as a friend and a victory. I have had the privilege of working with a select few of the most talented women I have known in my lifetime to bring you, the reader, a look into our minds and to experience the love we have for this chapter. My only hope as the writing director is that you ingest our words with the same intensity and admiration as we poured into them. Thank you for everything.

Caroline Bowden__Fashion Director

I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of Strike since the founding issue here, starting on Social media then moving to the fashion team. It has been such an enriching experience working with such dedicated and beautiful minds. As my favorite so far, i’m filled with so much love and gratitude to see everyone’s work come together for issue 04; each shoot has been so fun and i’ve learned so much in this position. I’ve met so many incredible artists that inspire me to dig deeper into my own creativity. i hope you all enjoy and expand on the vision for yourselves. i am so lucky to have been a part of this— thank you all<3

Letters Director’s

Maggie Schut__Photoshoot Coordinator

I am one of 3 founders of Strike Magazine Chattanooga. Since then, I have jumped around in positions, Creative Director to Co-Editor to Photoshoot Coordinator. Witnessing all 4 issues flourish, I can confidently say there is nothing more gratifying than being a part of something so special. Strike is a canvas for young adults to self express. Strike is an opportunity to be heard. Strike means standing up for what matters. Strike means to push our creative boundaries past expectations. Strike means staying up until the sun is nearly visible because we care about what you see on our pages. Strike means friends that you can rip your hair out with when the pressure seems too high. Strike will be a part of me forever.

Rachel Watt__Marketing Director

Hello, sweet reader. Can I offer you a word of advice? Here it is: DO IT! Do the thing that excites you, do the thing that challenges you, do the thing that opens your eyes to a completely new world. For me, the “thing” that excites, challenges, and brings me a new perspective is this issue that you are about to embark on. For Issue 04: Bleeding Edge, I have had the honor and privilege to fill the role as Marketing Director. Beyond this role exciting me, challenging me, and providing me with a new perspective, this role has brought me into a community of wildly talented and creative kind-hearted people that have completely changed and enhanced my life. I simply cannot limit this experience to a letter; the closest I can get to keeping this short is telling you, DO THE THING! You have people that love and support you and I am one of them.

Sophie Hamblen__Externals Director

This semester I have had the honor and privilege of being Externals Director. Not only has this leadership position given me the opportunity to oversee Strike’s brand, involvement, and community, it has allowed me to grow internally, which is what I want to share with you. From the start of my involvement in this publication, I have been given the space to grow as a creative who values connection and collaboration. It’s not every day you are able to surround yourself with some of the most inspiring individuals who present you with opportunities to immerse yourself into the real world. A world that is only ready for you when you step into it, so my advice to you is to put your best foot forward and enjoy where those steps take you.

Emma Soefker

Gus Gaston

Rook Tilley

Madison Meadows

Kushi Zaver

Aisy Nix

Marli Giedt

Sophie Hamblen

Marley Hillman

Maddie Nunnery

Hallie Meers

Cindy Cao

Caroline Bowden

Kyla Marcum

Camille Graves

Jo Cleveland

Stu McGuire

Gabby Wakefield

Hanna Bradford

AK Anderson

Bria Vanwagoner

Zay Naeem

Rebecca Morgan

Sarah Singleton

Emaan Aziz

Ellie Sudderth

Maddi Thompson

KateLynn Fronabarger

CJ Barney

Ella Laughmiller

Madison McKissack

MK Kirksey

Madi Ammons

Matt Crowe

Darcie Denton

Will Chen Mila Bales

Erica Benton Maggie Schut

Emma Sofia Griffin

Sydney Gibson

Kennedy Winrow

Rachel Watt

Will Gibson

Emily Redden

Amelia Madden

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IssueIssue

Concept: Aisy Nix

Styling: Gabby Wakefield, Caroline Bowden, Maggie Schut, Marli Giedt

Layout: Emma Soefker

Production: Mila Bales, Madi Ammons

Makeup and Hair: Isabella Altman Models: Jazmyn Rayne, Strike Staff + Friends

Concept: Aisy Nix

Styling: Stu McGuire, Maggie Schut, Marli Giedt Layout: Cindy Cao, Maddie Nunnery, Aisy Nix Production: Matt Crowe, Madi Ammons Makeup and Hair: Erica Benton, KateLynn Fronabarger Model: Autumn Mayfield

Surveillamce

Concept: Aisy Nix

Jaded Surveillance Courtship

Styling: Kyla Marcum, Miles McKay, Maggie Schut, Marli Giedt Layout: Maddie Nunnery, Rook Tilley Production: Ella Laughmiller, Madi Ammons Makeup and Hair: KateLynn Fronabarger, Erica Benton Models: Ana Leonard, Hannah Williams

Concept: Aisy Nix

Styling: Camille Graves, Caroline Bowden, Aisy Nix, Maggie Schut

Layout: Gus Gaston, Aisy Nix, Maddie Nunnery, Emma Soefker Production: Madi Ammons, Darcie Denton

Makeup and Hair: KateLynn Fronabarger Models: Alex Kleine, Camille Graves

Concept: Marley Hillman, Aisy Nix

Styling: Jo Cleveland, Caroline Bowden, Marley Hillman, Emma Soefker Layout: Marley Hillman, Hallie Meers, Emma Soefker Production: MK Kirksey, Will Chen

Makeup and Hair: KateLynn Fronabarger, Irene Park Models: Will Chen, Bree Schut, Daniel Brown, Niya Thomas. Jo Cleveland