FLAMMABLE ‘FORNIA’: A REVELATION When Californication Goes a Little Too Hard
for one of planetary purgatory—their spectacle forces us to reflect on the necessity of such practices at all. These gender reveal stunts began with one cake. In 2008, blogger Jenna Karvunidis ushered in an era of performative reveals with one cut into a cake, revealing a slice food-colored to “match� the presumed gender of her unborn child—pink for a girl, blue for a boy, and a brilliant orange if the end is nigh. In a moment of awe, the world of “It’s a boy/girl!� banners shattered, and a host of viral stunts ensued, from alligator fights to plane jumps. Anything short of a Gender Reveal Tsunami now pales in comparison to this month's events. While quite effective at garnering internet fame, this arbitrary ritual reinforces normative gender values. Caught at the crux of a so-called culture war, the gender reveal becomes a technicolored declaration of a child's assigned-at-birth gender. We at the Indy ask that for future socially-distant festivities, you opt for more gender fluid and less lighter fluid. If you must impose a preferred pastel color upon your child, at least leave them some undamaged land to get away from you on. Beyond West Coast tragedies, this past year marks mass fires in the Arctic, Australia, Indonesia, and Argentina, and as the North American fire season ends, the Southern Hemisphere braces itself for its own wintery inferno. Next time, try a safer outdoor activity for your quarantine gender reveal party: Break out a pinata. If 100 pennies fall out, you’ve got a boy. If you’re 28 cents short of a dollar, tell the fetus sorry, but that’s all they can find for her—there’s a national coin shortage.
BY Nickolas Roblee-Strauss ILLUSTRATION Rachelle Shao DESIGN Miya Lohmeier
Social media is hard. Every single millennial—aging perimeter under control. What should have been and married in the image of boomers before them— just another pink or blue firework explosion instead struggles to compete in a Gen Z game. However, with recalled a similarly destructive Arizona gender reveal a bun in the oven, couples can put out their own fire fire in 2017. content: a gender reveal party. In a festive and smokeThe orange skies seen up and down the California filled revelation five months before the stork’s arrival, coast quickly hit national news, as if to call fire and one couple’s party was the hottest event on the West brimstone down upon the earth. Day after day, the Coast, as they celebrated their child’s assigned-at- fires roar on, no matter how many firefighters are birth gender this past September 6 at El Dorado Ranch brought to the scene. After firefighter-trained inmates Park in Yucaipa. This gender reveal fire, while clear in were released early to ease prison density during the its verdict, did not leave southern California with the pandemic, the El Dorado fire prompted CA Governor intended message. It wasn’t a boy. It wasn’t a girl. It was Gavin Newsom to sign legislation extending prisoner a climate catastrophe. -firefighters’ employment after their release—the one NICKOLAS ROBLEE-STRAUSS B'22 thinks Gender Just two weeks later, the expecting couple’s silver lining in an otherwise smoky sky. And as the Reveal Tsunami would make a great band name. “smoke-generating pyrotechnic device� has lit over expecting couple scorched southern California for 22,000 acres ablaze, with only 59% of the wildfire’s a react—exchanging a moment of parental pride
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BOTTOM LINE IS, UNIVERSITIES ARE MOST CONCERNED WITH THEIR BOTTOM LINE
A SAFE, HEALTHY, AND FULL-PRICED CAMPUS BY Alisa Caira ILLUSTRATION Jessica Minker DESIGN Miya Lohmeier
Risking student lives probably makes sense when you get down to the numbers of it. Yet, now, as thousands of at-risk students are returning to campus, a new problem is arising that no one predicted. Colleges, after opening their monetary floodgates, are blaming students for outbreaks erupting across the nation. How rude! Already, hundreds of students have been suspended for social distancing infractions. These students weren’t right to party, but their universities might be wrong to pick students randomly out of a (party) hat to punish. For example, at Florida State University, campus police arrested seven students for underage drinking. This was the first time students have been asked to take their red solo cups—wait for it—solo. FSU President John Thrasher stated he was using the party as an example. Thrasher, despite how cool his last name and hypothetical skateboarding brand might be, is considering ways in which the students have failed the system, rather than the ways the system has failed the students. At Syracuse University, freshmen were criticized for attending a gathering on the quad. The school made many (Syr)accusations toward students for failing to consider other people. Yet, the school took 45 minutes to respond to the gathering of hundreds of students after campus police arrived on the scene. With only
THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
about two dozen students suspended, the scenario seems more about the imaginings of discipline than social change. No matter the risks of communal living and rampant fraternizing on campus, colleges were intent on reopening their doors to money—oh sorry, students. For those colleges making the courageous decision to stay remote (excluding students with a demonstrated need for housing), they are charging near full tuition. At Princeton, tuition was cut by only 10%—a move President Christopher L. Eisgruber said was spurred by the pandemic being “one heck of a crisis,â€? which is one way to put it, I guess. Tuition there will settle at around the bargain price of $48,500—though, admittedly, we all knew that college was a scam anyway. Perhaps it would have been irrational to expect universities to account for emergencies in their budget. There’s certainly nothing spelled e-n-d-o-w-m-e-n-t that could be helpful. As Brown University's President Christina Paxson wrote, “The basic business model for most colleges and universities is simple‌ Most colleges and universities are tuition dependent.â€? So dependent, it seems, that some schools, such as Franklin & Marshall, are raising tuition. Oh, and keeping the money of the students they’ve suspended, of course. At Northeastern University, Student Body
President Kate Kuznetsova remarked, “Students think that there is a lot of pressure on them‌ but who doesn’t have pressure on them at this time?â€? Well, maybe the global elite? In the same way that no single person can stop global warming by recycling, sorry to say, it’s time to realize that a global pandemic should not be an individual problem. More than that, maybe bigger players— such as our universities and government—should be alleviating that pressure in ways that don’t, you know, threaten people’s lives. American college students are dumb, stupid, bad, and so on, but their behavior alone cannot be blamed for an international issue, or the consequences of one country’s response to that issue. The government, more than any frat bro, demanded a return to ‘normalcy.’ Yet, for the government and institutions like universities, ‘normalcy’ starts and ends at money. For students, it obviously starts and ends at beer pong. However, none of this is meant to encourage students to party. Instead, let’s wear our masks, but also demand the institutional and governmental accountability that should have been present all along.
ALISA CAIRA B’22 will be enjoying her quarantine crossword puzzle from the safety of her room.
WEEK IN REVIEW
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