The College Hill Independent Vol. 40.5 Issue 2

the VOLUME 40.5 ISSUE 02 28 AUGUST 2020

THE ETHICS OF ENGAGEMENT

PSYCHEDLIC GRIEF

TikTok’s Bargain with Community and Security

Escapism in the World of The Midnight Gospel

THE DOUBLE PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS Xenophobia and COVID-19

Indy

the

From The Editors

Cover Bowen Chen

Amidst the abundant crises, we must find endorphins in uncanny places. The most reliable source this summer is the bottom of the fly trap.

Lit 02

Love Poem From a Wingless Bird Anonymous

09

Meet The Ziffers Drake Rebman

Each new tiny carcass makes my heart swell like the Grinch’s when he learned the true meaning of Christmas. I like to show off my jar of fruit flies, all my tiny trophies floating in the orange vinegary solution. “Give it a little shake. Really look down in there,” I tell everyone.

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Some people kill fruit flies with beer or wine or apple cider vinegar. Generously handed down from the previous tenants via the sticky trashcan, ours were remarkably persistent. They like our peaches and tomatoes and bananas and grapefruits. I bought a little jar of “Auntie Fannie’s Fly Punch” and they drink it up like Kool-Aid. More and more turn belly-up each morning. It fills me with undue glee.

Psychedelic Grief: Escapism in the World of The Midnight Gospel Evie Hidysmith

We are winning the War Against the Fruit Flies. Perhaps to ease my murderous guilt, I am going vegetarian.

The Ethics of Engagement: TikTok’s Bargain with Community and Security Lucas Gelfond

Ephemera 07

Rorschach Anna Kerber

Metro 08

The Double Public Health Crisis Neha Mukherjee

X 10

Maia Chiu & Ethan Murakami

List 11

Tara Sharma & Sara Van Horn

MISSION STATEMENT The College Hill Independent is a Providence-based publication written, illustrated, designed, and edited by students from Brown and RISD. We are committed to publishing politically engaged and accessible work. While the Indy is financed by Brown University, we hold ourselves accountable to our readers across the Providence community. The Indy rejects content that explicitly or implicitly perpetuates racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism and/ or classism.

Though this list is not exhaustive, the Indy strives to address these systems of oppression by centering the voices, opinions, and efforts of marginalized people in Providence and beyond.

The Indy is constantly evolving: we are always working to make our staff and content more inclusive. Though our editing process provides an internal structure for accountability, we always welcome letters to the editor.

STAFF Week in Review Amelia Anthony Nick Roblee-Strauss | Nation + World Emily Rust Leela Berman Giacomo Sartorelli Anchita Dasgupta | Metro Ricardo Gomez Deborah Marini Peder Schaefer | Arts + Culture Seamus Flynn Alana Baer Ella Rosenblatt | Features Alina Kulman Alan Dean Edie Elliott Granger | Science & Tech Gemma Sack Anabelle Johnston Thomas Patti | Literary Star Su Kate Ok Bowen Chen | Ephemera Yukti Agarwal Anna Kerber | X Maia Chiu Ethan Murakami | List Tara Sharma Sara Van Horn | List Designer Mehek Vohra | Staff Writers Uwa Ede-Osifo Mara Cavallaro Muram Ibrahim Justin Han Izzi Olive Bilal Memon Seth Israel Nell Salzman Victoria Caruso Zach Ngin Evie Hidysmith Kaela Hines Ella Spungen Sarah Goldman Alisa Caira Laila Gamaleldin Drake Rebman Morgan Awner Elana Hausknecht Rhythm Rastogi Nicole Kim Lucas Gelfond Rose Houglet Joss Liao Nicholas Michael Belinda Hu Leo Gordon CJ Gan Vicky Phan Tammuz Frankel Amelia Wyckoff Auria Zhang Olivia Mayeda Justin Scheer Gaya Gupta Eduardo Gutiérrez Peña Marina Hunt | Copy Editors Christine Huynh Grace Berg Jacqueline Jia Elaine Chen Sarah Ryan Jasmine Li Nina Fletcher Madison Lease Alyscia Batista | Design Editor Daniel Navratil | Designers Anna Brinkhuis Katherine Sang Kathryn Li Isaac McKenna Miya Lohmeier Pablo Herraiz García de Guadiana | Illustration Editor Sylvia Atwood | Illustrators Sandra Moore Katrina Wardhana Floria Tsui Mara Jovanović Hannah Park Jessica Minker Rachelle Shao Yukti Agarwal Sage Jennings Ophelia Duchesne-Malone Joyce Tullis Charlotte Silverman Simone Zhao | Business Isabelle Yang Lauren Brown Evan Lincoln | Web Designer Sindura Sriram | Social Media Christina Ofori | Alumni Relations Jerry Chen | Spanish Translation Felipe Félix Méndez | Senior Editors Tara Sharma Sara Van Horn Cal Turner | Managing Editors Audrey Buhain Andy Rickert Ivy Scott | Managing Designer XingXing Shou *** The College Hill Independent is printed by TCI Press in Seekonk, Massachusetts.

28 AUGUST 2020

VOL 40.5 ISSUE 02

@INDYCOLLEGEHILL

WWW.THEINDY.ORG

Flocks screeching on trembling tree crowns, Chests implode, Flashing through pinioned limbs into the compressing void.

Quivering necks straining to reach the suffocating dome, Vibrations pierced from tightened bodies through branches down till end of roots— Now you shall hear the forest stumps.

Irresistible waters spout, Released from veins, pores, and bullet holes.

Surge, seep quietly through unseen cracks into Deeper and deeper— Now the unmanned shall proudly return.

Anonymous crowds marching, mourning, humming and singing: Public beheading of the wingless bird!

Past layers and layers of diluted realities and stratified sufferings, I hear you as you are: Born to be whole, Uninjured and unharmed.

Turn around and you’ll see our peers whistling above us, Echoing with distant singing above the sea.

In the tides pulsing with callings of our time, Rises the ark about to leave.

Will you board with me?

ANONYMOUS RISD '21, would love to fly right on outta here

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

BY Anonymous ILLUSTRATION Jessica Minker DESIGN Daniel Navratil

LIT

02

THE ETHICS OF ENGAGEMENT TIKTOK'S BARGAIN WITH COMMUNITY AND SECURITY

BY Lucas Gelfond ILLUSTRATION Hannah Park DESIGN Kathryn Li

content warning: rape My friend Natalie veers her car into the shoulder of the road. We get out and watch her demonstrate a few odd hand motions and a pose we'll do in unison. She props her phone up and hits record, queuing a pre-recorded snippet of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” We dance, she posts, the car leaves the road shoulder. This was my first TikTok. TikTok is a new video-centric social network. It gained international popularity after merging with and essentially rebranding Musical.ly, a platform I only knew for its lip-syncing and dancing content and for the large swaths of time a friend’s elementary-school-aged sister reportedly spent using it. Initially, TikTok felt more like a platform to cringe at rather than use. My ambivalence, however, quickly seemed behind the times. Friends began to send me links to videos that often made me laugh, frequently comparing the platform to Vine, my once-favorite-now-defunct video sharing network. In the depth of quarantine boredom, I downloaded the app and created an account, wholly dismissive and morbidly curious.

The homepage of TikTok is divided into two sections, “Following” and “For You.” The former is analogous to a feed on Instagram or Twitter, only showing posts from users one follows. The few in-person acquaintances I followed posted tens or hundreds of videos of themselves imitating popular dances to nearly nonexistent audiences. They rarely garnered more than five or ten likes, much like what I’d filmed with Natalie on the shoulder of that road.

The mythology surrounding the platform, however, revolves around the latter, a feed showing content theoretically tailored to a user’s taste over time.

Upon first use, my “For You” page showed a smattering of classic viral-type videos: social experiments and pranks, jokes and skits, visually interesting science experiments and, most notably, dancing videos.

Famous creators I’d heard of in passing, like Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae, dominated my screen. The concept of the viral anti-celebrity has a long history on other platforms, but TikTok took the concept to new heights; influencers often performed elaborate dance routines in their bathroom mirrors.

Everyday people could gain popularity on the app by incorporating popular music into their content. A feature of TikTok allows users to view all videos made with a certain ‘sound,’ often a snippet from a longer full song. Although the aforementioned influencers typically had the most popular videos on these sounds, I was struck by both the quantity and variety of users making them. While each user might add their own spin, they were all performing the same routines, group rituals that seemed to transcend boundaries of nationality, race, class, gender, and age. Some of the most popular videos were made by creators with small or nonexistent followings, often outside of the United States. I’d scroll through their profiles where many had one or two posts go viral amidst a sea of barely-viewed videos; these were ‘normal’ people, not celebrities.

The posts I’d so quickly judged from friends and acquaintances began to make sense. The audience, unlike other platforms, was not composed of people they knew; TikTok users performed to the public. With enough trial and error, seemingly anyone could go viral.

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+++ On August 6, President Trump signed an executive order banning transactions with ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, effective in 45 days for national security reasons. The order alleges that the app “automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users...including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories.” Trump then states that such information could “allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information.” It is a puzzling charge to levy against TikTok specifically. Twitter can collect user location metadata even when location services are disabled, Snapchat’s internal data tool gave employees access to location information, saved Snaps, and other personal information, Google dropped its ban on personally identifiable web tracking in 2016, and Facebook’s well-documented privacy issues have included tracking people across the entire internet. If TikTok’s data collection is unpermissible or excessive, it appears to be in line with industry standards.

Trump’s order, of course, centers on the admittedly questionable relationship between ByteDance and the Chinese Communist Party. Another one of ByteDance’s apps, Neihan Duanzi, was banned by Chinese censors due to vulgarity, per the Guardian.

In an apology, ByteDance’s founder notes that “our product took the wrong path, and content appeared that was incommensurate with socialist core values.”

Further, documents obtained by the Intercept found guidance instructing moderators to ban anything that could “endanger national security” or “national honor and interests.”

Other Chinese technology companies, like gaming giants Tencent and NetEase, have found themselves subject to similar government intervention, restricting their ability to monetize online games. Tencent in particular “has been at the center of government criticisms on games deemed harmful and addictive, and the firm has subsequently introduced so-called ‘utility games’ in 2018 designed to promote traditional Chinese culture, science and technology,” according to TechCrunch. American companies are often applauded for their independence from the government. Many praised Apple when, in 2016, it refused the FBI’s request to unlock the iPhone of a suspect in the 2015 San Bernardino shooting. Chinese companies do not have the same liberties; “The Chinese government has no problem telling [its companies] where they should come down in political debates,” Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory and former Facebook chief security officer, told the Washington Post. +++ Many American social media platforms only show content from users that one follows. Because of this, the recommendation algorithms for traditional platforms are limited to choosing the order in which this content appears. TikTok’s “For You” page, in contrast, is not limited to followed users, vastly expanding the potential number of videos in one’s feed. Instead, TikTok uses the videos one likes and shares, the

comments one posts, and a variety of other factors to personalize one’s feed to their preferences. While this distinction of possible content seems subtle, it makes the experience of using TikTok fundamentally different from every social network that precedes it; the more I use it, the more it changes, morphing to my preferences. The aforementioned bathroom dancing content was quickly replaced by videos like an electric keyboard cover of Grimes’ “Oblivion” or with recommendations for “Cute French Films to Watch.”

The app’s tone, initially, was refreshing; signing up for the app still felt modestly ridiculous, and the younger demographic of the app made for videos that felt almost impossibly authentic. This stood in stark contrast to the intense pretension of internet music and film forums on Reddit and Facebook, some of which are worth joining just for their absurd titles, like “Patrician Music Chartposting,” “High Art Musicposting,” and “Patrician Filmposting: You wish you were this buff.” Too often these groups descend into echo chambers of praise around a collection of films or albums that are universally acclaimed and beloved by the group. Recognizing an artist becomes more about signaling belonging rather than appreciation for the music itself. TikTok avoids such pompous hierarchies, instead featuring videos of teenagers passionately recommending music they seem to truly enjoy. There were often attempts embedded in the videos to appeal to a wide audience, precluding any sense of gatekeeping. Examples include videos with captions like, “If You Like Moonlight, You Might Like” or “Movies That Show the Adventures of Being Alone.”

While I found the sheer specificity of these recommendations unsettlingly precise at first, the personalization quickly proved itself key to the enjoyment of the app. Shortly after downloading the app, a video from user @jeffreyepsteinstan pops into my feed. He states, “I’m not one of those poser indie kids who listens to Tame Impala or Mac Demarco. I am better than them, because I listen to Car Seat Headrest and Neutral Milk Hotel. This Jeff Mangum guy…” Self-critical, niche humor like this only made sense in the context of the aforementioned groups, where preferring one artist over another engenders ridicule. Before TikTok, I spent years seeking out and slowly accumulating groups and accounts referencing this specific form of satire. TikTok gave me this content in a matter of hours, ridiculing this method of gatekeeping before the original elitism which bred this satire could reach my page.

Ironically, when left without clear delineations of communities, users tend to self-label the “sides” of TikTok, loosely defined as groups of users who get content of a certain topic. Creators can make videos targeted at a very specific group of users. For example, a video captioned, “You’ve reached sf skater tik tok” invites the viewer to join their side of the platform.

Because that very group of users tends to respond favorably to videos that identify them, they will be shown more of the same. While this self-labeling certainly takes place on other platforms, like self-identified ‘tech Twitter’ or ‘stan Twitter,’ TikTok drastically reduces the amount of effort one must exert to find these in-groups, including some a user may not have attempted to seek out beforehand.

In this way, TikTok facilitates a sort of digital natural selection; users create billions of videos, many on the same topics, and those which resonate with the

28 AUG 2020

most people emerge at the front of the pack. For some topics, the ‘best’ video may be several videos, the ‘true best’ entirely dependent on the user. In an idealistic sense, this feels like an incredibly efficient, powerful, and truly global form of discourse that judges merely based on content’s resonance with users. The decentralized decision-making about what videos are ‘good’ leads to a truly representative sample of great videos.

However, it is unclear whether this community— defined solely by the interests of a user—would make the platform inherently more ‘fair’ or egalitarian. A recent trend on the app involves students posting highlights from their AP Studio Art courses, many linking corresponding Instagram accounts featuring and even selling this art. This seemed genius; TikTok could theoretically lower the barrier to entry for young creatives significantly, allowing users to gain prominence based on a large variety of voices rather than a small group of discerning critics. On second glance, however, many of the portfolios that trended seemed to be those whose introductions were the most compelling, with users that might be considered more physically attractive, much like how songs that trended were often those that seemed the best suited to TikTok dances.

The app shows us exactly what we want to see, which may not actually be truly meritocratic. While it makes for engaging content, it also is liable to perpetuate our implicit biases and reduce the diversity of perspectives we see on the platform. In using the app initially, I felt like many of the hierarchies I’d experienced elsewhere dissolved; perhaps the new hierarchies the app creates by reflecting our preferences continue or worsen issues of discrimination, fairness, and diversity within the art community.

Whatever biases might limit the scope of content displayed on a “For You” page are compounded by deliberate acts of suppression from the app itself.

Documents obtained by the Intercept found an old set of guidelines which encouraged moderators to lower videos from users with “abnormal body shape,” “ugly facial looks,” or even videos where “‘the shooting environment is shabby and dilapidated,’ because ‘this kind of environment is not that suitable for new users for being less fancy and appealing.’” The Guardian also found that the app would often remove content seen as “positive to gay people or gay rights...even in countries where homosexuality has never been illegal.” In a set of anti-bullying guidelines, TikTok now claims to be out of date, as leaked to German newspaper Netzpolitik, moderators were instructed to lessen the reach of presumably disabled users to prevent their accounts from being harassed.

According to documents obtained by the Guardian, TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance could mark objectionable videos as “visible to self,” manipulating their reach in the algorithm without deleting them outright. As such, users could see their videos inexplicably fail to gain traction, completely unaware that they were in violation of community policies, allowing ByteDance to silently influence which videos go viral.

With this now known, the idea of a TikTok as a ‘democratic’ platform—in that it finds the videos most people want—is flawed from the start because of interventions from the moderators. This may partially owe itself to the loss of formalized communities, which generally select moderators from the communities themselves.

The frustration of fans on Reddit’s /r/FrankOcean, for example, came to a fever pitch in 2016 after a graphic on his website alluding to a July album release proved false, compounded by a New York Times article that reported an incorrect release date. Fans shared in frustration, sharing memes and outlandish, absurdly well-researched conspiracy theories until the album, 2016’s Blonde, finally released. A post by community moderator /u/OBJesus, reads,

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

“Did Frank’s album really just drop? I’m literally in the middle of a date pls tell me if this is real,” followed by hundreds of comments expressing that this, in fact, “AINT A DRILL.” A few minutes later, the moderator replied, “I'm bout to break into tears man fuck I can't enjoy this with you guys right now I'm so sorry I'll be back later tonight.”

TikTok’s ‘community’ merely consists of the group of creators who make the videos the algorithm chooses for each user. Communities on more traditional platforms, on the other hand, are largely static and unpersonalized; while users join and leave, the core group stays largely intact over time. As such, groups will often have notable characters, in-jokes, or a general atmosphere. They resemble the physical clubs and groups to which we are accustomed. This, of course, has its drawbacks; some posts often feel like pure mimicry of what has come before them to gain approval, likes, or upvotes. It also means that the group becomes a sort of all-or-nothing. Users cannot pick and choose what they like about the group, only whether or not to remain in it.

As such, the warm users who encourage and welcome new fans are mixed with gatekeeping and snobbery.

Accepting the more elitist elements of these groups may be a necessary evil in finding a sense of real online community.

In addition, on platforms like Reddit and Facebook, group moderators tend to be community members themselves, often nominated and decided by popular vote. As such, content decisions tend to be in line with the desires of the community and based on a set of agreed upon rules. Without defined communities, there can be no community moderators. To flag and remove problematic and illegal content, ByteDance employs an army of professionals. Outside of a traditional group structure, these moderators are foreign to the groups they oversee, making content decisions based on opaque guidelines that may run counter to the interests of the community.

reporter Sam Biddle notes that, concerning Pompeo’s new initiative, “without exception, the United States engages in every single one of these practices,” and that the document “ensur[es] that China won’t be able to do a litany of subversive and violative things with technology that the U.S. and its allies have engaged in for years.”

Certainly, continued American dominance of international affairs—which traces its roots back to the World War II—has allowed this double standard.

However, this power has arguably been in decline, in part due to China’s increased prominence. According to data from the World Bank, the Chinese economy’s annual GDP growth rate has been more than double that of the United States every year since 2000. The non-partisan Economic Policy Institute found that the US trade deficit with China has cost 3.2 million American jobs between 2001 and 2013, three-fourths of which were in manufacturing. In a campaign predicated on American revitalization, the Trump administration has been quick to blame China for perceived American decline. On the campaign trail, Trump noted, “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing.” American cultural hegemony, however, has perhaps even stronger roots; all 50 of Rotten Tomatoes highest-grossing movies of all time, worldwide, are American. If social media and the internet are the most important cultural products of the information age, they are also both largely American exports. The early ARPANET (essentially an early prototype of the Internet) was a Department of Defense project, and Facebook, Twitter, and Snap all were founded in the United States. American technology, however, also has accelerated globalization and allowed for the more diverse national origins in the content we view. Per Time Magazine, 50 percent of YouTube’s most viewed videos of all time are South Korean pop videos. Even if they play a part in globalization, they maintain American influence. They are largely owned by Americans, regulated by American +++ laws, and mainly operated in line with American cultural values.

A day before President Trump’s executive order, The Wall Street Journal called TikTok “among Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the “Clean [China’s] first apps that is a global smash hit.” Trump’s Network” initiative, the “Trump Administration’s executive order cites that TikTok has been downloaded comprehensive approach to guarding our citizen’s “over 175 million times in the United States and over privacy and our companies’ most sensitive informa- one billion times globally.” Data from mobile market tion.” The announcement details plans to prevent analytics firm Sensor Tower found that on both the Chinese telecommunications carriers from serving App Store and Google Play store, TikTok was the most American customers, remove “untrusted applica- downloaded non-game app of July 2020, outpacing tions” from U.S. app stores, prevent “PRC smartphone Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. manufacturers'' from pre-installing said apps on their Even if many American users on TikTok get American devices, remove sensitive information from Chinese- content—because it is what they demonstrate preferbased cloud providers, and “ensure the undersea ence for—the company is ultimately Chinese-owned. cables connecting our country to the global internet Even while headquartered in the United States, the are not subverted for intelligence gathering by the PRC Washington Post found that many moderation deciat hyper scale.” sions were overridden by Chinese bosses.

In an article in the Intercept, titled, “The Filthy Beyond concerns of national security, TikTok Hypocrisy of America’s ‘Clean’ China-Free Internet,” represents one of the most recent significant cultural products exported by China; from a country the administration has already largely scapegoated for declining economic prosperity, TikTok ultimately threatens American cultural hegemony.

TikTok is unique in the way that it holds our attention and learns from us, dramatically reducing the effort required to participate in internet subcultures, most of which transcend nationality. TikTok’s enormous success may ultimately herald dramatic changes in how we construct digital communities and individualize every person’s experience on the internet.

LUCAS GELFOND B' 23 is embarrassed by how much ‘pre-research’ went into this piece.

SCIENCE & TECH

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PSYCHEDELIC

GRIEF

BY Evie Hidysmith ILLUSTRATION

Sage Jennings DESIGN

Miya Lohmeier

ESCAPISM IN THE WORLD OF THE MIDNIGHT GOSPEL content warning: depictions of violence and Though gruesome and violent, I find this discussions of death episode the most palatable, as the visual and auditory storylines rely more heavily on one another than As I settle into my sixth month of social distancing, in other episodes. My first time watching, I was jolted I’ve watched more Netflix originals than I’d like to awake by a sharp shift in tone as Clancy and Lamott admit. Curled in bed with my roommates, our quar- table their discussion of grief for a trip to the bathantine puppy sprawled across my lap, I desperately room. Injected with “namastex,” Clancy is unable try to escape my reality. The hours of banality remain to move, and attempts to defecate while perched on tiring and unavoidable. Despite such encompassing deer-dog Lamott’s nose. Until this moment, neither mundanity, I have found one exception: The Midnight character had acknowledged anything happening Gospel. in the visual storyline—all dialogue came from the

The Netflix original has quickly acquired a cult podcast. Suddenly, the visual and auditory narratives following with its unconventional narrative style and converge as Lamott and Clancy awkwardly discuss vibrant animation. The show follows innovative space how to maneuver their bodies into an effective position. podcaster Clancy as he uses his malfunctioning black (One where, hopefully, Clancy’s shit would not end up market multiverse simulator to travel to worlds on the all over Lamott’s deer-dog nose.) After a grueling 30 brink of collapse and conduct interviews. Released on seconds, they give up, and return to their discussion of 4/20, it advertises itself as a psychedelic escape, yet grief. I find these moments in which the auditory and argues that this exact type of escapism is a distraction visual elements converge confusing and disorienting. from the intentional, active process of grief.

They interject sporadically throughout the show and Upon first watch, half asleep and curled jolt me out of my dazed state, happily numbed by the beneath my comforter, I found myself switching back psychedelic animations. Yet, contrasted with the and forth between following the visual storyline and emotional intensity of the dialogue, they prove the the characters’ conversations—unable to absorb both show’s awareness of its own absurdity. at the same time. The majority of the show’s audio is “Officers and Wolves” not only feels most sourced from creator Duncan Trussell’s podcast, The palatable as an introduction to this new form of Duncan Trussell Family Hour; its writers have recontex- television, it also exemplifies an underlying thread tualized real dialogue into fictional narrative. Because throughout the series: the idea that rather than being of this, the show’s audio and visual elements often feel a passive process, grief requires active work. In a move like they tell two separate stories. Though this disjoint- that is either brilliant or overstated, the show ties in edness crafts much of the show’s charm, in critical dialogue about childbirth to further the point. In the moments it is disorienting, pulling me out of the world final moments of the episode, Lamott describes her they’ve worked so hard to create. experiences of labor, saying, “You’re not alone and

In considering this disconnectedness, I often people are helping you and they’re giving you ice chips return to the second episode, “Officers and Wolves,” and extremely cold apple juice…and it’s contraction which features writer Anne Lamott as a deer-dog who and release and breath and peace and oh no oh no and is drugged and carted through an amusement park- you contract and constrict and it hurts really like a like meat factory. During her time there, her horns are mother and you rest and it’s what heaven will be like.” harvested and her body pulverized for meat produc- It's difficult to know if she’s describing birth or grief. tion by robot clowns while a group of fly-riding rebels For Lamott, there has always been a link between the in gas masks plant bombs inside the factory. Shocking, two, as her closest childhood friend passed away from I know. Even more disorienting than the absurd breast cancer the day she gave birth to her son. With visuals is Clancy and Lamott’s dialogue, sourced that being said, the show twists this union almost to its from an interview for Trussell’s podcast, which is breaking point. about attempting to make sense of death and grief. At

The final episode, “Mouse of Silver,” features moments, I find myself so absorbed in their discussion Deneen Fendig, Trussell’s mother, in an interview I close my eyes, forgetting the visuals entirely. recorded shortly before her death. As Clancy and his

Though most shows can be understood mainly mother walk through the halls of a teddy bear research through audio (as I’ve learned far too well by watching institute, they age before our eyes. Clancy’s mothBuffy the Vampire Slayer while speeding through chem- er’s hair grows grayer and wrinkles are sketched into istry homework), The Midnight Gospel is different her face, and as she lays down in a mushroom field, because its audio exists independently of its visuals. her body blossoms into a giant blue mushroom tree.

In the midst of an episode, fixating on the audio fails Clancy’s stomach begins to swell, and he is wheeled as significant plot points only exist visually. Though into a delivery room by tiny colorful medical bears and the visual and auditory elements are distinctly sepa- fed ice chips—an allusion to Lamott’s description—as rate in their storylines, they share clear thematic ties. he struggles to give birth to his mother. Trussell’s grief As Lamott and Trussell discuss grief, their deer-dog is tangible throughout the audio recording featured in reincarnations are spun through a meat grinder and the episode, the pain in his voice simulated by his charshredded, maintaining a somewhat jovial attitude that acter’s strenuous labor. As a viewer, this is a moment mirrors the podcast’s discussion of accepting death. where the contrast between the absurdity of the Just before their bodies are crushed, Lamott says, “It animation and intensity of the audio becomes unbeartakes death to help you let go. Just go, ‘okay, fine.’ And ably confusing. Then, suddenly, the show regains that’s sort of my beautiful moment of surrender with its fluidity. As Clancy grows into an old man and his God—I say with enormous bitterness, ‘okay, fine.’” In mother into a young woman, they pause in a candle-lit the midst of this sentence, as Lamott attempts to find heart-shaped spaceship as he asks, “There’s no way some semblance of serenity with death, her calm to stop the heartbreak. How do you…What do you do deer-dog body is smashed to pieces. about that?” Embracing him, tears in both their eyes,

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she says simply, “You cry! You cry.” It is the most tender moment in the series.

Grief has taken a more prominent role in casual conversation these past few months as we all attempt to understand the loneliness and pain of isolation.

Though The Midnight Gospel has been in production for more than seven years, its release now feels creepily predictive. Lamott tells a story in the second episode of “a little girl who’s trying to fall asleep in the dark and her mother…comes in and says Jesus is right here with you and the child says, I need someone with skin on.”

When we grieve, it is for the loss of the physicality of someone, the whole of someone. We crave a closeness that can’t be reproduced—an all too familiar feeling these days. With modern technology, it is possible, if not easy, to hear someone’s voice or see their face after they are gone. Indeed, the final episode of The Midnight Gospel fabricates a conversation between Trussell and his mother. Trussell actually had no part in writing the episode; he found it too painful. Watching it after it was completed, he experienced a conversation with his mother that never actually happened. Attempts to manufacture closeness through technology in no way ease our grief. In fact, they often magnify it. Lamott’s description of needing “someone with skin on” feels all the more pertinent now, as we all crave a kind of closeness that’s become risky and dangerous, if not impossible.

Though The Midnight Gospel reflects the desperation of this longing, I was taken aback by Trussell, Lamott, and Fendig’s largely hopeful representation of grief. Halfway through the second episode, Lamott’s deer-dog asserts, “The stuff that enlivens us and heals us doesn’t come on bumper stickers, you know? It’s hard fought. It takes death to help you let go.” The deer-dog asserts that growth and resilience can come from the work of mourning. Clancy’s mother agrees in the last episode, explaining, “The reason I look better than I ever have is that I’m living and dying consciously, simultaneously I’m holding both.”

Through the process of dying, of grieving her life and loved ones, Fendig claims to have become more whole. Later she notes, “People really try to avoid the consideration that they are gonna die and that people they love are gonna die. It opens your heart. It breaks your heart open. Our hearts have been closed because we’ve closed them. We’ve defended ourselves against pain, and this opens them.” I wonder if the pain we feel these days, in all its overwhelming and dull ambiguity, is opening us. It begs the question, what about this moment enables this kind of openness? The Midnight Gospel suggests that it’s the grieving.

At its core, the show is constructed on a simple principle: an adventurous space podcaster travels to dying worlds to learn about loss. Even across the multiverse, creatures’ understandings of grief unite them. If this message is so simple and concise, why use such a complicated medium to communicate it?

The magic and mystery of The Midnight Gospel is that, much to my surprise, when universal truths are masked in complicated details and stories, sometimes they’re easier to hear. Instead of being told that grief is uniting—which I would have met with an exaggerated eye roll for its condescension—all I had to do was absorb another world, full of color and chaos. The Midnight Gospel teaches without its viewers knowing they are being taught.

28 AUGUST 2020

Though the brilliance of the show is clear, its ironic oversight is that it critiques its own central message. Rather than fully engaging with its audience around the challenges of grief, or even asking the audience to grieve the loss of particular characters, the show’s complex visuals distract viewers from this pain, taking the hard work out of this process. In the middle of the final episode, Clancy remarks, “So many of us are spending so much time engaged in just ridiculous activities just to try and avoid this experience,” to which his mother responds, “Exactly. People really try to avoid the consideration that they are gonna die and that people they love are gonna die.”

Released in a moment when so many are struggling with loss, the show has easily become another ‘ridiculous activity’ to avoid the work of mourning, rather than wade through the pain. I watch it when I want to pretend that there isn’t a global pandemic, not acknowledge it. The visual beauty of the show is another way to escape the disheartening reality we live in, rather than acknowledge and move through it. Yet in some twisted way, this distraction opens us; watching The Midnight Gospel is itself a practice in

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grieving.

Throughout the past sixth months, I’ve been surrounded by grief in myriad ways. Packing up my childhood bedroom, I've stumbled across photos of a childhood friend who died last year. I remember what it felt like to hold her hand behind the plum trees in our old backyard, and I hate that there's a limit to how many things I can remember about her. Loss, I am learning, is weird, harrowing, and personal. I watched the majority of The Midnight Gospel with my best friends and roommates—two siblings who lost their mom to pancreatic cancer during my sophomore year of high school. They have taught me about grief through proximity, shown me that it necessitates both grace and clumsiness, strength and pain. One of them loved The Midnight Gospel, the other didn't. Despite her resistance, the half an hour on our apartment’s fold out bed was somehow comforting. Even if it can’t help us make sense of the pain of this moment, it can at least distract us from it for a minute.

EVIE HIDYSMITH B’21 also has a lot to say about Avatar: The Last Airbender.

A&C

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EPHEMERA

28 AUGUST 2020

The Double Public Health Crisis

BY Neha Mukherjee ILLUSTRATION Rachelle Shao DESIGN Daniel Navratil

On March 18th, 2020, with hundreds of thousands already infected with the novel coronavirus, President Trump released this tweet: “I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the “borders” from China - against the wishes of almost all. Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful & false!”

The President’s tweet is evidence that the United States is facing a double public health crisis: COVID-19 and xenophobia. Sweeping the globe, COVID-19 has tested every aspect of society: how well our media can gather information and report it accurately, how quickly our places of employment and education can evacuate, and how effective our healthcare systems can treat the sick and produce vaccines. One factor that has received less attention from the media, though equally important, is how COVID has tested the way that people treat each other during times of incredible stress.

President Trump has received major backlash from the Chinese American community for continually referring to COVID-19 as the “Chinese Virus,” or more recently, “Kung Flu,” as he seeks to blame the virus on China. But while the President tweets, “It’s not racist at all,” anti-Chinese sentiment is rising in the US. According to a Vox article published in February, San Francisco researchers discovered that there were over 1,000 cases of xenophobia targeted at Chinese Americans. These same statistics are being reflected all over the country. In June, Time released a collection of profiles showcasing individuals’ prejudice against Asian Americans due to COVID-19. From “Next time, don’t bring your diseases back from your country,” to “All of you should die, and all of you have the Chinese virus,” American display of xenophobia is rampant and increasingly concerning.

Sadly, the act of blaming a pandemic on minority groups is not a new phenomenon. In 2009, with the spread of the H1N1 strain of the flu—known more colloquially as swine flu—Latinx members of US society rapidly became scapegoats for the virus’ spread. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans especially bore the brunt of the stigma, as this form of influenza was first found in Mexican pig farms. Latinx individuals around the world were subject to scrutiny, which in some cases worsened their own health outcomes. In the US, several talk show hosts and media outlets negatively portrayed MexicanAmericans and even began to call the influenza the “Fajita Flu.” “Chinese Virus” and “Fajita Flu” both represent instances of cue convergence. According to a study from BMC Public Health, this phenomenon occurs when the extensive fears associated with a rampant pandemic quickly become associated with a desire to assign blame and find a cause of the outbreak. Connections made in the human brain are strengthened when both this feeling of fear and this urge to find a cause begin to act together. When a cue is given— such as hearing names like “Chinese Virus” or “Fajita Flu” in the news—it can bring up underlying fears stored in long term memory.

This can include the fear of those who look and act differently, reinforcing the idea that fear, ignorance, and prejudice go hand in hand.

When this process is repeatedly incited by news outlets, social media, or the President himself, it becomes associative priming.

Knowing the scientific way that principles can be associated through cue convergence, we all have a responsibility to be cautious with their language. In our personal lives we must make a conscious effort to not only denounce xenophobic language, but also to have conversations about structural racism. Understanding the scientific processes that can play a role in cementing xenophobic ideals is just the start. To prevent the next minority group from being targeted we must encourage conversations that talk about the harm of xenophobia in our daily lives.

The change in language can start on an individual level, but must also be translated to media outlets and the public sphere at large. Researchers of the Chinese National Health Commission study drew a significant conclusion about the impact of media on pandemics: “the relationship between mass media and the disease spread is complex and mutual.” In other words, if there are media reports on COVID-19, people are more likely to wash their hands, practice social distancing, and take part in other preventative measures which will lower rates of infection. But on the other hand, the prevalence and severity of COVID-19 is what will cause media outlets to cover it. This intertwined relationship re-emphasizes the media's influence on the rates of infection and shows how the media is important in educating the public about the pandemic and methods of prevention. With this direct impact that the media has in the rates of the outbreak, it also has significant influence in public attitudes to a pandemic.

An important principle that is relevant in the conversation around stigma is the idea of “framing” a story, as highlighted by the BMC Public Health Study. Even in reporting science and stating statistics about illness rates, the way information travels from source to media outlet to the public is critical in perception and public opinion. The way that news is framed and the background information that is given as supporting evidence is a prime factor promoting associative priming. While the responsibility does not fall completely on media outlets, they do have a special ability to combat stigma in society.

The media has extensive power. During COVID-19 specifically, journalism and scientific reporting have been used as an educational tool that reaches citizens around the world. As we continue to use news outlets to teach and social media to inform, we will be faced with tough questions. If our leaders use inflammatory language, how do we cover it without promoting the behavior? How can journalists stop implicit bias from coming through in reporting?

When faced with fear, how can we ensure that we continue to fight injustice? How can we have conversations about structural racism and xenophobia with our loved ones? These questions have no easy answers, but rather give us an opportunity to reflect how we interpret what we hear, how that influences what we say, and why this should compel us to act.

NEHA MUKHERJEE B' 22 spends lots of time on Medical Twitter

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METRO

08

MEETTHEZIFFERS “The only thing about being way up high that sucks is you’re too far to see down ladies’ shirts.”

Terry told me that on our first cheese run. Since I started here, they’ve been sending me out on cheese runs, with Terry, usually. We get boxed chardonnay (served to customers in a carafe) and apples, too. Terry’s been at Rainbow, a hot air balloon tour agency, for longer than I have, but it’s his full time job. It’s pleasant, especially when you’re on a cheese run with Terry.

After he told me that about the shirts, I didn’t laugh, so he apologized. I said it was alright and he smiled again. I was just focusing on the road, I said. He said: “Don’t take me too seriously. I’m just being a goofball is all.”

I told him it was alright, and then when the lady at the Whole Foods cut us off a block of cheddar, Terry said: “She just cut the cheese!”

I laughed. I might be too well-bred to make that joke, but I’m not too well-bred to laugh at it. I told Terry it’s okay, I won’t take him too seriously. He says that same thing every time we go to Whole Foods on a cheese run, and at this point I just smile, trying my best to appear good-naturedly. I think Terry is married. I bet his wife laughs at his jokes.

Earlier in the summer, after that first time, I went on a cheese run with Terry, and he had a heart attack in my passenger seat. His red, pockmarked face became even redder, like an Original Babybel Mini. He groaned, and he grabbed at his chest.

Terry’s fat. I’m a scout. I pieced things together.

We were pretty close to the Whole Foods, so I finished driving there and called 911 in the parking lot. Then I went into the store and asked Is there a doctor here?

Some lady was, so she came out to the car. I helped her get Terry onto the ground where she could do CPR. I figured she had everything under control, and I went back into the store and got the cheese. When I paid, Terry and the woman were gone. I drove back to Rainbow.

My manager, Abby, asked me where Terry was and I said Probably the hospital.

Then I put the cheese I’d bought in the refrigerator. Rainbow’s office is a prefab building the size of a gas station with four rooms: the welcome area (for customers), the lounge (with the refrigerator, for employees), a single occupant bathroom, and a maintenance closet. The floors are wood-look vinyl and the furniture is all industrial particleboard. She asked me How come? and I said Terry had a heart attack so an ambulance picked him up.

Then I asked if she’d train me to operate the balloons. She said: “I guess now if Terry’s going to be gone for a while I might as well.”

I thanked her. I only applied for the job at Rainbow so I could become a balloon operator at some point. They usually only train people to operate balloons when it’s their second year working there. First year employees take calls, welcome customers to the facility, and get cheese. Balloon operators do all those things too, but they also get to go up, which customers pay good money for. Operators get to do it for free. That’s how I became a hot air balloon operator for Rainbow Balloon Tours.

Terry got back to work after only a week or so. On his first day back, he walked up to me in my red operator-trainee polo and told me: “I can’t thank you enough, Del. My wife wants to know if you’d come have dinner with us some night. And here’s this. I think it’s fitting.”

He handed me a cold wedge of cheddar with a blue star on the label. I said Just glad you’re alright, name a night and he said Thursday? and I said Sounds great, then I went to the lounge, marked my cheese (so nobody would think it was for a platter) and put it in the fridge.

On Thursday night, I put on a polo and khakis and drove to Terry’s house, the Ziffer’s. Mrs. Ziffer opened the door when I knocked and said: “Del? Come in, come in! I’m so glad to meet you! I’m Sandra. Thank you so much for saving Terry. Gosh, sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if you weren’t there. Come in before you get totally soaked!”

I replied in some modest way, I forget exactly how. I might’ve said: “It was mostly the paramedics who did everything.”

Or, “What else could I have done?”

Or something humorous, like, “Just doing my job, miss.”

But I’m sure I didn’t tell her that I left Terry and bought expensive cheese while he was being loaded up into an ambulance. Either way, she beckoned me excitedly into their home, a thinly green split-level with a muddy spare tire in the unmown lawn.

I barely entered before Mrs. Ziffer said: “Oh, take your shoes off if you wouldn’t mind.”

The appreciation I felt for my socks was significant enough to stay my foot for a moment. The carpet didn’t look so good, but I’m a scout, and I took my shoes off.

09

LIT

BY Drake Rebman ILLUSTRATION Joyce Tullis DESIGN XingXing Shou

The dining room revealed itself to be colored the same as the outside of the house. A powder blue tablecloth covered a small circular folding table in the center of the room. Above a body mirror mounted horizontally on the wall, a polaroid image of younger Ziffers at a beach tilted slightly to the left. Terry was fat then also.

He spoke invisibly from the kitchen: “Del, would you like a drink? I’ve got bud light and bud heavy.”

I said: “Water would be good, thank you.” I’m too well-bred to drink underage.

Terry said: “Bud light it is!”

He brought me a glass of ice water. I’m not too well-bred to laugh at a joke. I said: “That’s a pretty good joke, Terry.”

He thanked me and welcomed me to their Humble abode. I didn’t say Humble is right, but I thought it.

Smiling, without showing her teeth, Mrs. Ziffer indicated that I should sit down on a folding chair at their table. Her eyes were like puddles of standing water in the spray-tanned folds of her face, the extra cheek flesh accommodated by a stretched forehead. Terry had the same look. I’m not too well-bred to say that they looked like yellow squashes picked from the same vine. Mrs. Ziffer said: “Terry’s finishing up egg salad sandwiches.”

Before Terry finished finishing them up, Mrs. Ziffer and I discussed the hot air balloon business and my schooling at shallow depths. I believe her main takeaway was that I go to Regis and No, the commute isn’t too bad. The clink of fork on glass bowl and the squishing of boiled eggs from the kitchen provided syncopation to the tennis-like rapport of mutual inquiry between strangers. Terry entered with three egg salad sandwiches on burnt wheat bread and said: “Here they are! Let’s eat.”

Through bites of egg salad sandwich, I asked Mrs. Ziffer about how she spends her time. Since I know Terry, I figured asking him the same questions I was asking his wife would come off strangely, so I didn’t talk to him most of the time. In response to one of my questions, Mrs. Ziffer said: “Terry does most of the cooking. He likes that stuff. Sometimes on weekends – well, you’ll think it’s strange, but I like it—sometimes on the weekends I go to sightseeing places like mountains with— oh, I make wooden dolls—I take my dolls to mountains and places like that and take photos of them there, like if they had climbed the mountain and were taking a rest.”

It felt as if I had just seen a swamp for the first time. I wanted to walk into it.

I probed her further, and she said:

“Oh… I’ll show you them.”

We stood up and went down a short hallway, turned right, and finally left into a dark room. Mrs. Ziffer flipped a switch, revealing a storage room containing a worse folding table than the one we’d eaten dinner on, some boxes of disposable cups and plasticware, and a plastic tub in the corner which Mrs. Ziffer dragged into the middle of the room. She popped the lid off.

Inside were 20 or so dolls about eight inches tall and six inches around. They were made of bits of particle board, cut roughly and glued together. The bodies were triangular, forming wide hips and a pointed neck at the top. They were painted a solid color (often periwinkle), with white or gold dotted buttons down the front. The arms and legs were unpainted, which is how I knew they were particle board. Plastic hinges formed knees and elbows.

The faces, circular, about half an inch deep, were painted jet black. Wide white dots comprised the eyes, and the mouth was a thick, crimson smile. The hair was floppy black yarn.

“What the fuck.”

I said that quietly, through a long breath. There was no amount of breeding that would’ve stopped me. I looked up from the box to see the last trace of a good-natured smile leave Mrs. Ziffer’s face. A nervous one took its place, and she said: “Oh, I know it’s embarrassing...”

I said: “Well, everyone has their hobby.”

Then I went quickly to the door, Mrs. Ziffer flipping off the light in ashamed tow.

Upon arriving in the dining room, I apologized to Terry that I had to go. I thanked him for the egg salad sandwiches on burnt toast and stumbled in the foyer putting my shoes back on. I said Nice to meet you, Mrs. Ziffer! as I opened the door and quickly but quietly shut it in her slack face and Terry’s still unknowing, smiling one.

At home, hungry after only half a sandwich at the Ziffer’s, I went to the kitchen and took the block of cheddar Terry had given me from the fridge and a roll of Ritz from the pantry. I opened our silverware drawer, looked at the cheese knife, recalled the phrase “cut the cheese” as voiced by Terry, saw the dolls, and then closed the drawer before grabbing a grater from a different drawer and shredding the cheddar over a neat line of crackers.

28 AUGUST 2020

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28 AUGUST 2020