The Sycamore Fall 2015 by The Sycamore

THE SYCAMORE WELLS COLLEGE’S STUDENT MAGAZINE / FALL 2015

#mathislife

#adulting

#embraceyourself #NLA #fsu (F*ck shit up)

#LegumeMezzanine

#NY

#allshallbewell

#Oddline’tilIflatline

#alcoholisnotconsent

#letyourwordshavemeaning

#nightnight #yellowperilsupportsblackpower

#whatatimetobealive #luckyheels #tootalltoobeautiful

#guesswho #challengeyourownideas #WATTBA

#80zcrew #DC #staywoke #sockgamestrong #whitherwanderyou

#Wellswomenarethebestwomen

The

#buymoonlightsnacks

#elephantcrossing

#marveluniverse

#avengers

#opinionsarenotinfallible

#lipsfordays

#truth

#blacklivesmatter

#permission

#teaconsent #heart

#babyfaceproblems #relatonshipgoals #earthday

#taboo

#Evenline4ever

#consentisnecessary

#curlyhairproblems

#power

#educate

#legends

#gaypride

#food #yesallwomen #ADK #wellssycamore #equalityforwomen #innovation

#feministcrushfriday

#PreziArie<3theoneandonly<3

#askingforafriend

#TBT

#QueenHaley #conflict

#equality

#Spring

#Idon’tEVENgohere

#blessed

#bosombewitcher

#slothlife

#Hashtag #VT #goodmorningmerrychristmashappynewyear

#blackoutday

#I’malady

#liveslowdiewhenever

#pelvicsorcerer

#struggle #lgbt Issue #Pumpkinspice #style #nocontext

#hipposforlife #hipster

#Elainewashere

#notmymonkeys #Idkisnotyes#freedom #loveislove

#dayandnight

#respecttranslives #sweetmanbun

#TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 1

CONT features 8 38

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY

Celebrating The Sycamore's 15th issue.

WELLS AESTHETIC

Instagramming Wells College.

12 53 BACK TO THE BEGINNING

A look back to the start.

GENERATION ACTIVISM

An analysis of social media and grassroots organizing.

20 57 SELF-CELEBRATION

Navigating the world's filters.

COME AS YOU ARE Photographing self-love.

29 68 #IRL

Chatting with Zach Tripsas.

WE WANT TO BELIEVE

America's obsession with conspiracy.

31 73 TRANSFORMATION TUESDAYS

The melanin #GloUp from the inside-out.

NEW ROMANTICS

Eurocentric romance's flight.

36 76 THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE The media's undeniable footprint.

THE VOICE OF ART

Art movements in black culture.

82 #FLUFFNATION Have you joined yet? 2

TENTS constants 6 81

EDITORS' NOTES

A few opening remarks.

DINNER WITH Pintrest.

24 87 POLITICS

Twitter and politicians intersect.

CREATIVE WRITING CONTEST Tegan Watson's "Millennial Monsters."

44 88 SEX COLUMN

#FeelinMyself.

ACADEMIC WRITING CONTEST Abena Poku's "A Space for Graffiti."

48 94 HUMANITIES

The shift from Swagger to Swag.

DEAR MINERVA

Advice from Wells’s resident goddess.

52 100 A BRIEF HISTORY

The journey of the hashtag.

VISUAL ARTS CONTEST Abena Poku's "#Meta."

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 3

THE SYCAMORE is Wells Collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s student magazine. This is our fifteenth biannual issue. In keeping with our mission, we print on sustainably harvested paper and use nontoxic ink.

FSC BOX

staff MISSY BREWER RAEA BENJAMIN MICHELLE LEE GABRIELLE UHRIG ELAINE GWATHNEY MINERVA TAYLOR BABB CLARE HARWOOD ATIYA JORDAN CARSON JORDAN STEPHANIE TODD WINDY WELLS LUCAS WENTWORTH CARLEY LEGG SKYLAR MANN EMILY MARSHMAN HANNAH RAE TAGGART MYA PADILLA CATHERINE BURROUGHS

Editor in Chief Assistant to Editor in Chief Staff Writer Chief Copy Editor Staff Writer Chief Design Editor Staff Photographer Assistant to Chief Design Editor Advice Columnist Staff Writer Staff Designer Copy Editor Staff Writer Staff Writer Staff Writer Copy Editor Staff Writer Staff Writer Staff Photographer Staff Writer Copy Editor Staff Writer Staff Photographer Staff Writer Advisor

contributors FATIMA TRAORE ANGELA PAUL HAKEEM RIHAN ANDREA GOULD STEPHANIE TODD CANDY BUTCHINO ASHLEY GINGELESKI LINDSAY ACHZET NINA DANIELS ATIYA JORDAN EMILY MARSHMAN DOMENICA WILSON KIRSTI BRUCE MELANIE PECK COURTNEY DANISE DIMITRI EMMANUEL NATALIE JAY LIZ REEVE STEPHEN ARMSTRONG BAILEY BROWN AMANDA FASTIGGI LAURA ALLARD

Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model

contact E–MAIL WEB ADDRESS

WellsSycamore@gmail.com Issuu.com/WellsSycamore Wells College 170 Main Street Aurora, NY 13026

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 5

Editor’s NOTE

’ve stepped into a job that has some big shoes to fill. During my three years at Wells I have so looked up to Judy Lavelle (’14) and Julie Huang (’15), and to follow in their footsteps as Editor in Chief of The Sycamore is a surreal experience. I was not convinced that I could run the magazine like these two amazing women did, especially when I realized my name didn’t start with “Ju.” But Julie trained me, forced me into InDesign, and ultimately prepared me perfectly, despite the fact that I was abroad in Bath, England during her last semester (sorry again, Julie). The year started with a sudden and unexpected office move. Our office in the Leach basement had been converted to residence hall rooms and when I got to campus in August I found out that our new home was in the Main Esophagus. It was a bit of a surprise at first and we are still in the process of moving in, but with this move it feels like a new era of The Sycamore, one which I am excited to usher in. I was not sure what I wanted to add to The Sycamore, partially because I think the magazine is already brilliant, but what I’ve found this semester is that a new energy in our staff has truly connected our publication with the larger Wells community. At the end of last spring, with our seniors dearly departed, we were left with a staff of ten. Luckily we had a slew of applications and grew our staff to eighteen. I would like to warmly and officially welcome our new staff members: Mya Padilla (’19), Carley Legg (’18), Emily Marshman (’18), Hannah Taggart (’18), Lucas Wentworth (’17), Clare Harwood (’16), Stephanie Todd (’16), and Windy Wells (’16). In the past 14 issues of The Sycamore, we’ve covered a broad range of topics. I’m very happy to say that we continue that discipline-crossing trend. Stephanie Todd (’16) took a political perspective with her piece on politicians on Twitter, Lucas Went-

worth (’17) went deep into the world of conspiracies, Carley Legg (’18) went an environmental route with her article on climate change, and Atiya Jordan (’16) delved into the hashtag’s relationship with art movements. Atiya was also the brain power behind this theme, a theme that may seem strange to some. Atiya, Michelle Lee (’16, Chief Copy Editor), and myself were sitting on the lawn during champagne breakfast on the first day of classes and as we have all been a part of The Sycamore since our first year, the magazine came up. Atiya first suggested #BlackLivesMatter, then thought to expand the theme to “Hashtag,” and in the week or so before we voted on the theme I became more and more enthusiastic about the idea. And I am extraordinarily pleased with how our writers, photographers, and designers ran with this very current theme. I must also extend my eternal thanks to the 2015-2016 Editorial Board. Michelle and Chief Design Editor Gabrielle Uhrig (’16) already have a couple of semesters of this under their belts and they graciously welcomed and supported me in my new position. Our three followers, Raea Benjamin (’17) as Assistant Editor in Chief, Elaine Gwathney (’17) as Assistant Chief Design Editor, and Emily Marshman (’18) as Assistant Chief Copy Editor have provided incredible insight into all aspects of this publication and I know they will continue to do so going forward. Thank you for reading this ridiculously long note and going through my many emotions with me as I present you with the Fall 2015 issue of The Sycamore on the Hashtag.

Copy Editor's NOTE

s someone who considers herself a student activist, social justice advocate, and social media lover, creating this issue was an incredible experience for me. Our writers and photographers have created a wide array of content, using “hashtag” as a starting point. I was also blessed (#blesséd?) this semester to have a team of copy editors and I probably would not have survived without Atiya Jordan (’16), Windy Wells (’16), Raea Benjamin (’17), and Emily Marshman (’18). They were fulltime students, engaging Sycamore members, and dealt with the ridiculous amount of e-mails I sent them. I want to thank the other members of our Editorial board Missy Brewer (’16), Editor in Chief; Gabby Uhrig (’16), Chief Design Editor; Raea Benjamin, Assistant Editor in Chief; and Elaine Gwathney (’17), Assistant Design Editor for their constant support and guidance. I also want to welcome Emily Marshman as our new Assistant Copy Editor. This issue is one that I am particularly proud of because of where our staff has gone with it. Taylor Babb (’16) writes a heartbreakingly honest but humorous self-reflection on glo’-ing up and accepting melanin in a racist and colorist society. Emily gives a critical look at the evolution of romance and the impact technology has had on what we consider “romantic” (you should probably text them back). Mya Padilla (’19) ties in social media and grassroots activism while leaving us wondering about the role we play in inciting change. Skylar Mann’s (’18) gorgeous photographs reflect The Sycamore’s roots as a social and environmental magazine.

Congratulations to our contest winners, Tegan Watson and Abena Poku. Tegan’s poem “Millennial Monsters” offers a sharp critique of complaints made by older generations through her visceral and thoughtful use of language. Abena’s essay is a fascinating and engaging paper about graffiti and the space it has occupied from ancient times to now. She also won our photography contest with, “#Meta,” which is a playful piece about the strange backwards/forwards way we approach capturing photographs. This magazine is truly a collaborative experience and I am so grateful to be a part of it.

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 7

#ThrowBackThursday: Celebrating The Sycamore's

Issue

By Michelle Lee

"The first issue, published in December 2008, included horoscopes and Letters to the Editor, as well as articles centered on the issue's theme."

he Sycamore was first planted in the fall semester of 2008 when founders Alex Schloop (’12) and Victoria Carreón (’10) were “sitting in the anti-social room in the dining hall, talking over cherry crisp about starting a magazine” (Schloop) to fill the gap left when fellow publication, The Chronicle, shifted from a magazine to a literary magazine. Published once a semester, it grew from a 24-page publication to a 100-page issue. The Sycamore’s branches extend past the environmental issues with which it started, something that happened pretty quickly. Ana Giovinazzo (’11), part of the founding Editorial Board and first ever-Chief Copy Editor, said the shift happened when they “soon realized that [they] wanted to focus on each issue’s unique, broader theme.” The first issue, published in December 2008, included horoscopes and Letters to the Editor, as well as articles centered on the issue’s theme. The features were “Think Globally, Act Locally: Does the activist’s mantra still hold water?” by Oren Robinson and “The [Im]Morality of Meat Consumption: Dinner has rights, too” by Alex Schloop. Holding a Fall 2008 copy of The Sycamore and a Spring 2015 copy is a strange experience and on a superficial level, it can seem like the two have nothing in common. But content-wise, the magazine remains close to its roots with compelling articles, engaging illustrations, and, of course, Dear Minerva. The evolution of the magazine seems mostly a response to the students and the community’s needs. From its inception, The Sycamore was about what Wells’s students were concerned about. Resonating with the student body, as a whole, was a priority for the past Editors-in-Chief, which led to the inclusion of larger photo spreads and more columnists. Julie Huang (’15), previous Editor-in-Chief, said she wanted the publication “to be less THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 9

"Giovinazzo once missed a class after spending all night proofing, although she admits to having enjoyed the stress."

intimidating and more fun,” and similarly, Rebekkah Frisch (née McKalsen) (’14) spoke about how one of her goals was to “reach students outside of the English department.” The desire to have at least one feature in The Sycamore to interest the community has led to a wide array of article topics while centering around the issue’s theme. After hearing from most of the past members of the Editorial Board, something else that hasn’t changed is the late nights toiling over InDesign. Previous Chief Design Editor Jillian Fields (’14) mentioned the night where she slept on the office couch. Past Editor in Chief Judy Lavelle (’14) recounted how it was “a truly surreal and hilarious experience to be wired on espresso at 2am putting together a photo spread while listening to First Years celebrating the end of a semester overhead” (back when the office was in the basement of Leach). Giovinazzo once missed a class after spending all night proofing, although she admits to having enjoyed the stress. Our Keurig, the newest addition to The Sycamore staff this semester, has already proven to be a hardworking and invaluable member of our team. As The Sycamore grows and spreads its seeds in the wind so trees can grow (I promise I have total control over this metaphor), it’s nice to see how past staff have taken what they’ve learned to the “Real World.” Frisch noted how the need to adapt and step out of comfort zones has been an invaluable lesson in her personal and professional life whether it be “dealing with a new client at work or doing repairs on the house with [her] husband.” Giovinazzo works at DK Publishing (part of Penguin Random House) in Digital and Online Sales and credits the magazine for teaching her “patience, effective collaboration skills, management, and dedication to a quality product.” Lavelle, who started as the magazine’s Health Editor, went on to receive her Master’s in Science Journalism from Boston University and will be the Science Communications Editor at the National Institutes of Health in January. This is the 15th issue of The Sycamore, which has been a part of Wells for seven years now, and stands tall and proud like the tree it was named after. 10

Parting Words of Wisdom: “Create something you’re proud of ! My other advice: always, always hold yourself to a higher standard. That goes for everything in life. It’s how we get better!” –Ana Giovinazzo “Remember to enjoy the process. It can be very stressful, but it is also a lot of fun. So don’t lose perspective on that, and make the most kickass issue you can.” –Jillian Fields “Never print half of your magazine upside-down (on purpose or accident) [referencing the Spring 2013 Day/Night issue]. Embrace your staff ’s talents and challenge them to produce a product that no one believes came from a tiny liberal arts college.” –Judy Lavelle “It’s hard work and will give you its fair share of late nights. But the higher your standards are for yourself, the more wonderful it will feel when you hold that next glossy issue in your hands.” –Rebekkah Frisch

h “Everything can be photoshopped. If you can’t photoshop it, it’s not meant to be.” –Julie Huang

"Remember to enjoy the process. It can be very stressful, but it is also a lot of fun."

Works Cited Fields, Jillian. “The Sycamore’s 15th Issue.” Message to the writer. 7 Nov. 2015. E-mail. Frisch, Rebekkah. “The Sycamore’s 15th Issue Check-In.” Message to the writer. 12 Nov. 2015. E-mail. Giovinazzo, Ana. “The Sycamore’s 15th Issue.” Message to the writer. 29 Oct. 2015. E-mail. Huang, Julie. “The Sycamore’s 15th Issue Check-In.” Message to the writer. 13 Nov.2015. E-mail. Lavelle, Judith. “The Sycamore’s 15th Issue.” Message to the writer. 30 Oct. 2015. E-mail. Schloop, Alex. Editors’ Letter. The Sycamore. Dec. 2008. Print. THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 11

skylar

Back to the Beginning: Throwback to start ofThe Sycamore By Skylar Mann 12

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 13

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 15

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 17

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 19

)

Self Celebration

By Raea Benjamin

(

n the last decade, taking and posting pictures of oneself to social media has become so common in society that, as of 2013, the term “selfie” was officially added to the dictionary: Selfie (noun): A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media (The Oxford English Dictionary). In fact, the word selfie has gained so much popularity that The Oxford English Dictionary deemed it the Word of the Year in 2013 as well. Research on the phenomenon further exemplifies the increasing popularity of the selfie, with the most recent study regarding selfies and social media taking place in 2014. According to the “Year of the Selfie” study, over a million selfies are taken every day. Of these photographs, 14% are digitally enhanced with 50% of men and 52% of women having taken at least one selfie in their lifetime. Of these photos, 48% are uploaded to Facebook, another 27% are sent in text messages, 9% are uploaded to Twitter, 8% to Instagram, 5% to Snapchat, and 2% to Pinterest. Selfies make up 30% of all of the photos taken by people of the ages 18–24. The selfie phenomenon is universal but is most popular in Australia, followed by the United States, and then Canada (Bennett).   As the popularity of the selfie rises, so does the rate at which these photos are being edited. Of the people interviewed, 36% admitted to altering their photographs in one way or another. Of males, 34% state that they retouch every photo they upload to the

internet. Of females, 13% make this admission (Bennett). Facebook offers its users seven different filter options for uploading a photo: Auto, Vintage, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Snow. Instagram offers 23 different filter options: Clarendon, Gingham, Moon, Lark, Reyes, Juno, Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Aden, Perpetua, Amaro, Mayfair, Rise, Hudson, Valencia, X-Pro II, Sierra, Willow, LoFi, Inkwell, Hefe, and Nashville. Aside from the editing options offered on social media sites, there are applications and programs dedicated solely to image editing. Applications available to the general public include: Affinity Photo, Acorn, Corel Paintshop Pro, gimp, Pixelmator, Pixlr, Sketch, and Sumopaint. This is only a handful of image editing applications; if you search for photograph editing apps on the Apple App Store, you are bombarded with nearly 3,000 search results, a continuously growing number. One of the most popular and wel–known image editing programs on the market today is Photoshop, which like most editing software, allows for its users to create and manipulate images. The program is extremely versatile and is used in a variety of fields such as photography, web design, graphic design, advertising, and even architecture. Photoshop is commonly used in order to enhance images by eliminating or reducing the appearance of blemishes on a photo’s subject, adding additional light sources to a photograph, sharpening a photograph’s focus, as well as adding creative elements to a photograph such as text or designs (Nelson).

Photoshop and other similar image editing programs are prominent in today’s media. Photographs of individuals are constantly being modified in order to create images that correspond with and reflect the ideology of beauty upheld in today’s society. These modified images are then dispersed in the media in a variety of forms such as magazines, television, movies, and advertisements. Photoshop helps to both maintain and reinforce society’s distorted idea of what should be considered “average” or “healthy” and, in many cases, plays a large part in determining what society considers to be beautiful, attractive, and desirable in both men and women. This issue is very much exemplified through the portrayal of celebrities in the media. Photoshop is almost always used in photographs featuring models and celebrities in order to enhance their appearance. These enhanced images are then turned into magazine covers, magazine spreads, and magazine advertisements. Photoshopped images are also a common place in other forms of everyday advertising such as catalogs, billboards, calendars, the promotion of upcoming films and new products, product packaging, book covers, album covers, television commercials, and the list goes on and on. Forms of advertisement such as these are also commonly subject to over– sexualization, which causes for even more controversy in regard to distorted and depleted body images and levels of self–acceptance.

Although Photoshop does contribute to society’s unrealistic beauty standards, it is most definitely not the only factor. The ideologies held in today’s society in relation to beauty are also at fault. The electronically enhanced images we are exposed to on a daily basis have caused for younger generation’s standards and expectations of beauty to skyrocket, leading us to cast judgment on others based on their appearance alone rather than the traits they carry beneath the surface. We parallel the worth of individuals with their attractiveness to such an extent that we constantly criticize anyone who doesn’t fit perfectly within the contorted mold society has created of beauty. Not only do we equate the worth of others to their ability to fit this mold, but we equate our own self–worth to our ability to fit within it as well, increasing our expectations while, in turn, diminishing our levels of confidence and feelings of self–acceptance. Far too often are we as individuals looking in the mirror and almost immediately identifying what we perceive to be flawed, focusing in on our “chubby thighs” or our “blotchy skin.” We look at the world around us and see images of men and women whose bodies are toned and thin, their skin lightened and blemish free, not even a single hair seeming out of place and we tell ourselves that this is beauty, that this is what we must strive to be. Despite the fact that enhanced images of models and celebrities largely contribute to the dwindling self–esteem of countless individuals, it is still incredibly common for the unedited, real–life THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 21

versions of these same models and celebrities to be scrutinized and shamed by the public. For example, in 2007, the Internet and tabloids tore former supermodel Tyra Banks apart after untouched photos of her in a bathing suit made their way into the media. Despite her professionalism and success in the modeling industry, the media boiled Banks’ self–worth down to nothing but her appearance. In doing this, we are creating a paradox of beauty in that we resent the edited images thrown at us by the media on a daily basis while still ridiculing and belittling the images that are not. You can easily walk into a store, pick up the latest issue of People magazine or any other tabloid, and find a multitude of less than flawless celebrity photographs riddled with negative and downright hurtful commentary. Negative comments like these regarding appearance draw attention to physicalities such as weight (whether it be too high or too low), skin imperfections such as acne, wrinkles, and stretch marks, and even the color and/or style of a person’s hair.   Celebrities, although they are constantly in the limelight and are repeatedly falling victim to immense amounts of judgment, are just one obvious example of the effects of the media’s negative influence on body image. Ordinary people are no exception to feeling the extreme pressures from the media and society to measure up to the increasingly high standards of beauty. In middle school, a boy in my math class told me I was fat. Although part of me was aware that he was just a middle school bully trying to impress the rest of his middle school bully friends, I still took what he said to be the truth. The negative comment stuck with me, affecting my self-image all through high school. It was the beginning of a long battle that took place between my mind and my body and, for a very long time, my mind was winning. The thoughts that had been engrained in my head from that one hurtful comment took a huge toll on my body. I started counting calories, exercising constantly, and spending hours in front of my bedroom mirror, picking out every flaw I could find, both real and imaginary. I no longer saw images the same way. I compared every girl on T.V. to myself and I couldn’t read a magazine without hating my body and myself by the end of it. I had transformed from what I would consider to be a relatively happy thirteen–year–old

girl, into a girl who literally couldn’t go ten minutes without thinking about her body and what other people saw when they looked at it. Nearly every aspect of my life changed. I pushed food around on my plate at the school lunch table and family dinners in order to make it appear as though I was eating. I would spend hours in front of the mirror trying to find clothing that I felt could sufficiently hide my flaws and was usually lying on my bed in tears by the time I had finally chosen something. No matter how much weight I lost, when I looked at myself, all I saw were imperfections. Losing weight became an addiction that I could never seem to satisfy. I lost so much weight that I became weak and sickly looking. My skin was rough and pale and my hair was thin and lifeless. My fingers and toes turned purple, my eyes sunk into my face, and the lack of fat protecting my bones caused for me to be covered in bruises. My personality drastically changed as well. I cut ties with my friends and kept mostly to myself. All of my time and effort was poured into my eating disorder and nothing else. Needless to say, people started to notice that I was changing, both physically and mentally, and they started to worry. My teachers called my parents, who were already trying desperately to save me from myself. My old friends did everything in their power to try and find out what exactly was going on with me. Everyone’s efforts to help only frustrated me and caused me to push them away even more than I already had. I walked into math class one morning and was yelled at from across the room. The same boy who had called me fat months earlier told me to “f*cking eat something,” because “I looked like a bag of bones.” This negative comment didn’t hurt me the way the first one had. I realize now that this was most likely due to the fact that the images and attitudes I had grown up with portrayed being thin as desirable, while everything else was portrayed as just the opposite.   I am not, by any means, trying to say that actions like taking advantage of the filters available on social media, editing photographs, or reading tabloid magazines are wrong. I mean, come on, who doesn’t love using a good Instagram filter or catching up on the latest celebrity gossip every now and then? I certainly do. The point I am trying to make is this: When you’re walking down the street or flipping through a magazine and you see an advertisement

Works Cited Bennett, Shea. “The Year of the Selfie—Statistics, Facts and Figures.” SocialTimes. SocialTimes, 19 Mar. 2014. Web. 1 Oct. 2015.  Nelson, Felicia. “Careers That Use Photoshop.” The Hous ton Chronicle. Demand Media, 2015. Web. 01 Oct. 2015. “Selfie.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, Aug. 2013. Web. 01 Oct. 2015.

)

featuring a beautiful young model who is seemingly flawless, don’t be discouraged. Keep in mind that this image has almost definitely been electronically enhanced. Remember that no one is flawless and that the only real standards of beauty are the ones we create for ourselves. Excuse the cliché, but beauty really does come in all shapes and sizes. Next time you look in the mirror, take back control. Instead of immediately locating the things about yourself that you wish you could change, pinpoint the things that you really like, the things that you’re proud of. Spend more time focusing on the aspects of your personality that make you who you are and less time focusing on your outward appearance. Take a selfie, and when you post it to Facebook or Instagram, don’t focus on what you dislike about the photo, focus on why you took it in the first place Was your makeup on point? Were you really feeling your outfit? Did you just feel pretty and wanted to share it with your friends? Good! Don’t lose sight of those feelings. Don’t let them be outshined by the filters and the “likes” and the comments. Take a selfie, not for the attention and not for the critique, but as a celebration of yourself. The way we look on the outside is not what defines us. Who we are on the inside defines us. Maybe we can’t single handedly change the way the media and society perceive beauty, but we can most definitely change the way we, as individuals, perceive our own bodies and self–worth. If you want to lose some weight or change your hairstyle, go for it, but don’t change aspects of yourself because society makes you feel as though you have to in order to matter. If you want to work on yourself, do so because it really is what you want, not because it’s what you think is required of you in order to be considered important. •

(

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 23

Politics in a Modern Age: Twitter, the Hashtag, and Politicians on Social Media By Stephanie Todd

n 1994, the world first experienced the Internet. People all over could access online accounts, play games, and keep in contact; they had the world at their fingertips. Fast forward ten years and we see the introduction of social networking: Myspace was released in 2003, Facebook in 2004, and Twitter in 2006. Now, not only can we access documents, read the news, and see what our friends are up to, but we can communicate at the highest speed. Social networking may have started as a way to post status updates and share pictures, but it has become so much more. Actors share news about their new movies, authors talk about their upcoming books, musicians thank their fans for buying their new albums, and our politicians share their platforms on current issues and campaigns. Our members of Congress, the Senate, and even the President have media outlets, that of Twitter especially, that allow them to share what they are working on and whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on their mind, as well as to be in seemingly close contact with their constituents. However, the ease of Twitter and the expansiveness of the Internet make what our politicians share controversial. Do we like what they are saying? Do we believe them? Should we use our own social media to fight back? Politics have been complicated since the beginning of time, and the introduction of social media like Twitter made them even more so. â&#x20AC;&#x192; We have all grown accustomed to the good old days of social media, back when we used aol, MySpace, and even Facebook, 24

which is starting to grow old. But what makes Twitter so different from the rest? And who can fit everything they want to say in 140 characters? Twitter was created on March 21st, 2006. Originally a platform for people to follow their favorite celebrities, it is now a platform for people to post their every thought, read the every thought of whomever they follow (which is simply limited to anyone in the world), and respond to the tweets they read. The fame brought to Twitter is in how it differs from the other social media out there. It features the typical social media items: statuses, instant messaging, and posting pictures, but it is different in that it is the home of news updates, media secrets, and marketing. The About Technology website explains that, “Twitter...is many different things to many different people. It can be used by a family to keep in touch, or a company to coordinate business, or the media to keep people informed or a writer to build up a fan base” (Nations). Any Twitter user can go on the app and immediately post their thoughts, and see what their favorite stars are thinking, but they can also see sports game updates, current events, stock market postings, and essentially anything going on in the world. Another defining factor that makes Twitter different from other social networking sites is its use of hashtags (until Facebook took it on in 2013). By using hashtags, Twitter users allow anyone searching for a specific word to hunt down their tweets, and anyone using a hashtag adds their tweet into a folder of millions of

other tweets using the same word. Entire social movements have been built around the hashtag: #LoveIsLove used after same-sex marriage was passed, #ICantBreathe used after the death of Eric Garner in nyc, and #YesAllMen used to promote women’s rights and the need for sexual assault education. The introduction of a social media site like Twitter means that politicians can post as often as they like and be in touch with their constituents. “Twitter has enabled direct communication between politicians and, well, the rest of the world” (Sullivan). Politicians can talk about their policies, retweet their peers who have similar policies, and see the people’s response. No other social media platform exists that brings them this close to the people. Politicians, however, don’t just tweet about politics. They tweet about their lives, their friends, their families, the parties they are attending, and even the new car they just bought. New York State Senator Kirsten Gillibrand shows support for her people, tweeting “Congratulations to all the @macfound Genius Grant recipients, including so many incredibly talented #NY’ers” while Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren tweets about her travels, saying “Had a great visit in Worcester today at Technocopia, a fascinating non-profit robotics incubator,” (Gillibrand; Warren). But politicians don’t only tweet about themselves and their policies. Like us, they tweet each other. While Gillibrand and Warren, who are close friends, often tweet kind messages to each other, other politicians tend to call each othTHE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 25

er out. One of the more famous Twitter feuds by politicians is the 2014 Twitter argument between Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. In discussing their views on foreign policy, Senator Paul called Rubio “an isolationist...who wants to build a moat,” while Rubio responded claiming that Senator Paul was acting like the “chief cheerleader for President Obama’s foreign policy” ( John). The matter of the fact is that while politicians can effectively use the app to talk about their work in the government, they can also use it to start fights with their coworkers-fights to which the people have easy access. Twitter is short, simple, and to the point, making it easy for politicians to use and for their constituents to access. “For campaigns and elected officials, Twitter’s been a way to connect directly with constituents and other interested observers, circumventing traditional media” (Sullivan). A politician can post their newest plan for an upcoming vote and then read the responses of their constituents, therefore building their platform and getting a better idea of what they want to push going into the next vote. Having an active Twitter account does more for a politician than just connect them to people - it makes them connect to people who would be unlikely to connect with them in another setting. The majority of people who call in to their congressman or their state senator are the people on Twitter. About 50% of Twitter users are between the ages of 18 and 30 (“Twitter: U.S. User Age Distribution 2015”). As we saw during this past year’s midterm elections, the younger generation of voters simply does not share the amount of political interest that older voters do. The lack of voter turnout was immense, and caused a huge loss to the Democratic Party. Because the majority of Twitter users are of the younger generation, politicians can reach out to a new demographic of people; the ones they aren’t meeting at rallies or receiving letters from. We’ve all heard the warning: once something is on the Internet, it’s there for good. While many politicians use Twitter to share what projects they are working on, others may use it to tweet about their opposing party members and decisions they disagree with. In some part, this is to reach out to their constituents, but passive-aggressive tweets (or just aggressive in Donald Trump’s case) can shine a bad light upon the people posting them. In April, Re26

publican presidential candidate Donald Trump came under fire for an offensive tweet posted about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He stated, “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America” (Garvey). After immediate backlash, Trump deleted the tweet, but Twitter users all over the world had already seen the post, agreeing that the “tweet crossed a line with quite a few followers leading to the backtracking” (Garvey). The tweet had been saved by other users, many reminding him that though he deleted the tweet, it was not gone. Incidents like this can get politicians in trouble. Even in scenarios where a post was a mistake, as Trump claimed that his was posted by an intern and not himself, the tweet is still out there for the world to see. Twitter is a great platform for politicians to promote their campaigns and ideas, but the problem with social media is that posts can be read the wrong way, and that some people may get carried away, posting messages that will hurt them in the long run. Some politicians have yet to hop on the Twitter bandwagon, while others have fully embraced the Internet. Perhaps the biggest Twitter moment for a politician on Twitter was this past May when President Obama finally joined Twitter as @potus. His first tweet, which read “Hello, Twitter! It’s Barack. Really! Six years in, they’re finally giving me my own account,” received over 420K favorites and over 290K retweets; however, since then he has posted less than 150 tweets. Other Twitter-happy politicians include Michelle Obama with 4.6 million followers, Arnold Schwarzenegger with 2.9 million followers, and Al Gore with 2.7 million followers (Shear; Ang). The introduction of the Internet and the ease of social media make it possible for everyone around the world to have access to anyone online. Celebrities have used this opportunity to endorse themselves and their projects, and politicians have used it to share their ideas and get feedback from constituents. Though it helps them get closer to the people, it can also hurt them if they aren’t careful with what they say. But hey, don’t take my word for it, start your own Twitter account (if you’re crazy enough to not have one already) and follow some of your favorite politicians. • THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 27

Works Cited Ang, Sarah. “15 Most-Followed Politicians on Twitter.” Mashable. 4 July 2013. Web. Garvey, Marianne. “Donald Trump Deletes a Hil of a Tweet.” NY Daily News. 15 Apr. 2015. Web. Gillibrand, Kirsten. (@SenGillibrand). “Congratulations to all the @macfound Genius Grant recipients, including so many in credibly talented #NY’ers!” September 29, 2015, 12:43pm. Tweet. John, Arit. “The Best Political Twitter Fights of 2014.”Bloomberg. com. Bloomberg, 28 Dec. 2014. Web. Nations, Daniel. “What Is Twitter? Find Out.” About Tech. Web Trends, 2015. Web. Shear, Michael. “Six Years In, Obama Joins Twitter Universe.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 18 May 2015. Web. Sullivan, Sean. “What Twitter Has Meant for Politics (and What It Hasn’t).” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 21 Mar. 2013. Web. “Twitter: U.S. User Age Distribution 2015 | Statistic.”Statista. The Statistics Portal, 2015. Web. Warren, Elizabeth. (@SenWarren). “Had a great visit in Worcester today at Technocopia, a fascinating non-profit robotics incuba tor.” June 29, 2015, 10:55am. Tweet.

#IRL A conversation with

Zach Tripsas By Missy Brewer

ashtags function in many different ways in our world, from activism to self-expression to social media participation. In an attempt to combine all of these aspects, the staff of The Sycamore decided to participate in this semester’s Senior Auction. All proceeds from the auction went to the Class of 2016 and these funds will continue to help them finance various events throughout the year. The buyer got a feature in this issue. So by doing this we became a little active in a fundraiser on campus, we gave a student the opportunity to voice their opinion, and in the interview we would gain some insight into social media. See how it all tied together as if we had planned it from the beginning? Exactly. Well, someone actually bought our little offering, one Zachary Tripsas, Class of 2016, and Psychology Major with a Double Minor in Secondary Education and Theatre (he’s a pretty impressive guy, we know). A month goes by after Zach wins the feature, during which he plays a lead role in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, attends meetings for the many committees on which he is a member, works as the treasurer of the Class of 2016, gives countless campus tours to prospective students, and works tirelessly on his Senior Thesis. We had yet to schedule a time for the interview, as both of our free time kept slipping away. One day, he happens to sit down with me at a table in the Learning Commons, and I go through an internal debate on whether I should ask him to do the feature right now, afraid that I would interrupt one (or two or three) of the many, many things I know he does. But we worked closely in Midsummer together, so how could he say no, right? After I ask he, of course, smiles (if you know Zach he is usually smiling), and says “Yeah, no problem! As long as I can eat my Lunchables™ while we talk, I’m good.” And so he munches on his tiny cracker sandwiches, and we chat about the hashtag. THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 29

"So, it is a way of making a connection as well."

Missy: How often are you on social media? Zach: Um, every day. I don’t know how many times a day (laughs). M: What social media do you use? What is your favorite platform? Z: Instagram, Facebook. I use Pinterest every hot second. M: And do you use hashtags on those? Z: Yes, especially Instagram. M: How do you use them? Z: Usually as just, like, a way to sum up the picture or to kind of, I don’t know, just add something to it. M: Can you clarify that more? What does it add to it? Z: I guess it just adds, like, an overall mood. An overall thing to say about the picture, or an overall emotion or impression. M: On Instagram and other social media you can search hashtags, do you ever use that? Do you find it helpful? Z: Yeah, sometimes. M: Do you use it a lot? Z: Not a lot, a lot, but I don’t know. I like to look up a lot of—this is going to sound weird—but body builders and guys who like to work out. And I’ll search hashtags they use on their pictures or things like that. Or I’ve also been into jewelry, like stones and gemstones, so I’ll search those on Instagram too. M: Are there any favorite hashtags that you have? Anything that you hashtag a lot? Z: I don’t hashtag it, but #meow. I’ve always done that. M:Do you say hashtags in your speech? Like as a colloquialism? Z: Laughs. Yeah, yeah I do. Like I said, it kind of adds something to what you just said. It’s weird. Meghan and I have #mtzt, it’s our initials together put in a hashtag, but, like why? M: Oh, yeah, that’s cute. That’s really cute. Z: Yeah, like #ZT, or #ZTwasted was a thing about me. Hashtags have, like, even when I was in high school they were always kind of a thing. You would say #something something something. M: Oh really? That’s interesting, because I didn’t really hear them that much in high school. Z: Yeah for some reason, my high school was very social media-heavy. It was a huge thing. Everyone had Twitter and Instagram. M: Where did you go to high school? Z: Hunter-Tannersville. This little high school just south of Alba-

ny. But I don’t know why everyone was so social media influenced. M: Very interesting. So, in thinking about hashtags today and social media today, there is almost a divide between people of our generation who like it and use social media, and then some people in older generations who look down on social media and on people who use it. Do you have any thoughts on that divide and how it plays out in society, or have you seen it in daily life? Z: I guess it just depends on your experiences with it. Personally, social media has been a great thing. It’s been a way for me to reach out to people I’ve met or who I’m still in contact with and for us to keep that contact. Also a way for you to express yourself. And express your interests, what you relate to. That can all be in social media. Part of it is this generation, and that’s how I was brought into it, and that’s how I think. But I could see how people think it’s stupid, or how rather than liking a picture, they say well, why don’t you go and see it? And stuff like that. I think people see it as you’re not being active or you’re being lazy or you’re hiding behind a screen, but to other people being behind that screen is kind of like another persona. I don’t see it like that, I don’t see it in myself as that, but I know that’s how other people could perceive it. M: Yeah, you know that view. Is there a superior way to hashtag? Is there a method to hashtagging something? Z: Well, I hate when people do like, multiple multiple hashtags. M: Laughs. Like a paragraph of hashtags. Z: Personally more than five hashtags I’m like, okay you need to settle down. Especially on, like, Instagram I see it as trying to get attention, and I don’t really like that. But it’s definitely a way of putting yourself out there and making your Instagram picture or your Facebook post or Twitter post be seen. You know, if people can relate to that they’re more likely to follow you too. So, it is a way of making a connection as well. M: Nice. I like that, a way of making a connection. Well then, do you have anything you want to say about hashtags or you want to say to The Sycamore’s readers? Z: #ILoveTheSycamore• Works Cited Tripsas, Zachary (student), in discussion with the author, October 2015.

Transformation Tuesdays: The Melanin #GloUp from the Inside-Out By Taylor Babb

f I were able to communicate with a ten–year–old Taylor, I would ask her, “Where do you see yourself in the next ten years?” The chubby, long–haired, deep caramel girl from pregentrified Brooklyn would fix her crooked glasses, play with the straps from her Air Force 1s, look away from me, and say in her Chuckie Finster–like voice, “I just want to be beautiful.” If I were to ask her, “What qualifies as a beautiful woman?” she would reply “Pretty, slim, with brighter skin” followed by her favorite song at the time, “Her milkshake would bring all the boys to the yard” (Kelis) All ten–year–old Taylor wanted was a process we now call a “glo–up.” Ten years later, and I’m still struggling through the process of my personal perception of being a woman. Passing through Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter accounts that praise beautiful black women is my favorite past time, partially because my brain is on

autopilot from academic responsibilities. Most black girls around my age who tend to catch my aesthetic–seeking eyes are women who are my complexion or darker. Melanin is something I tend to praise lately, a concept that would have flustered a ten–year–old Taylor because one of her biggest issues growing up was the desire to be a couple of shades lighter. From a global standpoint, where darker skin has been socially rejected for centuries, beauty standards have progressed toward dark–skinned people claiming love for their melanin. To be quite frank, seeing hashtags like #MelaninMondays are the chicken soup for my soul. Let me clarify a misconception: Melanin Mondays are not intended to redeem a superficial façade for power. Instead, #MelaninMonday is a reclamation of a simple human right to be comfortable with yourself and a refrain from the constant reinforcement of dehumanization. Every day I look forward to social media platforms that have created a pedestal for darker people to express and claim their beauty and self–confidence. Some stories tend to be heartbreaking. Stories may include families that shunned a dark–skinned family member(s). Other stories include people bullied by other peers from a dauntingly young age. Most common stories may include discrimination in the workforce.

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 31

"It took me a while to realize that the glo-up

Their shattered voices are vocalized on a platform where they are mostly accepted and viewed as a higher power. This helps dark– skinned people, like myself, to realize that my skin is a work of art. It took me a while to realize that the glo–up begins from the inside out, and anyone who thinks or acts upon it otherwise has a void to fill. It’s hard to give someone a “textbook definition” of the term glo–up. The light–hearted phrase gained popularity from rapper Chief Keef, who uses the term (circa 2014) as someone who “necessarily grow up into an adult, but rather bloom into someone who keeps it 3hunna no matter what, which is a transformation everyone will go through” (Genius) In other words, a glo–up is the adult puberty stage where you have successfully blossomed mentally, spiritually, physically, and financially. Ever since the tmz video was released of Chief Keef owning the paparazzi after his judicial hearing using “glo–up,” the term stuck with me. The glo–up has been important in my early adult stage. Once I established the main factor of starting with the inside out, there was a lot of soul– searching that I needed [and still need to] accomplish. I realized my glo-up was delayed during my past four years in college. People I attended high school with are becoming well– rounded (in a New York City perspective) adults. On the other hand, my life was going backwards. I’m not in a place where I want to be at the moment, and the graduation countdown is slow. I know I’m not in the right environment for myself. The transition from the city to Aurora has been a rocky one, mentally. My sophomore year included a series of depression spells. What specific contributions were taking place that I needed to achieve? I became twice as angry in my upperclassmen years, when girls from my high school were way ahead of me. I always thought about the “Drake Effect,” in which the underdog was to glo–up in the best way possible, stunting on everyone who doubted his abilities. That was supposed to be me with my make–up on point, slim body, longer hair, outstanding wardrobe, embracing femininity, and being photogenic. I consistently made jokes on social networks about my pending glo–up, calling myself a “Regular Bitch,” “Not–So–Young Hawt Ebony,” and having social media bio sections incorporating my pending status of the glo–up. Although I constantly created light–hearted jokes about myself, I didn’t realize how much these jokes were negatively impacting my self–esteem, confidence, and psyche. Since I was constantly reminding myself about my uncon32

begins from the inside out"

trollable deviation from society, it resonated in my head, and resulted in my glo–up process becoming a major contributing factor to my on–going depression. My college years were creeping by, my life wasn’t where I expected it to be, and passing time on an isolated campus, I started to compare myself to other women on social media. Although it was uplifting to see women who looked like me often portrayed as goddesses, I never realized the subtle pressure I put on myself to look like them. Every day, I managed to lose sight of myself. Being upstate gave me time to reflect on myself in the past, present, and future. It took me a while to realize that not embracing my skin tone was a huge setback to my glo–up. Growing up, I failed to realize that I had problems with embracing my dark caramel skin. From avoiding the sun as a child to considering myself as a brown– skinned girl, I was playing along the thin line of being attractive and being dehumanized. I was brown enough for peers to spare humiliation, unlike other girls with darker tones. However, in middle school, I didn’t realize that my skin color was discriminated against. It wasn’t until college when my skin became a bit darker after an active summer that I started to note the changes of people calling me dark–skin. Although I’ve had this epiphany of my self– hatred in the past, I’ve realized that I’ve embraced my skin more than I ever did before. Along with the small portion of confidence I’ve gained with embracing my natural features, collectively, I came to another epiphany. People tend to look at the idea of the glo–up through a binary lens that includes a certain standard of physical and financial attributes. Even though the glo–up is supposed to have a positive outcome on the individual, was I putting so much emphasis on the glo–up that I created my own personal standard by comparing my life to others? Reflecting on this extra burden I’d created and the light–hearted jokes I made about glo’ing up, I realized that my ultimate goal in life was to be perceived as beautiful and feminine, according to the millennial standard. All of the superficial things for my physical transformation required a stable income; and that was something I needed to think about more. I’m stuck in the middle–of–nowhere, with a work–study job that pays enough to get by around here. Other jobs I had previously paid me well, but I’ve never experienced a paycheck that could pay the bills. In othTHE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 33

er words, I’m afraid of graduating college and becoming an adult with financial responsibilities. Questions in my head ranges from “Would I get a good job after graduation?” to “Would I have a good amount of money to live life comfortably?” Talking to my parents about self–esteem issues could be daunting. One day, I was annoyed and fed up that I didn’t see any progress, and expressed my annoyance to my father. In his nonchalant tone, he constantly told me one sentence throughout my rant, “Taylor, this is just temporary.” His quote has been stuck in my head since. I’ve lost sight of the bigger picture of the glo–up. Aspects that pertain to finances are something that can be handled in a year or so, once income starts rolling in. Everything happens for a reason. A temporary rut in your life isn’t a time to have a pity party. Instead, it’s a time to reflect on your inner being and make improvements. Your glo–up begins with taking care of yourself, mentally and physically. The delay in financial and physical goals was the ultimate epiphany in realizing that embracing my individual assets and personal flaws is the first step of a “glo–up.” I’ve started to find ways of being thankful and confident with what I already have. While trying to find ways to create an image for the “Future Taylor,” I lost sight of who I was: confident, carefree, fun, and explorative. How does one attain those attributes again? Simple. I stopped looking at other women as a means of a friendly comparison competition and look at them as sources of inspiration. However, that’s just the beginning. Gain your confidence

with what you already have, and you see a difference in your core values. Take care of your body, because as cliché as it sounds, you only have one. My body and skin deserve my tender love and care. That’s when I slowed down on the makeup tutorials and looked at skin care regimen videos. There’s a reason my mother and grandmother taught me skin care remedies before I learned to apply make–up to my face. There’s a reason I was taught to walk with my back straight before walking in a pair of heels. You must start with working on the foundation before creating the palace, and I am a palace in the making. The informal meaning of glo’ing up lost its touch of individuality. When people look at the idea of glo–up, they tend to perceive one specific aspect of beauty. Hashtags such as the #GloUpChallenge reinforce the idea that there’s a challenge or competition to prosper. Although most people who participate are quite younger than I am, I still sympathize with people who feel they aren’t going anywhere in their lives because of the lifestyles that are shown online. I also sympathize with people who don’t understand the real root of glo’ing–up, which pertains to caring mental health care. In order to look good, you gotta feel good. Inner transformations are far more important than the outer, and college–aged adults tend to forget that. We live in a technological age that reinforces beauty standards before personal [and financial struggles] at hand. Although I think about my beauty transformation on a daily basis, I cannot fathom leaving the house looking good with $1 in my pocket or in a bitter mood. It would be painful to come to terms

"Hashtags such as the #GloUpChallenge reinforce the idea that there's a challenge or competition to prosper."

that I was thinking about the wrong things, which is why I focus on enhancing my confidence more than anything. It is also the reason that I started something new: complimenting people on their aura instead of the surface. I feel obligated to spread the love, too. Many people are struggling with the same internal issues as I am. We’re at a lost stage in our lives when we are stressing about our future plans without taking care of ourselves, mentally. Sometimes people need the reminder that their contributions and accomplishments hold value, despite any standard social media hashtags uphold. Although it’s great to see inspiration, we must remember that our number one source of inspiration is our individuality. Glo’ing up reminds me of adult–puberty; it’s something we’re eager to see, we’ve heard about so much and we know our awkward phase is temporary. I was waiting for a physical transformation. Instead there were subtle transformations I’ve made that created an impact without me noticing. My on–going task of soul searching made me realize that my glo-up is building the inner confidence that ten–year–old Taylor wished she had. •

Works Cited Kelis. “Milkshake” Tasty. 2003. Star Trek/Arista. Audio. SabaHotFire. “Gotta Glo Up One Day” Chief Keef. Genius. Web. 9 Oct. 2015

"In order to look good, you gotta feel good. Inner transformations are far more important than the outer, and college-aged adults tend to forget that."

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 35

Sycamore Daily Vol. 15

Aurora December 4, 2015

THE MEDIA MOVEMENT IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

By CARLEY LEGG The movement for action on climate change has found new fuel and is no longer coming from just a collective of scientists and philanthropists. Around the world, billions of people are connecting through social media, makes mobilizing support for a cause easier than ever. With this weapon in their arsenal, activists are coming together to address what scientists have called the most pressing issue of our generation: climate change. If you use Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, it is likely that you have seen #ActOnClimate, #Divest, or #FossilFree in posts expressing a need for government action to mitigate the effects of climate change by reducing dependency on fossil fuels. By using social media as their platform, organizations like Act On Climate and 350.org have been able to organize large-scale demonstrations to bring environmental issues to the attention of the world’s governing bodies. Founded in 2008 by a group of college friends—–along with Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature, one of the first books on global warming for the general public—–350.org is a web-based organization with a network of more than 4,000 groups in more than 180 countries. They work in almost every country in the world on campaigns like fighting coal power plants in India, stopping the Keystone XL pipeline in the U.S., and divesting public institutions everywhere from fossil fuels. Since its emergence, 350.org has organized multiple high impact demonstrations, including the International Day of Climate 36

Action in 2009, the Global Work Party in 2010, Moving Planet in 2011, and Climate Impacts Day in 2012. 350.org was also heavily involved in organizing the People’s Climate March in 2014, one of the biggest game-changers in the movement for action against climate change. In New York City 400,000 people marched and hundreds of thousands more joined solidarity events from all over the world just days before many of the world’s leaders debated environmental action at the United Nation’s Climate Summit. One hundred heads of state and 800 business leaders were gathered at the summit and many made reference to the People’s Climate March. President Obama said, “Our citizens keep marching—–we cannot pretend we do not hear them. We have to answer the call” (Boeve ). Act On Climate, a newer organization, has organized similar events with similar results. Since its founding in 2014, Act On Climate has had 314,849 people sign their pledge to push the government to take action against climate change. On April 11th of this year 25,000 Canadian citizens marched into Quebec City to demand action from their governing bodies to reduce their dependency on oil and other fossil fuels in order to mitigate climate change (“Mass Media Coverage”). Among the protestors were environmentalists, indigenous people of Canada, students, and other activists all there to denounce the use of oil pipelines and tar sands in their country, and to promote the use of renewable energies. Though it was held in Canada, what members call the “Act On Climate March,” had a big impact in the U.S. Last year alone, the U.S. consumed 22 million barrels of oil produced in Canada. It was for this reason that, on January 28th, Act On Climate members Bruce Nayowith, Ben Bushwick, Kat Haber, Mariam Kashia, and Ed Fallon met with Angela Barranco, Associate Director for public engagement; Dan Utech, Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change; Rohan Patel, Special Assistant to the President, Deputy Director of Intergovernmental affairs, and Associate Director at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, to discuss the effects of the Act On Climate March and to bring other public concerns to the White House. “The march is bringing a moral clarity, a story, to something that is often just esoteric. It is more impactful this way,” Patel told the Act On Climate members- “At the UN Summit, the President mentioned issues: isis, Ebola, Ukraine, Syria/Middle East and he said that none will define the contours of this century as much as climate change (Notes from White House Meeting).

The reason for the impact both Act On Climate and 350.org have had in influencing government members in this way is their employment of distributed action, a way to build movements that encourages self-starting local groups. Distributed action projects the power of the movement through any given mouthpiece and gives activists a sense of belonging to a greater whole. The rise of social media over the past decade has provided activists with a larger mouthpiece than ever with which to get the word out. By using #ActOnClimate, #Divest, and others climate activism organizations can reach people willing to act in each corner of the world just by posting on Facebook or Twitter. In fact, the Act On Climate March and the People’s Climate March were organized entirely by posts on social media sites. Both in US and foreign affairs we can begin to see some of the organizations’ work pay off. “We’ve seen a 13–fold increase in solar energy, and a large increase in wind energy since President Obama first took office,” said Rohan Patel, “Appliances are now more efficient because efficiency guidelines are being pushed in industry. For example, the automobile regulations have doubled fuel efficiency” (“Notes from White House Meeting”). The President’s administration is also addressing issues at the state level, working closely to support state and local officials as they put forth plans to reduce their state’s greenhouse gas emissions, many of which are set to exceed the reduction rates the epa suggested. One major leap in the recent progress of environmental regulations under President Obama has been the President’s carbon cutting deal with China, an international agreement to reduce both countries’ carbon dioxide emissions in hopes of curbing climate change. Since the US and China are the world’s leading carbon producers—China being first, the U.S. being second-the deal is revolutionary. China has agreed for the first time to cap their carbon dioxide emissions, pledging to reduce their production by 2030 at the latest and the U.S. has committed to deep reductions by 2025. If both countries follow through with their pledges successfully, climate change will have been addressed on perhaps the largest scale possible. Most recently, President Obama has rejected the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, a significant sign of the influence of activism. “Once the grass-roots movement on the Keystone pipeline mobilized, it changed what it meant to the president,” said Douglas G. Brinkley, a historian at Rice University who writes about presidential environmental legacies. Brinkley went on to say, “It went from a routine infrastructure project to the symbol of an era” (“Obama Reject Keystone”). As environmental progress goes, grassroots movements and demonstrations have historically been most effective in inspiring change and pushing our government leaders to take action. The problem is that most movements started through social media put too much emphasis on demonstrating to promote government action and leave out the importance of individual action. While they organize to march, many activists do not discuss driving less, turning down the thermostat, and conserving electricity as a way to act on climate yourself, which is also important. It’s not enough to march for a day to demand the government acts if the protesters themselves do not . However, regardless of whether protesters remain altruistic to their cause, social media has become central to organizing events

to push government action on climate change forward. Social media has provided us with a medium in which to communicate with billions of people all over the world. Using this medium to organize for a just cause, so that our leaders hear our voices, may be the most appropriate use of social media thus far. • Works Cited Boeve, May. “350.org- 2014 Annual Report” 350.org. 350.org, February 2015. Web. 26 Oct. 2015. Liacas, Tom. “The social strategy that is super-sizing the climate movement.” Mashable.com. Mashable, 19 July 2015. Web. 5 Oct. 2015. “Massive media Coverage With One Clear Message.” Act On Climate. Act On Climate, April 2014. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. “Marchers Denounce Tar sands at major Quebec City Demonstration.” ctv News. ctv News Montreal, 11 April 2015. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. “Notes From White House Meeting 2015.” Climate March. Climate March, 28 Jan. 2015. Web. 17 Sept. 2015. “Obama Rejects Keystone Pipeline After 7 Years of Review” Huffington Post. Huffington Post, 7 Nov. 2015. Web. 8 Nov. 2015. Taylor, Lenore. “China and US Strike Deal on Carbon Cuts in Push for Global Climate Change Pact.” The Guardian.The Guardian, 12 Nov. 2014. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.

This is an ad for

THE SYCAMORE Join us for #TBT in the Dining Hall on Thursdays @ Lunch

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 37

WellsAesthetic

By Hannah Rae Taggart

83 likes WellsAesthetic #picnictable #macmillan #nature #fall #leaves #changingcolors #brick #wanderlust

WellsAesthetic

48 likes WellsAesthetic #cozy #readingspot #aer #window #naturallight #curtains #chair #howoldarethesecurtains

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015â&#x20AC;&#x192; 39

WellsAesthetic

67 likes WellsAesthetic #foodporn #wellscollege #dories #delicious #wraplife

WellsAesthetic

52 likes WellsAesthetic #wood #boathouse #weathered #cayugalake #ineedapaintjob

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015â&#x20AC;&#x192; 41

WellsAesthetic

91 likes WellsAesthetic #art #class #graffitidesk #eyes

#bird #peace #musicnote #wellscollege #foundart #altlife

WellsAesthetic

27 likes WellsAesthetic #globe #window #naturallight #nature #fall

#heat #vintage #wanderlust #travel #maps #geography #studyroom

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015â&#x20AC;&#x192; 43

#FeelinMyself: Having Sex with Your Selfie A Personal Reflection on the Anti-Wholesome, Political Alter Ego and Instagram By Carson Jordan

R I

t starts the same way every time. I put my cracked up, mistreated iPhone on the windowsill after putting it on self-timer, and then I lose myself to myself. I’ve been taking “butt selfies” for two years now, and the ritual is almost as concentrated as a dance done by muscle memory. Not many people understand what’s up with me and my butt pictures, so I’m going to try to explain to you my epiphany of self love. Some days I wake up and I’m immediately “Feelin’ Myself,” a term coined by Nicki Minaj after her huge body positive, sex positive hit featuring Beyoncé. Some days, I wake up knowing that I look like shit and I need an ego boost to get through the day. Once, in a fight with my boyfriend, he said, “You only post pictures like that so that you can get an ego boost when people like it.” After two years of thinking about it and letting it sizzle, I recently told him that yes, that’s exactly what I’m looking for, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. As Queen Nicki says in “Feelin’ Myself,” “I’m feelin’ myself, jack rabbit.” Appreciating the physical aspects of you is an excellent way of self-masturbation. I participate in a bean flick a week through Instagram. I’m not the only one, either. Social media has definitely created the space to have multiple personalities. You can be a Wholesome College Student by day on Facebook, and on Instagram you can be a Photo Vixen by night. You can be out in the professional world, like many Instagramers, and still have pictures of your ass all over the Internet. One of my personal heroes and a huge personality in the Instagram and body positive world is the amazing @trustmedaddy. You may recognize her as one of the henchwomen from Rihanna’s “Bitch Better Have My Money” music video. Recently, she posted a selfie of her in her underwear. The caption reads: I know this might be shocking to some of yall but...I actually really love my body and commenting on or questioning my weight is not a compliment..I’m perfectly happy the way I am and I’m not interested in how u feel about it so please shut the fuck up unless it’s to PayPal me some money or tell me about my ethereal beauty She perfectly states what body positivity is all about. You can love yourself without questioning from others. You can also love your-

self despite your weight. You can demand respect for your body. (And you can totally say “F**k you, Praise Me.”) The Internet is an amazing place, leaving platforms for aliases and alter egos to perform. Many people use Twitter to subtweet and let out their frustrations. Many people on our campus use Yik Yak to complain about campus problems or let out their problematic sides. My platform is Instagram. In the past two years, I’ve been influenced by amazing women (such as @buttholevegan @bostanley @shawn_galaxy @erotic_n_texas @b.r4bbit @ kittynaglas @twerksumm ) on Instagram. These women flaunt their bodies in unapologetic, heroic ways that inspire thousands of other women to do the same. Something to be said about the body positivity and sex positivity movements on the Internet is that they are completely for the purpose of owning your body, owning your sexuality, and freeing your mind of the medias negativity towards women’s bodies. It’s hard to understand after years and years of being told that your body is your body, but everyone is allowed to have their own rules about their body. It definitely took me years to even look at my body or think of my sexuality as uninhibited and completely my own. Slut shaming and body shaming aren’t limited to the typical sexuality shaming. For some reason, if you’re comfortable in your body, in your sexuality, in flaunting your body, people assume that you are sleeping around, unfaithful, or unwholesome. Loving yourself, loving how you look, and feeling sexy don’t really have anything to do with who you want to have sex with and who you want to have sex with you. As a side note, who would really want to be wholesome these days anyways? All of our media icons, social icons, fashion options, and trends are moving towards this unwholesome, rebellion of women. Look, for example, at how the media is trying to sell people our age the image of young women like Kylie Jenner. While simultaneously shaming her for how she looks and what she wears (instead of what she says or does offensively or appropriately) they’re glamourizing what she’s doing, and wanting everyone to buy into it. Normal women on Instagram may be posting #ButtSelfies and celebrating #Sundies (a Sunday tradition of photo vixens on Insta posing in their undies), but THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 45

women in the media have been being told to do the same thing since long before the days of Brittney, Christina, and the Spice Girls. Now that women are doing it in the free time by their own choice people are upset. Go figure. In the past two years I’ve gotten amazing feedback about what “I do” on Instagram. Younger girls who I’ve known through high school and middle have approached me saying that I’ve inspired them to love their bodies, or that I’ve inspired them to feel different about their bodies and how to appreciate them. Other women have given me the feedback that they could “never do that” because their boyfriends or partners wouldn’t accept them sharing themselves to the whole world. I don’t know how to feel about these statements. I’ve been in relationship for five years (Happy Anniversary, Noah!) and I have never asked for permission to share my body. This definitely came from seeing women that I look up to on Instagram not ask permission for a lot of things on social media. They’re not asking for the Internets acceptance of their bodies—they’re asking for respect. If readers have been following the recent hypocrisy of Justin Bieber’s butt selfie versus the many butt-related selfies of female celebrities, you’ll understand why women are protesting with their bodies. Over the summer, J. Biebs came out with an Instagram picture that was his backside completely exposed (Parker). The feedback he received from this photo, including comments from young Beliebers, were unfairly different to the feedback female celebrities receive when they do almost the same. Recently, the #FreeTheNipple movement has been an outlet for activism of the body, even for celebrities. Celebrities like Chrissy Teigan and Rihanna are freeing their nipples in order to make a point— women’s bodies can be shown without censorship. Last year, Teigan

posted a picture of herself with her nipple exposed on Instagram. Instagram immediately took it down due to it breaking the community standards of the app. Teigan fought back by posting the same picture with multiple filters to make it look like a classy oil painting, a pencil sketch, and a colored pencil sketch (Gawker). Rihanna pushes the same standards almost everyday, posting racy images of herself doing almost the same thing as Bieber. I think her Instagram, specifically among others, drove women to expose their bodies as an activism, but also as reclamation of self-love. Rihanna definitely keeps the sexual vibes flowing on social media, and she makes it almost contagious to do the same (Heyman). A woman that I follow on Instagram (@kittynalgas) summed it up perfectly: “I think it’s insane that women can post a boob, but as soon as the nipple shows it’s the end of the world. It shouldn’t be like that.” Another amazing celebrity who does a lot for the body positive and sex positive moments is Amber Rose. Amber Rose (@ amberrose) recently put out a video that was about turning the connotation of the “Walk of Shame” into a sex positive propaganda against the norm. Her video was exceedingly popular, as well as her recent outfit to the VMAs. She, along with her friend and fellow video vixen and model Black Chyna, wore outfits covered in names that are frequently used to degrade women (Bacardi). I believe that part of this was a push back to the criticism that they receive as women in the spotlight, but also part of this was an act of solidarity with women. As a woman, there is at least one word on their outfits that you can relate to. Something that I try to remind myself of daily is the concept of “Girl Power.” When I asked some of my Instagram heroes why they believed that body and sex positivity was necessary for women

"...loving my butt was the first step in th door of loving my whole self, brain inclu ed."

today, a lot of them spoke about empowerment. Instagrammer, and personal hero, @shawn_galaxy said “It’s critical for girls to support other girls.” This concept is what drives much of the Instagram community towards body positivity. I wouldn’t have started taking body positive pictures if I wasn’t inspired by women on the Internet who were doing the same, and supporting their friends to do the same. I came to the conclusion that I needed that support after a lot of years of being told that because I was bigger than a lot of my female peers, I wasn’t as good as many of them. It’s stifling to be told that your physical appearance isn’t what others want, so therefore it’s not worthwhile. Also, it pits women against each other. It didn’t feel good to dislike other women for being smaller because men told me I should look more like them. “Having amazing girls rooting for other girls on is the change I hope to see in future generations,” @shawn_galaxy continued. Wouldn’t that be nice? The best part of body positivity is when another woman tells me that they love what I’m about on Instagram. It shows me that even if they aren’t able to put themselves physically out there like I do, they are able to support a woman doing what makes her happy. Another hero of mine, @b.r.4bbit, said it perfectly, “Like I always say, if you got it and you love it, flaunt it. If they hatin’, that just means they’re noticing.” Everyone has a hater they want to notice them. My body positivity stemmed from a place of insecurity. After a particularly hard summer, and the first time I lived on my own, I started to gain weight. My weight gain could have pushed me into a very insecure, unsafe space, especially as a young woman in a world that is based on thin–centric and Euro–centric beauty values. Instead, I looked to Instagram and found value in myself, and in my butt. When I started appreciating my body is when I

found myself applying for jobs that I didn’t think I’d get, when I started finding myself and grounding myself in academics that I thought I wasn’t smart enough for. I often joke with my friends that while their self worth is based around their academics, mine is based around my butt. I don’t say this to say that I’m unintelligent or unable to be an academic. I say this because loving my butt was the first step in the door of loving my whole self, brain included. I’m not saying that the body positive community is perfect. Some days I wake up and don’t like my body. Some days I tell myself I’ll peak at 25 and therefore I have an excuse to be less hot now, more hot later. Some days I wake up and feel like #BodyPositivity on Instagram is extremely thin, extremely flat bellied, extremely white, and extremely normative. Sometimes I feel like no one out there looks like me, and therefore my survival as a bigger woman will be harder. Sometimes, I think about how I should consider women bigger than me, who might feel marginalized by my #BodyPositivity. Somedays I wake up and feel like hot shit. I wake up feeling like #IWokeUpLikeThis or #YouWishIWasYourPoundCake or even #FeelinMyself. The community that I’ve found on Instagram is extremely supportive and ready to help anyone when called on. I want to thank the women of Instagram who inspire me everyday, and who were kind enough to not only inspire this article, but contribute to it as well. •

he ud-

Works Cited Bacardi, Francesa. “Amber Rose.” EOnline. 30 Aug. 2015. Web. 20 Oct. 2015. Berman, 28 Taylor. “Chrissy Teigen Defies Instagram's Nudity Policy With Topless Photo.” Gawker. 29 June 2015. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. Heyman, Jessie. “A Brief History of Celebrities Trying to Free the Nipple.” Vogue. 30 June 2015. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. Parker Brinton. “Justin Bieber Posted a Pic of His Butt, and Twitter Lost Its Sh*t.” RSS. 11 July 2015. Web. 20 Oct. 2015. THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 47

From Swagger to wag: How the English Language Has Evolved

(

( but is essentially the same

)

By Missy Brewer

“Is’t not enough, is’t not enough, young man, / That I did never, no, nor never can/ Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye, / But that you must flout my insufficiency?/ Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do, / In such disdainful manner me to woo” (Shakespeare, II.ii.132-137). “Dude, my #mcm, Derek, never thought I was bae af, and now you’re all thirsty for me irl! Tbh you rly hurt me when you asked me to Netflix and chill.”

hose two sentences are both in English and have the same meaning. English with a 500 year difference, yes, but English all the same. The English language has radically evolved since Shakespeare, making additional stops in several eras along the way, like the Victorian (think Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë) and the early twentieth century (Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby). We have become fairly accustomed to parsing through those dated texts in order to study and understand them in English classes. We use today’s language, what we consider “normal,” as a touchstone in comparing words then to words now and translating phrases to make sense in today’s tongue. However, the above “modern” sentence might not be intelligible to many of today’s English-speakers. Some phrases are just consonants placed next to one another that would mean little to nothing out of its current societal and cultural linguistic context. Have we already started the transition into a new era of speech? Are we witnessing a jump in language so large that we can talk about it while it’s happening? Or has the evolution of language always happened like this, with it being noticed and studied by those in the current time? Language evolves with the people, adapting to what people need at that point in history. Today’s world and people are fast–paced. Some may look down upon today’s phrases and shorthand, attributing them to the laziness of their speakers or the general downfall of the English language. But if our language stayed the same as it always has been, how could we communicate in our evolving world? Speaking in Shakespeare’s archaic words and long–winded phrases would take too long, and Brontë’s proper tones would not match the more relaxed social structure we enjoy today. Technology is changing and growing to advance our worlds and broaden the possibilities of what we can do. There is no stopping the growth at this point, so we expand our language accordingly. With every invention we have to create a new vocabulary for what it is and does. We built computers and needed words for each part, for 48

the technological concepts behind it, and for the all the inventions that came out of them, like the Internet and laptops. We got one new thing, the Internet, and then wanted to figure out how we could communicate quickly and efficiently, so aol developed an instant messaging system (#throwback), and cell phone companies refined text messaging. And then we wanted to send messages to our friends and we needed to do it quickly so that no one would fall behind the latest gossip. So we developed shorthands such as the now (in)famous “omg” and “lol” to express astonishment and amusement. As aim died out (#rip) and Facebook’s instant messenger gained popularity and cell phones progressed to smartphones and iMessaging, we have developed more abbreviations to express apparently common sentiments. Our newly developed words and phrases are no longer limited to private conversations, but are used frequently on various social media platforms. Tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram captions are all littered with phrases such as “bae,” “squad” or “#squadgoals,” “nbd” (No Big Deal), “turnt,” “shade,” “rly” (really), “thirsty,” and any of the various hashtags that match a day of the week (“#wcw” for “Woman Crush Wednesday” or “#tbt” for “Throwback Thursday”). Any and all of these can come after the hashtag, a symbol that is now a common sight when someone posts on social media. Many of these words have been used so frequently and widely that various dictionaries are attempting to keep up. Even the Oxford English Dictionary (oed), the holy text of English Majors, has adopted them into its lexicon. The latest round of words was inducted into the oed in August of this year and included “mic drop,” “awesomesauce,” “nbd,” “manspreading” (the definition of which is “‘the practice whereby a man, especially one travelling on public transport, adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart, in such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or seats’”), “buthurt,” and “hangry,” which is “a blend of hungry and angry, meaning ‘bad– tempered or irritable as a result of hunger’” (“From Mic Drops").

August 2014’s induction of words was centered on social media and entertainment, which included “binge–watch” and “subtweet,” as well as “several acronyms, such as smh (shaking my head), icymi, and yolo” (“Recent Updates”). While the appearance and wide–spread usage of these words might be an indication of the English language evolving and adapting, many of these words don’t stick around. The oed may have officially accepted “yolo” as an English word that stands for “You Only Live Once” in 2014, but the word fell out of use well before that. The phrase—which interestingly echoes the sentiments of the famous Latin saying, “carpe diem,” meaning “seize the day—peaked in usage in April 2012, but sharply dropped after June of the same year and had only a brief reappearance in January 2013 before disappearing for good (Yolo). Canadian rapper Drake had popularized “yolo” in his 2011 song, “The Motto,” featuring Lil Wayne (Bucksbaum), but within two years of its inception youth culture—the age group that often popularizes the words in the first place—had dropped the phrase, seeing it as outdated as MySpace and aim, and moved on to bigger (actually probably shorter) and better words. Mainstream culture drops on to bigger (actually probably shorter) and better words. Mainstream culture drops these words because they get bored with them, too many people use them, and it gets to a point when older generations start using the word. A teen’s greatest fear is their parents using terms like "tbh” and “bae,” because then they are no longer new and exciting but are instead old and overused. Despite popular culture’s desperate clutching at new slang, most of its users have no idea from where the words and phrases come. But as white people have stolen from other cultures since before Shakespeare’s time, it may be no surprise that many of these words that are being embraced by millennials and now the oed originated in black culture, as part of African American Vernacular English (aave). yolo was not the only word quickly picked up and then

thrown away; many “black slang words often go through the cycle of being used by black people, discovered by white people, and then effectively ‘killed’ due to overuse and a general lack of understanding of how to use these words” (Blay). Dance crazes, such as “twerking” (a word accepted into the oed in June 2015 (“Recent Updates”)), have been appropriated by white celebrities, and in this case “‘twerk,’ had literally been around for over a decade before Miley Cyrus brought it to the mainstream (ie. white people)” (Blay). White people very frequently pick up black slang and use it to their pleasure until it becomes old news, and then move on to the next hottest word, which might very well also be appropriated. If “twerking” being an appropriation of aave did surprise you and made you rethink your usage of the word (or doing of the action), then here are some other phrases that have been engulfed in “mainstream” culture without any acknowledgements of their origins: “bae” (used as early as 2013 in aave), “ratchet,” “squad” (no, T–Swift was not the first), “fleek,” “yassss” (originating in lgbt and drag communities as well), “basic” (no, not starting with PSLs and white girls), and “turn up” (early uses of which were in an Atlanta-based rap group in 2010) (Blay). Many of these words will never escape the depths of white culture again, within black culture for years. Wrapped up in the strangeness of the English language developing as we watch and many phrases being appropriated from aave and subsequently tossed out after high–intensity use is the generational divide between millennials and older adults. Many of these adults are parents of teens and twenty–somethings who use these phrases regularly, in both their text and speech. Parents have apparently decided to take advantage of the same technology that is changing how their kids speak and are making websites such as “teens.lovetoknow.com” to share knowledge about their teens’ lifestyles, featuring articles like “What Jobs are Open for 16 Year Olds,” “What is an Appropriate Monetary Graduation Gift,” and “Questions About Kissing.” One article in particular, Lori Soard’s THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 49

“Teen Slang” details the words and phrases that teens are using, and even has a specific section on words for which parents should look out. She created a translator for the words she believes are popular among teens, which include ones that I have already mentioned in this article, such as “hangry,” “squad,” and “yaass,” but also include ones that I have never heard of—“boots,” “fubb,” and “snatched” (which has given me a small existential crisis in thinking that I am no longer hip with the youth’s slang). Soard tells parents to look out for phrases such as “turnt up,” “Molly,” and “Netflix and Chill,” which respectively carry implications of drinking, drugs, and sex. Of course parents should look out for their kids and this article could be helpful in making sure that their teens are staying safe, but it also indicates the disconnect between generations. This disconnect isn’t a new one in our world; every generation of teens has had their own slang that older adults don’t understand. But the millennials have created a virtual spread of slang so popular it is being incorporated into English–language dictionaries. Older people may not understand the new slang—Soard’s “turnt up” is a strange 50

mixture of “turn up” and “turnt”—and may even harshly judge the younger generations for using the slang. They often argue that today’s young adults are changing the English language for the worst, shortening words and thereby losing the meaning of those words, and creating new ones to encompass all of the scary new concepts of today’s culture. Because many of the words come from aave, there is the question of whether or not these—white—older generations fear the language because it comes from black communities, and, indicating that the adults are riddled with prejudice and racism. In any case, adults—even “young” adults in their late–20s and early–30s who feel unconnected with youth culture today—are convinced that the integrity of American society is slipping because of how shortened the vocabulary is, but what they perhaps ignore is that this is the natural progression of language. Shakespeare was a wordsmith. He did, essentially, what young people, specifically young black people, are doing today, in creating new words and phrases and circulating them within the larger population. Shakespeare is deeply rooted in the Western literary canon because of his comedies, dramas, and histories that walk an elegant line between poetry and prose. The canon is often criticized for its rigid rules, overabundance of dead, white men, and exclusion of women and people of color. I’ve often looked upon it with disdain because I’m tired of dead guys telling me what the world is and want some different voices in literature, but Shakespeare gets to me. He might be one of the most overused playwrights in Western society, but his use of language is incredibly beautiful. He is in the canon primarily because his plays and poetry are major touchstones for the trajectory of Western literature, but he also created hundreds of words that have been in the English language since, a rather un-canon-like move. Common terms such as “obscene” (Love’s Labours Lost), “epileptic” (King Lear), “assassination” (Macbeth), “fashionable” (Troilus and Cressida), “uncomfortable” (Romeo and Juliet), and “mimic” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) were all first recorded in these various works, if not completely invented by Shakespeare for the plays (Lewis). Phrases that Shakespeare created and have since been normalized were summed up nicely in one quote from Bernard Levin, a famous English journalist, but becau

“But the millennials have created a virtual spread of slang so popular it is being incorporated into English-language dictionaries.

se the quote is extraordinarily long, here are just a few of the phrases: “it’s Greek to me,” “for goodness’ sake,” seen better days,” “good riddance,” “without rhyme or reason,” and “tongue–tied” (“Wherefore Shakespeare”). Perhaps, most surprisingly, Shakespeare is the reason much of youth culture uses the word, “swag,” a word used in hip-hop and rap for years that generally denotes an air of coolness (Gandhi). This word is considered part of the new-age slang, yet it first appeared in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and then in King Henry IV, Part 2 as “swagger” (Gandhi) to imply arrogance and sometimes drunkenness. The meaning, then, has not shifted all that dramatically. The English language not only develops brand new words and phrases, but recycles and reuses them. We don’t know exactly why Shakespeare made these words, but perhaps he wanted a new vocabulary because the one he had couldn’t express what he wanted to express. Perhaps he did it just because he could. Or maybe someone asked him to create new words. For whatever reason, he did it and now we use his words. So who is to say that today’s slang won’t be the normal vocabulary a few decades from now? Language is a beautiful thing, and as we watch it develop, perhaps we should reserve judgement on its evolution. •

”

Works Cited Blay, Zeba. "12 Words Black People Invented, And White People Killed." Huffingtonpost.com. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 Aug. 2015. Web. 10 Nov. 2015. Bucksbaum, Sydney. "A 'yolo' History Lesson: Drake's Slogan Dates Back to the 1700s." Hollywood.com. Hollywood.com, 26 Dec. 2012. Web. 12 Nov. 2015. "From Mic Drops to Manspreading: An Oxford Dictionaries Up date." OxfordWordsblog. Oxford University Press, 27 Aug. 2015. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. Gandhi, Lakshmi. "What Do Jay Z And Shakespeare Have In Common? Swagger." npr.org. npr, 17 Mar. 2014. Web. 10 Nov. 2015. Lewis, Luke. "40 Words You Can Trace Back To William Shake speare." BuzzFeed.com. Buzzfeed, 23 Apr. 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2015. "Recent Updates to Oxford Dictionaries." OxfordDictionaries. com. Oxford University Press. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ed. Bar bara A. Mowat and Paul Webstine. New York: Simon & Schus ter Paperbacks, 2009. Print. Soard, Lori. "Teen Slang." LoveToKnow.com. LoveToKnow. Web. 8 Nov. 2015. "Wherefore Shakespeare." Shakespearience.ca. Shakespearience. Web. 10 Nov. 2015. "Yolo—Interest Over Time." Google Trends. Google. Web. 12 Nov. 2015. THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 51

History of the Hashtag by Michelle Lee

Left, from the pen of Isaac Newton; right, detail from Johann Conrad Barchusen’s “Pyrosophia” (1698). Courtesy the Othmer Library of Chemical History, Chemical Heritage Foundation. (Houston)

ometime in the fourteenth century, the Latin abbreviation “lb” for the Roman term libra pondo,” translated to “pound weight,” was introduced to the world (Houston). With a horizontal bar added to the top “lb” turned into something closer to our “#.” In the 1960s, Bell Labs used it in their Touch Tone telephone keypad, now standard on all phones. They chose the pound sign to act as a catch-all of sorts, and occasionally referred to it as “octothorpe” (Brown). The first use of it on Twitter was by former Google developer Chris Messina in his 2007 tweet “how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?” He says that he “chose the # symbol because it was an easy keyboard character to reach on his 2007 Nokia feature phone and other techies were already using it in other internet chat systems” (Brown). Funny how this arbitrary choice made by Bell Labs and then Messina forty years later has made such an impact. Fellow techie Stow Boyd suggested calling the symbol a “hashtag” in his article “Hash Tags = Twitter Groupings.” As defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, the noun “hashtag” is “(on social media websites and applications) a word or phrase preceded by a hash and used to identify messages relating to a specific topic; (also) the hash symbol itself, when used in this way” (“hash, n.3.”). • Works Cited Brown, Heather. “Good Question: How Did the Pound Sign Become a Hastag?” cbs Minnesota. 7 Nov 2013. Web. 5 Nov. 2015 “hash, n.3.” oed Online. Oxford University Press, September 2015. Web. 8 Nov 2015. Houston, Keith. “The Ancient Roots of Punctuation.” The New Yorker. 6 Sept. 2013. Web. 5. Nov 2015. Messina, Chris (chrismessina). “how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?” 23 Aug. 2007, 3:25 p.m. Tweet.

Generation Activism: An Analysis of Social Media and Grassroots Organizing By Mya Padilla

n the generations before ours, activism was a necessary part of society in which hundreds of thousands of people found themselves gathering to find justice, as the fate of America changed right before their eyes. The Civil Rights Movement, Anti–War Movement, and the Women’s Rights Movement’s success depended on the participation of all people within a community banning together in order to enact change. This type of communal involvement is known as grassroots activism. Activists had to rely on physical turnouts to events such as marches and sit–ins to validate their voices to an audience who did not particularly understand their struggles. Now, we possess what has the potential to be the most powerful tool that no social movement has ever had before in history—social media. Like any other new tool, we have to use trial and error before we use social media as

effectively as possible, especially to make sure that it is not working against us. According to the Dictionary of Alternatives, “[Grassroots movements] are committed to direct action as a means of bringing change, and direct action already constitutes part of social change towards greater citizens’ participation in, and control over, the construction of their lives and communities.” What I am interested in finding is whether or not we can use social media to insight “direct action” rather than a direct diversion, which makes a movement’s purpose blurred or unclear. Many young activists cannot imagine grassroots organizing without the use of social media, although some of the most powerful movements relied solely on local involvement, demonstrations, and word of mouth. El Salvador was in the midst of a brutal civil war during 1977–1992. Many of the El Salvadoran people were kidnapped, tortured, raped, murdered, or simply “disappeared,” never to be heard from again. It was a time of terror, a time of silenced voices. Eventually a grassroots women’s organization Committee of Mothers and Relatives of Political Prisoners, Disappeared, and Association of El Salvador (co–madres) began with only nine mothers, which grew to include members from different social classes and professions. Even without the use of social media co– madres were able to draw a massive following that focused on helping those who endured the torture of the government (Guest). THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 53

One of the main reasons behind co–madres’s success were the women who refused to silence their voices, refused to bow to a violent government, and appealed to the hearts of El Salvadorians. These women told their stories in ways that captivated a nation because it resonated with all of the citizens and encouraged them to enact change in their country. co–madres was able to make such a powerful impact because their stories were fueled by a nation’s commitment to take back its power. The most effective way to enact change is to make an effort to incorporate your movement into your everyday life in a consistent and clear way that makes your actions meaningful and purposeful to an onlooker and your movement. Activism very much has to be active in the sense that a person must be constantly reflecting on their decisions and how that may help their movement’s agenda. Ian Maxey, who taught in the Department of Geography at the University of Wales, believed that activism was “the process of reflecting and acting upon the social world that is produced through everyday acts and thoughts in which all people engage.” Grassroots activism’s use of social media as a helping hand has become controversial in whether or not it actually helps a cause. As social media activism rises in popularity, is it taking away an average person’s likelihood to participate in physical events? Or will the person continue hitting the “like” button and scrolling onto the next cat video? In the article “Social Media For Social Change: Social Media Political Efficacy And Activism In Student Activist Groups,” journalists Alcides Velasquez and Robert LaRose discuss the process of someone participating in social media activism saying, “there might be individuals that believe in their capabilities to use social media for political purposes, but feel they do not have what is needed to participate in a different context (e.g., offline).” When we interact with the Internet, more often than not, we are our most refined versions of ourselves socially and politically. We feel confident because we have the opportunity to rehearse and reformulate all that we want to communicate. When people make political statements online—although they may feel very confident—they may not take any action beyond their Facebook page because they may not feel as confident in their ability to insight change in the physical world. Social media has the ability to expend users’ “political muse” on posting. This possibility makes it hard for grassroots activism to coexist with social media, since users may relieve their political tensions but may not make any further actions, leaving grassroots movements without the numbers they need to incite direct change. During early protests our ability to share experiences were not limited by a pesky 140–character word limit, rather it was sought out, told in small groups, and spread like wildfire. As social media takes over our ways of communication, we need to address the fact that the way we convey emotions and tell our stories is changing. During his ted Talk, Adventures of Twitter Fiction, Andrew Fitzgerald, a Twitter employee, discussed the ways that social media has changed our traditional storytelling. He explains that when a 54

new communication platform is introduced, it inherently changes the style and the way that we interact with narratives. Our personal narratives are molding to the newest mediums of social media, and, as an audience, there is an adjustment period. It is this adjustment period that is worrisome, as this new storytelling may not be as effective as its predecessors and may leave many stories unheard. Storytelling is a major part of a political movement’s success, and it is still trying to find its place within social media. How does this new way of storytelling have on the impact on an individual’s personal experience? When we read about a tragedy more often than not we experience the Cliff Notes version of an event, we only have the details that sell an interesting story: the who, what, and where. Rarely ever do we have the opportunity to explore the “why” in a scenario, and the missing information is the vital piece that people need to connect to a singular experience to a larger and more recurrent issue within our society. Merlyna Lim explores the abandonment of the “why” in her study, “Many Clicks But Little Sticks: Social Media Activism In Indonesia” explaining that, “the escalation of velocity and size of information combined with the rapidity and briefness of interaction make social media more hospitable to simple and/or simplified narratives than complex/complicated ones.” When we lose the impact of personal experience through social media users are not inspired to do anything beyond sharing a post or giving it a “like.” The act of telling a story loses its value as stories continue to lose touch with their storytellers. When we cannot find the human aspect to an event, it is as if this event has not happened to real life people. As Social media’s audience grows, mainstream media takes cues from trends and popular viewings as a way to gather a larger viewing audience. If people were to use social media as a way to pressure mainstream media to not just cover the stories of injustice, but also to elaborate on them in a greater and more meaningful way, we may see a larger impact. Lim elaborates on the idea of social media as a system of control, “because social media is embedded in systems of control, power and domination in the larger media system, issues and interests that dominate mainstream media also influence social media activism. The success of social media activism is dependent on its congruency with the mainstream media culture.” Mainstream media tells the stories that generate the most money, and therefore there are many important stories that are being overlooked as a sort of “business decision.” The news is becoming less about reporting a holistic view of an event and more about the blood and the gore. The problem with this is that as viewers grow more accustomed to seeing gruesome details of a tragedy, the audience becomes more desensitized to the material. Activists now depend on social media to act as a platform of news that not only focuses on the “scary” details of the news, but that also uses the news as a way to connect individual’s stories to a larger narrative of social stratification and injustice. Social media allows activists to amplify their voices In his article, “The Power of Black Lives Matters,” journalist Darryl Wellington points out that, “because of THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 55

‘Facebook activism,’ information about the killing of Mike Brown spread like wildfire, alongside stories and facts about Black life in Ferguson.” We have the opportunity and the power to use the social media platform in a way that can give a voice to the previously unheard, to empower those who thought they would never have the opportunity to share their experiences. We have the opportunity, now more than ever, to use our resources to even the playing field. If we can find a balance between a rapid spread of news and the human connection of storytelling, our generation will have a better chance of creating long lasting change. As our generation finds our rightful place in history, we need to ask ourselves: how will we bring justice to our time? We must refuse to accept failure. We will we fight against the forces of inequality demanding justice, demanding to be heard, demanding to be remembered. Tell our #stories. •

Works Cited Fitzgerald, Andrew. “'Adventures in Twitter Fiction'” Andrew Fitzgerald: Adventures in Twitter Fiction. TED Talks, 2013. Web. 8 Oct. 2015. “Grassroots.” The Dictionary of Alternatives. Martin Parker, Valerie Fournier, and Patrick Reedy. London: Zed Books, 2007 Credo Reference. Web. 20 Sep 2015. Guest, Kenneth J. “Gender.” Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age. W. W. Norton, 2013. 299–301. Print. Maxey, Ian. “Beyond Boundaries? Activism, Academia, Reflexivity and Research.” 13 May 1999. Web. 5 Oct. 2015. Lim, Merlyna. “Many Clicks But Little Sticks: Social Media Activism In Indonesia.” Journal Of Contemporary Asia 43.4 (2013): 636–657. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Sept. 2015. Lorenzo Wellington, Darryl. “The Power Of Black Lives Matter.” Crisis (15591573) (2015): 18–23. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Sept. 2015. Velasquez, Alcides, and Robert LaRose. “Social Media For Social Change: Social Media Political Efficacy And Activism In Stu dent Activist Groups.” Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 59.3 (2015): 456–474. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.

Come as You Are

By Gabrielle Uhrig

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 57

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 59

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 61

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 63

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 65

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 67

We Want To Believe An Examination of America'â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Belief in Conspiracy Theories and the Supernatural By Lucas Wentworth

b ” . E ER

S I H RUT

H T T OU

T E “TH

espite the countless attempts to debunk and dissuade, a vast number of everyday Americans continue to hold strong and true to their belief in things that many others have dubbed “conspiracy theories.” In this modern, high-tech era it has become easier than ever to connect with others to share and discuss these theories. In a quick Google search exists a flood of thought-out claims of government cover-ups, secrets, and alleged ufo and Bigfoot sightings. Such intense questioning and debate, found both online and in other media like television, is very reflective of America’s curiosity regarding the unknown and strange. But what drives the belief in the supernatural or conspiracy theories? An evaluation of what kind of people believers are and where exactly these theories stem from reveals that, in some cases, these people should not be cast away and laughed at so quickly. In 2013, The Public Policy Polling (ppp) released the results of a national survey that took a close look at common conspiracy theories and exactly who believed in what. Between March 27th and 30th, 1,247 registered American voters were surveyed and asked for their input on a number of theories. The survey broke down the percentages of people who believed in each theory and then made note of whom they voted for in the 2012 election, what their registered political party was, how liberal or conservative they rated themselves, and their gender, race, and general age group. The margin of error for the overall sample is +/-2.8% and their results are fascinating ( Jensen).

ALIENS AND ROSWELL

Stories and claims of unidentified flying object (ufo) sightings and abductions by extraterrestrial beings are abundant. Twenty nine percent of the voters in the survey reported that they firmly believe that aliens exist. If this statistic were presented on a macro–level, magnified to represent how many people out of the total American population believe, it would come out to about 91,035,072 people ( Jensen)! By far, one of the most specific and infamous examples of aliens and ufo sightings is the Roswell incident of 1947. Many people have heard of the suspected crash but very few know the details of this interesting case. One morning in July of 1947, just outside the town of Roswell, New Mexico, a rancher named Mac Brazel made an unusual find in his sheep pasture: a large amount of unidentifiable debris scattered across the area. Brazel took some of the debris and showed it to friends and neighbors; however, unable to identify the strange objects, he called Roswell’s sheriff. The sheriff called officials at the nearby Roswell Army Air Force base. Before Brazel knew it, soldiers had arrived, fanning out across his field, gathering the mysterious debris, and whisking it away in armored trucks under the guise that the wreckage may have been connected with military operations. Later, a press release stating that the wreckage of a crashed disk had been recovered was put out; however, this was quickly rescinded by another press release that said there had been a case of incorrect identification. The military now claimed that a simple weather balloon and its radar reflector had crashed in Brazel’s pasture. Thirty two years later, in 1979, a man named Jesse Marcel spoke up regarding his role in the retrieval efforts. Marcel stated, “...it [the wreckage] would not burn...that stuff weighs nothing, it’s so thin, it isn’t any thicker than the tinfoil in a pack of cigarettes. But it wouldn’t bend. We even tried making a dent in it with a 16–pound sledgehammer. And there was still no dent in it” (1947, Roswell). Officers who had been stationed at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, where the wreckage was taken at the time of the incident, have supported his claims. Marcel’s son, who had accompanied him to the wreckage sight, has also subsequently produced detailed drawings of hieroglyphic like symbols that he saw on the surface of the wreckage (1947, Roswell). THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 69

BIGFOOT

A few days prior to the recovery of the wreckage, Glenn Dennis, a mortician who worked for Ballard Funeral Homes in Roswell, received phone calls from the Mortuary Officer at the Roswell Army Air Field with whom the funeral home had a contract to provide services. He was reportedly asked about the availability of smaller than average, hermetically sealed, air–tight caskets. He was also pressed for his recommendation on how to preserve bodies that had been exposed to the elements for several days. Dennis decided to visit the Base Hospital that evening and was forcibly escorted from the base. This behavior only aroused Dennis’s curiosity and he arranged to meet a nurse from the Base Hospital the following day. The nurse told him that she had been in attendance during autopsies performed on “... several small non-human bodies...” (1947, Roswell). Dennis kept drawings of aliens that the nurse had sketched on a napkin during their meeting. This meeting was to be their last as the nurse was abruptly transferred out of the country within a few days. Virtually every other witness to the wreckage and the subsequent recovery was either transferred or seemed to disappear from the face of the earth within the next few days as well. An elaborate and deliberate government cover up was clearly taking place. Over the years, subsequent books, interviews, and articles from a number of military and government personnel who had been involved with the incident have added to the suspicions. Twenty one percent of surveyed voters believe that a ufo crashed in Roswell, New Mexico and that the government has covered it up. That’s 65,921,948 people out of the entirety of the American population ( Jenson). This case, based on these statistics, is undoubtedly one of the most suspicious; many theories of what exactly happened there are considered quite credible. Detailed statistical analysis of what kind of people, according to the survey, believe in aliens and of the Roswell crash, specifically, reveal that many of these believers, according to the survey, are white men, between the ages of 46–65 who describe themselves as politically moderate. 70

Almost every American has heard of the legendary Bigfoot, sightings of whom date as far back as the 1830s. Almost two centuries later, Bigfoot is still sought after, the pursuit kept alive by a steady stream of sightings, photos, footprint finds, and sporadic media coverage. Fourteen percent of American voters believe that Bigfoot exists, which is 43,947,966 people when presented on a macro-level. The statistical analysis of believers in Bigfoot reveal that many are very conservative white women who are between the ages of 18 and 29 ( Jensen). Most believers of Bigfoot tend to favor one theory of its origin. Many times, what one investigator sees as clear proof, another will dismiss. Regardless of which theories researchers and believers alike subscribe to about its origin, the question of Bigfoot’s existence comes down to evidence—of which there is plenty. It is important to keep in mind the fact that it is not the quantity of the evidence but the quality of it that is so important. Bigfoot evidence can be broken down into four general types: eyewitness sightings, footprints, recordings, and somatic samples (i.e. hair or blood.) Eye witness accounts comprise the bulk of evidence out there (Radford). Thousands of sightings are reported every year, mainly from Northwestern areas of North America. However, eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable because as anecdotes they are not reproducible, thus they are untestable. Because they cannot be tested, they are not falsifiable and are not part of the scientific process (Radford). Reported tracks are the most recognizable evidence. Unlike sightings, they are physical evidence, but the real question is, what are they evidence of ? In some cases, they are evidence of hoaxing. People tend to construct hoaxes, most of the time, for reasons of fame. Such hoaxes have permanently and irreparably contaminated Bigfoot research, drawing away from very credible evidence. Skeptics have long since pointed this out, and many Bigfoot researchers admit that the field is, unfortunately, rife with fraud (Radford). Probably the most famous recording of an alleged Bigfoot is the short 16 mm Patterson–Gimlin film that was taken in 1967

and named after its documenters, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin. Shot in Bluff Creek, California, it shows a Bigfoot striding through a clearing. In many ways the Patterson film is crucial; the casts made from those tracks are as close to a gold standard as one can find. Many in the Bigfoot community are adamant that the film is not—and more importantly cannot be—a hoax. Other films and photos of Bigfoot have appeared, and perhaps the best–known among them are the Wild Creek photos taken and submitted by an anonymous park ranger in 1995 near Mt. Rainier, Washington (Radford). Hair and blood samples have also been recovered from alleged Bigfoot encounters, however, the usual fate of these items is that they never receive scientific study or the documentation of a study becomes lost or unobtainable. In cases where competent analyses have been made, no determination could be made as to what it was. The biggest problem with the argument for the existence of Bigfoot is that no bones or bodies have been discovered. At some point, a Bigfoot’s luck must run out and a body will be discovered though. If Bigfoot exists, then the mystery will undoubtedly be solved soon.

THE REPTILIAN ELITE

When asked “do you believe that shape–shifting reptilian people control our world by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate our societies” 4% of American voters claimed they did. That’s 12,556,562 people if presented on a macro–level. These people were represented as mostly very conservative men between the ages of 18–29 ( Jensen). This theory was dubbed the ‘Reptilian Elite Theory’ by former bbc sports reporter David Icke. Icke became the poster for this theory in 1998 after publishing his first book, The Biggest Secret. The Biggest Secret essentially details the theory that several thousand years ago “nonhumans” came to this planet from the constellations Orion, Sirius, and Draco and mated with the humans on planet Earth. Not sexually, but through the manipulation of the human coding. Because of their superior intelligence, they were able to expand their “rule” and control this planet to this day. They have maintained their special bloodline through intermarrying

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 71

amongst themselves. Icke says they can “shape–shift” to look like human beings and that they can look like Reptilians when they’re out of the view of the public. Icke explains that this group of Reptilians has organized all religions, monarchies, school systems, sciences, media, and everything else they needed in order to control the masses. Icke provides details about these Reptilians being Satanic and performing human ritual sacrifice throughout the course of history. He poses the extremely dark question to incite thought about this: “Where have all the missing children all over the world disappeared to?” (“Study of Reptilians”). One might ask oneself how such a group could get away with mass genocide such as this, but it is important to remember that it is possible to suppress any truths when in control of the very fabric of society (“Study of Reptilians”). If you look at the forums on Icke’s site, there are numerous posts either telling people how to spot reptilians or asking how to pick reptilians out from the crowd. Some signs include: piercing eyes, low blood pressure, keen eyesight, and unexplained bodily scars. Lists of “known” Reptilians include Barack Obama, Donald Rumsfeld, the Queen of England, Madonna, Katy Perry, Bill Clinton, and Angelina Jolie (“Study of Reptilians”). What can we learn from these statistics that have been given? Most of those of partook described themselves as conservative. Most of them are white and between the ages of 18–39. In a great deal of cases, it is abundantly clear that the people that believe in conspiracy theories aren’t lunatics. This evidence suggests that there is enough out there for people to believe wholeheartedly in such theories that some call far–fetched. The countless television shows, movies, art, and other social media attention all attest to the cultural fascination we have with the unknown. Perhaps in our modern age, we would agree with and find comfort in the words of Fox Mulder, the protagonist and highly skilled fbi agent from the television show The X-Files: “Sometimes the only sane answer to an insane world is insanity.” •

Works Cited “1947 Roswell ufo Incident.” ufo Evidence. ufo Evidence. 2011. Web. 8 Oct. 2015. “A Study of Reptilians.”Stargods. Stargods. Web. 9 Oct. 2015. Jensen, Tom. “Democrats and Republicans differ on conspiracy theory beliefs.” Public Policy Polling.Public Policy Polling. 2013. Web. 8 Oct. 2015. Radford, Benjamin. “Bigfoot at 50 Evaluating a Half-Century of Bigfoot Evidence.” csicop. csicop. April 2002. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.

New Romantics: How Eurocentric Ideas of Romance Have Evolved By Emily Marshman

f you asked a college student about their idea of “romantic” they would probably say that receiving a text back from whomever they were dating would be enough for them. When did society decide to lower its standards so much when it came to dating? And yet alternatively, is it perfectly acceptable for adolescents and young adults dating today to consider a text back romantic? The expectations that centuries of idealistic romantic gestures have given people are far too high. One of the oldest forms of “courtship” (if you can even call it that) is the raiding of villages to find women to marry (Powell). That, along with arranged marriages, in which the bride and groom are chosen by a third party rather than each other, were considered the norm until the emergence of medieval chivalry in the twelfth century. Arranged marriages were mainly formed out of the need for money, land, or political alliances between villages, especially in early Europe. Medieval chivalry, and more specifically romantic chivalry, emerged around the twelfth century, partly as a way of identifying the social elite from the dregs of society; chivalric romance is most famously recounted in the legendary tales of King Arthur, his knights, and their adventures like Mort d’Arthur, an epic poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The evolution of romance makes its next stop in Victorian England, where romantic love gained even more importance–especially among the upper class–and courting became somewhat of an art form. It was during this time that the concept of calling cards was introduced; if a man was interested in a woman, he presented her with his card and at the end of the evening, if she decided she was interested in him as well, she would present him with her card. This is very similar to another, more popular form of romantic gesture–the “token of love.” Some Nordic countries have courtship

customs that involve tokens of love and more specifically knives. For instance, in Finland, when a girl came of age, she wore an empty sheath attached to her girdle. If a man was interested in this girl, he would put his own puukko knife into her sheath and she would keep it if she was interested in him as well. This tradition has some pretty sexual implications but, then again, so do quite a few of today’s “romantic traditions.” One of the great love stories in the world of British literature is that of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. The couple’s unconditional and uninhibited love for each other spilled over into their work. The most famous example of this love is Elizabeth Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, a book published in 1850, composed of a series of love poems written when the two were beginning their courtship. The compilation of poems includes what many consider “some of Barrett’s most exquisite verses” (Andrews), as well as the timeless line, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” I cannot speak for everyone, but I know that I have dreamt of having poetry written about me; it has always been considered one of the most romantic forms of creative expression and is traditionally tender. There is no denying it; romance has changed drastically over the past century or so, beginning with the emergence of different types of technologies. Recently, as Aziz Ansari states smartphones have created a whole new kind of dating and so has video chatting. Technology, according to many “experts” on love and dating, has changed romance as we know it. Breeanna Hare, a writer for cnn, claims that texting is the “bare minimum” when it comes to forms of communication in a relationship. In her article, titled “How technology has changed romance,” she describes a couple who got engaged over text because it came up in their conversation, rather than in the traditional way in which people imagine couples to THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 73

U become engaged to be married. Hare believes that this is a result of technology destroying humans’ ability to communicate face–toface and that being able to text, call, FaceTime, etc. has given people today a sort of communication anxiety (to use a very serious term for a very trivial topic). According to Hare, “offline dating” is now a “lost art.” However, rather than changing romance for the worse, technology is simply helping today’s romantic culture to evolve in the same way that it has evolved for centuries. One must also think at the opposite end of the spectrum–how has technology helped us? Is it easier to break down barriers with someone when you are not physically faced with them? The pressure is always on when meeting someone new in person, regardless of whether or not you are romantically interested in them, and the weight is even heavier when you are. Aziz Ansari, interviewed by John Heilpern for his spread in Vanity Fair magazine, believes that it is “beautiful that all these tools are able to help people find love and happiness,” referring to dating apps, such as Grindr and Tinder, and social media, such as Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and Facebook, where a lot of people have, in fact, met their significant others. Ansari makes a great case for online dating, saying that it has been helpful, especially when it comes to someone’s questionable social skills. I, myself, feel much more comfortable behind a screen–social anxiety is very real for me and for thousands of other people across the planet. I know that talking to people I do not know in person makes me pretty uncomfortable. Heilpern calls Ansari a “romantic idealist” who does not completely believe that technology has done his or our generation any good when it comes to dating, though he believes the Digital Age is here to help us in the long run. Demetra Gregorakis, author of the Elite Daily article titled “Agapé Love: What The Greeks Can Teach This Loveless Generation,” deems our generation “the loveless generation,” saying “people don’t understand what it means to really love someone these days” because of how society’s standards have changed I believe 74

that, rather than not knowing how to love someone, we have found different ways of loving them, ways which cater to their needs and also to our own. Gregorakis goes on to say that the only real way to love is agapé, defined as “unconditional love that is always giving and impossible to take or be a taker. It devotes total commitment to seeking your highest best, no matter how anyone may respond. This form of love is totally selfless and does not change, whether the love given is returned or not.” Essentially, Gregorakis enforces the idea that, if you don’t love someone with your whole self, you shouldn’t be allowed to love them at all. It is foolish to think that the only right way to do anything is to do it your way, especially when it comes to love. All people have different ways of loving who they love and one person’s opinion shouldn’t change the way you love. The best part about the evolution of romance is that we all get to find new ways to love and to be loved. Americans today cannot seem to make up their mind about what we find romantic. Society has become especially obsessed with the idea of dating that stems from the 1950s–when men opened doors for their dates, took them out to diners for burgers and milkshakes and maybe to a drive-in movie theater, and also when men had to ask their date’s father’s permission to continue seeing them–yet no one seems to date that way anymore. We are all chasing a standard we cannot even seem to uphold. We want offline dating, yet we continue to pursue romance online, and I believe that, as a society, we merely need to accept the fact that romance is evolving, and that we are leaving all of those “outdated” customs behind, for good reasons. Soon we will be free to be involved romantically with whomever and in whichever way we like. We no longer date to marry. In fact, many people no longer see marriage as an endgame for their love lives–marriage is a social construct that we have all been raised to believe we should strive for. Today’s adolescents and young adults date to test the waters, to find who they are and to determine whether or not their “self ” could also be composed of another human being.

U Today’s romantic ideal—the concepts of “relationship goals” and being “Facebook official” with someone—are sincerely only offered as options because of the evolution of technology in the past decade or so. The most ridiculous thing about these concepts is that they are all different ways of insinuating that two people are dating without actually saying that word. The perpetuation of the idea that cheating on your significant other is okay is made possible by the secrecy that comes with owning a smartphone because it can be locked and messages can be made private. While the romantic ideals of the past hold us to standards much too high, those of today do the exact opposite. This could be considered problematic, but it also sets us up to not be let down when we find out that dating isn’t like how it used to be. The most important concept when it comes to dating today is that we are allowed to create our own ideas of what “romantic” is and of what our relationships should be. Neither psychological research nor our peers’ opinions should dictate how we view our significant others. You should be allowed to love and show your love to who you love however you want. These romantic ideals that have been ingrained in our brains have transformed us into creatures of habitual practice–we believe that if we don’t get our fairy tale romance that romance will not happen for us at all. There are certain aspects of my generation that I find unappealing, but I also believe we are changing with the times. We are becoming our own people and separating ourselves from what our parents and ancestors held to be true. •

Works Cited Andrews, Evan. “7 Heartwarming Romantic Gestures - History In The Headlines.” history.com. 2012. Web. 30 Oct. 2015. “Chivalry.” Usna.edu, 2015. Web. 9 Oct. 2015. Gregorakis, Demetra. “Agapé Love: What The Greeks Can Teach This Loveless Generation.”Elite Daily 9 Sept 2015. Web. 22 Sept 2015. Hanes, Breeanna, “How technology has changed romance.” cnn 12 Feb 2013. Web. 22 Sept 2015. Heilpern, John. “Take This Tinder Advice from Aziz Ansari.” Van ity Fair, June 2015. Web. 22 Sept 2015. Powell, Kimberly. “Romance: The History Of Love, Dating And Marriage.” About.com Parenting. 2015. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

u THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 75

The Voice of Art

by Atiya Jordan

et’s talk about how hashtagging has become the foundation for the hundreds of social justice platforms to kick off dialogues and transform them into actions. In the midst of sweeping the media, many popular movements are built particularly off the backbone of art. Exhibits, spoken word poetry, photography, and music have been used to spread awareness alongside the efforts of hashtagging. These efforts continue to become relatable to others, encouraging them to participate. People superimpose themselves in particular art forms to express their concerns and emotions. Thousands of different hashtags are thrown in with a whirlwind of others, so it is easy to lose sight of their purpose. A movement can start with the rise of the hashtag, but not go any further to cause any institutional change, and in the age of the Internet, conflicts come with corresponding online movements, usually with corresponding hashtags. With the nationwide tension of the shootings of unarmed black people, it is very unpredictable what a wave of people can do. #BlackLivesMatter. #ICantBreathe. #BringBackOurGirls. #MikeBrown. #EricGarner. #ShutItDown. Controversial or not, there is no dismissing the influence of the hashtag. The power they possess can lead to more peaceful and productive ways of spreading awareness and fighting for justice. Tumblr and Instagram both are very popular in giving its users the opportunity to share their photography, videos, poetry, and their best selfies. These are all movements within themselves. Many online users remain oblivious to their contribution to the art world. It’s the 21st century and it has become even more apparent that art is lacking representations of people of color. Historically women of color in particular have been over–sexualized and exploited in canonical art. The love of one’s blackness is rarely praised because society’s degradation of blackness. A perfect example is the story of Sarah Baartman, a Khoisian slave who was sold at the age of 20 in Cape Town, known today as South Africa in 1810 (sahistory). She was taken to London and Paris to be displayed naked as a side show exhibit in circuses, museums, bars, and universities. Her bare

"Celebrity or not, the voices of people of color have always been subdued by white counterparts. Rather than being seen as angry, this movement gives a voice and multiple chances to give people insight into who they really are."

images, portrayed particularly in Western art, provided an excuse to stereotype all Africans in grotesque ways. In more recent history, pictures of her went viral through social media and exposed her features that reinforce the idea that she was animalistic. She was deemed as the “original booty queen” as portrayed in Western art. Where is the art that deflect away from the traditional white gaze? Where is the love of diversity in the art world? Art is constantly reclaiming and giving power to both the artist and the subject so why not see hashtagging as the same? It is imperative for art to be unapologetic. There should be no shame in saying #ArtHoe. #ArtHoe: the online movement veered towards women of marginalized races. From all over the world, young people of color have had and still do have the greater opportunity to redefine their individualistic beauty and challenge the stereotypes about people of color by placing this hashtag beneath their names. Black people superimpose themselves in doodles, stamps, and words to reclaim themselves and to make a statement that they are much more than what they historically have been portrayed as in Western art. Instagram and Tumblr are the main social media platforms where this hashtag arose. In this day and age, it isn’t so strange that a fifteen year old can build a movement so moving that it has the potential to change contemporary art. Fifteen–year–old genderfluid artist and blogger Mars co–founded #ArtHoe with 24–yearold artist Jam with a specific vision to encourage people of color to embrace art and visual culture through this online movement (Sargent). They both wish to continue the movement to encourage people of color to share their creations. The arthoecollective was born shortly after the #ArtHoe movement took off. It serves as a safe space for artists to share their works of art, whether it’s photography, canvases, selfies, etc. On Instagram, the collective has thousands of followers who support the movement on a daily basis, refusing to let it vanish. Search #ArtHoe. On Instagram alone, over 17,000 photos appear in the search. Mars and Jam have even gotten some iconic

Black stars to attach themselves in the movement. Amandla Stenberg, Rue from The Hunger Games movie adaptation, has been contributing her words of wisdom in light of Black culture. She stated, “By spreading our light and our art we are beginning a conscious revolution” (Barmgartner) and she has paid tribute to art in a way that can move mountains. Amandla stands strongly with the arthoecollective; visit her tumblr page and indulge yourself in her daily postings. She surrounds herself with art and believes in movements of inclusivity. She explores why most people are only interested in buying art from old dead white men while she supports struggling artists and their journey to create a masterpiece. As you scroll down, her page is a display of selfies, portraits of people of color, panoramas of cities, and body canvases, which have been traced back to Africa. The Omo Valley tribe would use their bodies as canvases on which to smear clay, red sulfur, and yellow ochre (inspirationgreen). Amandla has decorated her Instagram in many arthoe images. She posted a selfie on Instagram that consisted of drawings like a gold crown and shaped people bouncing off of her silhouette. It is fascinating the way she follows the movement to share stories and reclaim them in a positive light. Celebrating people of color and their complex identities is the ultimate goal of the arthoe movement. The teen icon for her hair whipping, Willow Smith, attached herself to the influx of art. On her Instagram, she created a safe haven for not herself but for others to express their internalized struggles. Celebrity or not, the voices of people of color have always been subdued by white counterparts. Rather than being seen as angry, this movement gives a voice and multiple chances to give people insight into who they really are. Willow superimposes herself in her funky selfies, which has given her the power to reclaim her blackness. The #Selfie is in. #InstaSeflie. #SelfieTime. #SelfieNation. #ShamelessSeflie. A simple portrait increases visibility. The selfie can create a movement. They curate both negative and positive images. They can tell stories or set fashion trends. Selfie Day is quite the trend, as is International Seflie Day or the Selfie Challenge. THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 77

"Posting a selfie on lnstagram simply to capture the essence of Black beauty is #BlackOutDay."

There is one particular selfie day that is soaked in positivity with hopes of combating stereotypes of black people: #BlackOutDay. One of the co-founders, Marissa Rei Sebastian, made it possible to turn the selfie around to be more uplifting. #BlackOutDay speaks for itself. The “Blackout” gives rise to how beauty is truly defined. Out of frustrations about the idea of white faces and bodies being the epitome of beauty, the online movement was born. Graphic designer nukirk created social media logos, which served as a platform for encouraging blackness. The sense in which a person is so indulged in Black culture that they wake up the next day wanting more of it, is #BlackOutDay. Posting a selfie on Instagram simply to capture the essence of Black beauty is #BlackOutDay. A great success was also the Blackout Day that was held on March 6th, 2015. People posted and reposted videos and selfies of Black people on Tumblr. Different shades of brown and black were captured as well as their individual styles. Efforts of reclamation continue to increase. Now imagine a day of selfies turning into an annual festival. Think about how one can transform a hashtag into something so tangible and outright. Black Out for Human Rights hosted their first annual film and music festival in August 29th, 2015 at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. The festival included screenings, spoken word poetry, artist showcases, social justice panels, and music performances. #BlackOutFestival was also a transformation out of #BlackOutDay. The physical participation where people gather together to be educated, cultivated, and empowered became an annual festival. Although #BlackOutDay and #BlackOutFestival may have had two different visions, it is very clear how much they speak to each other. The #BlackOutFestival consisted of varieties of art that transcended cultural boundaries. Art curator Ashley Coffey found the perfect balance between different varieties of art and provided an insightful experience to the festival. Each piece she selected was a balance between photography, textiles, and digital works. They were combined to por78

tray the past and current climates of social justice. Indeed the past may be the past, but it is important to look back in order to seek the importance of the past. Coffey’s art was obviously a learning experience for many as it shed light on today’s reflection of the past. Bayette Ross Smith created the Taking Aim series as another exhibit that digitally displays pictures of men of racial minorities with shooting targets on their backs. Police brutality has been a recurring issue throughout history, and continues to be today. Men of color, specifically, walk around with bullseyes on their backs because they are labeled as dangerous. Smith reveals the reality of that bullseye. Oil painter Mariella Angela contributed three pieces to the event. Her collection of Three Kings consists of Mike Brown in his graduation gown, hip–hop artists Tupac Shakur and Kendrick Lamar, and a black and white collage of the victims of police brutality. With hopes of challenging preconceived views, spoken word poets sparked a conversation with their audiences as well as the social justice panelists. Spoken word poetry, as a form of art, speaks volumes and it will continue to do as long as people of color use the power of their voices. Actress Tracie Thoms, known for her role as Joanne Jefferson in Rent, stood on one of the storytelling panels and stated, “I want to write and produce stories about people who happen to be black.” Amandla Stenberg performed her poem “Don’t Cash Crop My Cornrows”:

Black features are beautiful Black women are not. White women are paragons Of virtue and desire Black women are objects Of fetishism and brutality.

Here in Amandla’s work, she uses the opportunity to let words and rhythm express her concerns about Black features, but essentially THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 79

cultural appropriation. She continuously tackles the issue of how the cornrow style gets more praise if a non-Black person puts them in their hair. As she recites her words, the audience could hear in her voice the yearn to reclaim the power and beauty of blackness. Donte Clark performed a powerful tribute to Black boys in his poem, “Let Him Breathe.” In the aftermath of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, his words ring truer as it revealed the reality of Black boys’ lives in a world of police brutality and of those who depict them as nothing but ashes. Leo Breckrenridge performed “A Dream’s Reality,” a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. He touched upon the concerns that Martin Luther King Jr. addressed in his speech and ultimately reveals how relevant it is still today. And what’s better for the soul than soulful music? Whether it is hip-hop or r&b, the music that was performed provides a sense of unity. Tributes to legends such as Anita Baker praised Black culture and even audience participation was an experience. Although rumors have been spread that musicians do not stand up in light of social justice, it just isn’t true. V. Bozeman made an appearance on Fox Empire, her vocal chords juxtaposed with powerful lyrics sparked conversation. She is an artist who with her free will participated in a movement. Kendrick Lamar, August Alsina, and Kanye West have made it clear in their music that they are totally aware about what’s going on in the Black community as well. These are wealthy Black men who still make it their business to utilize their talent to make statements, spread awareness, and cause controversy for the better. Art is a political statement. It refuses to apologize for the hope it brings out of statistics. There is still art, music, and poetry out there with an abundance of substance that incite change through hashtags and it is a beautifully controversial concept. There are more movements slowly on the rise, so look out. Post a selfie. Learn about different cultures. Let’s participate in a movement and continue on the legacy of those who live to see beauty in the world. Superimpose yourself in art as it has and will continue to live deep within us.•

Works Cited Baumgartner, Samantha. “Art Hoe Collective’s Photo Project Gives poc A Place in Art.” BUST: For Women With Some thing To Get Off Their Chests. Web. 11 Oct. 2015. Hype Hair Magazine. “Don’t Cash Crop On My Cornrows.” On line video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 15 April 2015. Web. 3 Oct. 2015. “Sara ‘Saartjie’ Baartman.” South African History Online. Web. 31 Oct. 2015. Sargent, Antwaun. “Can The “Art Hoe” Movement Change Con temporary Art.” The Creators Project. 12 Sept. 2015. Web. 3 Oct. 2015. The Blackout—Official Home of #BlackOutDay and #TheBlack Out.” The Blackout—Official Home of #BlackOutDay and #The BlackOut. Web. 26 Sept. 2015. “The Ultimate Canvas: Tribes of the Omo Valley.” Inspiration Green. Web. 2 Oct. 2015. 80

Dinner with Pinterest by Michelle Lee

Decorations include several small gourds hollowed and arranged to make one giant gourd. Fallen leaves will serve as napkins and branches as forks. All guests will leave with a D.I.Y papermaking kit*.

Appetizer Bite–sized hamburger cups, made from refrigerated biscuits and locally raised, grass–fed cows (who listened exclusively to Mozart).

Soup Course Gazpacho-inspired, gluten–free blueberry and banana pureé**.

Salad Course Quinoa and kale with a skinny*** Caesar dressing.

Main Course Free–range chicken breast (from poultry raised by nuns), coated in a honey glaze (made from local honey from the neighborhood beekeeper) with homegrown mashed cauliflower and crispy baked shoestring sweet potato fries, all arranged in the formation of the guest’s face.

Dessert Course Gluten–free, sugar–free, chocolate–free chocolate cake pops made from avocados, arranged to create a scale model of the house.

100% Coconut Water with Coconut Rinds as Garnish Unsweetened Southern Sweet Tea Sea Salted Caramel

Available Beverages for the Evening****:

*fibers not included **also known as a smoothie ***low in fat, high in sugar ****all served in mason jars

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 81

#FluffNation By Hannah Rae Taggart

ou may have seen the tag scrawled across various white boards, etched into your seminar desk, or even faded on the pavement in chalk dust. For most that know her, this would be a sign that student Odeth Morales, aka Fluff, has been in the vicinity. What you may not know is that this tag is not just the mark of a vibrant and inspiring Wells Woman, but the promise of an up–and–coming movement and lifestyle that embodies the positivity your life has been missing. You’ve seen the inspirational wall hangings and the tranquil photos that pop up on your news feed. These cliché, pastel colored reminders to make today a positive one are far too overused and watered down for most of us to take into any grand consideration. While the drone of positive babble may seem monotonous, especially to those of us who have more on our minds than what the dining hall may be serving for lunch, the core message of these blurbs may be the only force powerful enough to pull ourselves from the haze of our overstimulated and overtly negative society. What does it truly mean to live in a positive mindset? And what kind of effects can positivity have on your overall life? These questions may seem simple but the ways positive and negative thinking interconnect with the outcomes of an individual’s life are not. Positive mindset and positive self–esteem are two key elements of a successful and happy life. According to the American Psychological Association, “high self–esteem promotes goals, expectancies, coping mechanisms and behaviors that facilitate productive achievement and work experiences and impede mental and physical health problems, substance abuse, and antisocial behavior,” (Trzesniewski et. al., 381). Positive self–esteem and mindsets tend to build the foundation for individuals to develop sustainable strategies for success as they age. These strategies are used not only to push the individual forward towards success and happiness, but to help the individual to overcome obstacles that may impede their success and happiness. 82

Building a positive mindset and establishing strong positive self-esteem is no easy task—especially in today’s society. The world in which we live profits from tearing individuals apart and setting unobtainable academic, beauty, and success standards. These standards teach individuals to shame themselves if they don’t fit perfectly into the societally structured views of what is beautiful, what is smart, what is successful, and therefore what is deemed worthy of happiness. In this way, our society strips of us the happiness, success, and positive self–esteem to which we are entitled. The use of shame to demean ourselves and others based on society’s standards directly attacks our ability to live in a positive mindset with a positive self–esteem. According to Lexie and Lindsay Kite, the creators of Beauty Redefined, a blog that tackles society’s strict beauty standards and enforces positive body image, “shame is a cruel and powerful demotivator, especially with regard to health and happiness.” Shame, a product of society’s harsh and unobtainable standards, works directly against the life sustaining strategies formed by a strong foundation of positive mindset and positive self-esteem. In order to break away from the restrictions that society places on success and happiness one must be strongly rooted in their positive mindset and have a strong self–esteem. Building this foundation while living in a society that profits from negativity and self–degradation is a challenge, but it is not impossible. Fluffnation, a lifestyle that embodies mental, physical, and spiritual positivity, provides a foundation of self–awareness and personal growth that will put you directly on the path to a mindset that allows you to access the happiness and success of which you are capable.

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 83

Interview (edited for length): Hannah: What is Fluffnation? Fluff: Fluffnation is a movement, a setting, a way of being. It embodies positivity through mental, physical and spiritual stimulation and work. Fluffnation is a location that you go to work on these things, to develop the skills to be on a path of positive well–being through mental, spiritual, physical stimulation, and activity. It is a movement as in this is something that is life changing. It’s a change that you want to pass on to the next person, that you want to do with others. It’s not something just to do by yourself. And as a way of being it is a lifestyle. It’s not something that you do for a little bit and then move on, it’s not like how you set a goal to go on a diet or lose a certain amount of weight and then you stop. It’s something that’s constantly changing as you are everlasting and changing. Fluffnation helps you to grow into and remain in a positive state by constantly changing with you. And positive doesn’t mean that you’re always happy. It doesn’t mean that you’re always just like this ray of sunshine. Positive means that you work on developing yourself and just developing skills and finding out things about yourself and learning how to handle yourself—just, knowing how to handle growth, in a way that benefits you and others. Fluffnation is also an organization, that’s where the support comes in. You have social media, but you also have a group of people who help you get to where you want to be, that can give you the resources that you need. These people are also trying to do the same thing you are, so you don’t feel alone. 84

H: Do you think you could tell me more about how you want Fluffnation to be laid out as a business? Like can you tell me more about the physical aspects or are they still in the works? F: They’re still in the works because the more I grow the more ideas I get and the more concrete everything becomes, so I’m still in a process of changing ideas and seeing what works and what doesn’t. I’ve been struggling with knowing what population I want to target, like where to start you know? Because I eventually want to target the entire population but I need a place to start. So my idea, it all started with children, and so I’m working right now on how to target youth, and how to work around the mindset of a youth —youth meaning anyone from the ages of four to like twenty–one. So that’s just one aspect of it, I have ideas in terms of activities and I know I want three departments that target the mental, physical, and spiritual aspects of an individual. So like mentally, you know, I strongly believe in cognitive and behavioral therapy and working with that aspect to change and get the mindset going, bringing around that positivity through self– awareness. Physically I envision trainers working with Fluffnation members but trainers on a different level, in a “Fluff way” which is very against body stigma. It’s different from the kind of gym life that is portrayed in society, that is just about looking well and who has the most muscles, who’s skinnier, who has a smaller butt. Fluffnation is about how you feel about yourself, why are you doing this, you know? And every workout would be very much about the individual, would be to that specific person. Everybody would get analyzed and evaluated individually and then have things assigned to them for themselves—individually personalized to who they are, not what society expects them to be. This would be the physical aspect of the Fluffnation movement. You would begin by working with a trainer and then as you move up you would work in groups as well, but still with that individual plan set, you know, so that it really caters to everyone, and that way we don’t leave anybody out as best as we can. And then spiritually, this would deal with meditation and stuff like that. Channeling your consciousness and bringing about self-awareness and positivity through that as well.

H: What inspired this vision in you? F: What inspired this vision in me was not being able to find a place where I could find all these things I needed. I was disappointed in the lack of information and support when it came to combining mental, physical, and spiritual positive growth. I really wanted to learn about positive health in all three aspects, but everywhere I looked it was just very negative and against self–building. It seems like it is to build yourself and to make yourself better but it all contradicted itself, and I didn’t agree with it. I wondered how many other people were in a similar situation as I was and who else may be looking for answers. Or who else had tried things that didn’t work for them and then started to question why don’t these things work for me? Why is it that these certain exercises don’t work for me? Why is it that this certain kind of mindset doesn’t work for me? The way that society structures personal growth, especially on a physical level, makes it seem as though you are the problem, not the systems that are in place or the resources that are available to you. And you know I’d look and look and look and I’d find great ideas but I never found a system that could combine them all, could lift anybody up. You know there’s always a gym, that everybody can go to, there’s always something that you can try you know? Like, “I’m going to be healthy so I’m going to try this now.” But what are you really getting out of that fad? What are you really doing? What kind of support is there? So I was just thinking about these kinds of things, especially about body, and mindset—–how we look at the body always as, “if you want to look this way then do this, if you want to have this then this.” I realized that it’s never just about bettering yourself. I just felt like I was surrounded by so much negativity, and something had to be done.

H: What is the future for Fluffnation? What is the future for you, through Fluffnation? F: My point with Fluffnation was that I know it’s not happening now and that’s because I am still in the process. I want to know firsthand how this affects me, what I am experiencing, and through my experience I will mold all these things. And I’m still in the process of it, and I will always be, but I’m not in the place yet where I would feel comfortable doing this with someone else. I’m trying to go through this at each level and each stage to make sure that it can apply to someone else. It will obviously apply to them completely differently, yet if my ideas are correct, it will have the same positive effects. For the future, I see a lot of youth involvement and young women stepping up especially and I also hope in, like, ten years, twenty years from now to actually have Fluffnation incorporated in schools and talked about. Not advertised exactly, because I don’t really like the capitalist structure but I know that I still have to function within it as a business. But I see it more in that anybody and everybody knows about it, you know? We have families talking about it - your grandma’s in on this. Eventually I want it to be something that people talk about like, “I went there as a kid and now you’re going to go there as a kid.” Fluffnation is something that is a part of your life. You are just constantly moving forward to a different stage and Fluffnation has programs and people that move with you. THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 85

Flex H: How has your Fluffnation journey changed your life or impacted the person that you are today? F: You cannot imagine the person that I would be if I had not begun my Fluffnation journey. Fluffnation is embedded in me; it’s become a part of me. It’s changed my entire thinking. Before Fluffnation I had more negative thoughts than I did positive. I lacked real self–confidence. I had a false sense of being. I thought I had what I thought was real but it wasn’t. I was really in a dark place, I was always shaming myself physically, mentally, everything. I was not accepting of who I was and always looking for outside sources to tell me who to be, but I was never actually looking at myself to see who I was. And then through Fluffnation I began to grow, positively. I began to learn for myself, listen to myself, and teach myself. And through this I grew in security, confidence and strength. I grew happiness and a stable way of thinking. I grew compassion and care. I just became this complete embodiment of this great being that I never thought I would be before. And I can’t imagine myself going back. I do face moments of temptation and moments of relapse but because of this Fluffnation idea that is embedded in me I just keep going, keep moving forward. And always for the better. Always ready to move on, with resiliency. H: Is Fluffnation for anyone? Can it be accessed by anyone, does it take a specific readiness? F: Yes and no. There are a whole bunch of shades of grey. Fluffnation hits all the shades of grey that society doesn’t hit. It’s a thing that you have to want and that you have to be ready for. If you want a change but you don’t know where to go or how to make it, but you just have to have it, that’s fine. But it’s not for a person who goes to this place and doesn’t agree, and doesn’t want to be there. That’s when Fluffnation will show you the door to find something else. This is for somebody who wants this. Who wants a change, who wants to see something differently, whether or not they know how it’s going to affect them, just to see you have to either be open minded or be wanting to get there and don’t know how. And I think as society changes, Fluffnation will change as well, and it will always continue to work for and fit the lifestyles of both those who fit in society and those who don’t. Because it’s its own safe space. 86

H: What is the purpose of the hashtag? Why do we see it all around campus? F: Everybody needs to see it because they need to know that something is about to happen—that change is happening, that change has started. They need to know that Fluffnation is now, and that the sooner you join the better it will be for everybody. When you see this tag or when you write it yourself you know that you are on the right track—that you are doing the right thing for yourself and what betters you. And this not only betters you, but betters a whole community because it represents positive change. When you see this tag around a community, in your neighborhood, on your campus, then you know people there are bettering themselves, that community is moving in a more positive direction because its inhabitants are moving in a more positive direction and therefore you should be moving in that direction and bettering yourself too. When you see the hashtag you see change, you see a revolution, within your surroundings and within yourself. When you see it you know, you just know. •

Works Cited Kite, L., & Kite, L. (2013). Body Shame on You. Beauty Redefined Blog. Morales, Odeth (student), in discussion with the author, October 2015. Trzesniewski, K. H., Moffitt, T. E., Poulton, R., Donnellan, M. B., Robins, R. W., & Caspi, A. (2006). Low Self-Esteem during Adolescence Predicts Poor Health, Criminal Behavior, and Limited Economic Prospects During Adulthood. American Psychological Association, 42, 381-390.

Millennial Monsters by Tegan Watson

because we are so stupid, they think that our weak hearts whimper in our uninspired chests, that our blood pools like sludge in our feet and fingertips, that we aim our smiles vapidly at our front–facing cameras to capture nothing more than our narcissism. because we are so stupid, they give us no choice but to fight like dogs for atlas’s position— unpaid, but it might look good on our resume. (now, because we are so stupid, U we wonder why our backs hurt, why it’s so hard to enjoy the world when it’s resting on our shoulders, why no matter how brilliantly our resumes sparkle, our phones sit dead on our desks.) but because they are so stupid we will keep smiling at the camera because we like to see our own sharp teeth bared at the world. we will grow out our claws, and we will howl our songs, and our muscles will become strong from the weight that we carry and our mouths will never remain silent, lips always touching, tongue U trapped by teeth, no. we will tear through the red tape they’ve stuck across our mouths, and we will crack open our jaws and show our bloody tongues to the world, and prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that we, too, can produce a pearl.

U U

A U

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 87

The Space for Grafiti by Abena Poku

ith graffiti, artists are able to transfer what they feel about issues of racism, gender, ethnicity or aesthetics into something that is beautiful. Graffiti traditionally has been visible in public on wall and streets. Though nowadays it can be viewed in museums and galleries. Graffiti can be painted words or images. This form of self–expression has been around from the very beginning, and with the dawn of civilization, graffiti were born. The word “graffito” is an Italian word that means scratching.1 The history of Graffiti dates back prehistoric cultures and can also be found in Egyptian culture and Ancient Roman culture and of course, the modern graffiti of the 20th Century and today. The first instance of graffiti was with Prehistoric Art. Prehistoric Art relates to graffiti through the primitive man and his art. The primitive man used many symbols that represented the nature and world that he lived to mark things. Many primitive artists used many resources available to them such as coal, clay and the juice from grass to develop wall paintings. In the graffiti developed during this time, there were many personalized portraits, landscapes, and still–lives. Most of these painting were in caves and burial areas. Many of the men during this time thought in order to gain luck through hunting and etc.; they had to represent their fighting with the animal in a mural drawing (Figure 1).2 The visual language of primitive art and paintings represents a form of communication but most of all the first beginnings of graffiti art. Egyptian Art was also important in the development of graffiti. Between 2900 and 2800 BC art was characterized by its aesthetics and its culture. Egyptian graffiti art was developed primarily in relation to its architecture and murals and was influenced through faith and spiritual powers. Graffiti was usually painted on the stucco in monochrome colors.3

The most famous examples today of historic graffiti are inscriptions preserved in Pompeii, where a whole culture can be studied based on the number of readable wall scratchings. These words were scratched into walls of public buildings, bathrooms often, expressing the widest range of ideas, moods, or sometimes just marking the presence of the writer. They are, vulgar, simple, poetic, demonstrations of exceptional literacy, or journal–like notes that for whatever reason needed to be remembered (Figure 2).4 Graffiti art today in the 20th century is a form of art that was inspired by urban graffiti or subway art of the 1960s and 1970s. Mostly activists who are interested in making aesthetic, racial, gender and political statements and street gangs who marked territory use graffiti. The birth of Subway art began when the youth of New York started writing their names on neighborhood walls. This writing created a public identity for the streets and the underprivileged minority kids. The use of names in this writing style held a territorial function, a way for the under appreciated to claim a piece of the city.5 In subway writing or graffiti, there was an established method in the artists writing. The first method was concerned with the tag. The tag style was the way a name was uniquely designed and written in script or calligraphic style.6 The most recognized tag in this culture’s history was ‘Taki 183’ (Figure 3). Taki was the first New York based graffiti writer to gain recognition from his graffiti. He was a courier and he frequently traveled on the subway. Along the way he left his signature, his tag ‘Taki 183’ all over nyc and its trains. Once the New York Times published an article in 1970 about Taki, the movement truly had been born and given its official birth certificate and name.7 It wasn’t until the late 1970s that Graffiti started to take a place in the art forum. This is when artists and various art critics began

Hunter, Sam (ed.) Art Since 1945 Ibid 3 Ibid

Ibid Abel, Ernest. “The Handwriting on the Wall.” 6 Walsh, Michael. “Graffito” 7 Castelman, Craig. “Getting Up; Subway Graffiti in New York.”

"When placed within its walls the art world takes from graffiti the qualities that made it the subject of so much public disdain, its wildness, its freeness, and its confrontational nature."15

to look at graffiti art as a direct aesthetic and expression of art in the urban culture. Two prominent examples of mainstream graffiti artists are Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Jean-Michel Basquiat was an African American painter who first was an urban graffiti artist on the streets and subways in New York. The story of Jean-Michel Basquiat is not so much about the art that he produced, or the study of life that he painted, but Jean-Michel story is more about the study of a life style at a particular time in the twentieth century.8 He never received any formal training in art and during his street graffiti period, he tagged areas of the city he knew would be seen by prominent figures in the art world. His was clearly recognized by their trademark signature, samo (same old shit), followed by a recognizable copyright symbol. His strategy worked and he became recognized as an artist. While he was in his early twenties he began showing his work in leading art galleries in and around New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Dusseldorf. Many of his paintings sold for $25,000 to $50,000. Basquiat’s swift rise to art world stardom came in the 1980’s. Basquiat was one of the first instances of graffiti entering into the space of commercial art galleries.9 Like Basquiat, Keith Haring was also a very well known graffiti artist in the 1980’s. It was during this period that Haring began drawing graffiti on the streets in New York. Many of his drawings were very simple. The drawings usually consisted of pyramids, the human figure, T.V sets, animals, and various forms of babies (Figure 4).10 Graffiti to Haring was thought to be the most beautiful art form even though he was a classically trained artist. He began developing his own style of graffiti. Because at this time during the beginning of Haring’s career he had little money, he drew his developed images all over the subways’ in New York. Most of his work was drawn on black panels

that were on the subway platforms He eventually gained national and even international recognition. During mid to late 1980’s graffiti and subway art declined. Laws that regulated the sale of paint to minors also contributed to the fall of graffiti art, along with the drug epidemic that existed. But, the major change occurred when the New York transit staged a war against the tagging of trains. Graffiti removal off trains made the life span of paintings very short and this frustrated many writers to quit the Graffiti art.11 Thanks to artists like Keith Haring and Basquiat, graffiti surfaced from underground to appear in major art galleries and museums. The art world saw an opportunity in graffiti to prove that it had institutions that were both accessible and contemporary. Despite the fact that graffiti violated many art institution principles (it was given freely, an artist did not need any formal training, it occurred outside a prescribed art area), the art world admitted graffiti into its venues.12 However, it did so according to its own rules. Graffiti was conceived as a social and cultural trend with minimum artistic merit, not as a valid and respectable art movement. Critic Susan Stewart emphasizes the fact that when placed on a wall and on a canvas to the exact specifications of art’s professionals, graffiti was removed from its traditional location and context. By doing so, graffiti was no longer graffiti at all.13 Graffiti becomes an art world approved version of itself. The art world can maintain its traditional strict definitions while still having people lining up round the block to get in to view the work of these artists.14 When placed within its walls the art world takes from graffiti the qualities that made it the subject of so much public disdain, its wildness, its freeness, and its confrontational nature.15 As a result, graffiti’s essential artistic and contextual values and themes are also erased. The graffiti on gallery walls are not temporary, free, or interactive, and it does not permit the reclamation of urban environ

MacDonald, Nancy. “The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculini ty and Identity in London and New York 9 MacDonald, Nancy.

Castelman, Craig Castelman, Craig 12 Ibid 13 Stewart, Susan. Ceci Tuera Cela: Graffiti as Crime and Art.” In Life after Postmodernism 14 Claudia Barbieri, “Graffiti Gains New Respect,” The New York Times, 11

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 89

"Graffiti still carries a strong social, political and emotional quality, engaging the viewers to action.”

ments. Art critics, curators and historians have drawn a line. Illegal graffiti on city subways, private property, and public walls are not art; the controlled and rational graffiti in galleries and museums are.16 Graffiti still carries a strong social, political and emotional quality, engaging the viewers to action. This can be seen in Banksy. His work portrays his thoughts on what’s wrong and what’s right with the world, documenting the currents of this era, just as the Pompeian graffiti did once. But at the same time Banksy’s work is still sold in galleries and shown in museums. He tries to maintain ties with old school graffiti but because of his fame this does not always work. Recently his work appeared on a wall in a neighborhood in New York and viewers were charged $20 each to see the work. Also many of his street art mysteriously disappear and subsequently surface at international art auctions.17 Banksy shows that graffiti artists have become known for much more than their names on the wall. However, when it comes to written content, it’s obvious that graffiti have not changed all that much. They are still public, open and popular, addressing the everymen, making an ephemeral stamp on the margins of our culture. Indeed, traditionally, street art has been viewed as reactive towards the elitism and exclusivity of the art field.18 Secluded from profit-motivated institutions such as art galleries, museums and schools of art, graffiti provides a stage for artists to display their work outside of the capitalist model.19 Bourdieu’s work Distinction helps to provide background to understand the political relationship and power struggles associated with the art field. Bourdieu notes that art is a social product, it cannot be seen as a distinct or autonomous entity, rather it is the

result of a complex set of power dynamics linked to hierarchical relationships between in groups and out groups.20 What is defined as “high art,” argues Bourdieu, is defined by the upper classes who seek to highlight a superior form of participation, and exclude those whose tastes and politics are viewed as “vulgar.” This acts as a form of “symbolic violence” acting against the perceived lower forms of artwork, denying them distribution and acting as an impenetrable barrier into the art world. Symbolic violence acts to ensure the exclusivity of the art world is preserved. 21 It is in this way we can view graffiti as advocating access to art through everyday experience and enabling those with little wealth or access to formal institutions of art to participate. For example, Banksy’s work regularly appears in poorer areas of London, using the local landscape and infrastructure to develop a political point. Banksy’s piece "Slave Labor"(Figure 5) which appeared on the side of a shop in Haringey, England in 2012 drew relevance from its critique of consumer society and global child labor, in the wake of celebrations of the Queen’s Jubilee and London Olympic Games. Its relevance to its local environment is vital; Haringey is one of the most underprivileged areas in the United Kingdom.22 It is through consideration of the chosen locations of Banksy’s work that the implication of Walter Benjamin’s concept of aura arises. For Benjamin aura is captured only within the original and the authentic, it is specific to the context in which it is created and displayed; “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.”23 For Banksy his work draws from context, specifically his targeting of sites relevant to the political issue the piece aims to highlight.

Ibid BBC News. (2012). ‘’Banksy’ boy worker image on Poundland shop wall’. 18 Chan, T.W and Goldthorpe, J.H. (2007). ‘Social stratification and cultural consumption: the visual arts in England’, Poetics, 35: 168–190 19Chan, T.W and Goldthorpe, J.H.

16 17

Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A social critique of the judge ment of taste’ 21 Ibid. 22 BBC News ‘’Banksy’s boy worker image on Poundland shop wall” 23 Benjamin, Walter. “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction”

"In a society plagued by advertisement images, graffiti has been an attempt to reclaim the streets from capitalist consumer culture and inject the possibility for creativity and spontaneity into contemporary society."

With the appropriation of graffiti into the art forum, a crucial element of the original aura is lost. The artwork is stripped of its uniqueness and its place in history. The political meaning of the art is transformed into an ironic statement: emphasizing the problems of capitalism from within one of its preserves. In a society plagued by advertisement images, graffiti has been an attempt to reclaim the streets from capitalist consumer culture and inject the possibility for creativity and spontaneity into contemporary society. Not always explicitly political in nature, street art or graffiti has long been considered an anti-capitalist movement, providing minorities and subcultures with a platform to express identity across the globe. The streets, walls, subway cars etc. are where graffiti has traditionally been displayed. When graffiti enters the art world (galleries, museums, etc.), the essence of this art, its aura, and its authority is shattered. •

Works cited Abel, Ernest. “The Handwriting on the Wall.” Greenwood Publishing Group. 1997. Benjamin, Walter. (1936/2008). ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’. London: Penguin. bbc News. (2012). ‘’Banksy’ boy worker image on Poundland shop wall’. Available:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lon don-18075620 . Last accessed 1 May 2015. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste’. Oxon: Routledge. 1986 Castelman, Craig. “Getting Up; Subway Graffiti in New York.” mit Press. 1984. Claudia Barbieri, “Graffiti Gains New Respect,” The New York Times, June 10, 2009, Arts section, Special Report: Contemporary Art. Hunter, Sam (ed.) Art Since 1945. New York: Harry Abrams, Inc., 1958. MacDonald, Nancy. “The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity and Identity in London and New York. Palgrave, 1990. Stewart, Susan. Ceci Tuera Cela: Graffiti as Crime and Art.” In Life after Postmodernism, edited by John Fekete, 163-180. Montreal: New World Perspectives, 1987 Walsh, Michael. “Graffito”, North Atlantic Books, 1996

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 91

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 93

WELLS’S RESIDENT GODDESS ANSWERS YOUR BURNING QUESTIONS.

DEAR MINERVA, How does one not be stressed out in college? Love, I want to rip my hair out. Dear Overwhelmed Wellsian, It is difficult to balance classes, activities, clubs, a job, sports, a social life, and sleep. Plan out your free time effectively so you can get work done when you aren’t in class or at extracurriculars. Also, let your professors, coach, club officers/members, employer, etc., know that you have a busy schedule and see if you can move things around to create a more streamlined schedule. And, of course, take some time to have fun! Even a short study break can help you relax and clear your head so you can be ready to take on your hectic schedule.

DEAR MINERVA, I have a few guy friends who all of a sudden seem to be interested in me in a more than platonic way and things are awkward because I’m clearly not interested. How do I keep my friends and turn them down? Sincerely, In Demand and Uninterested Dear Bromance Not Romance, You should always be able to be honest around friends even if what you have to say may hurt someone’s feelings. Let these guys know that you value their friendship and aren’t interested in anything more, and tell them in no uncertain term. Don’t assume that if you drop hints they’ll get the idea. Amongst friends you should always be able to speak your mind and feel respected while doing so. Let your guy friends know where they stand and that, as your friends, you know they will respect your decision.

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 95

DEAR MINERVA, Why must all of the exams be on the same day?!?! Sincerely, Stressed Out Student

DEAR MINERVA,

Dear Tired of Being Tested, How frustrating! A lot of the time, if you explain your situation to your professors they will allow you to take your exam on another day from when they have scheduled it. Most of the professors at Wells are very flexible and will be happy to let you schedule to take the exam on a day when you aren’t so busy.

How do you cope with homesickness? Sincerely, Lonely on the Lake Dear Hopeless Wanderer, Remember that you’re not alone. Almost all college students struggle with homesickness and realizing that others feel the same way can be helpful. The best thing you can do is get out there and get involved on campus to make it feel more like your home away from home. Meeting new people and expanding your Wells family can help you miss home a little less. If you find yourself really struggling, consider reaching out and getting professional help. Students can see a counselor at the Community Medical Center up to twenty times per academic year at no cost, take advantage of it.

DEAR MINERVA, How do I get past procrastination? I can’t seem to get anything done! Sincerely, Procrastinating Pupil Dear Waiting for a Change, Let me get back to you on that… Just kidding! The procrastination trap is easy to get into and hard to get out of, but there are tricks for getting things done! Make a deal with yourself-tell yourself that for every chapter you read or every two pages you write, etc. you get to do something enjoyable in between. Maybe for every chapter you read you can watch an episode of your favorite show on Netflix or you can go outside for some fresh air. Ditch the tech-turn off your phone while doing work so you won’t be tempted to check Facebook, or get distracted by incoming messages. If you don’t need it for the work you are doing, disconnect your computer from the Internet while you work. Make a plan-consistently set aside a few hours of each day which are solely dedicated to getting work done and let others know that you are not available during this time. Say you don’t have any classes between 1 and 3 every day. Plan to work on the things you want to get done every day at this time. Most importantly, stay motivated! Remind yourself who you want to be and what you want to do after Wells. Think of your obligations now as a means of achieving that goal.

DEAR MINERVA, Is there life after Wells? Sincerely, Leaving the Bubble Dear Don’t Want to Move On, Wells is a hard place to leave behind, but the good news is the friends, memories, and accomplishments you have made in your time here will always be with you in some form or another. Yes, life after Wells will be a big change but remember: You will always be a Wellsian! And that means you have something special to offer the big world beyond Aurora. Of course, please come back and visit! You know I’ll be here!

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 97

DEAR MINERVA,

How do I deal with blatant racism? Sincerely, A Concerned Student

If you could be BFFs with any other statue who/which would it be and why? Sincerely, Friendship Goals

Dear Rightfully Concerned, You are completely justified in your concern over this issue. Wells is an inclusive and accepting community, and racism is completely unacceptable. College campuses nationwide are standing up and speaking out against the racism they experience as students of color. If you witness racist behavior or hear racist comments and feel safe to do so, call them out. Find other students and organizations like power, umoja, and sciie who will support you. If you would like specific incidents addressed by the institution, report it to the Bias Incident Report Team (birt). There is no easy way to deal with racism, blatant or subtle, but know you’re not alone in the fight for racial equality.

Dear Statue Matchmaker, Being the goddess of wisdom, I value intellect in my friends. I think I’d get along well with The Thinker. He’s been in that pose for a long time, so I’m sure that by now he must have a lot of ideas. Should make for a good conversation!

DEAR MINERVA,

What are good ways to sleep better? Sincerely, Tossing and Turning

I fear my lover dost loathe me. Whatforever shall I do? Sincerely, Jaded Lover

Dear Sleepless in Aurora, Evaluate your current sleeping habits! Are you using your phone, computer, or television before sleeping? Avoid those bright screens before bed. Try to inhibit your caffeine and alcohol intake because they both negatively mess with your sleep cycle. Create a routine and commit to it so your body associates those motions with sleep, and incorporate some gentle stretches into it. If you have a smartphone, think about getting an app that tracks your sleep cycle so you have more information about your body's unique needs.

Dear Failed Feelings, If thou lover dost loathe you, let them go. Their emotions are their own and if you truly cared about them, you would respect their right to keep their space. Watch a rom-com. Eat some ice cream. It'll be okay. Take this time to reflect and grow.

THE SYCAMORE / FALL 2015 99

VISUAL ARTS CONTEST WINNER “#Meta” ABENA POKU ‘16

100