Growing up, I was taught—as many young girls are— to put others ahead of myself. Whether it was being told to let my brothers eat first because they needed more food, or being cautioned to dress in a way that would make others comfortable with my changing body. There was always an unambiguous message hiding in the crevices of everything: your needs don’t matter. 

Don’t get me wrong, nothing is as important to me as ensuring the people I love have everything they need—emotionally, physically, financially, etc. However, I’ve learned that continually breaking yourself down to fill in the gaps in others, no matter how small, is nothing short of complete self-destruction. 

I used to wonder if I only existed to act as an accessory to those around me, a shiny but insignificant thing desperately hanging around, waiting to be useful. Not many people saw me as the most interesting girl in the room, but I was helpful if you needed homework answers or a silent shoulder to cry on. At the time, I hated myself just enough to buy into the idea that if I did everything correctly, people would like me: I’d work overtime, make jokes at my own expense, and do hours of emotional labor—whatever it takes! But most importantly, I won’t ask for anything in return. Perhaps you won’t love me for who I am, but could you love me for what I can do for you? Can my convenient functionality make you want to stay? 

I’m most reminded of this disillusioned version of myself when I reflect on the first person I ever dated as an adult. They got so much of me that I was fully convinced I was nothing when they left. The issue is clearer to me now: I had been so incredibly worried about them staying interested in me that I was willing to give them every part of myself without a second thought. The hope of having a real connection allowed 18-year-old me to endure emotional turmoil and turn a blind eye to the horrible things he did. Ironically enough, despite the heartbreak and pain of that situation, I’ll always be grateful for them because they taught me that being blindly empathetic can have devastating consequences. You can drain yourself dry, and people will still ask for more—you’re allowed to tell those people no. 

Looking back, I’m incredibly sad for young me, who thought so lowly of herself that she became an emotional TaskRabbit for those around her. I truly thought there wasn’t a problem that couldn't be solved by breaking myself down and handing out my pieces like emotional life jackets to keep others from drowning. 

I’d like to think I’m better at knowing how and when to set boundaries nowadays, but I know I’m not perfect. I still spend a lot of time and effort ensuring I care for those around me. I still abandon my own needs the second a friend or family member is distressed. My fundamental belief system is still rooted in empathy and sensitivity, and I have no plans to change that. That being said, and I understand this will sound hypocritical, but let me be clear: destroying yourself in the hopes of making others stick around or care about you is not beautiful, it’s not interesting, and holy fuck, it's not worth it.

Written by Kate Castello

Edited by Tia Douglas and Elisabeth Kay

If you ask almost any 20-something year old girl where they were on the evening of October 16th, 2024, they will be able to give you an exact answer. I was with a friend at Mount Everest Sushi that evening when I found out Liam Payne had died. We were shocked, to say the absolute least. I thought I would be retired with gray hair and a bunch of grandchildren before I would hear the news of the first member of One Direction passing away. As the night went on, I still could not grapple with the idea of THE Liam Payne being dead. That’s a harsh word, I know, but the bluntness accurately describes how it feels to find out someone you loved as a kid is no longer here. It finally hit me when I was going to bed just how upset I actually was about his death. I just could not wrap my head around it. For the next few days, he was all I could think about. Every TikTok, Instagram reel, and post on X I saw were about him. To this day, a month later, the day of his funeral, I primarily listen to One Direction. I know I’m not the only one, as all five 1D albums skyrocketed in the charts immediately following the news of Liam’s untimely death.  

One Direction broke up back in 2016 when I was only 12 years old, yet they are such a memorable part of my childhood. I remember being devastated when Zayn left, how I thought the “Story of My Life” music video was a life-changing, cinematic masterpiece, and listening to “What Makes You Beautiful” in the car with my mom after she bought herself their CD. I literally slept with a 1D alarm clock that had their faces on it right next to my head for years. That clock ticked so loudly and was extremely annoying, but I loved it so much that I refused to move it. Multiple pieces of my One Direction puzzle were missing. I did not care, I would put it together anyway. The cabin wall next to my bed at sleepaway camp was too bare. No problem, I had this ginormous poster of 1D that I ripped out of a Tiger Beat magazine. My point is, the parts of my childhood involving this silly little boy band were some of the most memorable. Of course this is because One Direction’s legacy will forever live on through their music, but it goes so much deeper than that.

One Direction was a cultural phenomenon, and it is hard to understand the impact they had on the music industry, the Internet, and pop culture unless you lived through it. Fan culture has been around for decades, but it became especially widespread in the music world with the fanaticism encircling the Beatles in the 1960s, coined Beatlemania. 50 years later, it was like déjà vu as One Direction hit the scene when the members individually auditioned for the X-Factor in 2010. Later in the season, each boy was hand picked to be put into a brand new boy band, with a judge on the show saying “the little girls are gonna love them.” The little girls did, in fact, love them. They shot to stardom in 2011 following the release of their debut single, “What Makes You Beautiful” and debut album Up All Night. The rest is history (aka one of their best songs). Between their video diaries, the One Direction: This Is Us movie, and the constant world tours, fans got to see the personalities of each of the boys. They were loved for so much more than their music, which became apparent when the Directioners made their way to the Internet. Fanpages, Twitter, Tumblr, fanfiction, memes… everything that makes the Internet what it is today was pioneered by 1D-obsessed teenage girls in the early 2010s. Not only did this allow the fans to feel more connected to their idols, but also to each other. One Direction genuinely made a huge impact in and shaped lots of people’s lives. 

They are now considered one of the most successful boy bands of all time. While lots of Directioners left the scene during their indefinite hiatus, no one forgot their impact. Each of the members have their own solo careers now and do not shy away from the public eye. To address the elephant in the room, Liam himself has been in the media for the past couple years, and not for good reasons. I won’t go too much into that, but I think it is important to understand that fans can grieve for the Liam they grew up with while acknowledging that he hurt people. It is already complicated enough for people to grieve the death of someone they had a parasocial relationship with. For people who couldn’t care less about One Direction, this may seem odd and overly dramatic. I definitely understand how it can seem that way. To those people, try to think of it this way: without you even knowing, One Direction directly impacted your life as well because of how they shaped the Internet and social media. Imagine how much they impacted the lives of people who were actually fans and deeply associate them with their childhood and adolescence. 

Although we will not be getting that One Direction reunion the fans have been longing for for years, 1D’s legacy will only continue to grow stronger. The impact they made on society will stand the test of time, which is clear from the outpouring of love Liam and his family have received online. When I go home for winter break, I am going to find that annoying but perfect alarm clock to bring back to school with me. I am going to try to play their music on the piano like I did many years ago. I am going to reconnect myself with this part of my childhood instead of feeling like it died on October 16th, 2024. The little girls may not be so little anymore, but we still love them and always will. 

Written by Rachel Klein

Edited by Clare Vogel and Julia Brummell

I found my Philadelphia Jesus at a time when the church deemed my soul sick with the toxin of some meliorating evil. He appeared to me with a heart so frank I began to fear the ongoing deterioration the New Jesus yielded over the functions of my heart… for, as a pawn and devoted follower, I needed not only to deconstruct the passages of my Mother Faith to welcome a lover she told me to hold as she did me. My Philadelphia Jesus had hair so long you would have mistaken him as a prophet too, if you had met him where I met him. But desolation is a SEPTA station around about 2 P.M. on a Friday — and as a singer of deep Louisiana hymns, I knew that this sense of “fallow” was on par with a prospect far greater than the sickly betrayal I wrote in the other oblivion. 

Picture me as the subject in Birthday by Dorothea Tanning: I was standing there, chest torn in the sublime air, waiting for a savior to tell me how to dream. Because I did not dream of the mythical nor the fantastical nor the sexual nor the pseudosexual nor the violent nor the happy nor the sorrowful nor the mellow, I dreamt none, saw no mirrors. Could have no riddance in the waking world, why would I find solace here where there is not even darkness to wallow in? Instead, as I prayed to thee that I remained still in my motions and bore the pain of my shattered nail beds that pragmatically bled when their ends were bitten too short. Here is how I prayed before the cross made me new again: 

Dear Heavenly Father, 

I bring to thee nothing but my naked body and heart. I know it won’t be enough, but I ask for thee to take me as I am. 

Take me as I am. 

Take me as I am. 

Because, Father, if thou shall not, I will weep like thou did when I left the Mother, even though the tears were of a false idol — forged by the preachers with secrets withheld to everyone except me, the challenging unmatriach. 

I have not known this reservoir, but thou hath turned it to gold. Yahwah, know I looked deep within, and found the ravine of my turmoil. Know I met thee and became reacquainted with the ruthless nature of my primitivity.

Amen.

In another prayer, thou told me that I was safe enough to look beyond thee and forget thee altogether. In that perplexion, I knew I had extrapolated the bygone prophecy of an equally bygone prophet. I could not depart from thee, my Philadelphia Jesus, because how could I leave the force that forged the realm of my dreams — which were once jaded with the technicolor of the more mundane and passive clique contained in my scorch of demons? Yet there are demons that ride on a much more implicative evil — the gray matter that poisons the mellow and condemns the archaic and the primitive, for where the Soul treks shall be no barrier to the New Jesus, who I felt in rhythms and conundrums that would make me realize that the directions of my morning prayers concave not to the directions of the heavens but within the roots of the earth adorned with the chapels of time present and time future; do not look for the Spire, my Soul, or Philadelphia will take you again and tell you nothing of the Revelation surging to the Circle.

Thou, with all of thy grace, appeared to me as fruitful but not holy and true. Where is the open door; where are the frights of my blessings, my Philadelphia Jesus? Why, along the Schuylkill, I can still speak to thee, feel thou as if thou were the lux of my very marrows… I no longer hold the key; thou never granted it to me. I see new gods with no jurisdictions as human as thine — for the breach of the aesthetic world diminishes itself in the clots of my heart with each passing day. Every morn is elastic in the clauses of forgetting thee, the Philadelphia Jesus who concurred with the physicality of the Mother Faith and disguised motive with glamor and cruelty with frankness. The themes of each dogma equate to the deterioration of the Soul, who finds the beauty in the “demise” of Eve by logically eliminating the phrase “demise” from the inventory of faith constructions altogether; how could “demise” be mended when the archetype of devotion has built its foundation the repression of pleasure in exchange for another’s turmoil? 

My foundation once was firm but now it is fluid — the rivers have of course dried in the seasons of drought but now the weather is torrentially lunar; I foresee the Schuykill’s undead ripples as a prophetic finality that brews within me and not by the blood nor the body of an external savior. Less fatalistic, more divine: the river is quaintly splendorous and befriending me for the first time, and thy rine has become accustomed to the flesh and bodies of other false messiahs; celestially enough, thou shall feel god as the muse of the regressions of all common prophets of deceit, and I shall see the Soul as the intended muse of all of my love. 

Written by Eden Mann

Edited by Emma Moran and Julia Brummell

I’ve always loved the rain. Longed for it, even. I would get excited just to see the sky darken, a promise of what’s to come. To me, the promise of rain meant running outside and dancing with my friends. It meant jumping in puddles, unafraid of what I looked like in the moment. Most importantly, the rain meant sitting on my front porch with my mom watching the skies open. We would sit side by side on our well-loved bench with the breeze in our hair and the scent of rain in the air. We would talk about everything and nothing at all as the rain fell before us. I loved the rain because, with each drop that would fall from the sky, a new memory would blossom with the people I love.  

Now, I am 304 miles away from home. Away from my people and the rain and my front porch. I am in a new city that’s nothing like my home. Now when it rains, I don’t get excited anymore. I dread walking to my classes in the rain. I dread not being able to just sit and watch the rain with my mom. The puddles are no longer something to jump in, but rather something to avoid. My childhood friends are hours away, no longer at arm's length to pull into the rain. Instead, I am surrounded by unfamiliar faces and a sea of umbrellas.  

I try to remind myself that under the many umbrellas are faces of people in the same position as I. Although the umbrellas protect them from the rain, their true protectors are at home, just like mine. At home, the people that I love were my umbrella and that’s what made the rain so special. They shielded me from the darkness and destruction that could come from the rain. They showed me the beauty and simplicity of the rain. They were the fresh breeze that came after a rain shower, they were the rainbows that lit up the sky. Their laughs were thunder, and their bright smiles were lightning. So, although I am miles away from my people, my umbrella, I can still remember the memories and the happiness of the rain.  

Being here at the University of Pittsburgh has tested my love of the rain. It’s shown me just how lonely it can be to watch the rain by yourself. But most importantly, I now see the rain as a sign of growth. I can allow the rain to wash over me and let myself grow during this new chapter of my life. Now when I look at the rain, I can be proud of each little step. Each club meeting I attend, each exam I take, and each friend I make are steps of this process of growth. The rain can be lonely and without the umbrella of support from home, it can be hard to love the rain. As I grow and evolve, I can learn to become my own umbrella and love the rain once again. 

Written by Ashley O’Doherty  

Edited by Julia Maynard and Julia Brummell

Social media has greatly accelerated our trend cycle, making the newest fashion trends easily accessible through the hundreds of videos we see each day. As Bella Hadid sits on the for you page with a beautiful new outfit, costing hundreds of dollars, people become infatuated; they form a distinct need to look like their favorite celebrity, a parasocial feeling if you will. This new fashion trend starts to spread through social media, the need grows: the need to fit in and be respected. That’s where fast fashion dupes come in; anyone has the chance to be a “fashionista” at cheap prices. The House of Sunny dresses can sit in your closet without spending an arm and a leg on them. And, because the clothing is so cheap, it quickly loses its value and it no longer matters if the shirt gets thrown away because it only costs $5, less than a cup of coffee. As such, a brand that is incredibly guilty of driving this behavior that may come to many of your minds is: Shein. While Shein is a prominent fast fashion brand, it is also important to recognize that unethical fashion practices are not limited to the price of the clothing themselves, with brands like Zara, H&M, Gap, Old Navy, Urban Outfitters, and Free People promoting these cyclical fashion trends as well. Fast fashion is being consumed all around us, but for today, I will be focusing specifically on Shein. 

Because the clothing is so cheap, every single fashion trend can be bought into, and when everyone starts to dress the same way, fashion trends change and adapt. The trend cycle has accelerated, a new exciting trend comes out and everyone jumps on it, ultimately making the mound of clothes higher and higher, filled with micro trends that quickly make their way to the landfill. We often look back at these micro-trends from a few years ago and cringe at our absolute non-fashionability, despite doing the same exact thing now.  We cringe at the overuse of cow print while wearing oversized soccer jerseys with jorts. 

I know this oversaturation of clothing is due to this need to fit in, by wearing clothing that isn’t trendy people quickly become judged. Fashion is in fact the means in which we present ourselves, and that may never change. But the trend cycle has just become so oversaturated to the point where it’s impossible to be up to date and in trend without constantly shopping. In the social state of the world we live in, keeping up to date with trend cycles improves your status.

A lot of people's arguments on why Shein is okay is because they aren’t the only fashion brand guilty of being unethical. Often using the phrase “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism,” which is true, but it’s obviously a range. There are options for clothing shopping that are much more ethical (the biggest one being underconsumption). Thrifting being another huge element, focusing on this circular fashion of clothing. But this love for Shein and lack of care for the way this purchase of fast fashion is affecting other people is ignorant. Not even mentioning the fact that the price of the clothing is often times cheaper than the price of the fabric itself. Some studies have demonstrated shein clothing containing over 20% lead, and I wouldn’t be surprised if other fast fashion brands had a similar fabric makeup. 

This over-saturation is very evident when you visit Shein’s website, immediately bombarded with discount codes and sales to make these criminally low priced pieces of clothing even less. Then as you start to look through the items, there are thousands of clothing pieces, including duplicates for popular items made minutes after the piece rose to popularity. They release 700 to 1,000 new items each day, with 35,000 to 100,000 clothing items produced each day. The fashion industry is also responsible for 10% of carbon emission and makes up 35% of ocean pollution and every year 85% of all textiles end up in the landfill. As new pieces are churned out, old ones quickly get thrown away, ultimately creating constant waste. 

I think the speed of our current trend cycle is ruining true fashion in its entirety. It doesn’t leave as big of a place for personal fashion as every article of clothing gets mass produced to the point of being overly accessible. It is deteriorating not only our individualism, but also the environment we live in. We need to prioritize a cycle of clothing that enforces repurposing and recycling. We need to value clothing for their longevity, rather than viewing them as how they can fit most into the trend cycle. We all can take part in over consumption in one way or another and it is time to be mindful, and bring real fashion back.

Written by Elena Kimberling

Edited by Diya Aneja and Elisabeth Kay

Red velvet brushes against my skin. My hand glides and curves and strokes, making patterns in the fabric. The song pounding through my headphones changes—Norah Jones. Something old. Something 2000s. My hand feels cold without the warm embrace of a mug handle, espresso steam billowing off the top. I pluck the mug off the white oak table in front of me. I peer down at the heart drawn delicately with frothed milk before destroying it, slurping it away. The warm liquid moves its way through my body, awakening my soul, my spirit, my mind. 

I steal the pen sitting atop my ear to write a bullet point. Then another. I scribble away in my notebook. On my laptop shines a vibrant white page. An exhibition catalogue or an essay or an article assigned meticulously by a professor scouring the web for the perfect reflection. I flip to a new lined page. 

The plastic laminate on the outside of my library book chills my leg. I want to highlight quotes, but instead I just commit them to memory. “We are walking down the steeply sloping hill, la la la, the hill upon which the towers and bells of Warren shimmer like a wish.” I pull my phone from deep within my backpack—from where I had previously tossed it in order to focus—to take a photo. Inspiration buzzes all around me. It bounces from the ceiling to the wall to the barista and back. It burrows within me. I need to write, I think. 

Brown and burgundy and deep yellow. Purple and red and burnt orange. Jazz over the speakers. Pastries lined on a shelf: croissant, eclair, bagel, muffin. Soft chatter echoing. A fireplace lit in the corner. A family with two young children enters the room to screw it all up. My roommates follow behind.

They pull up chairs, walking awkwardly through the common space, doling out I’m sorry’s and ‘scuse me’s. The loud screech and moan of the legs moving against the cement floor. My friends join me and I update them on my day, my work, my life. I show them what book I’m reading. They remind me of all the people they hate, anxiously checking the room for people we know who would give us away. Buns that sit high on their heads flop back and forth as they talk with their hands. We pass a lip balm counterclockwise as a packet of gum circles clockwise. We fuse into one as we ride the rhythm and wave and synchronicity of each other. I take a sip of their dark roast, black as the night sky. I pretend to love it. I do love them. 

We leave the coffee shop when the sun is setting. 4 pm is much too early. I will wake up and do it all again tomorrow.

Written by Leighton Curless

Edited by Mia Stack and Julia Brummell

I grew up in a house next to the house next to the alley on the south side of a street on the northwest side of the city. Out front is a mighty tree, rich with age, and a slow growing sapling. Ugly brown vinyl siding envelopes the house. The porch is painted white, covering the textured brick that makes up four posts, two on either side of the stairs. I used to sit on the ones closer to the street when I was younger and pretend I was a gargoyle. The room upstairs at the front of the house is mine and has been since 2019. 

We had just dropped my brother off at college. When we got back, my neighbor and I dragged my belongings across the hallway. I tore down my brother’s pennants and put up my posters. The trifold windows illuminated the heavy wooden desk. The stained glass window threw rainbows on the closet walls. The room & the bed & the next few years were bigger than before. 

At the window on the right, I open the glass, lift the screen, pull my ratty desk chair over, swing my right leg through the frame, prop my left arm on the chair, boost my left leg through the window, then crawl until I can swoop my head out. To the right is Cicero, a major north-south street in Chicago with a constant stream of cars. I try to count the spacing between buses going in either direction – if there is a pattern, I wish to learn it. Middle aged men bike down my block. Back when the Family Fruit Market lived behind the alley, I’d see arms full of groceries for the week. Now it’s a Dollar Tree, and my mom calls the city to complain about their overflowing trash cans on the sidewalk. I always go inside feet first. 

On my sixteenth birthday, I walked with my friends to the Art Institute after school. We giggled as Ava applied gloss to our puckered lips in the bathroom. The hallways expanded endlessly as we trailed through the exhibits. I was drawn to the empty Chicago stock exchange trading room off to the side. The glossy wooden floors, mesmerizing detailed ceiling, and octagonal marble posts. My brother and I had played tag in there, chasing each other in tight circles until our little legs grew tired. At that moment, I felt so old and couldn’t remember what it was like to be so small. On the train ride back that evening, I sat alone in the furthest seat of the last car watching the skyline shrink behind the ongoing tracks. 

It was my last day of the summer before making the trek to college for the first time. I sat, bent over, trying to get my cat to drink some water, as he clung to the last bit of his life. My ride was out front. In the backseat, I tuned out my friends, tracing the streets and houses with my eyes. On the black brick siding of a church, white paint wrote ‘You belong here’. I wondered if they were talking to me. The lake had warmed up by now, gentle waves crashed against the concrete ledge. Blue Angels did flips in triads to prepare for the Air and Water show, creating a relentless ruckus. I had been treading water, dunking my head under intermittently, and staring at the skyline, trying to absorb it. 

I have found myself withholding love for other places so as to not lose the love I have for that room, that house, that city. This is the only aspect of my life where my love is finite. My unique stubbornness is loyalty for a promise I don't remember making, and it is loudest when I feel comfort somewhere else. I know I will go back to Chicago, but I want to do so in triumphant admittance that there is another life for me there. One where I can go to real bars and rent an apartment off a different train stop. I just need my parents to keep that house, and for everything to remain exactly the way it is forever, and also for them to never die. I joke that my room should be made into an exhibit with red velvet rope blocking off its perfectly preserved state. 

Only recently, though, I’ve started to wonder what kind of torture it would be to walk those streets again with age. My college returns have been bittersweet, coated in nostalgia. On a winter visit back, I took the bus to the Village Discount at Kedzie and Irving. Empty chip bags blew down the alley. Cars shot up exhaust as they turned onto my street. No blue, only gray. I walked past the magazine store I used to love going to as a kid when I would rummage through the lower shelves. At the bus stop, I listened to wooden drum sticks strike plastic buckets turned upside down and held between thighs. The beat was quick and loud, but seeped in sadness. 

On the ride back, seats were filled with high schoolers. Backpacks shoved between feet or slung on one shoulder. I used to be you. At first it’s exciting to remember my tumultuous teenage years and the stories I’ve racked up, proof of an interesting life. Then, suddenly, I’m an aging embarrassment trying to hold onto my youth. It is not enough to go back to that place and remind myself of the past, I must create something new.

Written by Clare Vogel

Edited by Ella Romano and Elisabeth Kay

Music taste is often seen as a reflection of identity, and I genuinely believe my Liked Songs on Spotify capture who I am perfectly. My collection mostly consists of music that I heard somewhere (in a movie; a store; a TikTok; one of my siblings’ playlists in which I Shazamed the song instead of asking them the name of it, etc.) and needed to save to my library so that I could remember its existence and listen to it later. 

To help explain how my Liked Songs reveal a little about who I am, I have chosen ten random songs from my Liked Songs playlist (starting with the most recently added) to comment on and share why they have been added to my library.

#  Title           Artist                     Duration

1  Candy                                                       Mandy Moore                 3:54

Unfortunately, Spotify no longer lets you see when a song was added to your Liked Songs album; however, I believe I added this song around the beginning of this year. I was watching a clip of an IMDb interview with Ayo Edebiri, and the interviewer asked her what classic 90s or early 2000s track was her personal theme song. Edebiri replied with “Candy” by Mandy Moore, because she “felt like there was no way you could be sad when listening to the song.”

2  Genesis                             Grimes     4:15

I heard this while watching a movie called Before I Fall starring Zoey Deutch. I became addicted to the song, and I would play it in the car constantly with my fifteen-year-old brother, Teddie. When I listen to “Genesis” now, I always think of driving him out to and picking him up from his friend Lukas’s house two townships over. 

3  C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Every...)         Wu-Tang Clan     4:12

This song reminds me of my nineteen-year-old sister, Ellie. We were obsessed with this movie about an online game of truth or dare called Nerve when we were younger, and “C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me)” by Wu-Tang Clan plays during a scene where the main character Vee is dared to get a tattoo. I don’t listen to this song very much anymore, but when I do, I always think of my sister and that movie.

4  Gilded Lily         Cults                 3:33

“Gilded Lily” by Cults was a really popular edit song on TikTok – I don’t even know how long ago it was. The song felt euphoric to me. When I was sad, I would just listen to it on repeat because it was comforting. I think, subconsciously, listening to sad music when I’m already sad helps me validate my feelings. Doing this also allows me to fully experience my sadness, which has its pros and cons.

5  I Got The...-2006 Remaster                      Labi Siffre                 6:35

This is a great Labi Siffre song. I discovered it during one of my family’s homemade pizza nights because my dad likes to listen to his music while he cooks. Out of all of the songs that he played that night, this one stuck out to me because Eminem sampled it for his song “My Name Is.”

6  Right Down the Line           Gerry Rafferty     4:28

I added “Right Down the Line” to my Liked Songs collection after I heard it in an episode of Season 2 of HBO’s Euphoria. I really liked how it made me feel, and I always get the urge to dance when this song plays.

7  Stardust Chords           Greta Van Fleet     4:57

“Stardust Chords” is a part of my Liked Songs library because an ex-boyfriend of mine loved Greta Van Fleet. In an attempt to impress him, and to relate to him more, I felt that I needed to like the band, too. So, I added a few of the band’s songs that I liked to my library and called it a day. 

8  First Suite in E-Flat Major, Op. 28...        Gustav Holst, North Texas Wind...     4:50

I used to play the French Horn in my high school’s Wind Ensemble (the best of my high school’s four different bands, not to brag). I no longer play, but sometimes I wish that I did because I loved making music. Anyway, when we played pieces that I really liked, I would add them to my Liked Songs playlist. Listening to the songs actually helped me learn my parts and figure out how I was supposed to blend with the rest of the band.

9  Flightless Bird, American Mouth           Iron & Wine                 4:02

The first time I ever watched Twilight, I fell in love with this song because it reminded me of autumn. I later found out that Kristen Stewart specifically requested this song to be in the film. Even though the series is a little stupid, I love it because it is the fall season as a film, in my opinion. 

10  Space Song                       Beach House                 5:20

Space Song by Beach House is my favorite song ever and my comfort song. I don’t remember the first time I heard it, but it was probably sometime in 2020 or 2021. Since then, anytime I have been asked about my favorite song, I reply with Space Song. I think it’s perfect, and I never ever get sick of it. 

Public Playlist

maggieaknox · 10 songs, 46 min 6 sec

Written by Maggie Knox

Edited by Wendy Moore and Elisabeth Kay

I care. 

I care A LOT actually. I am so passionate about so many different things that it makes my heart ache. Sometimes I am not sure why I feel so deeply and why I choose to when I always anticipate tremendous amounts of emotional turmoil. However, I don’t see a reality in which I would want to be careless: I couldn’t imagine a life more dismal than one parched of intensely-had-emotion. 

The first time I was made to feel pathetic for caring was in the seventh grade. I had written an essay for my history class titled something along the lines of “The Women's Suffrage Movement.” I had put my blood, sweat, and tears into this piece and felt proud of the linguistic effort. I have always, and will always, hold a strong investment in women’s issues. Then, my teacher told us we had to present our pieces to the class, immediately sending a shiver down my spine. I felt embarrassed: why did I feel embarrassed? What was so frightening to me about sharing something I had put so much effort into with my classmates? 

Well, as they often say, trust your gut. I stood up, shaking like a leaf in the wind, and watched as every boy in the class giggled at me. They gave each other looks, shared a whisper into each other’s ears, and silently mocked me with their grins. Even though I stood about five inches taller than each of them, I felt the tiniest I have ever felt in my life. I proceeded to feel just as tiny, now in physique and character, for the following years of my high school career. 

It wasn’t until I graduated high school that I rid myself of that shameful feeling. What I had once dismissed as fact, that it was embarrassing to care as much as I did, I let go. I realized that choosing to care silently because you cannot bear the thought of what others think of you isn’t passionate: it is compliant. Passion is a beautiful quality, and one that I love to share with others and vice versa. I love telling people about my affinity for Broadway plays. I adore hearing a book lover's argument about why Colleen Hoover is so awful. Any space in which there is an open conversation to be had about something someone cares about is a space I want to be included in. And to circle back, especially in the political climate of today, I care so deeply about the struggles women face that I refuse to keep my mouth shut. I cared in seventh grade and I care now: the only difference is now, I choose to be as loud as I want about it.

Written by Ella Romano

Edited by Renee Arlotti and Julia Brummell

To be a woman is to inherit an awareness of being watched. 

I believe that there are very few women who haven’t second-guessed their presence in a room. It starts young – that hyper-awareness of space and sound and how much of it you’re allowed to occupy. You learn to become fluent in the language of making yourself palatable: shoulders softening, voice lilting down at the edges, a careful rationing of conviction.

Your passion must be tempered, and your enthusiasm looks better when it's weathered. The safest way to exist is to perpetually inhabit the space between too much and not enough. 

How does it feel to live lukewarm? 

To fold up your limbs and curve in your shoulders (smaller and smaller and smaller) until you melt into the window seat of the public transit. To become the master of the measured response, the strategic understatement. Ambitious (but not threatening), confident (but never certain), successful (but always with a self-deprecating footnote). 

How early do we become the teachers of our own constraints?

The cruel irony is that even this curated tepidness isn’t enough – because “lukewarm” isn’t really what anyone wants from you. They want you in constant pursuit of adjustment. You’re still expected to read the room even though you’ve been forced to live between the margins. An inevitable purgatory. 

Everybody wants to be The Cool Girl, and nobody wants to be The Crazy Girl, but we’ve all been both to somebody. 

What does it really take for a woman to be “cool”? 

Can we ever truly be effortlessly cool? Because it sure seems to take a lot of effort to dilute yourself thin enough to exist in that limbo. 

Interested but never eager. 

Unattainable. 

Mysterious. (Are you really mysterious, or has the world scared you out of being openly and obnoxiously passionate about the things that make you happy? The things you find important?) 

Why do we bend over backwards to appear indifferent? What are we protecting, and what are we losing in the process?

These next few years, it’s detrimental to remain vibrant, and angry, and joyful, and empathetic – alive to everything that makes us human. 

Occupy space and fill it until it overflows.

Written by Delaney Pipon

Edited by Emily Hudak and Julia Brummell