3. Moon Jellies

  Identity as a Quilt           We tend to think of our identity as uniquely ours, but what if it’s really more of a collage than our own creations? At first, it seems pretty obvious: of course I’m unique, why in the world wouldn’t I be? There isn’t a single person in the entire world who has lived my exact life the same way I have with my memories, my quirks, my thoughts, and so on. The more I think about it, the more that the whole idea of originality starts to falter, because I’ve realized that some of the aspects of myself I thought were such a defining part of me aren’t entirely mine to begin with.           So much of myself has been increasingly shaped by other people: the way that I tend to approach challenges, the way I stay stubborn and firm-rooted in my beliefs, and even the things that I chose to care about in the first place. Even the little details in our lives have such a profound impact on the way we define...

     If I traveled back in time to the 1980s and looked at the various media Americans had, the only socially acceptable models to make the cover of magazines would all be white models. That was what everybody knew America as: the white man’s prideful gaze and spirit, his fist bumping his chest in glory. America’s patriotism was what created Uncle Sam in the first place. But wouldn’t the immigrants, colored folks, or non-white folks living in America simply question America’s identity? Wasn’t this the promised place of new diversity, new opportunity, and living the American dream?      While endlessly scrolling through my phone a couple nights ago, I came across these two jean ads each featuring Sydney Sweeney and KATSEYE. In her American Eagle jeans ad , Sydney Sweeney wore suggestive clothing and stated that the jeans “make your butt look amazing”. At the end of the ad, large text covered the screen with “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”. This ad brought u...

     Science Olympiad has brought a lot of positives into my otherwise uneventful life. Of course, it’s allowed me to explore my interests in a myriad of different aspects of science like physics, engineering, environmental science, geology, and so much more. This has unfortunately come with the side effect of transforming me into a factoid-spewing fountain every time something vaguely related to wind turbines gets mentioned (did you know that the blades of Darrieus or “egg-beater” wind turbines have a specific resonant frequency where if the turbine spins at a close enough speed for a long enough time, the blades can actually shatter?). But most of all, and perhaps most surprisingly, it’s introduced me to a community of people that share the same nerdy interests as I do; not just within American High School, but across the country.      About a year and a half ago, I was introduced to someone, who I’ll refer to as Basil, through a Science Olympiad commun...

  The greater lophorina performs its mating ritual. René Descartes was a French philosopher who famously coined the term “ergo cogito sum”—more famously, “I think therefore I am.” This statement was self-explanatory; anyone capable of pondering their existence must, therefore, exist. But today, existing isn’t enough. A quick Google search tells me that there are an estimated 8.2 billion people in the year 2025. Too many to ever meet, too many to ever know. In the minds of people worldwide—and perhaps more so in the minds of teenage girls—there was only one question: How do I differentiate myself from everyone else? At least in America, the answer came in the form of media. High School Musical was released in 2006. The first Twilight movie? 2008. The first The Hunger Games movie, 2012. What did all of these movies have in common? They all featured a particular kind of heroine. One that was unique. One that didn’t try. She was beautiful, but not in the “typical” makeup-wearing, pi...

    I was watching a video made by CJ the X about Jordan Peterson’s trashy suits, specifically the “Heaven and Hell” suit that just looked ridiculous despite a seemingly large amount of effort put into it, and came to the realization of how entwined dress and culture is.     Credits to @jordan.b.peterson on Instagram     "JBP in his custom Heaven and Hell suit. The blue fabric is made from sheep wool and the red fabric is made from goat wool."      In the video, professional menswear critic Derek Guy addresses people who put on slapdash outfits with a quote that completely changed my views on fashion: “You have to form a sentence to communicate something, and you can be creative with the way that you compose that sentence, but it still has to be somewhat culturally legible.” The way people dress is often associated with their passions and social identity, and those who have a "good taste" are able to clearly articulate who they are c...

    The 2010s was an interesting decade for movies, bringing with it masterful hits such as Inception , Whiplash , Hacksaw Ridge, and The Emoji Movie. However, there was also a rise in a different type of movie: biopics, one of which I recently rewatched. My second watch of David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network brought with it questions regarding its choice of subject matter: a biopic about a man who is still alive, whose identity and image will continue to be shaped by the media—whether truthful or fictitious—for years to come.     The movie opens with a tense conversation between Mark Zuckerberg and his girlfriend Erica Albright. Frustrated by his lack of empathy and obsessive desire to get into selective, party-heavy Harvard clubs, she dumps him. Mark, now motivated by a bitter desire for revenge, creates the hit website FaceMash which later transforms into The Facebook.      This setup works very well to motivate Mark Zuckerberg’s ...