Social Isolation is known to have many adverse mental, physical, and emotional effects The 18th-century French poet Joseph Roux once said that “Solitude vivifies. Isolation kills.” There has been much debate about the distinction between the states of solitude vs isolation – if you can even consider them states of being, rather than places, conditions, mindsets, or afflictions. As supported by Roux’s quote, solitude doesn’t necessarily bear the negative connotations that i

St. Bonaventure Catholic Church- Decades of scandal, secularization, and cultural shifts have seen organized religion relegated to the rear of culture, leading to a poorer civil society and a more polarized populace. (Image courtesy of Abandoned America and Matthew Christopher) As American life has continued to change and evolve, one of the most dramatic, if underreported, shifts in its culture has been the decline of both religious belief as a whole and organized religion in

Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, circa 1980s- Although the parade still occurs every year, the unique culture of artists that birthed it is now with the undead. (Image courtesy of Curbed and Scott Laperruque) “For masterpieces,” Virginia Woolf said , “are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common.” In the modern era, our culture has been driven by artists and the communities they build together; innovators set the tone, and th

Derek “More Plates More Dates” Monroe and Joe Rogan are just two of the many influencers spreading the gospel of testosterone to young men online (Credit: Instagram @MorePlatesMoreDates) "It's real simple,” declares Joe Rogan , the most-listened-to podcaster in the world. “If you're fine with not feeling as good—good! But if you're not fine with it... hormone replacement therapy exists for a reason, and that reason is it makes you feel way better.” Over on YouTube, Derek of

Sometimes things just aren't that complicated (Kasia Babis, The Nib) “I can’t follow politics these days, the political scene is so crazy. There are just so many nasty comments on both sides.” This sentiment is one I have heard from many people both online and in person over the past decade, and it drives me up a wall. It seems that we live in a time where staying in the politically inoffensive middle ground on the basis of intellectualism and rationality is prioritized over

Popular love confession scene from season 3 episode 7 of ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’ featuring male lead Conrad Fisher Somewhere on TikTok, a man is staring out a rain-soaked window. “He yearns,” the caption reads, as a Phoebe Bridgers song swells in the background. In the comments, hundreds of people lose their minds over the emotional depth of a guy who has not, by any means, said a single word. Welcome to today’s cultural moment, where longing — gentle, aesthetic, prefer

A painting made by Marianne of the abortion scene Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is an absolutely stunning film. It follows two women, Marianne and Héloïse—one tasked with painting the other—and against the backdrop of 18th-century France; they fall in love. Yet a third character quietly adds to the emotional landscape of the story. Sophie, the housemaid, discovers she is pregnant, and Marianne and Héloïse help her seek an abortion. They first give Sophie an h

The United States government has long been criticized for excessive surveillance of citizens and non-citizens alike. To many, this practice contradicts the American ideals of personal liberty and privacy. Directives for mass surveillance are most commonly made after major tragedies or during political upheaval. After the 9/11 attacks, the Patriot Act allowed authorities to detain hundreds of immigrants for prolonged periods despite not being accused of a crime. These detent

"I Lied to You" Scene Still Music has always been deeply connected to culture. I remember as a young child my father would play the songs of artists spanning centuries, their voices kept alive through music. My mother would tell the stories from Africa, of our family and history, sharing the melodies of our culture. Storytelling through music and folklore passes history down through generations, preserving the voices of culture. The magnetic and life changing film released Ap

Jayce Talis, the scientist behind Hextech, working with the arcane crystal. (Riot Games, Arcane ). This November is a big one for computer scientists and engineers. It marks the 37th birthday of Wojciech Zaremba, the computer scientist who founded OpenAI , and the third anniversary of the release of ChatGPT , one of the first accessible language learning models available to the public. And when their compilers switch off and the television switches on for a Netflix binge, the

Ali Baba, a character in 1,001 Nights Fairytales may help children fall asleep at night, but they are more significant than bedtime entertainment; they are more like capsules for cultural values. In the case of Shahrazad, they saved her life. The storyteller of the 1,001 Nights , Shahrazad, tells 1,000 stories, one each night, to delay her husband from killing her. One of these stories includes the renowned classic “Aladdin,” a story that teaches the importance of being mindf

The 4chan logo (Wikipedia) The Internet is a horrible place. One of the most horrible parts of the Internet is, as many are familiar with, 4chan, a mostly-anonymous online forum centralized around images to share ideas across a variety of topic boards, such as /k/ (a place for 4channers to gather and discuss weaponry, oftentimes those regarding the Rhodesian military ), /mlp/ (notorious for not just My Little Pony discussions that are grossly inappropriate for the intended a

Cover of Final Fantasy XV: Comrades The act of gathering in a shared space is the foundation of a community’s thriving health, but with...

Thrifting is more popular than ever among college students Although this sentiment has recently been called into question , Gen Z is...

Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam To write an apologia, to lay blame on Theo, and to...

Cropped Image of Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio With the final sentence of Roland Barthes’ 1967 essay , “the birth of the reader must...

A photo of Tawes Hall, where UMD’s own Writing Center is located Would you rather a human or a computer give you one-on-one writing...

Ancient recipes from cuneiform tablets (Yale Babylonian Collection) Hungry? Well, let me pull out the recipe book. It’s only 4 millennia...

Humanity's first ever aquaponics system - chinampas, bringing both food and community Humans are a complex species each individually...

Sign Pointing to a Measles Testing Site in Texas Photo by Julio Cortez It starts like any other illness: a dry cough, runny nose, maybe a...