Culture

Spongebob serves paradoxically as a figure of queer disruption, an embrace of radical love and queered innocence, even in its commodified stat – not because of its independence from its means of production, but the consciousness of its fantasies.

While an emphasis on “White privilege” is certainly warranted, it egregiously neglects another facet of the conversation surrounding demographic entitlement: privilege in financially secure diverse communities and the blissful oblivion of first and second-generation immigrants.

TikTok is fun, but the fun only veneers deeper considerations we’ll have to make as we accept that blend of public and private as fixtures in our daily lives. We will need to examine whether we want the perfected convenience of algorithmically-curated content, or whether it’s possible to reward breaking out of our bubbles.

American culture likes to identify its heroes and villains; Avatar the Last Airbender creators Koniezko and DiMartino are neither. For me, they are not “canceled.” But contrary to public worship, their work bears harm too.

At present, with nowhere to go and no one to see but a calendar full of meetings, we must be more careful in walking the line between innovation and overwork, connected and enveloped before we are consumed.

This Wednesday, June 17, is Dalloway Day – a celebration both ordinary and extraordinary. Around the world, fans of renowned modernist author Virginia Woolf will pause to celebrate her 1925 novel “Mrs. Dalloway,” a story about a single day in the life of wealthy Londoner Clarissa.

All stories must end. Magic dies out. Kids become adults. But shows like “Adventure Time” and “Regular Show” left us to think about them, reflect on why we were so happy, and remember the lessons the characters learned.

Filling out the PPP's many forms was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without knowing how many pieces it’s composed of, or what the final image looks like. Oh, and you intermittently get new pieces, some of which actually belong to other puzzles.

"Tommorow's Harvest" does not merely mourn the world that was. It seems to wonder at the world ours could still become. This push and pull between present and future is what keeps me returning to the album; it paints a better world that is out of reach, but still tantalizingly close, just inches away through a synthesizer veil.

Combating systemic racism appears to boil down to a couple taps of the thumb: Instagramming a black square or re-Tweeting a Malcolm X quote. As companies that profit directly from White supremacy hide behind posting vague platitudes lamenting racism, social media activity threatens to conceal true attitudes and inaction under the impression of engagement.