music blog i guess 0_0

Young and beloved rapper Yung Chins just recently rereleased released his debut album “Numbers Don’t Lie” to widespread critical acclaim, though his album was not reviewed favorably by audience members, not even landing on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. Not one to be deterred, he reportedly “spent the next day chopping up his album into one-second songs.” “I was just thinking, ya know” he drawled in an interview with star reporter Nathan Davis, “if y’all deluxe album trend can make Nav score a number one album than I’m clearly not playing this s**** right. So I decided to go bigger and better. F*** Lil Baby and Uzi and all them Lils, that bald music critic ain’t score them well at all. But I got a perfect 10/10, so y’all know my music good as all of thems.” Anthony Fantano, the supposed bald music critic and confirmed savior to musical criticism, declined to comment. “So now it’s clear that ma music ain’t the issue, it’s how my music was released. So imma do the deluxe trend one bette...

     It’s common to see bad takes accustomed with a hastily written “it’s just satire bro!” below. Satire has become a shield for offensive opinions to hide behind as if simply stating that it’s satire will make the opinion any less offensive. Satire is defined as “the use of humor to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices” on Google, but personally, I feel that they left out a key component of satire. Satire is meant to spark a change, to make people scratch their heads and reflect on themselves in the context of society. And usually, offensive content is the best way to convey this point as long as it actually haves a point. If satire is simply stating offensive things without criticizing a problematic way of thinking, it’s not satire; it’s just a bad opinion. And this type of bad satire often resonates with racists and bigots who embrace the intended satire as the truth. It’s not difficult to identify satire; authors usually go for over rather than under exag...

               Ignorance is a disease, infecting the people around us as a whisper traveling through the air into the ears of unsuspecting victims or a set of words, maliciously liked and retweeted and referenced as the disease is spread further and further away from Patient Zero. In my eyes, ignorance is humanity’s greatest fatal flaw, transforming us into tragic characters, “[people]…[that do] not fall into misfortune through vice or depravity, but...because of some mistake…” (Bedford pg 1502). We look away from grievances enacted in plain sight simply because acceptance of such grievances is much harder to stomach than remaining ignorant. The willfully ignorant allow themselves to be manipulated because they believe in the illusion of choice that’s presented to them, the choice to dictate their own actions and ideas.

In Chinese culture, there are countless polite phrases that one must memorize, especially if you are talking to someone who is older than you. Polite phrases are a way to show others the respect you have for them and acknowledge their position in society. In China, it’s very important to be polite to your elders - you must give up your seat for them, help them carry anything if they need it, greet them with a title, etc. This politeness stems from the long and hard life that our elders have lived, so people will go out of their way to help them as a way of easing the burden they have late in life. It’s also very important to give face and respect to people that you interact with. For example, a taxi driver will be called a specific title to show that the passenger respects what you are doing and appreciates it, giving the taxi driver face (or mianxi) to function. People will also compliment others for seemingly random things that they’ve done, but this is actually another way of giving...

Radium Girls prevented thousands of deaths when they began to take action against the questionable side effects that radium gave them. Painting radium was a luxurious job: it paid three times more than most factory jobs, workers would wear their nice dresses so they could paint on radium and would even paint their teeths for a luminescent smile. But the radium girls were unaware of the detrimental side effects of radium- managers assured the workers that radium was perfectly safe and even caused health benefits. Meanwhile, the CEOs and scientists stayed away from the toxic radium or would wear lead aprons to protect themselves. However, the girls began to show “radium jaws,” which is when the  teeth would have to be removed only to show red and yellow pus leaking out from under and the jaw bone itself can be broken off, and gradually, all of the workers died. Yet the employers denied any responsibilities for the deaths even after 2 years, and the CEO of the firm paid to have a s...

Consider the insect. Most people hate them; I know I certainly do. Every year my mom wages war against the huge carpenter ants that infest our home, looking for food. We crush them without mercy. But many of their bodies are actually already in our food; The FDA issues a body count of insect parts still acceptable to be in food products. Peanut butter contains up to 136 insect parts before it’s considered contaminated. A 4.4 ounce of chocolate can have up to 74 body parts, cinnamon contains up to 400 fragments in a fourth cup. So this begs the question- can even be truly vegetarian? Insects are considered meat- PETA has a strong stance against cricket flour, criticizing how companies are “pouring energy into [alternative protein sources] that will turn your stomach-like bugs.” So clearly, insects are considered meat. And various insect body parts- the head, thorax, abdomen, etc- are in food packaged in factories. So why isn’t it mentioned anywhere? Some people may say that it’s acc...

If you were born in the 2002s, chances are, you had stuffed animals. Barbies and GI Joes were so out of fashion, and what kind of a child tucks a hard plastic doll against them while they sleep at night? Stuffed animals were on the rise, and bunnies, dogs, and cats were at the forefront of this movement. But there were other animals that kids loved just as equally- the lion, the penguin, the polar bear, the giraffe- and these animal plushies connected with kids. Kids saw animals as friends and maybe even family (I still sleep with my stuffed animals at night) and this interaction grounded the idea that animals coexist with humans. Fast forward to today, when millions of animals are critically endangered or at risk to extinction, and the kids-now grown up as teens and young adults- have spoken up. I regularly see kids posting to inform others about horrendous animal cruelty going on in Africa or the inhumane treatment of pets by some people. Kids are speaking out to protect animals ...