Does listening to sad music actually make us happier?
Good news: our love for breakup ballads is not just rooted in feeling sorry for ourselves. Science says that along with giving us something to relate to, sad music can trick our brain into making us happier. The quick succession of album releases from artists who are notorious for...
Current in Media
You decide – has YouTube made a mistake by removing dislikes?
YouTube has announced that dislikes will no longer be visible as an attempt to combat ‘targeted harassment’. Is this a move to genuinely help creators or is it pandering to corporate sponsors and brands? YouTube has begun hiding dislikes from viewers on all videos. The company says it has...
Independent record store boycotting Adele over vinyl shortage
Skeleton Records in Birkenhead is boycotting Adele’s new album ‘30’ due to a vinyl shortage. Over 500,000 copies of her album have been pressed despite materials currently being sparce worldwide. Adele will be dominating the charts for the foreseeable future with the imminent release of her new album ‘30’. Whether...
Eight dead at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival
Eight people died and hundreds were injured at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival in Houston due to a mixture of mismanagement, negligence, and an unwavering focus on profitability over human life. Eight people and hundreds more were injured in a crowd crush at Astroworld Festival over the weekend. Launched in 2018 by...
Opinion – Chappelle’s transphobia is dangerous but he won’t be ‘cancelled’
We may have thought the Dave Chappelle fiasco would have died down by now. But it hasn’t, and it shouldn’t. For those that don’t know, Chappelle’s new Netflix series, ‘The Closer’, launched early this month. The tirade of transphobic jokes featured in the programme have caused an uproar that...
You decide – is Coldplay’s ‘sustainable tour’ eco-friendly or greenwashing?
Coldplay once vowed to only return to touring once it became a carbon neutral practice. Though it has been unable to stay true to this goal, the band says its latest tour will be significantly more eco-friendly than past efforts. Should others take note? As the world slowly recovers...
Playboy features its first ever queer male cover star
Playboy has announced queer influencer Bretman Rock as its latest cover star. What do these inclusive shifts mean for pop culture’s most exclusionary spaces? Playboy has long been known for its nude female models. But in a first for the magazine, gay Filipino Bretman Rock has been revealed as October’s cover star. Rock announced the news on Twitter last week, writing ‘I’m a @playboy bunny DUHHHHHH’ above two images from...
Arlo Parks launches art therapy initiative for global creatives
The South London musician is collaborating with Dazed and Converse to launch ‘Arlo’s Art Therapy’ for creatives who use their work as a release. Arlo Parks is known for using her music to express vulnerability – performing dreamy, poetic vocals about the ups and downs of love and life over low-key, soulful beats. The 21-year-old began writing as early as the age of eleven, penning out streams of consciousness, thoughts, and...
Parasocial relationships: Gen-Z and celebrity
The way we interact with celebrity has been irreversibly changed by how and how often we consume media. If you’ve ever felt like you ‘know’ a celebrity – you may want to keep reading. Don’t let the theoretical terminology leading this topic fool you into believing it’s complex. A parasocial relationship is simply a one-sided relationship, where an individual exerts time, interest, and emotional energy into another person who is...
Opinion – Pop culture has skewed Gen Z’s perception of money
Sex and the City’s new spinoff promotes the same irrational spending as its predecessor – but how much does the content we consume shape our financial habits? Despite being just one year old when HBO’s juggernaut Sex and the City first aired, I probably devoted the majority of my teenage years to Carrie Bradshaw’s tumultuous love affairs – emotionally unavailable businessmen and bejewelled underwear included. Sure, certain storylines have since...
