Volume 10 | Issue 5
Design Team
Liza Miller, Terri Kang, Emily Sun, Katherine Kell, Sebastien Triplett, Tiya Madhavan, Bailey Hwang, Milcah Kresnadi
Fashion Team
Melissa Yu, Tzu-Yun Fun, Reagan Hakala, Janna Jacobson, Paige Tushman, MaryKatherine Acho Tartoni, Elena Shaheen, Taylor Stevens, Juliana Ramirez, Jessica Li, Ligaya Galang, Bobby Currie, Ankitha Donepudi, Sidney Vue, Angela Li, Emily Jennett, Subin Yang, Riley Neville, Richalin Digue, Sigourney Acharya, Aurelia Hudak, Meera Kumar
Features Team
Lynn Dang, Sailor West, Shelby Jenkins, Meera Kumar, Ava Shapiro, Mya Fromwiller, Melissa Werkema, Emerson McKay, Lucy Dover, Emma Edmondson, Tara Wasik, Marxie Colliver, Enia McLaughlin, Sebastiana Hobey, Sophia Do
Photography Team
Sureet Sarau, Riley Kisser, Oliver Segal, Paulina Rajski, Yueshan, Jiang, Carly Nichols, Tess Crowley, Maggie Kirkman, Taylor Pacis, Anisha Chopra, Vivian Leech, Anika Minocha, Emmanuelle Cubba, Audrey Eng, Mary Katharine Acho-Tartoni, Patrick Li, Harrison Brown, Sory Keita, Niah Sei, Meleck Eldahshoury, Ava Muntner, Kamryn Washington
Videography Team
Juana Mancera, Takara Wilson, Johannes Pardi, Kaelin Park, Eaman Ali, Sophie Abedi
Digital Content Team
Aurelia Hudak, Sigourney Acharya, Ally Chang, Clare Hong, Kiana Pandit, Irem Hatipoglu, Shari Frazer, Sophie Ding, Haniya Farooq, Emily Jennett,
Finance Team
Erin Casey, Ariah Samant, Elena Reyes, Riya Gone, Elise Hsiao, Emily Farhat, Taylor Jones
Member Development Team
Sam Wright, Maryam Hamka, Cynthia Qian, Erin Segui
Public Relations Team
Lily Fishman, Grace Donnelly, Fiona Huang, Alia Gamez
Events Team
Tara Nayak, Erin Segui, Tiara Blonshine, Paris Rodgers, Allie Cain, Sanjana Ramanathan
Social Media Team
Marley Davis, Frankie Smith, Grace Wang, Sasha Amani, Lily Shaman, Subin Pyo, Jessica Li, Jessica Kroetsch
Standford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 BROOKLYN BLEVINS Editor-in-Chief APOORVA GAUTAM Publisher Creative Director ABBY RAPOPORT Marketing Director NEHA KOTAGIRI Operations Director AVA BEN-DAVID Design Editor MARGARET LAAKSO Print Fashion Editor DANA GRAY BOBBY CURRIE Print Features Editor CATHERINE AUGUST Print Photo Editors ALEX LAM SINYU DENG Print Beauty Editor ELISSA LI Video Editor CARLY NICHOLS Digital Fashion Editor JANAE DYAS Digital Features Editor JANICE KANG Digital Photo Editor SUREET KAUR SARAU Finance Coordinators HARINI SHANKAR MAKENZIE KULCYZKI Events Coordinator SENA KADDURAH Managing Photo Editor EMMA PETERSON Member Development Coordinator
Social Media Coordinators LUIZA SANTOS
Public Relations Coordinator ANGELA LI Digital Content Editor JESSICA CHO
SARAH LINDENBACH
MARLEY DAVIS
LETTER FROM THE EDITORS 04 WHAT’S YOUR VILLAINESS VIBE? 12 TELEPATIA/ALWAYS WITH YOU 32 CHOOSE YOUR CHARACTER 22 DESKTOPS & DREAMS 18 ESCAPING REALITY 30 WORLDS COLLIDE 06 STEAL HER SURGEON 42 TEAM 4 44 3
Whether we like it or not, the digital era is upon us. We’re constantly being reminded of how technological toward a society founded on principles of innovation instead of the sacred practice of creativity across far too many mediums. society, there is also room for celebration and wonder at the endless
CYBERSPACE is an exploration of technological world-building, holistic view of the current state of affairs, whether it be the reinvigoration forever altered our relationship with online posting. We’re laying of the technology that we interact with on a daily basis.
Take on the role of your very own video game character in customization are endless, but so is digital desire to see ourselves
However, so many options also presents its own difficulties. numerous variations in accessible technology desensitizes us
With the vast expanse of the online world laid out before us, Is it possible to enjoy the fruits of technology without deep-seeded our demise? Should we stand on the side of innovation, lest our ideals that have landed us in this digital landscape in the first clear, one thing remains certain: as we continue down the path us, both physically and digitally, to explore the online in the most
technological advancements are drastically pushing us further and further of empathy. In an issue near and dear to our hearts, AI threatens mediums. But amidst the confusion and fear of technology in modern endless possibilities that lie ahead. world-building, both grounded in fiction and reality. We aim to provide a reinvigoration of the cyberpunk aesthetic or how Photoshop has laying everything on the table, down to the nitty gritty nuts and bolts
in “What’s Your Villainness Vibe.” The possibilities for character ourselves represented in so many different ways. difficulties. In “Desktops & Dreams” Mya Fromwiller explores how the to innovation as a whole. us, it can often feel as though we’re constantly at a crossroads. deep-seeded fear that the same convenience we love will one day be our society become stagnant? Or refuse to conform to capitalist first place. While the answers to these questions are not always path of the virtual, we owe it to ourselves and the people around most curious and authentic way we know how.
Brooklyn Blevins Editor-In-Chief
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DESKTOPS DREAMS &
Ioften wonder how my childhood self would react to the evolution of technology over the past 15 years. She would be happy to know that she will soon be able to play more games than just Brick Breaker when she can snatch the phone of one of the adults around her. She would be shocked to see such a thin TV in the place of a big boxy television set. She would miss looking at the pictures that covered the shiny, plastic sleeves of DVDs while picking out something to watch for family movie night. And she would definitely long for the pink Hello Kitty CD player that has since been replaced with online music streaming services. Although she would enjoy some of these new developments, I have no doubt that many would fill her with a sentimental sadness. Personal technology is no longer scarce, and means much less to me now than it did to her. The presence of technology such as computers, wireless internet, and personal devices has become so commonplace that I have forgotten how wondrous that same technology was to me as a child. The thought of being allowed to use my family’s desktop was once so exciting, but now I open my personal computer hundreds of times per week without a second thought. The absence of technology in every aspect of my childhood made the distinct online reality I created for myself that much more special and something that I curated with utmost care. I cherished every second of the limited time that I got to spend on my family’s desktop, and used it for something that would soon become one of my biggest passions: beauty and fashion.
WRITER MYA FROMWILLER GRAPHIC DESIGNER EMILY SUN 19
My earliest online reality was distinctly marked by every fashion, nail art, and makeup game that resided on the internet, and it was then that my love for styling began to develop. Eyes illuminated by the blue light of the screen, I would dream of hundreds of different looks while seated in front of the computer. Bright eyeshadow, long nails with funky patterns, elegant night gowns that shimmered and sparkled. In real life attempts to style, I was constrained by a very limited selection of materials. My makeup collection consisted of drugstore mascara. My wardrobe consisted of sparkly graphic T-shirts and pastel plaid shorts. I did not have the resources to construct the visions from my imagination in the real world. But in my virtual world, I had no material constraints. I was able to create without limits and develop an ability to exercise my creativity beyond my physical resources. I let my imagination run wild, and was able to try out different looks without wasting any of my precious nail polish or dollar store eyeshadow.
These games were formative in the development of my interest in beauty and fashion, and prepared me well for a time when I no longer have such limited resources. However, as I’ve gotten older,
I find myself less motivated to be creative when it comes to beauty and fashion. Although I was once passionate about creating looks from scratch, I no longer take the time to create the looks I once used to beg to create. More often, I pull inspiration from the online realities that have been carefully curated by others on social media, taking advantage of others’ ability to be creative when I am not motivated. This would shock my childhood self more than any other technological development. If she could see me now, she would be saddened by the way I take for granted something I used to hold so sacred.
My online reality has become much less individualistic and creative, and it’s hard to discern why. Maybe I’m just getting older and have less free time. Or maybe my online social media presence has flooded my mind with content created by others, and slowly chipped away at my motivation to be creative with fashion and design over the years. I wish I took more inspiration from my childhood self instead. Although technology is always progressing forward, it might be time for me to look backward and return to the imaginative state that once ruled my love for design, paying homage to the little girl that loved to dream on her family’s clunky desktop.
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0 0 i f nal i
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DIRECTOR
ELENA SHAHEEN
PHOTOGRAPHERS
MAGGIE KIRKMAN
VIVIAN LEECH
MELECK ELDAHSHOURY
STYLISTS
ELENA SHAHEEN
SUBIN YANG
TALIA FUN
VIDEOGAPHER
LUIZA SANTOS
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
TERRI KANG
MODELS
NIMOTALAI AFOLABI
SONIA PARVEEN
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Lifting my virtual reality headset off my head, I am transported back to real life. No new notifications on my phone, and back to my boring routine. Without my headset, without my escape mechanism, I am forced to be just another person in this life. I am no one; I am me.
Video games, especially virtual reality with its fully immersive headsets, allow those who do not have their own voice to be able to present themselves however they want to, whether that be by being their true selves or by creating an entirely new persona. It allows them to meet new people online that, in most cases, they never actually get to meet in person. Personas in and of themselves reveal a person’s inner workings; who they make themselves reflects how they perceive themselves and reveals what their insecurities are.
The whole concept is in the name—virtual reality creates a “virtual reality.” The user is given a chance to escape the harshness of real life by simply putting on a headset and entering the virtual world instead. Countless movies have been made with this premise—of broken worlds where people prefer living in virtual realities and never even need to interact with one another in person. In a sense, virtual reality is almost dystopian, a world where people live perpetually online and never log off to meet in person.
However, with the recent introduction of mixed reality, this idea has shifted a bit. Releases within the past few months such as the Apple Vision Pro and the Meta Quest 3 allow users to combine fragments of virtual reality with real life. Will this meshing of two realities work for the better or worse? What will happen to society as we move further and further into a digitally driven world? This distortion of reality may have us redefining the notion of reality
With the ability to redefine reality, I am able to be my true self. I am allowed the freedom to choose how I want to present myself, and who I show that to. I feel light, the weight of my burdens lifting from my shoulders as I get transported into this virtual world. I can be someone that is wholly me; I can be someone that I am proud of. Escaping reality has never been more accessible—and for that I am thankful. WRITER SOPHIA DO GRAPHIC DESIGNER KATIE KELL
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OSTEAL HER
zempic and apetamin, fillers and liposuction, that incessant external messaging from birth: you’re not good enough. We nip and tuck and starve and binge and die, yet even those cast as modern-day Helens feel flawed.
Female beauty standards have long served as the ground zero in identifying sociocultural change. In ages of plenty, heroin chic reigned supreme, collarbones and thigh gaps demonstrating one’s exemption from and refusal to indulge in a gluttonous, prospering culture. By contrast, during famines and depressions, a curvier body was often idealized, denoting access to food and wealthier status.
From Venus de Milo to Venus of Willendorf; from Ellen West and Kate Moss emaciation to Kardashian overt surgical modification; from Marilyn Monroe to Victoria’s Secret Angels sex symbolism; from D1 athletics to bodybuilding and powerlifting… each woman remains different, each body and face singular.
Beauty trends experience paradigm shifts on near-regular bases, however, and women are absurdly expected to follow suit. Case in point: consider the contrast between the (now verging on passé) pillowy, filler-plumped cherubic faces pioneered by Kylie Jenner and her ilk to the gaunt, lean, buccal-fat-sucked cheekbones of the Bella Hadids of today; contemplate Kim and Kylie’s (rumored) BBLs and recent reversals.
Because of this constant pressure, countless celebrities continuously come under fire for Photoshop flops- an awry limb here, an oddly curved wall there. Editing photos to unattainable standards isn’t new; constant exposure to one’s own features and perceived flaws to the extreme extent provided by social media certainly is, however. The ‘cyberspace’ in which we live, coupled with advancements in and ease of access to plastic surgery, has ushered in a new age marked by the promotion of homogeneous beauty ideals.
In 2018, “Americans spent $16.5 billion on cosmetic surgery; ninety-two per cent of these procedures were performed on women.” Billions upon billions of these dollars were spent in pursuit of the cyborgian “Instagram Face,” a racially ambiguous ideal combining “an overly tan skin tone, a South Asian influence with the brows and eye shape, an AfricanAmerican influence with the lips, a Caucasian influence with the nose, a cheek structure that is predominantly Native American and Middle Eastern.” Overall, however, at the end of any facial surgery, “the goal is always to look like Kim [Kardashian].” I wonder how Kardashian herself thinks about beauty:
Buccal Fat, BBLs, &
