Digitized

2:00 pm Work sesh #2 of the day (aka homework time). I sip on an oat latte (which you’d think I would’ve perfected after a coffee-shop free year, but still somehow tastes off) and work on this week’s list of assignments. I am only human, so I give myself short breaks throughout my study time to scroll through the socials. As job hunting has practically become my second profession, I’ve started scrolling through LinkedIn as I do Instagram. Seriously, who have I become?

TIP! Google Calendar is your new best friend. Schedule in all of the tasks you need to get done during the day (including some well-deserved relaxation). TIP! I’m going to let you in on a feature of Chrome that changed my life. I’m one of those people who has a phobia of closing a tab. As it turns out, Chrome lets you group your tabs! Just left click on a tab, add it to a new group, and watch your sea of tabs reduced exponentially.

7:00 pm As I feel the glass in my blue-light glasses starting to crack, I realize I’ve spent the past FIVE HOURS in front of my screen. This justifies some food, some GOOD food. I have tried to master the culinary arts from the confines of my home but, safe to say, that even after a year I am no chef. Dinner is also the cut-off mark for schoolwork (as much as my workload allows). Now is the time to relax on the couch with my good friends: Netflix and Disney+.

9:00pm As the binge-watcher I have become, I devour about 2-3 hours of Netflix shows before eventually calling up my friends for the latest gossip on their virtual dating lives. My #1 rule: “Separation of Church and State”: if possible, never do school work in bed. Your bed needs to be a sanctuary dedicated to calm, comfort, and sleep.

TIP! Do virtual “Wine and Whine” nights with your friends. There’s nothing quite like ranting with your closest confidants while sipping on some fine Chardonnay.

Graphics Christany Sendar Fashion Taralyn Peck Model Emma Kubek Lily Ferenc

Aa

11:30 pm The goal is to be in bed by around 11:30 pm...which we all know never happens. For a week I tried doing the highly recommended “30-minute screen cleanse” before going to sleep, but I found it to be, quite frankly, impossible. At that point I might as well just sleep for those 30 minutes.

Digitizing is defined as “converting something to a digital form.”

Since being confined to the walls of my apartment, this is quite an accurate description of life. We continuously post about our lives on social media, attend school online, get our entertainment from our various screens, and so much more. The trend lately has been to encourage a break from screens. I disagree. Screen time is inevitable.

Taking a break from our screens means taking a break from our lives, so embrace the digitization!

Looking 4rn?By Alfonso Badillo

Not anymore. It’s the end of discreet, unattached flings, and the beginning of an era filled with self-empowerment and meaningful connections.

Before the dawn of COVID-19, hooking up was a core aspect of gay culture. For some, limitations of the pandemic have not stopped them from turning to dating apps, such as Grindr and Tinder, to continue to engage in casual, sexual encounters. However, many have taken this time to reflect on this consuming, and even toxic, part of gay culture. It’s a break in the pattern–– one that’s festered for far too long.

For many gay, adolescent boys who grow up in an environment where they aren’t able to openly be themselves, dating apps are often the sole way to connect with other people in the community, while staying on the down low, but this comes at a cost. They are thrust into a microcosm of discovery, relationships, and sex.

Many of these boys start exploring dating apps before they’re of legal age–-usually out of curiosity––and are frequently sucked into the virtual sphere of this newfound, enticing reality. New app-users lack the knowledge to navigate what the rest of the community has learned from experience. An overarching issue that arises from this culture is that of power dynamics. Multiple factors play a role in this, such as age difference, the amount of experience a person has, whether someone is openly out, finances, and even one’s living situation. It places the young, innocent, and unaware in a situation where they are vulnerable. As a result, they are often sexualized at an early age, developing a dependency upon hookup culture as a coping mechanism after trying to create the ideal “coming-of-age” dating experience. This culture also provides a sense of acceptance for a community that is generally oppressed in their upbringings.

With the physical limitations due to COVID-19, the past year has been a time of great reflection. Those who have resorted to trivial sexual flings aren’t able to surrender to the vicious cycle of trying to fill the void. It all used to be so routine. Endless scrolling through faceless torsos, chatting to see if any conversations could carry on for more than a mere hour, and maybe spending a night with a man who’s only a few texts more than a stranger.

It’s become a sort of backwards rite of passage.

Hooking up started to feel emotionally dissonant. Why are we going on these hookups? It became a way to fill the void of loneliness rather than a moment of genuine sentiment and pleasure. It was easier to partake in this developed system of comfort than confronting one’s emotions. While many have developed different coping mechanisms throughout this period of quarantine, overwhelming feelings of loneliness tend to warrant the old habit of hooking up.

As everyone entered a period of tightened social circles, hooking up wasn’t a possibility anymore. During periods of intense, emotional lows, one couldn’t find solace in casual, sexual encounters. For a community that already deals with forms of social isolation from not being able to be fully out, or not living in an area with a thriving gay community, losing hook up culture during the pandemic took an emotional toll on many. For myself, this was the final straw in realizing that something desperately needed to change.

I got rid of all my dating apps. I finally realized that it was just a distraction from my real emotions and not providing any benefits to my romantic life. I did a lot of contemplating while simultaneously trying to fill the time that was once previously consumed by anxiously waiting for the “trill” of my next Grindr notification. During that downtime, I focused on truly being in the moment, practiced mindfulness, and actively tried to take control of my own emotions. I didn’t need to appease my longing for connection through a dating app; rather, I needed to embrace the power of my own company. Eventually, a sense of clarity and empowerment fell over me. There was a shift in the relationship I had to dating apps. In and of itself, dating apps aren’t just emotionless voids of mindless conversations and one night stands. Especially for gay communities, where connecting with others doesn’t always come easily, these platforms connect us to one another. This culture, however, has created an insane cycle of attempting to cope rather than creating a positive outlet to meet new people. This time to reflect has ultimately helped those in the community create healthier dating experiences.

A typical reaction to these behavioral patterns are some regretful thoughts followed by episodes of loneliness. By putting the behavioral aspect on pause and taking away the option of the physical, we are able to think more intentionally, cultivate more true and powerful emotions within ourselves, and participate in behaviors that are genuinely fulfilling and meaningful.

During a time when we must decide if a hookup is worth risking our health, we must continue to channel empowerment within ourselves. We’ve been granted an opportunity where we can potentially change a prominent part of our culture. How can we use this realized power to navigate how we create connections with people moving forward?

It’s me… again... do you ever feel like the days just blend together and you’re just stuck going through the same, mind-numbing motions? I can guarantee you that you’re not alone... especially now. Nothing could have prepared any of us for what the pandemic brought in, and we’ve had no choice but to embrace it. Throughout the past year (and counting), there have been so many highs, lows, and feelings stuck somewhere in between. Initially, the pandemic didn’t feel real. March 2020. I remember sitting in the breezeway of FIT’s campus, talking to friends about what would come of our normal day-to-day lives if there really was a worldwide shutdown. What would a worldwide shutdown even mean? What should we prepare ourselves for? While walking down 26th Street, a close friend looked at me and said, “There are already 1,000 open hospital beds ready for when the coronavirus makes it here.” I will never forget the sinking feeling that followed. After hearing every broadcast and reading every news update each day, the anticipation to know what the future would hold grew exponentially. During the early months of the shutdown, the adjustment was inflexible. Everything we knew, every routine, was flipped on its head. The transition from in-person schooling to remote posed one of the hardest challenges for nearly everyone. Packing up and leaving behind the bustle of campus and city lifestyle to return to our homes was both heartbreaking and confusing. A semester and a half of the true college experience and–BAM–I found myself sitting on the train, staring out of the window blankly, heading back to my smaller and far more boring hometown. Back to a place that I had spent the last 15 years, but now with so many unanswered questions. What’s the next move? Will we even be able to pick up where we left off? And if so, when? It was hard to digest that the city I was leaving behind was not the same city atmosphere that I adored. I would ask my friends living in the city a million questions, desperately hoping each time they would tell me it was getting better and I’d be able to return in no time. Each time I’d ask, the response was, “During the day it’s like normal I guess, but at night the city seems empty.” For “the city that never sleeps,” I knew that wasn’t a good sign. Online classes, how we love you–not. Blackboard Collaborate, Google Meet, and Zoom, in other words, FIT’s stylish, new classrooms. It felt as if all creativity was sucked out of classes. All of the fun disappeared faster than we could blink an eye. I quickly felt like I was drowning in assignments and doing work to simply get it done and get the grade, rather than truly absorbing or learning any material. It seemed as though some professors forgot we were in the middle of a pandemic as they sent assignment after assignment our way. It’s as though they thought with all of our newfound free time that there was nothing else to occupy our minds while we were stuck to the confines of our homes. Imagine that? The pandemic didn’t roll in with sole negatives though. Forced to stay home, not being allowed around any friends, or have any social interactions...Having a hard time seeing a positive side to this all? I know, trust me. The shutdown paved the way for a lot of self-reflection. It especially shined a bright and steady light on mental health. I found myself turning to people closest to me and asking for help with what I could do to stabilize my conscience. I never considered how important seeing my friends, taking walks, or going out for lunch dates was until I didn’t have the option anymore. Without them, I felt really low, numb even, but I had nothing but time to work on my mental state. That’s exactly what I did. Many of my friends and peers did as well. The best advice I received? “Meditate, exercise, get sunlight. Also, pick up a hobby that you’ve always wanted to try. Do something that truly brings you joy.” Nowadays, social media seems like it’s the only way to connect with the rest of the world. Each Facetime call with my friends sounds like a broken record—“At home and in school, pretty much doing the same thing over and over.” My Snapchat stories now only ever see me laying in my bed or lounging on my couch. As I sit scrolling through my Instagram feed, it’s riddled with post after post about online therapists, people sharing their journey on navigating through this Twilight Zone we’re stuck in, and tons of “encouraging” posts. It finally hit me: I wasn’t so alone. Every single person in the entire world has been affected by this, and in some ironic way, despite all the horrific loss, that was a beautiful thing. To me, that meant that if nothing else, I had one thing in common with everyone, and we were all in it together. The lockdown truly forced us all to let go. It’s impossible to be in control all of the time. Sometimes all we can do is go with the flow, for you never know what tomorrow has in store. No one knows when we’ll be able to kiss our masks goodbye and go out into the world without fear, but I do know that the kids of the future are in for one hell of a ride when their history classes look back on the year 2020-2021.

Quotes via Ylanyi Mora, 21. FIT student

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