Opinion

A universal truth among almost every culture around the globe is that few items are as valuable or beautiful as gemstones. Throughout history, gemstones were incredibly rare and reserved only to adorn the crown jewels of royalty, but today, the market for precious stones has opened up to the average consumer. In 2024, the value of the global gemstone market reached over 100 billion USD, and is expected to grow to upwards of 183 billion by 2033. 
In the west, the beating heart of our gemstone industry is none other than the not so humble diamond. Diamonds make for dazzling accessories as they sparkle on earrings and necklaces, and are beautiful symbols of love and commitment on engagement rings. But, with how ubiquitous they are in our society, few question where these precious jewels come from. The truth is, the extraction of gemstones is as unethical as it gets.

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Change can feel big, small, and frighteningly unpredictable. Change has the capacity to shift our perspectives throughout our life and place us on the path to new beginnings. It’s unlikely that a person remains the same as they transition into a new phase of life. The levels of ourselves often run deep; our beliefs, cultural backgrounds, sexualities, and values are all components that make up our personal layers. Our identities are formed out of these intricate, unique layers, and change often pushes us to reimagine what our personal layers may look like. New layers form on top of old ones as our identity expands. We can shed these layers through new growth and personal exploration. 

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I used to idolize mannequins. Yet I didn’t know her. 

There’s a certain anonymity for the girl who stands, posing perfectly beneath shining lights. Draped in silk fabrics, dipped in glossy porcelain. She was pretty; she was present, but she didn’t smile, nor wink at the audience, who were awed by dresses molded to her frame. She stood tall, unmovable. And I wondered: did she know her own name? 

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I want to bring Pantone’s explanation for Cloud Dancer to the light and see how it pairs with intense colors and jewel tones. To do this, I created a few Cloud Dancer color palettes of my own. 

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While giving your friend a cute pair of jeans won’t fix the world, or make it safer for women, it reminds us that we’re not alone. Now, more than ever, we need to be there for each other. Tell someone you love their outfit, offer to fix your friend’s shirt tag–show your love! I’ll protect you, love you, and you’ll do the same in return. Why? Because you just get me!

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College Station has been operated locally in the Springfield community since 2024. The theatre is locally owned by residents of the city and with the help of partnerships of local businesses; the coffee is provided by Coffee Ethic, The Big Slice delivers the pizza, their paper products are from SPC Supply, and the arcade games are provided by 1984 and Pineapple Whip.

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I have spent far too many hours of my life scrolling through Pinterest, looking at gorgeous rooms, and wondering: “What makes the space I’m looking at so different from my own?” After years of analyzing, comparing, and blowing money on room decor, I have discovered that what gives a room that certain je ne sais quois isn’t that midcentury modern armchair, nor is it that cat clock or that houseplant in the corner (although they are both adorable). The secret is all in the lighting. 

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The experience of being a woman is like no other. Womanhood involves jumping society’s hurdles to try and meet the demands of what is expected of us. We are told how to act, feel, and dress. No matter what women do, it is deemed wrong; society continues to set women up for failure and it has become so normalized in mainstream media. As a woman, the one thing that has always been an outlet for me is music. The community surrounding music, specifically for women, has always been significant to me as these powerful women are sharing their experience in the form of beautiful art, and women around the globe are able to connect through this piece of art and their shared experiences.

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For those of us who grew up in the 2000s and 2010s, public media has always been synonymous with educational programming, including Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and Arthur. However, over the past year, public media has been under a lot of scrutiny, especially from the U.S. government.

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As Halloween creeps closer, haunted houses come alive filled with things like bloody zombies, scary laughter, and corn mazes. Though, strangely enough, people flock to these attractions, paying good money for the thrill of being terrified. But what makes this feeling of fear so enjoyable? 

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Why are student organizations pushed upon freshman students so heavily in the transition from high school to college? What do you have to gain from them besides academic achievement? Why should you add another obligation to your already long list of responsibilities as an adult and student? 

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It’s hard to find a portrayal of living as a trans person more accurate than “Castration Movie Anthology I: Traps.” There are several examples of media which attempt to or even directly show something akin to the trans experience; be it through allegory, innuendo, symbolism, or more to explain the pain, fear, disgust, and joy that comes with being transgender. Some are better than others, such as “I Saw The TV Glow,” providing a direct view of how being born in the wrong body and living in a fake world can cause a person to slowly shrivel and die over the course of their lives

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“Somewhere out there right now, someone just made $600 in just a day while sitting on their couch. That’s roughly $4,200 a week that someone is making while you work a 9 hour shift everyday slaving away for minimum wage. The internet and social media is one of, if not the biggest gold rush of our time, except miners don’t need shovels and health issues, they just need consistency, a plan, and a little bit of luck. $36.15 billion is the total advertising revenue that YouTube alone brought in 2024.” 

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Normally when people create an album, the songs flow linearly. Artists normally produce albums with the intention of the audience listening to the tracks in order, instead of shuffling the songs. Many tend to frown upon those who shuffle an album, especially on the first listen. Very rarely do artists create an album to break the linear staple. Me Rex, a British indie rock band, went against this grain. In 2021, they released their 52-song debut album "Megabear," which is meant to be listened to on shuffle. Seven years earlier, DJ Rozwell released the album “NONE OF THIS IS REAL.”

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“Midnight Cowboy,” directed by John Schlesinger, is a classic must-see film. If you were to search for the movie, you would find numerous awards, including a BAFTA award for best film in 1970. This film, according to Britannica, was “the only X-rated …movie to win an Academy Award for best picture (the movie’s rating was later changed to R).” These awards are well-deserved as this film is widely considered to be ahead of its time with presentations of heavy topics such as fragile masculinity, queerness, and male sexuality. Despite being released in 1969, the film's cinematography and soundtrack are incredible and ahead of its time..

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Fame is something most everyone has wanted at one time or another. Looking at celebrities on social media, in movies, or on TV, it’s easy to think that they are living the perfect life: lots of money, lavish parties, and seemingly never-ending success. What’s not to envy? However, our modern obsession with these celebrities comes at a high cost for the people behind the glamorous images, and we are seeing the impacts of this now more than ever.

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As Tyler, The Creator's CHROMAKOPIA: WORLD TOUR has kicked off, many of us are excessively streaming his latest album, “CHROMAKOPIA.” Whether that be to learn as many lyrics as we possibly can before an upcoming show, or relish in the long-awaited release, it is almost impossible not to reflect on the complexity of his album. 

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As I have gotten older, my music taste has fractalized into a variety of genres. This past year, I have been diving into the culture of sampling. Popular artists in the game like Tyler, the Creator, JAY-Z, and Kendrick Lamar implement older songs into their present productions. A “sample,” a preexisting rhythm, beat, or melody, can be chopped or manipulated to an artist's liking. By record scratching its way through the 1970s to now, sampling has further been elevated through recent techniques and technology. 

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Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook, once said, “Facebook was not originally created to be a company, it was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.” This nearly 12-year-old quote has not aged gracefully. While an argument can be made that not only Facebook, but social media in general, has allowed more “openness” and “connectivity,” are we truly connected?

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“In the summer of 2024, I signed up to take an anthropology course offered at Missouri State University. Once we got to the unit over gender and sexuality, the book “The Velvet Rage” by Alan Downs was mentioned in one of our assignments. It piqued my interest, but after the course came and went, I had forgotten about the book until late August when I was in Bookmarx, a local bookstore in Springfield.”

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