Articles

In a climate of wanting to fit in, wear what’s trending, and the desperate need to categorise each other, is it right to say that we have lost our sense of who we are as individuals? When scrolling on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, the consumer is consistently met with expectations surrounding how they should act or behave, what the ‘cool girls’ are wearing, and what ‘gym girls’ eat in a day. Why is it that women are always being pushed to fit a mould ba

Some of you may relate to the sensory overload of a long day filled with ordinary activities and overlapping conversations on campus. A real mess of stimulus, another type of fatigue. Things can suddenly become too loud, too bright, the images flash too fast. Describing this can sound hyperbolic, but when it comes to the sensory experience, everything tends to be more intense. Especially in a society where everything becomes “overstimulating” - a word commonly used in our gen

Confronted with the spread of reductive readings of Emily Ratajkowski’s Mother F*cker – a personal essay tracing Ratajkowski’s sexual endeavours in the wake of becoming a single mother – I found myself preoccupied with the principles of careful, contextual reading. While conservative commentators attacked The Cut article as a modern feminist guide to female empowerment, my initial understanding of Ratajkowski’s writing signalled something considerably more ambivalent. To me,

The more time I spend doomscrolling, the more I’m faced with the severity of our generation’s obsession with online communication. While social media is an extremely useful tool, it leads us to live in an age of instant reactions, where we respond to notifications faster than to our own feelings, slowly losing the ability to notice what truly matters and to listen to ourselves. In an era of notifications, we react to phones vibrating in our pockets faster and more efficiently

Lippy, I have loved you and now I must leave you. My time as Editor-In-Chief has been a joy, not least for the fabulous fun we’ve had but since it’s enabled me to meet all you lovely lot. Before I go, here are 5 final bits of advice I wish I’d learnt quicker throughout my time in Leeds. A Manifesto of sorts, to make the most of things. Romanticise Everything but People My friend Alice claims we must ‘move through the world as you want it to become’. She envisions a greener fu

I’m a member of Leeds Student Radio, which, if you didn’t know, means I usually get to hide behind a radio microphone for two hours every week whilst my friends and family listen to me natter on about anything and everything. Every now and then, though, I force myself out from behind the desk to take on some very exciting (and occasionally nerve-wracking) opportunities, like recording band interviews. Recently, I was given the chance to see ‘The Drop Jonnies’ perform at the L

Sir, a report of a stone, Sir, I found down at the creek, brushed with water like egg brushes pastry, dotted and spotted in drips and drabs, half-dry, half-cold. Sir, the stone was pebble-grey, warm, light -- rolled sweet fondant, speckling like a robin's egg, freckled ochre by the sun, with darker spots where the light fails to catch, Sir. Forgive me, Sir, I was enraptured, captured; the stone was bedding an eighth into the creek-sand, sat promptly, pertly, rightly, shaded i

To take us to the sky, We study the celluloid film, The oscillograph paper enfolded in our hands, The numbers are reduced again. Reels of paper pool at our feet, It requires careful observation, All that we are is a computer of women. We weave the punch cards, Gentle copper threads dance around towers of circles, Dancing in, And out, Forming a structure of strength, Of memory, Of information. We were weavers and spinners, Delicate thread between index and thumb, This copper,

Castello Cavalcanti (2013) is a seven-minute short film directed by Wes Anderson in production partnership with Prada. Jason Schwartzman stars as Jed Cavalcanti, a 1950s Formula One driver who is partaking in a race resulting in an implicitly fatal crash into a statue of Jesus in a small Italian village. What follows divides audiences and evokes questions about death, the afterlife, and fate. This short is a personal favourite of mine. I think it truly alters and encourages