How Did SNL Make Its Comeback

 How Did SNL Make Its Comeback

If you haven't noticed, Saturday Night Live has been gaining a lot of popularity the past few years. It has had a growing audience and a large surge in viewers. SNL has always been a popular late night show, but it has never had as much engagement as it does recently. It was very popular in the late 70s and 80s, around the time of its origin, and has since fallen off. How has SNL rebranded themselves into a show that millions of people watch every saturday night, and how have they gained so much attention? I believe there are a few factors as to why this is happening, and how other shows should take notes. 

The first and most obvious reason for Saturday Night Lives recent attention is because of their 50 year anniversary. SNL has been celebrating their 50th anniversary for the past few months in very grand ways. Firstly, a movie featuring a number of big stars premiered recently. It was in honor of the 50th anniversary, and told the story of the founder of SNL, Lorne Micheals. It talks about how they developed, how they decided on having different hosts and musical guests. Overall, the movie was very entertaining and funny, captivating fans of the show. SNL also hosted a very special 50th anniversary episode on the date of the actual anniversary. It featured a large number of celebrities and many of the returning and most famous cast members. The episode was viewed by over 15 million people across the United States, this made it NBCs biggest entertainment event in 5 years. 

Another one of the reasons why SNL has had a growing amount of engagement is because they have mastered how to captivate the attention of the Gen Z population. SNL has recognized the growing shift towards social media consumption and has embraced “Tik Tok culture”. They consistently include viral trends as well as more mature adult content, making their viewers span across most age groups. They have also created their own Tik Tok account where they post clips from the episodes, and have surpassed over a billion views on the platform. This has led them to have a 178% increase in social media engagement. 

The current cast of SNL plays a large role in its recent popularity. Multiple sources have considered the current cast to be one of the most influential and popular in its whole history. This could be due to their social media engagement, but the attention is majorly credited to their diversity. They all bring a fresh and new perspective to the show with many diverse points of view. The cast features people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, it also features people from the LGBTQ community. In addition to the cast the show has also featured many high profile musical guests and hosts. 

Overall, SNL has seen a surge in popularity and engagement due to multiple reasons. They have successfully built up a new audience who is loyal to the show and continues to return every Saturday night. They have also successfully reengaged their older audience with frequent and light political humor. If you haven't watched SNL recently, I highly recommend tuning into a recent episode.

Protect the Dolls T-Shirt: Its Impact and Importance

 Protect the Dolls T-Shirt: Its Impact 

You may have seen Pedro Pascal wearing this simple white T-shirt recently. Or you may have caught a glimpse of Troye Sivan's guest appearance at Coachella. This Protect The Dolls shirt has been blowing up all over the internet in the past few weeks. It has been creating a lot of buzz, and generating talk surrounding the trans community. How has this shirt had such a big impact on the internet? Why has it gone so viral? How is it helping the trans community, and what does it mean? 

Pedro Pascal on the Red Carpet 

“Dolls” is an endearing term that refers to trans women. It is typically used amongst trans women in a warm and affectionate way. It comes from slang that implies beauty and femininity. It is considered such a positive term because it is empowering and celebratory for trans women. 

The designer Connor Ives wore a plain white shirt with the words Protect The Dolls after his show in London this past February. This shirt was then picked up by celebrities and influencers who support or have close ties to the trans community. Two months later Pedro Pascal, an iconic actor best known for his roles in Game of Thrones and The Last of Us, wore it on a red carpet. The shirt went extremely viral and just a few weeks later Australian singer Troye Sivan wore it on Coachella's main stage while performing with Charli XCX. 

Troye Sivan's Instagram post at Coachella

Ives initially wore the shirt to protest the recent Equality Act that was passed which referred to only biological women, and excluded trans women. The designer did not agree with this statement and started selling the shirt on his website, with all proceeds going to the American organization Trans Lifeline. His sales have been increasing greatly by the day and he has successfully raised over $500,00 for the organization. The designer is passionate about fighting against Donald Trump's anti-trans policies because he has close ties to the trans community. 

The slogan has since become very popular, used on signs at protests, on people's shirts everywhere, and used in hashtags on social media. Pedro Pascal wearing the shirt on the red carpet was a very pivotal moment. He was standing up for his sister Lux, who happens to be a trans woman. He is largely credited for making the slogan so popular. When Troye Sivan wore the shirt shortly after, it was another big moment for the community. An article from Attitude Magazine claims that it is especially important when people in the LGBTQ community stand up for the trans community, and that is exactly what Troye Sivan did at Coachella. 

Sources: 

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2025/apr/25/protect-the-dolls-t-shirt-fashion-symbol-trans-rights#:~:text=When%20the%20designer%20Conner,has%20become%20ever%20more%20popular.

OP-ED: Social Media is Making Girls Grow Up Too Fast

 Social Media is Making Girls Grow up Too Fast: Op-Ed 

Have you ever been scrolling on your phone and seen a video of a girl who is dressed to the nines, full face of makeup, tall heels, dancing like nobody else is watching. You then look at her bio and find out that she is just a teenager who looks like a 25 year old. Half of the comments praised her, calling her beautiful. Half of the comments tell her she is trying too hard and she should go play outside. Unfortunately, this is very common on social media. Young girls trying to look older than they actually are for views and attention. Twelve and thirteen year old girls, in some cases younger, are dressing up and enhancing their womanhood for an invisible audience behind the screen. Why is this such a big issue, and how has social media made girls grow up too fast? 

Social media, and especially TikTok, has created a blurry line between childhood and adolescence. Girls are facing the stronger end of this, where boys do not care as much about looks, and find it easier to “keep up with the Joneses”. Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram have glorified and rewarded girls for looking desirable and being confident. But what does this mean for young girls? They have begun to try to emulate the way the adult influencers look, talk, and act. Their lives revolve around fashion, boys, makeup, and curating the perfect aesthetic for the outside world. Instead of going outside and creating skits with your friends, or playing jump rope, preteens are now making videos doing 15 step skincare routines and buying the newest lululemon leggings.                                                                                                                  

It is not a new concept that young girls are exposed to such unrealistic beauty standards. But something is new in this modern age. The difference between now and even just ten years ago is the speed and scale in which girls are exposed to “growing up”. Social media is always pumping out content to them, showing pictures of perfectly airbrushed influencers and essentially giving the picture the label “you should look like this too”, or “how to look like this”. The thing that these young girls are struggling to understand is that it is okay that they do not look like this, in fact, it is impossible for them to look exactly like Alix Earle. Most of these influencers are over 21 years old, and normal everyday 13 year olds question why they do not look like that. 

The modern day pressures to grow up fast aren't just purely for aesthetic reasons. They are ingrained in the social media generation, making the pressure more emotional and psychological. They have been programmed to market themselves in a desirable way that goes along with the trends that are happening online. They believe that their self worth can be measured in likes and followers versus the type of grades they get in middle school or how well they get along with their friends. Because they measure their worth in attention and validation, it becomes hard to separate their worth from what is going on behind the screen. 

What is the impact of all of this? Rising rates of depression, anxiety, and body-image issues amongst the teen and tween population. In a 2023 CDC report, 3 in every 5 teenage girls felt “persistently sad and hopeless”. This was the highest rate in over a decade. The CDC along with other valid resources conclude that this is for the majority due to social media. Others argue that social media gives girls a platform to express their confidence and creativity. But even with these positive outlets come the pressures from society and older women. Confidence can turn performative, and creativity turns into comparison. A space that once empowered girls ends up harming their self-worth and leaving them feeling drastically worse about themselves. 

Another side effect of the social media age is that these girls' childhoods are being ripped away. Times when girls would be playing outside, creating skits, playing dress up, they are now doing makeup routines and vulgar dances for the camera. They will never understand the childhood and innocence that they are missing out on. This isn't to blame them, they do not know what it was like for older generations. But it is still sad that what they don't know is still being ripped away from them. 

So what do we do about this problem? We have to ditch the narrative that this is not harmless. Social media is not “just for fun”, when a ten year old is worrying about her followers or like counts. There needs to be a bigger push for parents and educators to treat what their children are doing online just as seriously as what they do offline. There needs to be a space online created for girls that is age appropriate. They need to find a place that allows them to just be kids and not feel a strong pressure to grow up too fast. 

Though social media is here to stay, we do not have to accept the fact that it is fast tracking young girls' adulthood. Childhood is a time for exploration and adventure, and not to be facing these expectations. In order to take care of these girls' well-being, we have to rethink the way these platforms shape their lives and think of better ways to make it better.

A Flaw in the System: Psych Research

 As a psych major, something that has not only piqued my interest, but also slightly angered me throughout my studies, is how researchers throughout history have studied mental health disorders. Since its origin, clinical trials and psychological studies have been consistently, and solely performed on white men. Dating back to the earliest days of medicine, women, and people of color have been excluded from research and trials. This has not only impacted how treatment plans play out, how medicine affects one's body, but also how often diagnoses occur. From depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, to autism and more, women and people of color are either severely underdiagnosed, or improperly diagnosed. For years, researchers have assumed that the body and mind of the white male is “default”, and have since been treating all other human beings based on the findings from that of the white male. 

In the earlier days of medical research, women were barred from participating in trials because of their menstrual cycles. Researchers believed that their hormones would invalidate the trial, and mess up the data. Not surprisingly, the people performing these trials were men. Up until recently, psychologists and researchers considered women invalid candidates, and did not account that a woman's hormonal cycle impacts their mental and physical health, therefore impacting their potential diagnosis. The years of discrimination has led to a lack of understanding on how mental health disorders manifest in women. 

Like women, people of color, both male and female, are severely underrepresented when it comes to medical and psychological studies and trials. This is severely due to the systematic racism so deeply ingrained in our society. Researchers in the past 50 years or so have slowly begun to realize that the expression of mental health disorders and issues manifests differently in people of color versus white men. This has led to a need for more research, alterations of medication, and a call to action. How can one expect to treat their depression, for example, if physicians and therapists haven't received the proper information, education, and treatment plans for anyone else other than white males. 

How has ineffective treatment impacted women and people of color? It took a while for researchers to understand that the treatment plans will look differently on women and people of color. Not each mind works the same. Women have a completely different life experience than men, they have had to deal with different societal pressures, discrimination, and hormonal issues their whole lives. Same with people of color, they may have experienced racism, discrimination, and cultural differences than that of other cultures. All of these external and internal factors lead to different manifestations of mental health, making a need for varying treatment plans. Because research does not account for these factors, treatment has not been effective for women and people of color. Women metabolize drugs and medications differently than men. Group therapy sessions may not be as effective for one person, and extremely effective for the next person. These flaws in the system call for a need for more information, research, and a more diverse approach to psychology. 

There has been a growing push for more inclusive research. There has been recognition for the need of diverse research studies including women, people of color, and marginalized groups. Because of the climate of our society in modern times, researchers have been more willing to account for different cultures, genders, and overall life experiences when it comes to the mental health field. There has also been growing representation in the field. Mental health professionals are growing more diverse, no longer making it a white male led field. This has given marginalized groups a fighting chance at getting quicker and more accurate diagnoses. 

Though research is gradually growing more inclusive, women and people of color have yet to be studied. It is important that more research is done so that both parties are able to be understood. Mental health is such an important aspect of all peoples lives, and with the lack of research on all humans other than white men, it is difficult for us to fully understand how the mind works. Overall, the historical bias in the mental health field, which has predominantly been dominated by white men, has had a great impact on diagnosing and treating women and people of color. Creating a more equitable approach to research in the field will lead to more accurate and insightful treatments, and we will be able to ensure that everyone receives the care that they deserve, making mental health care more accessible and effective. 

Why Everyone Should Read for Pleasure

 Why Everybody Should Read For Pleasure

If you met any of my friends, or spoke to one of my family members, they will all tell you the same thing. Sophia loves reading. Growing up I always hated reading, I avoided it at all costs. When I came to college I discovered my love for reading. The number one thing that I will tell anyone who is interested in getting into reading is to find a genre you are interested in. Start with easy to read books, romance or comedies. These are the categories that got me started with reading. As I matured and grew as a person, so did my reading interests. I started reading mysteries, dystopian and fantasy books, and biographies. After a long, hard day, my favorite thing to do is to open my current book and escape into the world. To me, reading is like watching a movie. I can fully see the images in my head, and I feel like I am truly in the world that I am reading about. I will make the book that I am reading my entire personality trait and tell all of my friends about it. I also get emotionally attached to the characters and come to care for them. There is so much to discover when it comes to reading, but I want to talk about how it has helped me in ways greater than just enjoyment. 

Ever since I have started reading, I have noticed changes in the way that I view things, and even how well I perform in school. I truly believe that I have expanded my mind, learned new words, and have been able to retain knowledge better. Even if I have read a silly romcom, I find that my mind is more focused during my classes. When I extend my energy on something that is actually enjoyable to me, I have more patience for something that I may not be as interested in. I have also noticed that since I have started reading, my bad days have become better. I find an escape in my book, a palace for me to get away from what is going on in my life and just enjoy myself. Even on my busiest days, I try to find at least fifteen minutes for relaxation and enjoyment. 

Why do I think you should start reading? Everybody has an interest or hobby. Even if it is something you have never done before. There is a book out there for everything. Whether it is fiction or nonfiction, there is something for you. As college students, or even just as someone who works all day long it is necessary to take care of yourself physically as well as mentally. I believe that reading something that you enjoy is the best way to release yourself from everyday pressures and let go. If you try it for just a week you will find yourself feeling lighter and more relaxed. The small act of taking fifteen minutes about your day will have you expanding your vocabulary, expanding your mind and finding new interests. You will notice your comprehension and writing skills when doing class assignments. One of the biggest benefits that you will notice, as I have, is that your emotional intelligence will grow. This is a very important skill to have as adults because it allows you to feel empathy and connect with your peers. 

I researched this topic. How does 15 minutes of reading for pleasure a day benefit you? I found countless studies and sources confirming what I already know and practice. In a particular study, the “magic number” fifteen was explored. Different students and individuals were tested. Some read 5 minutes a day, some fifteen, some thirty, and other various numbers. It was found that to maximize your intellectual potential and have better academic outcomes. Though reading more than fifteen minutes greatly improved the individuals mental health and success, fifteen minutes was found to be the magic number. This was consistent across all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. I hope that this information and this study encourages you to try and start reading for pleasure. 

Sources: 

https://www-fca.stjohns.k12.fl.us/media/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/06/The-magic-of-15-minutes_-Daily-reading-practice-and-reading-growth.pdf