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(01/31/20 8:04pm)
by Baylie Clevenger
In 2012, One Direction entered my world and absolutely rocked it. I was obsessed. I had posters, necklaces, albums, and t-shirts galore… and Harry was always my favorite.
I remember pretending on Twitter that Louis was my favorite because at the time liking Harry the most was frowned upon for fear of being labeled a “fake fan.”
The moral of the story is that I have loved Harry Styles for a long time and I have listened to every piece of music that features him… and I got to thinking about how much that has changed since I was 13 years old with posters plastered on my wall.
(01/31/20 4:00pm)
by Baylie Clevenger
A rainbow flag tied around a microphone stand and some glitter letters reading “Queer” set the scene. Folks file in, holding colorful programs for the event ahead. It’s a night to share stories and be heard.
It’s Queer Monologues.
Unity Week comes around once a year to promote and inspire unity and understanding among Ball State students. Through a series of events, both information and entertainment-based, students use this week to express themselves as well as understand others. QM is one of those events. QM is sponsored by Spectrum and the event features a small cast of queer individuals who share the stage in Pruis Hall to tell their personal stories about the queer experience both in Indiana and at Ball State through a series of monologues.
For Althea McWilliams, a senior Ball State student studying Psychological Science and Women’s and Gender studies, Queer Monologues was a way to express herself in a creative and entertaining way.
“My favorite part about QM is being able to tell my story in a way that's comfortable for me. Everyone is extremely supportive and I love that feeling when you know you have the crowd hooked,” she said. “To share my story is a little heart wrenching because it brings up feelings of grief, but it was much needed. It's a great platform for people in the community to find solidarity and allies to gain some empathy and understanding. If more people would listen, not just hear stories everyone would have a better understanding of other's experience and actions.”
Though QM can be a place to share some feelings of grief, it’s also a place to feel accepted and create a sense of community and, well, unity.
According to their website, Unity Week seeks to “...challenge perspectives on matters of diversity, inclusivity and solidarity in an evolving social climate. Unity Week 2020 marks the 40th annual Unity Week celebration at Ball State University.”
Since the university is aiming to create social inclusion, McWilliams reflected on QM and how inclusion is created specifically on campus and through this event.
“Well I've been 'out' since I was 12. I don't necessarily think BSU had an impact, but many students here have fostered safe environments for students to meet each other and have critical conversations to understand our identities,” said McWilliams. “Through those conversations, I've been able to better identify my relationship with gender, so that's been helpful.”
McWilliams also says that the event was meant to make the experience of oppression feel more real.
“Empathy is key to understanding someone else's experience and academia tends to dwindle down the human condition to numbers and facts. This in a way dehumanizes marginalized voices to those of privilege and can even further the social 'othering' if the material is not taught by a culturally competent instructor. Events like this are pertinent to give a space to directly to show the reality of an oppressive experience,” she said.
Overall, McWilliams said that this event is a positive way to have a voice and give one to others while also connecting with other students in a theatrical way.
“My personal goal was to be a voice for myself and others who haven't found their voice. I want people to know they can do it too, even if it seems intimidating. Sharing your story can give you the chance to reclaim the narrative and there's a sense of empowerment in that. I wanted to give myself the chance to share an intimate, traumatic experience I had that helped shape me into the person I am today. I used it as a chance to give a eulogy I was never given the space to before. This year's QM was truly transformative and I'm so thankful Brooklyn made it happen.”
(01/29/20 9:09pm)
[embed]https://soundcloud.com/user-519363288/remixed-s5e2-grammys-2020[/embed]
Welcome back to another episode of Remixed! Records were broke and controversies continued. In this exciting new episode, we discussed the ongoing drama regarding the Recording Academy and the overall quality of the Grammy's. How did the academy controversy impact the Grammy's this year? What performances stood out? Were the award decisions valid? Find this all out and more on Remixed!
Hosted by: Jack Gillespie and Kellyn Harrison
Edited by: Kellyn Harrison
Graphic by: Malia Hutton
(01/29/20 9:11pm)
Welcome back to another episode of Remixed! Records were broke and controversies continued. In this exciting new episode, we discussed the ongoing drama regarding the Recording Academy and the overall quality of the Grammy's. How did the academy controversy impact the Grammy's this year? What performances stood out? Were the award decisions valid? Find this all out and more on Remixed!
(01/28/20 9:36pm)
by Brandon Carson
(01/28/20 6:14pm)
by Kellyn HarrisonFrom a statement released on Jan. 23, Juice Wrld’s, birth name Jarrad Higgins, agency and family revealed plans for his unreleased music. It was determined thousands of songs are ready to be released along with an album he postponed in Dec. The statement reads:
(01/28/20 6:14pm)
(01/27/20 7:14pm)
After five years, Selena Gomez has returned to the music world with her latest album, Rare. This new album was inspired by several events that helped shape who she is; for instance, her rocky relationship with Justin Bieber and her battle with Lupus. Despite these struggles, she is now finishing out the low chapter in her life. To start 2020 on a high note, Gomez has released her latest album. And what a high note it is.
(01/24/20 9:35pm)
by Baylie Clevenger
I love music that I can feel. I love music that is authentic, raw, and intentional. And I have always loved Mac Miller’s music.
When I was 13, I met my now best friend of eight years. One of the pillars of our young friendship was Miller’s Blue Slide Park. I even remember the first time I heard “Frick Park Market” at midnight while my friend and I were sitting on my family computer watching music videos and being far too loud. We even had matching Mac Miller T-shirts. It’s the sweetest little memories like those that are tied to Miller’s music.
I know I am not alone in saying that Miller has always provided that authentic sound that I crave. Beyond loving his sound, I bonded with my best friend over his lyrics. That’s why in 2018 when he passed, I was devastated. Somewhere in my heart I knew that we may never feel that feeling of listening to one of his new tracks again.
I will be real and say that as my music taste evolved and changed in my teens, I had a moment where I fell away from his music, but I always found my way back and I always loved him not only for his music but for his unique place in the industry. And on Jan. 17, 2020, I found my way back once again to his posthumous album, Circles. This album worked out to be a beautiful, meaningful send-off for a lovely man.
(01/24/20 6:57pm)
by Olivia Weinzapfel
On Jan. 17, 2020, Mac Miller’s posthumous album was released, a little over a year after his sudden and tragic death. The album, Circles, was produced and finished by Jon Brion, per the request of Mac’s family. Brion, who had helped Mac work on the project before his passing, released it on his behalf as his last album and last piece of work for the world to hear.
Karen Meyers, Mac’s mother, published an Instagram post on Jan. 8 announcing the album’s release date and gave a brief overview of the conceptualities and significance behind it. The two-paragraph exposition revealed that not only was Mac working on another project before his untimely death, but it was to be completed by his visionary companion Brion, and set to release just a week later. Circles would be a conceptual counterpart to Mac’s last LP, Swimming. As mentioned in the post, the spirit alluded to by the parallels was the idea of “Swimming in Circles.”
Jon Brion, a songwriter, movie composer, and producer, worked closely with Mac and his visions for both Swimming and Circles. Brion is credited with co-producing over half of the tracks on Swimming, and was expected to amount about the same contribution to Circles. Mac had his solidified vision for the latter, and Brion was to help sharpen the divination of everything it was to become, from the lyrics to the overall sound.
“There were supposed to be three albums: the first, Swimming,was sort of the hybridization of going between hip-hop and song form. The second, which he’d already decided would be called Circles, would be song-based. And I believe the third one would have been just a pure hip-hop record. I think he wanted to tell people, “I still love this, I still do this.””— Jon Brion, in an interview with The New York Times.
Swimming, which was released on Aug. 3, 2018—just a month before Mac’s death— is a full-body, stream of consciousness work that is extremely introspective and induces the purest forms of emotional vulnerability for the active listener. As Brion mentioned, Swimming is more hip-hop based—which is what really gives it that stream-of-consciousness component. The album is subjectively melancholy, bringing Mac’s mental tribulations to the forefront of the musical conversation. For many, this album hit harder following his death, namely because he presented himself as very vulnerable, and we were essentially left with this image of him as someone who was in the midst of trying to overcome his psychological distress; however, his time was cut short in trying to break through that wall of adversity. This dismal awareness was heavy, and echoed in the hearts of many fans and admirers every time they listened to “Wings” or “Come Back to Earth.” While this was the reality of the situation, Circles transcended this idea, and offered us a little bit more closure from the artist.
Circles, although not an embodiment of a mental breakthrough, still breaks the downbeat pattern of the previous album. In Circles, Mac’s perspectives seem to shift, transgressing and focusing more on the world and his relationship with everything around him in a slightly more positive light, rather than being so inner-focused, as in Swimming. Circles is everything that the word bittersweet means; it’s a somber experience to listen to new music from a beloved artist that was so soon taken from us, but it’s beautiful to have this last piece of his voice and expressions that repaves our idea of him as he conveyed himself in Swimming. In a way, it really acted as a last goodbye and final accomplishment.
As a precursor to Circles, the posthumous single, “Good News,” was released on Jan. 9th. This earnest song set a great precedent for the rest of the album, since it still confronts a bleak subject but takes on a new optimistic undertone. The rest of the songs in Circles match this idiosyncrasy, shifting the attitude on certain subjects to a more light-hearted side of the conversation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIHF7u9Wwiw
The album, to no one’s surprise, is a masterpiece in itself. As Brion said, it takes on more of a song-based tracklist, and compared to Mac’s previous recordings it deems itself slightly experimental. The entrancing funk embedded in almost every song makes it every bit as infectious as Swimming was, but in its own respects. It is perfectly curated and beams with Mac’s talented artistry. Brion, to his credit, also— in the most honorable way—finished producing the album all while upholding Mac’s vision and preserving his sound. Most of the tracks on Circles are more song-like than we’re used to from our beloved rapper, and a decent majority of them are noticeably more upbeat. But even with this in mind, a lot of lyrics still hit a little too close to home, most notably one of the lines from “Good News,” in which Mac sings, “There’s a whole lot more for me waitin’ on the other side.”
As a complementary bonus to the album itself, music videos were released for every song on the day of the album’s release. The videos were distributed by DatPiff and organized into a playlist on Youtube; they were also featured as video covers for the songs on Spotify. Each one complements its song perfectly, translating each individual track into a visual aesthetic. This only further solidifies the album as a finished body of work, and as Mac’s last piece of art for all of us to indulge in.
On the day of Circles’ release, all social media platforms were flooded with comments of emotion and praise, all induced by the album’s impact. The effect that Mac and his music had/has on us and how this final album was the perfect point of closure was the main focal point of the public mind. This posthumous album gave us a perfect goodbye from an artist who not only made a large generational impact, but who we all felt like we knew on a personal level. From those who simply enjoyed his music to those who credit his music for helping them through the toughest of times, Mac reached and touched everyone individually. Circles was like an ambient parting, and it all felt just as personal as his music has always been in the hearts of his fans.
With Circles, Mac reminds us all to live in the present and make the most that we can out of the life we’re given. In the song “Everybody,” he leaves us with, “Everybody’s gotta live// And everybody’s gonna die// Everybody’s gotta live// I think you know the reason why.”
(01/24/20 4:40pm)
by Blake Chapman
A member of /r/StreetFighter reverse engineered a solution to Street Fighter V’s 4-year-old netcode issue in two days.
The modder, who goes by ‘Altimor’ on Reddit, posted the fix on January 9 to /r/StreetFighter with a download link along with source code and instructions. They cite the bugs of Street Fighter V’s online mode along with Capcom’s negligence as the key reasons behind coming up with a solution. Other players are not required to have the solution downloaded, but it is still possible for one-sided rollback to occur on their end if they do not have it.
Fighting game netcode was not something that Altimor had previously encountered while modding. “It was a bit harder than most UE4 [Unreal Engine 4] games. Street Fighter V uses an entirely custom networking solution, so the UE4 source code didn’t help me,” said Altimor in a Reddit direct message.
Ever since launch, the latest iteration in the Street Fighter franchise has been plagued with issues stemming primarily from online play. Even when two player’s games are synced, the game loop, which includes everything from controller inputs to character animations, can lag behind. This issue is compounded when a packet of frames is transported between players, and inputs up to 15 frames or a quarter of a second late can cause artificial lag. While this occurs for one player, the other continues the match like nothing ever happened.
Reaction from the fighting game community has been mostly positive—the original post on /r/StreetFighter has close to 3,000 upvotes and a repost on /r/Games has over 6,000. However, the program is only available for PC, and if downloaded, can seal off the Playstation 4 players from crossplay. Rest assured, Altimor does have a patch in the works.
As for Capcom, they are aware of the newfound solution and Street Fighter Executive Producer Yoshinori Ono took to Twitter stating, “I’ll try hard to win back your trust.”
(01/24/20 4:40pm)
(01/23/20 3:50am)
[embed]https://soundcloud.com/user-519363288/the-coven-and-input2-the-oscar-nominations-2020[/embed]
Welcome to a new season of The Coven AND Input2! This week we are hosting a crossover episode to discuss the newly released Oscar nominations and how they are creating controversy in the masses this year. How do these nominations encourage issues of patriarchy and racism? Do all of these nominations deserve their placings? Were there other movies that were overshadowed and deserved a nomination? Find this out and more in this week's episode of The Coven and Input2!
Hosted by: Ashley Curry, Tanner Kinney, and Shwetha Sundarrajan
Edited by: Kellyn Harrison
Graphic by: Katherine Simon
(01/23/20 3:48am)
(01/21/20 8:17pm)
[embed]https://soundcloud.com/user-519363288/remixed-s5e1-new-music-from-mac-miller-and-eminem[/embed]
Welcome back everybody to a new season of Remixed! In this week's episode, we talk about concerning trends regarding the journalism industry and some albums recently released last week by Mac Miller, Halsey, Eminem, etc. How does music journalism impact our history and why are these trends so concerning? How does Eminem's album compare to his older music and create controversy? Does Mac Miller's new album give justice to his legacy? Find all this out and more in this week's episode of Remixed!
Hosted by: Jack Gillespie and Baylie Clevenger
Edited by: Kellyn Harrison
Graphic by: Katherine Simon
(01/21/20 8:14pm)
(01/20/20 2:00pm)
by Baylie Clevenger
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte’s editorial board.
A man in a tutu can change the world. Believe me. And if not me, believe Morgan Leckie.
Leckie is a professor of both English and Women’s and Gender Studies here at Ball State University. She is well-versed in all things gender after having studied it for most of her academic career.
Now back to that man in a tutu—that man is Harry Styles.
Styles performed on Saturday Night Live in late 2019, and since then the internet has been buzzing with talk of how he presents his gender. In particular, people seemed to be displeased with his choice to wear an elaborate, pink ballet costume in some of the promotional photos, calling Styles' performative and claiming he used femininity for popularity and money.
(01/19/20 9:36pm)
by Jack Gillespie
The story of the character Poppy is one critical of the fake, manipulative, toxic culture of celebrity. For years, the character of Poppy was built up as a robotic, detached shell of a human-like being whose attempts to relate to the common person as a fellow normal human exposed exactly what is at the core of the character. If you remove all of the insane, complex lore that built up as the unsettling atmosphere of an average video from the pop star/Youtuber/method actress grew larger and larger, the same message came through; the celebrities and pop culture figures we look up too as inspiration are all fake. So how the story of Poppy the person, AKA Moriah Pereira, unfolded turned out to be a sickeningly poignant case of irony.
The first domino fell when Mars Argo, a former collaborator with and girlfriend of Titanic Sinclair, the creative director behind a lot of the Poppy project, came out with a lawsuit that accused Sinclair of copying her identity and artistry with Poppy, as well as accusations of physical and mental abuse. The evidence was damning, and it became more and more obvious that the history of Sinclair and Argo was one of manipulation and artistic control on Sinclair’s part. So when Poppy announced her split from Sinclair as collaborators and shared similar stories to Argo’s of Sinclair's manipulation just weeks before the release of ‘I Disagree,’ the future of what the project that is Poppy would be had never been more simultaneously clear and mysterious since the lawsuit. Now that Poppy had separated from someone who had a huge role in her success, what next? She ended her statement with this: “I am happier than I have ever been and I am excited to move forward.”
(01/18/20 8:55pm)
by Conner Tighe
After five years, Selena Gomez has returned to the music world with her latest album, Rare. This new album was inspired by several events that helped shape who she is; for instance, her rocky relationship with Justin Bieber and her battle with Lupus. Despite these struggles, she is now finishing out the low chapter in her life. To start 2020 on a high note, Gomez has released her latest album. And what a high note it is.
Since there’s a bit of a gap since her last album, Revival, it’s important to understand what overall message she is expressing this time around. “I found this healing, and I saw something bigger than what I thought that I was,” Gomez told Spotify in a recent interview. The message is original and hits differently compared to past works. Each song feels unique and has its own exclusive vibe, which is rare today, given the pop culture era we are all living in. Therefore, the originality that Gomez provides makes her a standout in the music industry. Pop culture gets a bad rap a lot these days; however, it can be used in a way that is “healing” like Gomez stated. Musicians can express both public and personal issues within their art, and Gomez did the latter. Pop culture is incorporated into several marketing techniques that draw in money, but for Gomez, that’s not what it was about. She just wanted to share this now two-year journey with her fans.
(01/17/20 7:20pm)
Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for Season 1 of You.