Aside from being the Thunderword’s very own editor, 2024 Highline graduate Cam Lyons has a lengthy list of accomplishments as well as a multitude of future opportunities.

“From creating learning materials for fellow students and supporting special out-of-class learning groups…to contributing to and leading our college journalistic and literary outlets…to tutoring, serving, and standing up for our local refugee communities, Cam continuously gives away pieces of their heart, making the world a more humane and beautiful place,” said Laura Manning, a communication studies faculty member here at Highline.

The 2008 horror thriller “The Strangers” was for many years considered a cult classic, with eerie dialogue and morbidly fascinating character design keeping the film relevant throughout the years. As with anything, its continued popularity spurred several more movies.

“The Strangers”, loosely based on a few true stories of home invasions, follows a young couple as they are terrorized by a group of three masked strangers during a stay at an isolated cabin.

Starring Liv Tyler (“Lord of the Rings”, “Empire Records”) and Scott Speedman (“Underworld”) as a couple on the brink of a potential break-up, the movie is distinctive in that a fractured relationship must be put aside in order to survive together.

The Pink Prom hosted by the LGBTQIA+ Task Force, Q Center, Center for Cultural and Inclusive Excellence, and the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Transformation consisted of a live DJ, pizza, cake, an assortment of flashing party favors, and performances by drag queens and kings. 

Held in the student union in Building 8 on May 24, tables were set out with bright flowers serving as the centerpieces. The majority of the bottom floor was set aside for a lively dance floor, with DJ Mike Baskett playing classic hits from artists like Madonna or remixes of the most popular songs of the 2020s.

The event had all the makings of a classic high school prom, something many of the attendees did not receive given the COVID-19 pandemic taking place during many people’s last years of high school. 

The search engine Google recently implemented an ‘AI Overview’ feature that is designed to summarize the search results of a user’s question. The AI Overview now pops up at the very top of the page with often unhelpful or factually incorrect information, replacing the typical links and data that used to make up this area.

Not only is the new feature distracting for many, the artificial intelligence has made a number of alarming mistakes during its debut month.

Pulling information from various sources on the internet means the AI is exposed to professional medical and news outlets, as well as user generated content on personal blogs, satirical websites, and social media. 

The familiarly used term FOMO is an acronym that stands for: fear of missing out. Popularized as a widely known term in 2004, FOMO is perhaps the best description for the ever tiring pursuit of a fulfilling life. As Generation Z, individuals born between the years 1997 and 2012 enter college and the workforce, FOMO can be both a motivator as well as a debilitating factor.

The slanginess of the term FOMO makes it difficult to take seriously in introspective or philosophical conversations, but it’s an effective description for the pressure young adults have to live up to their potential.

Netflix’s limited series “Baby Reindeer”, written by and starring Richard Gadd is a version of his own real-life experience with a crazed serial stalker. While stalking is the core element of the show, the deeper and more poignant theme is the human need to be known and the consequences of the perceptions of strangers.

Gadd portrays a fictionalized version of himself, Donny Dunn, opposite Jessica Gunning as his stalker ‘Martha’. The series is based on Gadd’s one-man stage play of the same name and with both presentations narrated by Gadd himself.

The touring circus Paranormal Cirque II began its western Washington leg at the Puyallup fairgrounds on Friday, May 10. Featuring an eclectic cast of tightrope walkers, sword swallowers, jugglers and burlesque dancers, this circus appeals to an older audience with a taste for the macabre.

Taking place under an ominous black tent and headed by the neon red sign displaying the name, Paranormal Cirque II feels as though the carnival from Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes” has come to life.

Free comic book day has been an active promotion since 2002, encouraging people to visit their local libraries and independent bookstores, where sample issues of popular comics are distributed for free.

As the event takes place on the first Saturday in May, this year the promotion happened to coincide with national “Star Wars” day (May the fourth), it’s a Barbenheimer level event for nerds across the country.

The action thriller “John Wick” premiered in 2014 and starred Keanu Reeves as a retired hitman who is pulled back into the seedy underworld of hitmen and organized crime after the murder of his puppy. “John Wick” both revolutionized and did irreversible damage to the action genre.

The film’s stylistic fight sequences and constant jump cuts drew recognition from audiences and critics alike, spawning three movies, a tv mini series and a growing list of copycat films.

Keanu Reeves, known best for his cult classic roles in “The Matrix” trilogy and the stoner comedy “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” plays the titular character of John Wick. Reeves has long been a semi-controversial actor in terms of his acting abilities, but the role of Wick has since endeared him to even the most critical of movie goers.

AI art introduced itself to the general public through novelty TikTok filters, but has since been used in major theatrical releases both promotionally and narratively. In a creative era already permeated by reboots and remakes, this dependence on AI art allows film executives to continue their mistreatment of creatives, in the form of writers and authors.

A24’s newest release “Civil War” was a top-five highest grossing film for the studio and continues its run in the theaters. A political thriller starring Kirsten Dunst, “Civil War” centers around the dubious ethics of war photography and journalism.

The 2023 drama biopic “Blackberry” is centered around the meteoric rise and fall of the world’s first smartphone, the Blackberry. Focusing especially on the character dynamics between co-founders Mike Lazardis and Doug Fregin with the involvement of corporate centric Jim Balsillie.

Glenn Howerton, revered for his role as the loveably psychotic Dennis Reynolds in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” portrays Jim Balsillie. Balsillie, whose drive for professional success leads him to interact with his colleagues in an abrasive, nearly pathetic manner, is a role that plays perfectly into Howerton’s strengths.

Based on the polarizing New Yorker short story of the same name, “Cat Person” is a 2023 thriller starring Emilia Jones and Nicholas Braun, currently streaming on Hulu. Both the original short story, written by Harvard graduate Kristen Roupenian, and the feature film have generated a fair share of conflict online.

The short story, and the movie by association, have been the center of a slew of online conversations. Ranging from criticisms of the unspoken representation of privilege, the supposed demonization of a vulnerable man, and the nuances of a bad experience in the bedroom.

With access to your favorite celebrities’ inner thoughts and visual diaries or your favorite content creators at your fingertips, it’s easier than ever to cultivate a one-sided relationship with pop culture figures. But are parasocial relationships as toxic as the buzz term makes them seem?

Celebrities have been a constant throughout the fluctuating trends of pop culture but the definition of celebrity is in near constant flux as content creation develops and changes.

The 2024 release, “Immaculate” centers around devout nun Cecilia, portrayed by Sydney Sweeney and her immaculate conception during her time at an Italian convent. Sweeney served as a main producer, script editor, and lead actress in one of the best performances of her career.

Sweeney’s career took off during her time on HBO’s mega-hit “Euphoria” as Cassie Howard, a role that allowed her to consistently show off her skills as a on-cue crier. She continued her partnership with HBO with a role on season one of the streaming exclusive “The White Lotus”.

The comedy trio of Please Don’t Destroy are responsible for most of the viral content coming out of Saturday Night Live’s current seasons. Composed of Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy all of whom met as students at New York University.

Gaining traction on social media platform TikTok, the group consistently went viral with their surrealist comedy sketches. Particularly during the COVID-19 quarantine period of 2020, the group frequently collaborated on each of their three individual accounts.

Popularized in the late 1990s with the release of “The Blair Witch Project”, the found footage technique in horror movies has flourished in the 21st century. With social media and live-streaming media rapidly developing, found footage movies continue to stay relevant and evolve alongside the technology of the time.

While not the first use of the found footage technique, “The Blair Witch Project” is often heralded as the creator of the genre. Premiering in 1999 and claiming to be the discovered footage of three missing college students, “The Blair Witch Project” thrived on the use of a fledgling internet.

Downtown Auburn is best known for its outlet mall and not much else, but venturing a little further into the heart of the small city, it houses several hidden gems that are worth checking out.

Klay Crazy Ceramics sits on a residential corner, with its main wall facing a busy highway, with the unpainted pottery pieces rattling on their shelves as cars cruise by. It’s a charming building, painted baby blue on the inside, and smelling sweetly of stale paint and unbaked clay.

“Lisa Frankenstein” is the joint product of writer Diablo Cody and director Zelda Williams. The title references both the classic Frankenstein story as well as Lisa Frank’s signature colorful art style.

The movie is centered around Kathryn Newton’s character of Lisa Swallows as she navigates high school in 1989 alongside her preppy step sister Taffy. When a creature emerges from the graveyard Lisa frequents, she takes on the task of hiding and ultimately working to piece his body back together.

On Friday the 13th of October 1972, a Uruguayan charter flight crashed in the Andes mountains, carrying the Old Christians rugby team and their companions. Seventy-one days later, two of the survivors walked out of the mountain range into a small farming village.

This incredible true story spawned a novel, “Alive” by Piers Paul Read which compiled each survivor’s account of their life on the mountain into a comprehensive story. From this novel came the movie of the same name and nearly thirty years later “Society of the Snow” took another turn telling the story of both the survivors and the dead.

“Poor Things” (2023) from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos is based upon the book of the same name and borrows the gothic morbidity and feminist undertones of Mary Shelley’s iconic Frankenstein story. 

“Poor Things” is a major Oscar contender with nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress for Emma Stone, and a Supporting Actor nomination for Mark Ruffalo. “Poor Things” holds eleven nominations, second only to “Oppenheimer” which has received thirteen nods and will be competing against “Poor Things” for Best Picture.

The 2024 horror movie “Night Swim” (from Blumhouse Pictures) premiered with less than savory reviews in a month known for underwhelming releases in the horror genre. Directed by Bryce McGuire and featuring a relatively unknown cast, the movie revolves around a family haunted by their backyard pool.

The premise and title of the film were widely criticized leading up to the release and it appears that the full movie has done little to dispel these negative feelings from audiences. An uninspired name leaves the audience with no questions going into the movie and a similar lack of curiosity throughout the film.

A24’s newest theatrical release, “The Iron Claw” (written and directed by Sean Durkin) is based upon the true story of the ‘cursed’ Von Erich family. The five Von Erich brothers were some of the biggest names in wrestling during the ‘80s which eventually led to the tragic deaths of all but one of them.

While the sport of wrestling is a central aspect of the movie, it focuses more on familial bonds and the impact that parents have on their children.