When I was 11 years old, myself, my closest cousin, our grandmother, and her mother all lined up outside Martha Berry Square Mall at 3:30 a.m. to catch the Justice 75% off sale the company was holding. The entire store, whole outfits, and all the sequins we could dream of for a few dollars apiece.

This year, I stayed in. I didn’t go shopping, avoided any plazas, and kept my wallet closed. Cyber Monday came and went, and yet not a dollar was spent. That’s because the Black Friday I remember does not exist anymore.

TV has been around so long that it’s old enough to be a millennial’s grandparent, yet it still remains the subject of such divisive topics like racism, misogyny, and classism.

Of course movies and shows of all kinds willingly delve into those topics, so it’s no surprise that they attract all sorts of opinions.

With “Dragon Age Veilguard’s” release a few days ago, the gaming community has been quite hostile. After nearly a decade, the game is finally out, but it hasn’t completely lived up to the hype. This is fine, as expectations were ridiculously high. What’s most important is that it has been well received. Despite the doom and gloom mindsets prerelease, “Dragon Age” made it.

You would think that this would be cause for celebration, but the gaming community is anything but positive about anything anymore. All the life in the community is being sucked out by “grifters” who continue to find new ways to complain about positive representations of people of color, and LGBTQ+ people.

Cartoons are a wonderful genre of art that can teach valuable lessons while keeping viewers entertained, but what happens when they lack depth or morals to learn from? Kids cartoons have always walked a fine line of being educational and fun, and sometimes they fail. This isn’t the end of the world as there’s nothing wrong with mindless fun, but there should be moderation.

This has led to discourse for years over whether or not kids should watch cartoons that are often mindless and prone to visual overload. Still, these are sometimes dismissed as nostalgia-blind arguments complaining about the new generations’ toys. While this is true sometimes, there is still legitimate concern over newer cartoons.

In this day and age, electronics are everywhere, and most of them are portable. We’re at a time when even our video game consoles can surf the internet with ease. It’s incredible, but it’s also overwhelming and sometimes dangerous, especially in the hands of kids.

One such danger is content farms. For the uninitiated, a content farm is a channel dedicated to mass-producing low-effort content to force engagement numbers. While content farms are terrible, they’re not the main focus of this article.

If you’ve been on YouTube for longer than ten seconds, you probably know what content farming is. For those unfamiliar, however, content farming is the practice of generating as much content as possible to force engagement and increase viewership. For example, a YouTuber uploading shorts every few hours for days on end.

Content farming is the latest fad for greedy “content creators” to garner more views to get money.

Renowned pop artist Chappell Roan has received drastic responses to her criticism of the U.S. government recently, with countless people either supporting or decrying her hesitancy to endorse a candidate in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

The conversation has now evolved slightly beyond her own position, but it does tell us plenty about our relationship with celebrities and what we believe their social responsibilities need to be.

Per the headline: taking the bus kind of sucks. Well, to be more accurate, using public transportation in Washington is awful. It’s inconsistent, it’s way less organized than in places like New York or Washington D.C. for example, and it can even be confusing. Missing a bus always sucks, but here it’s quite unforgiving.

“This first time I used public transit when visiting Seattle, I got lost and had to call my sister-in-law while she was at work so she could walk me through how to get to her apartment,” said an anonymous Highline student about their experience.

In 1890, while living the life of a luxurious and infamous playwright, Oscar Wilde compiled all his imaginatives on hedonism, temptation, and human nature into a blood-driven, sex-filled young man he most definitely saw himself in, Dorian Gray. 

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” remains Wilde’s only novel, first published in a monthly magazine. Wilde wrote a few versions of the story, censored and edited by his publishers, but an artists’ work is always a reflection of the artist.

It’s that time of year again! So begins another fall quarter, and with it, an array of new experiences. While excitement is in the air, it’s accompanied by all sorts of fears. There are so many new people joining Highline at this time of year and that means change. Change is great, but it can be scary. If you have doubts, what should you do?

Coming soon to a heater near you: Trailers that either tell you the entire plot of the movie or absolutely nothing at all. No doubt this is a familiar sentiment that has only grown in the last few years. At some point, trailers took a nosedive in quality, and now all we have left are trailers that spoil everything about a movie or series, or ones that are beyond vague.

Think back to the last trailer that gave you an idea of what the movie was about without showcasing all the twists and turns and ruining what makes them so impactful before you even see the thing it’s advertising.

Many anime fans can find it awkward talking about the genre due to some of its more toxic fans. Places like the main anime subreddit, r/Anime, often shows droves of users ranting about censorship of sexual content at every turn, even if it’s merely reducing the visibility of a female character’s undergarments.

Often it’s difficult for a more relaxed or “casual” fan to speak about it with others because of the large amount of overtly inappropriate content that somehow permeates almost every anime out there.

Disclaimer: Please consider where you are mentally and emotionally right now. The following article addresses and elaborates on the subject of abortion, sexual assault, and death.

Our campus received a visit from a group of men this past week. They brought with them enlarged photos of fetuses in an attempt to spread their belief that abortion is wrong, and nobody should have access to safe reproductive healthcare.  

It is clear to me that they did not come to fight for a woman’s right to choose to see her pregnancy to term. Women already have that right, and nobody has tried to take it away. Instead, they came here to prevent women from ever having that choice.

Dakota Johnson stars as the subtly-named Cassandra Webb in Sony’s newest attempt at money laundering: “Madame Web”. Boasting a 3.8 out of 10 stars on IMDb, a 13% critic rating, and 55% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, “Madame Web” is, in my opinion, actually not a bad movie – but perhaps the greatest Pepsi commercial ever made.

While product placement is a common aspect in film, especially modern film, “Madame Web” seems to hint at Spiderman characters as side plots to a larger, expanded “Pepsi Cinematic Universe” (PCU), which I personally find inspiring.

Even the climax of “Madame Web” is atop a giant Pepsi sign, wherein one of the letters falls off and crushes the villain, almost suggesting that the hero all along was Pepsi Cola, with some assistance from strong independent women. 

Taylor Swift is the talk of the town these days. Which town? Well, all of them really. The music icon continues to dazzle and delight while on the top of the world. Although she’s seen almost two decades of success and a plethora of awards, she may have just concluded one of the best weeks imaginable. 

Between the previous Sunday (the Grammys) and last Sunday (the Superbowl), the “Fearless” singer won a record-breaking fourth Album of the Year Grammy, announced the release of her 11th album, completed an international leg of her iconic Eras Tour to a sold-out crowd in Japan, oh, and she made it back to Las Vegas in time to watch her famous, arguably the best-there’s-ever-been tight-end boyfriend win the Super Bowl. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Is cash really the best thing to donate? How used can my used clothes be? Exactly how do I get a tax write-off for this? If you’ve ever considered donating to a charity, you have most likely gone through a thought process similar to this.

Before we can get into the specifics, let’s start with the first question you will encounter: Which charity do I pick? Are there bad ones?

The long-fought war between dog and cat lovers is still ongoing. Dog people claim dogs as “man’s best friend”, while cat lovers claim loving cats requires a certain appreciation for individual autonomy. While these paradigms are a couple ways to look at the issue, there is also the extroverted dog versus introverted cat debate. Regardless, all animal lovers can agree that animals improve our lives.

According to Forbes, 66% of households own pets, and of those 66%, 46.5 million households have cats. While dogs beat them out for the majority, 46.5 million is no small number.

With the change of the seasons in motion, people are split on how to feel about the cooler and darker months. While many people struggle with this time of the year, particularly with Seasonal Affective Disorder, there are plenty of others who revel in the chilly nights and overcast days.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) affects an estimated 5% of (roughly 10 million) Americans a year according to Psychiatry.org. Women are four times as likely as men to receive this diagnosis. SAD is the result of the severe change in our environmental landscape during the fall and winter months, it lasts for about 40% of the year. Due to the time change our nights are longer and our days shorter, and in Washington we are headed into our rainy season which may seem almost endless.

When I ask my students when the next election is, frequently they will say “November 2024” or whichever presidential year is coming up next.

In fact there is an election every year. Odd-numbered years feature local races such as school boards, city councils and utility districts. Who fills these seats likely will have a larger impact on your immediate life than who the president is, but these elections have the lowest turnout of the four-year election cycle.

It’s worth noting that recently Democrats in King County got voters to approve moving county elections to even-numbered years, in line with the rest of the state. They hope it will increase voter turnout.

Education is a powerful tool that helps ensure children’s survival, growth, development and well-being.

It can also be described as the art of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits.

Getting an education not only helps students learn to think critically, but it also enhances their imagination, exposes them to new ideas, and helps them find the path to a career that they want to pursue as they get older.

While social media can help us connect with others it can also lead to a decrease in face-to-face interactions and other activities, which overall, is making us less social.

Social media is online platforms and/or applications that allow users to connect and share content with others. For instance, some popular social media platforms include: TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.

In the 21st century social media platforms have expanded how people connect with friends and family, exchanging your thoughts or experiences, and staying up to date on the latest news, such as what’s happening with the Kardashian sisters.

Henry Cavill has been kicked around in Hollywood recently. From quitting Netflix’s “The Witcher”, to being fired as Superman after just returning to the role after a long hiatus, he just can’t seem to catch a break.

But it appears things are not all bad for Cavill, as he’s been set to both executively produce and star in (at the time of this writing) an untitled Warhammer 40,000 TV show for Amazon Prime.

Star Wars isn’t as great as everyone makes it out to be, and the original trilogy has aged like three 45 year old gallons of blue milk.

All three films were directed by George Lucas. The first of the movies, “A New Hope”, came out in 1977. The second movie, “The Empire Strikes Back”, came out in 1980. The last of the original trilogy, “Return of the Jedi”, was released in 1983.

Students will sometimes ask if it was worth it getting a doctorate. And I’m like, “What do you think? I get to do this! I get to read about things I find interesting and then I get to talk to people about that!”  

From my first day in college, 46 years ago, I loved college. I loved learning and finding new things and then getting to talk about it with classmates and professors.  

It took me a while to realize that it’s college that I really love, by which time I stumbled back to Highline and into a teaching career.  

Column neglected Highline’s 3D printing lab

The COVID-19 vaccine is becoming more accessible, restrictions are starting to be slowly lifted. But that does not mean the virus is gone and we can let our guard down.

When I first was informed I tested positive for COVID-19, I was in genuine shock and did not know what to feel.

The pandemic took the entire country by storm, and while schools and colleges were quick to reopen online, many of us don’t really feel like we’re back in class.

Don’t get me wrong, the massive workload does bring back a sense of normalcy, but I miss awkward eye contact in the library, having to walk too far too early in the morning, and hanging out in the Student Union.

I must open with the fact that I do not think there is a better opportunity to understand the students and culture at Highline, than being an Arcturus Editor. And, for the record, I say this as a proud writing center tutor, who loves working with the diverse student body on campus- where we see people every day.

This was supposed to be my year. I was graduating high school, going to prom, getting my AA ,turning 18 and going to university all in this year.