Ai (Artificial Intelligence)
Nataly Leon
The year of 2023 contained the evolution of technology making it more advanced. Although Ai was first introduced back in the 50s, its use amongst individuals wasn’t popular until recently this year. Ai could be used for anything nowadays. An example of this can be using ChatGBT or even the Ai in Snapchat, these resources are used by several students in helping them write essays or get information on the topic. Ai has even expanded to creating photos that range from someone’s face or an alternate reality. Ai stands for artificial intelligence since it is a computer that learns from the real world and performs real world tasks. This has been both a good and bad evolution due to it helping so many people, but the bad part is it can do anything and no one knows where it will lead to and what people can do with it.
American Aid
Landen Norman
As of December 8th, the Biden administration along with the United States congress have allocated more than $70 Billion dollars in assistance to the war in Ukraine since its start last year . Totaling more than Denmark, Germany, Norway and Britain combined, who are the next four largest contributors to the cause. “Most of the aid has gone to Ukraine’s military operations, keeping its government running and addressing its humanitarian needs (NY Times)”. Other claims state that the majority of the money isn’t reaching Ukraine at all but rather being spent here repairing and reinstating US-made weapon systems and factories.
While the administration is pushing for even more aid in congress, many politicians feel like the money would be better spent on other means directly at home like security at the border, the health care and opioid crisis, inflation and gun violence to name a few.
Bryson Tiller Tour
Syem Seltene
Bryson Tiller announced his tour “Back and I’m Better” , named after a line from his 2015 hit “Don’t,” was set to “take a trip to the past” and give “a glimpse of the future.” On the first day of Spring March 20, 2023 Tiller surprised fans with an announcement of the nearly two-month tour, which kicked off in California and concluded in Washington. The Tour was such a success that when I had attended the concert, the entire venue of Fillmore Auditorium was completely sold out and concert goers were even passing out from the amount of people that had attended. Despite the small inconveniences some attendees had faced, the performance itself was a blast with people screaming the lyrics of songs, people losing their voices in the middle of the concert, and people saying how much they loved the songs that would play.
Colleen Balligner Apology
Ione Narajka
Colleen Ballinger, most well known for posting videos under the persona Miranda Sings, responded to pedophilia and grooming allegations with a video on YouTube this summer. The 10 minute 20 second video simply titled “hi.” was posted on June 28th, where Ballinger ‘apologized’ via song, featuring her playing the ukulele. The song “Toxic Gossip Train” tried to direct blame onto others instead of her taking responsibility for her actions, going so far to say the only things she’s groomed are her cats. She later revealed that her media team urged her to not talk, which prompted her decision to sing instead. Ballinger was radio silent until 3 weeks ago, where on November 18th she posted her first video on her vlogging YouTube channel. She has been posting regularly since, seemingly wanting to leave her cancellation in the past. (Ione Narajka)
Dylan Mulvaney: Woman of the Year
Hayley Thompson
In October of 2023, Attitude Magazine announced that Dylan Mulvaney–a transgender woman–wins woman of the year. The idea of a trans woman winning a woman of the year award is surprisingly controversial. On one hand, people should continue to be more open minded about the queer community winning these types of awards. On the other hand, women all over the world feel hurt that they gave the award to Mulvaney, when he only came out as a woman a little over a year ago. With that being said, the Attitude Magazine is a queer publication, so that specific award for that magazine seems well deserved based on the things Mulvaney has had to overcome this past year.
Elon Musk Can Put Stuff Into People’s Brains
Vivien Grable
In May of this year, the FDA gave Elon Musk’s Neuralink implant permission to start human trials. Neuralink is a brain implant that is supposed to be able to solve medical issues, such as quadriplegia, paraplegia, vision loss, hearing loss, the inability to speak, and major limb amputation. The company had attempted to gain FDA approval in 2022, however, the agency had many concerns, including the potential for the migration of the implant’s tiny wires to other areas of the brain. One of the biggest issues revolving around Neuralink is that there is reported animal abuse. Some employees claimed last year that the company was rushing and botching surgeries on animals, which resulted in more animals than necessary dying. Allegedly, animals were also being implanted with the wrong size devices, which is concerning for human trials. It will be interesting to see what happens with the human trials over the next few years.
Fortnite OG Map Takeover
Fernanda Hernandez
Fortnite, the infamous Epic Games video game has made a comeback since first releasing Chapter 1 Season 5’s map that was made back in 2018. The ‘OG’ map made its comeback to all gaming consoles on November 3rd, 2023. The timeline of the game decided to start the new chapter with a walk down memory lane to the “best chapter” they had so far. Teens posting all over social media of their ‘victory royales’ for others to see how much joy 29 days of the map brought. The revamp of the game brought back so many points of interest for gamers to enjoy, including Titled Towers and Salty Springs. Two very common points for players to start their chances of getting ‘victory royales’ in various modes; single player, duos, trios, and squads being four total players. Sadly this period of enjoyment came to an end on December 2nd to jump start the next chapter in the fortnite timeline.
Gumball (VoiceActor) Fighting With Dream (YouTuber)
Paula Villalon
In recent news, YouTuber Dream has been under backlash after posting a video of voice actor Nicolas Cantu, most widely known for voicing character Gumball Watterson from the Cartoon Network show The Amazing World Of Gumball. The video posted shows him inebriated in an Uber, insulting both the driver and other passengers, and even calling Dream the f-slur. The video was posted by Dream after Cantu commented on a parody video discussing the recent grooming allegations against Dream. Overall, the arguments and fight came as a huge shock to fans. No one was expecting a fight between Dream and Gumball in 2023, prompting the whole incident to become a meme.
How Has the Word Glazing Affected the World?
Anthony Andrew
Throughout this year the word glazing has taken over. Glazing is basically when someone overhypes something that another person does. The word glazing has taken over and has impacted how people talk. Personally, I feel the word is overused, it feels like you can’t say anything without it being glazing. You can’t even give a compliment without someone saying your glazing. Although the word is overused, it can work if used right. Glazing can be good to keep people from overhyping something small but it also can be bad because you can’t even compliment somebody. Lastly, glazing as a word does have its benefits but it doesn’t work well.
Issues Trailing Behind Elections
Janyissa Bannister
When thinking back to the time of the 2020 election, January 6th, 2021 the Capitol was broken into by a swarm of Trump supporters. According to BBC “Lawmakers were forced to take shelter, the building was put into lockdown and four people died in the chaos that followed a pro-Trump rally near the White House.” This was a very dangerous experience and with this came no steps in the direction of helping achieve any type of their goals. These dramatically angry people put many lives at risk and in no way thought before they took action. This damaging act occurred because “The mob sought to keep Trump in power by preventing a joint session of Congress from counting the Electoral College votes to formalize the victory of President-elect Joe Biden.” Although it is important to stand up for the things we believe in there are better, safer ways to do so. Without elections in 2023 it allowed for a safer environment, still angry people but fewer people freely acting upon this anger. With the next voting term coming up the world needs to take a step back and vote to their opinions and let the voting play out without the extra dangers.
IT’S ME: The FNAF Movie is Finally Here
Jenelle Moreno Fernandez
Five Nights at Freddy’s came out on August 8th, 2014, taking the internet by storm. This one game cultivated a huge fan base and created an even bigger franchise full of thirteen games, over twenty books and now one movie released this past year on October 27th, 2023. The movie was highly anticipated from the first announcement of a FNAF movie back in April 7th, 2015. Fans waited 8 years for the movie. When the movie came out fans rushed to the theaters in their FNAF merchandise and cosplays to watch the film, fulfilling their dreams of seeing the animatronics come to life on the big screen. The movie was a success and grossed almost $300 million.
Kim Kardashian Man Of The Year
Paula Villalon
As the year of 2023 comes to an end people are rushing to wrap up the year and give out awards. One being GQ’s “Man Of The Year”, which shocked fans when it was given to celebrity Kim Kardashian. The magazine’s cover features Kardashian in a baggy suit, greasy hair, holding a bag of Cheeto Puffs as she licks the dust off her finger. Fans have been divided between the recent title given to her, some calling it “insensitive” and “dumb”. Others believe that it is an iconic and empowering feat.
The return of UGGS
Abigail Gardie
In 1978, a young Australian founded the brand UGGS in warm California. The sheepskin boot quickly became popular and was a iconic shoe in the early 2000’s after many celebrities added it to the hot list. Unfortunately like many trends they began to decrease in popularity until recent tik tok trends put them back on the must have list. Controversy arose as popularity grew, comparison between the quality of original Australian UGGS and the American remake version made it clear the quality has only been decreasing over the years. Even knowing this, the Tasmanian UGGS and other styles are still trending and on many wishlists across the world.
