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The post Classifieds – October 29, 2021 appeared first on Daily Trojan.

Juana Garcia/The Cougar

Social media influencers are everywhere nowadays, writing books, starring in Netflix movies and even making appearances at the Met Gala. Despite the increasing presence in mainstream media, social media influencers should not be treated as traditional celebrities. 

Traditional celebrities like Brad Pitt or Ariana Grande come to fame through working in different types of entertainment industries such as music, movies and sports. Now social media has contributed to the creation of influencer-dominated content we experience today where anyone can gain a following no matter their talent level. 

The purpose of an influencer is in the name; to influence people by often doing brand deals and promoting different products to their fans. They gain their following through posting on social media such as Instagram, TikTok and Youtube.

There can be an overlap between influencers and traditional celebrities. Influencers such as Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae could be considered influencers turned celebrities as Rae has a movie and D’Amelio has a reality TV show. However, this doesn’t mean these influencers necessarily deserve to have these traditional celebrity opportunities. 

There is no doubt that there is definitely a place for influencers in pop culture and advertising. In fact, most marketers consider influencer marketing as effective and plan to increase the budget for that. 

While these influencers may be good for brand marketing, social media influencers are not on par with traditional celebrities and do not need to be treated as such.

One reason is there is not always a guaranteed level of legitimacy with the actual size of an influencer’s following. Anybody can create an Instagram account and create the facade of being an influencer by buying followers and engagement. 

HBO came out with a documentary called “Fake Famous” to show how easy it is to gather high-quality photos, mimic trendy captions and purchase bots to follow a fake account as well as like the posts.

Another reason is that celebrities are supposed to be more of a household name while social media influencers have more of a niche following. Social media is still young and anyone can make an account go viral. 

Not everyone in the real world keeps up with or even uses social media. Many people have no idea who a lot of these influencers are, so why should they be invited to an event as important in the celebrity world as the Met Gala? 

Furthermore, celebrities are given opportunities to be in movies and release albums because more often than not, they have the talent. Many influencers have gotten acting opportunities just because of their star status on Instagram and TikTok. 

It does not make sense to give a person like Addison Rae with no acting experience or training a movie contract just because they have a following. The same goes for influencer Cameron Dallas who was cast in “Mean Girls” on Broadway despite having no vocal talent or acting experience. He was cast simply because he was popular. 

Being considered a social media influencer can be impressive but that doesn’t mean they can act or sing. Influencers can have their spotlight, but shouldn’t be given celebrity-level opportunities just because they have a lot of social media followers. 

Saba Kazi is a biotechnology sophomore who can be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com

—
“Social media influencers are not real celebrities” was originally posted on The Cougar

Tim Keller

Florida Southern College’s Marine Biology Department has received a grant from the National Science Foundation for $294,372 on the behavior and population of Florida stone crabs in the face of overfishing and climate change.

Florida provides 99 percent of all stone crab landings in the United States, it being one of the state’s most valuable natural commodities in South Florida, valued between $20 to $35 million annually. Their claws in particular are highly sought after, ranging in three sizes from medium to jumbo. However, what makes these crustaceans so inviting to industry: they are capable of regenerating their claws after being harvested.

Louisiana State University, an institution that received a $922,033 grant in order to conduct research into stone crabs partners with Florida Southern College for the purpose of building a biophysical model that will predict possible changes in the stone crab population in the future. 

According to Dr. Philip Gravinese, who’s leading Florida Southern’s portion of the project, the marine biology department will be hatching stone crab larvae and monitoring their behavior and health in tanks that will simulate the conditions of ocean acidification and temperature changes.

Students will be observing how the larvae respond to environmental changes, as well as their mortality and growth rates. In addition, a small number of students will get the opportunity to conduct undergraduate research in the water of the Florida keys. Students will get to work with the stone crabs amd fisheries.

Climate change will affect the oceans in multiple ways, and the model that the research project is aiming to put together in the long run is the first of its kind. It includes climate change conditions, fishery health, and a commercially important animal.

 Eventually, this model could be used with other commercially viable animals that industries depend on in particular. The goal is to help these industries predict how climate change could affect their businesses in the coming years, as well as help ensure the sustainability of fisheries in the long run. An industry where even slight regulations put locals at risk of being put out of business. 

In Miami, near where stone crabs are most commonly fished in the Atlantic, small fisheries have struggled to keep up with the pandemic, depending on their access to harvest stone crabs for a living. 

“Because of the pandemic, the majority of the fishermen started all taking out their traps,” said Angel Borden to WUSF. She’s the operations manager of the Lobster Walk fish market in Islamorada. “They’re like, ‘We can’t afford to keep fishing.’”

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Florida’s stone crab fisheries have experienced a long-term decline in its harvests, likely due to overfishing. 

The post Marine biology department studies stone crabs appeared first on The Southern Newspaper.

Today on East to West, we cover kappa sigma’s suspension, Boston University students reporting catcalling in Kenmore Square, Acting Mayor Kim Janey challenging the 2020 Boston census count and more. Click here to stream this episode of “East to West” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your streaming platform of your choice. FEATURING: Veronica Thompson, Mia Parker, Sophie Jin WRITTEN BY: Taylor Hawthorne EDITED BY: Mia Parker BASED ON DFP PIECES BY: Emily Stevenson, Jesús Marrero Suárez, Tanisha Bhat, Greye Dunn, Sophie Nye, Phoebe Chen, Hailey Pitcher MUSIC: Acid Trumpet by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3340-acid-trumpet License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Backbay Lounge by Kevin […]

After a short reprieve during the pandemic, parking on campus has once again become wildly competitive. With 60,000 students, faculty and staff returning to campus, the U’s parking lots fill up quickly, with the most popular lots filling up before 9 a.m.

After spending $145 on a parking permit to not have a place to park on campus, it’s become topical for students to groan about commuter services and the need for more parking. However, the U has already tried that.

In 2015, the U built two new parking lots that created 1,000 new spots. Those parking garages were extremely expensive, costing the U roughly $30,000 per spot. Even after spending upwards of $30 million dollars to add more parking, the problem persists. This causes most people to think “Hey, we need more parking garages and parking lots on campus,” but we’ve tried that. What if the answer to our parking problem at the U is not more parking, but less?

Why People Drive

I spoke with Andrew King, associate director of Campus Planning at the U, to try to understand why we continue to face this crippling commuting problem.

For the most part, people tend to opt for the form of commuting that they find most convenient. King finds that, currently, “our system of commuting caters to the vehicle.” Commuting to campus via public transportation can sometimes involve 10-15 minute delays that can make you late for class or stuck waiting in poor weather conditions.

With our campus situated at the top of a hill, biking or walking up to class can be physically taxing, which isn’t always what I’m looking for at eight in the morning. For some commuters, they’d rather spend a little more time looking for a parking spot than putting up with the headaches of other forms of transportation. Yet, there are costs associated with driving, too. We’ve just done a good job of hiding them.

King told me that “at any given time on campus, even at the times when people are complaining that ‘there’s no parking,’ there are hundreds of vacant stalls.” The closest stalls to your class may be unavailable, creating a perceived shortage of parking. That shortage, real or not, leads to worse air quality and more carbon emissions.

A study done at UCLA found that people spent about 3.3 minutes looking for parking. Which, when multiplied by all the people who park there in a given year, leads to the burning of an additional 47,000 gallons of gasoline, or 730 tons of carbon. When we already suffer some of the worst air quality in the world, we cannot afford to make it worse.

So, what are our options? We can either spend tens of millions of dollars adding to our already abundant supply of parking spaces, ruining our air quality and taking up more space on campus, or we can rethink commuting on campus and make other forms of transportation more convenient. Let’s imagine the latter.

A Campus Built for People

You wake up, late for class, quickly sling your backpack over your shoulder, and jog out the front door. The new TRAX line they put up stops a block from your apartment, so it only takes you a few minutes to get there. As you approach the stop, a train rushes up the hill with hundreds of students, you just missed it. “Oh, well,” you think, “another one will be here soon.” Sure enough, another train shows up two minutes later. You have a brief chat with one of your friends who’s also on the train, and decide to grab coffee together on your lunch break.

The train comes to a stop at central campus and you hop off, your class is about a 15-minute walk from here, but it starts in eight minutes. Where the parking lot used to be, there’s now a docking station for dozens of motorized scooters and bicycles. You think about taking the shuttle instead, which leaves every four minutes, but it’s a nice day out, so you tap your transportation card on the screen and jump on a motorized scooter.

You take the scooter lane to your class, after all, scooters, bikes, pedestrians and skateboards travel at different speeds, they ought to have their own lanes. You drop off your scooter at the docking station outside your building and check your phone. Four minutes to spare.

After class, you walk over to one of the dozens of revamped green spaces on campus. Since very few people drive to school anymore, campus has decided to turn old parking lots into places where students can read, throw a football and connect with each other and nature. Even though the temperature rises each year, you find it enjoyable to sit under a tree and read.

You go throughout the rest of your day, bumping into new people, getting coffee with friends and feeling far more connected to the campus community than you ever have before. This is a place for you, not your car.

What We Can Do

King makes it his job to “give you transportation options and make any option that you choose to take as convenient as I [he] make it.” Part of doing so includes actions like improving bicycle and scooter infrastructure on campus, introducing bike-share and motorized scooter programs, improving green spaces and adding new world-class coffee and ice cream shops on campus. All of these things, which would make our campus experience richer, the U has considered King says. However, there’s also a growing demand to add more parking to campus, further alienating other forms of transportation.

We stand at an inflection point: we can choose to perpetuate a system of commuting that leads to a car-centric campus, or we can reimagine our campus as one built for people. I choose the second option and you should too.

w.shadley@dailyutahchronicle.com

@shadleywill

The post Shadley: We Need Less Parking on Campus appeared first on The Daily Utah Chronicle.

Berkeley community members react to efficacy of vaccine verification mandate

Can Jozef Saul/Staff

The city of Berkeley’s Sept. 10 mandate requiring proof of vaccination has been met with various degrees of effectiveness. The city intends on expanding its mandate to require full proof of vaccination or mandatory testing for employees Oct. 15

While the city of Berkeley has required restaurants and most businesses to check proof of vaccination following its mandate that went into effect Sept. 10, community members have reported varying degrees of success with its implementation.

The mandate primarily restricts gyms and dine-in restaurant services to vaccinated individuals, requiring customers to show their COVID-19 vaccination card and ID card before entering. 

Campus junior Tomo Yoshino, who works at Hearst Memorial Gymnasium, has followed policies about checking campus access badges for everyone who enters. However, he did not have a similar experience with restaurants checking proof of vaccination.

“I’ve only been asked to (show vaccination status) once when me and my friends decided to go to Blaze Pizza,” Yoshino said. “I think we’ve been enforcing it really strictly just because we’re part of the campus, and we have to maintain that image.”

According to a campus website, the campus access badge tracks COVID-19 vaccination and surveillance testing status. 

Yoshino also noted that only accepting the campus access badge can be frustrating even for students, and it excludes people such as sports coaches who do not have campus access badges. 

Pho K & K waiter Tran Luyen said the restaurant requests vaccination cards and government identification from customers upon entrance. Much of its customer base consists of students and restaurant regulars, Luyen added.

Students can show proof of vaccination with a mobile device and, for frequent customers, the restaurant may bypass the formality of checking identification, according to Luyen.

However, the additional step of verifying vaccines can be stressful for Pho K & K, as Luyen noted that the sign requiring proof of vaccination posted outside the restaurant sometimes deters new customers from entering the restaurant.

“Travelers come by and they see the sign and they walk past,” Luyen said. “Some hesitated to show their proof; they just don’t want to show their personal information.”

However, campus freshman Samantha Johnson prefers the tighter health restrictions for increased comfort and security from COVID-19.

Berkeley’s vaccination mandate will expand to require full proof of vaccination or mandatory testing for employees Oct. 15, according to the mandate.

“I don’t think it’s a hassle,” Johnson said. “I kind of like it because everyone in the restaurant is vaccinated … I would rather eat there.”

As of press time, Berkeley city representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

Contact Cindy Liu and Lily Button at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

UCPD Chief Margo Bennett plans to retire, Black Student Union looks forward

Brendan Tinney/Courtesy

Following two decades of service, UCPD Chief Margo Bennett will retire in June 2022. Campus’s Black Student Union noted the changes and practices it hopes to see implemented within UCPD moving forward, such as increasing transparency and working more closely with the IAB.

After two decades of service, UCPD Chief Margo Bennett will trade in her uniform for retirement in June 2022.

UC Berkeley’s Vice Chancellor for Administration Marc Fisher announced Bennett’s plans to retire in a campuswide email Monday. Bennett joined UCPD as a captain in 2002, according to Fisher. With the support of the campus administration and her fellow officers, Bennett was promoted to UCPD Chief of Police in 2013.

“It has been an honor to serve the Cal community for the last 20 years, and I will truly miss my colleagues on campus,” Bennett said in an email. “I’m proud of the leading-edge work we have done to improve community policing, and yet I know there is more work to be done. I am confident my colleagues stand ready and are committed to carrying on this important work.”

In her eight years of leadership, Fisher said one of the most “important and exciting” initiatives Bennett has worked on is the development of a mental health response team. This team of mental health professionals will be tasked with responding to mental health crises instead of uniformed officers. According to Fisher, this plan will be put into practice sometime between January 2022 and the start of the fall 2022 semester.

Bennett also championed the removal of the carotid chokehold throughout the UC system, according to Fisher. This was part of the 8 Can’t Wait initiative, a series of eight policies designed to curtail police violence in response to the murder of George Floyd.

Although Bennett was praised for the implementation of this and other initiatives, campus’s Black Student Union, or BSU, chair Kyra Abrams alleged that the Chancellor’s Independent Advisory Board on Police Accountability and Community Safety, or IAB, made similar recommendations long before Floyd’s murder. The recommendations, however, were not implemented until after the fact.

Fisher added that Bennett has “made her mark” on UCPD’s community engagement. She organized a campuswide survey about UCPD to get community feedback, implemented a peer-review process with police departments of other universities and included campus and community representatives in the officer hiring process, among other initiatives.

Such community engagement has also involved meeting with BSU. According to Abrams, these conversations have revolved around removing the fleet of UCPD cars from the back entrance of Sproul Hall, firing officers who have “brutalized Black students on campus” and working in tandem with the Black community.

Abrams noted, however, that such conversations are usually “one and done.” As a result, there has never been constant communication between UCPD and the Black community, Abrams said.

“(UCPD) either gets defensive or it’s like, ‘I’m only here to talk to you for this one meeting and that’s it,’ ” Abrams said. “Personally, I don’t think any of those meetings have been productive. That’s … one of the many reasons why we’ve called for the abolition of UCPD across all UC campuses.”

Short of abolition, Abrams said UCPD needs to implement certain practices. This includes removing fingerprinting, publishing their financial statement and budget and working more closely with the IAB.

Overall, Abrams is looking for complete transparency.

“They should have, in my opinion, no privacy,” Abrams said. “At the end of the day, if you’re not going to publicly give us information as we ask for it and be defensive, then there’s just no reason to have a conversation.”

Contact Veronica Roseborough at vroseborough@dailycal.org, and follow her on Twitter at @v_roseborough.

The Daily Californian

The duo’s unique hyperpop music features nightcore vocals and powerful bass beats.

Caroline Bryant

At the age of five, Jamie Calhoun, senior, learned how to skate. One year later, his hockey career began. While it seems crazy to trust a six-year-old with shoe blades and a big stick, Calhoun was eager to follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I was inspired to play hockey by my family,” Calhoun said. “Both my sisters played, and every winter my dad would build us a backyard hockey rink. All our time was spent out there, it brought our family so close.”

After leaving such a tight knit, ice-loving community back home for what will be Calhoun’s fourth year on FSC’s club hockey team, he can confirm that hockey isn’t second nature here.

“You can show up to a local park, or pond [in Canada]  and play with complete strangers and the coolest part is everyone kind of knows the ground rules,” Calhoun said. “With hockey so new down here that overall sense of common ground isn’t really established.”

To change that, the team has attended pewee practices and skate lessons at the Lakeland Ice Arena- the Moc’s home turf- in previous years to get more children throughout the Lakeland area involved in the sport. 

“Despite our team just being D3 club hockey, the little kids look up to you like you’re in the NHL,” Calhoun said. “It’s such an awesome experience giving back to them.”

While Calhoun has yet to step on the ice this year due to time commitments in professional water-skiing and the college’s own water-ski team, being a dual sport athlete has grown Calhoun’s appreciation for FSC athletics. He would like to thank both of his coaches on both teams for respecting his schedule, allowing him to continue both of the sports he loves.

Students can catch Calhoun at his season debut game against Tampa on Nov. 13 on Sunshine State Conference TV linked on the FSC Athletics website.

The post Hockey Senior Spotlight: Jamie Calhoun appeared first on The Southern Newspaper.

The Colorado State Rams volleyball squad is heading south to square off against familiar foes. The Rams (13-6 overall and 9-1 in conference) will head to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to face the United States Air Force Academy (5-15 overall, 2-8 conference). After Air Force, CSU will keep moving south to visit the University of New […]