Ignorance Is Bliss

For many of us, the easiest way to get rid of our problems, if not the most effective, is to simply ignore them. Have a mountain of homework that needs to get done before tomorrow? Take a nap instead. Stressing about taking a relationship to the next level? Read 10:29 PM. Like every great struggle to grace the history of mankind, the temptation to shove our various issues to the back burner has been personified in meme form this month. That's right, I'm talking about Roll Safe.

Fascinating. 

If you're anything like me, you've probably seen this one going around, but didn't actually know what it was called. I confess, even I was forced to do a quick Google search to find its official name; maybe memes are starting to become too advanced for me. In any case. here's the story: the man is named Reece Simpson, aka Roll Safe, the subject of a BBC web series called Hood Documentary. The first recorded use of the meme was on some football soccer meme account (thanks, British people), returning with a vengeance in late January to grace everyone's Twitter feeds yet again. 

You can't be broke if you don't check your bank account pic.twitter.com/brpgiWflym

— Ryan (@RyanWindoww) January 23, 2017 

As always,  the meme itself hints at a larger issue lingering behind its self-deprecating surface. Though played up for laughs here, it does address a real issue that affects all of us at one point or another: we frequently ignore our problems until they reach critical mass. The reasons for this are numerous, but psychologist M. Farouk Radwan offers some insight into a few of them in hopes of understanding exactly why.

One of them is plain old laziness, a plague of the human condition since time immemorial. This is what convinces you to stay in your warm, soft bed instead of going to class, even though attendance is mandatory and you'll probably miss something important. The chemicals in our brains have amazing ways of tricking us into seeing something that is so obviously harmful to ourselves as something rational, and even pleasantly acceptable, Thus, it's easier just to shrug when your friends gape at you once you've told them you skipped a chem lab and a midterm to eat dry cereal in bed.

Another reason, with more serious psychological effects, is the fear of taking responsibility. Though this one can play into some meaningless task too, it can also be devastating to our lives and everyone in them. Compared to deliberately shutting off your alarm and rolling over, refusing to admit you killed someone while driving drunk seems like apples and oranges. Granted it's an extreme example, but indicative of the potential problems that can arise from, well, potential problems.

Sure, acknowledging our problems can be unpleasant, and sometimes downright horrible. But the key to tackling them is understanding that we have to face the pain that comes with them, or else they'll only continue to worsen until they balloon into something that's just too big to handle. So if you're sitting there with unfinished homework or a text that really needs to be sent, here's my advice: just do it. 

Wait, wrong meme...

Can't violate the Constitution if you never read it pic.twitter.com/A1KaOY1Rtk

— Tristan (@AyoTristan) February 1, 2017

East Halls War Journal: Vol. 2

That's right folks, we're back in the freshman utopia that is East Halls. Since the start of this semester, East has been rife with all sorts of maladies and mysteries: sudden power outages, 4 AM fire alarms, and the nocturnal activities of those stoner kids that live at the end of the hallway. You know who they are.

Minus the homework part, this is pretty accurate. 

To those of you who've been fortunate enough to live somewhere else, these stories from the far side of campus may seem hard to believe. Just the other day, while taking the bus home from class, I witnessed a girl ask her boyfriend if the large building ahead of us was the fabled "Creamery" that so many Penn Staters speak of in old folk tales. "I don't know," he responded. "I've never been to this part of campus before." 

Perhaps we should be proud that some students consider East Halls to be a mythical land of parties and construction, surrounded in a thick cloud of weed fumes. Though it's easy for us to list every flaw of the place (and trust me, there are so. many.), we've been given a living experience that's unlike any other here on campus.

For one, living in East gives you a great opportunity to meet a lot of new friends. Every freshman starts out with this big dream of becoming best friends with their roommate and being asked to give a speech at their future wedding; in reality, most of our roommates are our casual acquaintances at best, and our bitter enemies at worst. But in East, all the freshmen are quite literally packed together, forcing you to meet new people whether you like it or not. Such close quarters allowed me the chance to meet a lot of my friends last semester, and even some new ones this time around. Now, if only there was a way to keep the place clean...

You mean sheets of ice everywhere, right? 

Another upside about living in East is its close proximity to both the Creamery and the various sports complexes. (But nothing else. Seriously.) Want to go to Pegula to catch a hockey game? Done. Basketball or a concert at the BJC? Easy. And yes, Creamery coffee is that good. Not only does it wake me up just in time to walk into this class at 9;05, but it forces us coffee drinkers to roll out of bed early and factor in the time it takes to fill a cup up into our 30-minute walk to the other side of campus. West Halls, eat your heart out. 

All in all, living in East boils down to that quintessential college experience. Living in a 50-year-old dorm with architecture right out of the Cold War is a rite of passage for us freshmen, much as we love to complain about the cramped bathrooms, rampant theft, and mysterious odors that we're too afraid to leave our rooms to investigate. One day, we'll look back on our time in the dorms fondly, silently thanking God that we can only go up from there. 

 Don't tell me how to live! 

How About It, Then?

Though we're only at the end of January, 2017 has already been an amazing year for memes. Though Turkish salt-sprinkling chef "Salt Bae" stole the spotlight, it was only a matter of time until the next meme went viral. That something else, a real gift to humanity, is "Cash Me Outside."

Skip to 3:20 for the meme itself. 

The full phrase, "cash me outside, howbow dah," didn't exactly come from the heartland of memes. The star of the video, 13-year-old Danielle, first appeared in September of last year on the Dr. Phil Show, where she challenged the giggling audience and the good doctor to the equivalent of a parking lot brawl, complete with a rather, um, unique accent. The phrase was intentionally misspelled in order to capture her accent, and thus, a meme was born. Unlike Salt Bae, this one took a while to hit the mainstream internet, finally exploding onto Twitter earlier this month. 

The now-famous line inspired a host of parodies, as well as a pretty good trap remix.  Beyond the meme's various humorous aspects (and there are a lot), it does raise the age-old question: are modern kids more disrespectful towards authority than ever? Of course, every generation mutters "kids these days," under their breath in regards to their successors, but the concept does have real basis in reality. 

Just give me a full ride to college howbow dah pic.twitter.com/AS7QP8SjIw

— Dory (@Dory) January 21, 2017

Please do. 

Dr. Leonard Sax, a Pennsylvania psychologist and author, conducted research into changing parent-child dynamics for his latest book, The Collapse of Parenting. Sax argues that within the last 15 years, there has been a transfer of authority from parents to children; in other words, kids are making all the decisions without the maturity to back them up, and their parents are left powerless to stop them. Sax, among many other family psychologists, attributes the change in power to the increasing influence of technology in children's lives. 

According to Dr. Alex Packer; "Texting and tweeting encourage brief communications, which can lead to a lack of clarity, nuance, and sensitivity, in other words, bad manners.  Relating through electronic devices creates a breeding ground for rudeness since it’s easier to be rude anonymously or remotely; you get less practice for ‘real’ relationships; and, for most people, brief written communications are more likely than face-to-face interactions to lead to rude, insensitive, or misinterpreted remarks." In other words, kids learn behaviors from their parents; for example, how many times did your parents tell you to use your manners when going to a friend's house as a kid? 

But it's not just the kids' fault; parents are to blame, too. They learned how to bury their faces in their phones from somewhere, after all. The solution, Packer believes, is to establish appropriate and inappropriate tech behavior to instill manners in kids while remaining cognizant of the digital world. I know my family has had to implement this; I'm still not allowed to use my phone at the dinner table.

Children are highly susceptible to outside influences, and model behavior after what they see on social media, among other things. So, if your daughter threatens to throw hands out in the driveway, at least you'll know why.

*Filling out a job application*
“ How do you handle a difficult situation with a rude customer?" pic.twitter.com/8tqLgg9CUc

— Ana Guerrero (@_analiciousss) January 10, 2017