Thanks to her father, Raman’s love for playing instruments started early. “My dad is a big fan of music, and he plays guitar,” she said. “When I was seven, he put me in piano lessons, and I continued playing piano for a really long time. Then, through middle school, I did choir and band. I taught myself guitar and ukulele, and I continued playing piano.”

Raman owns a variety of instruments, including an acoustic guitar, electric guitar, ukelele and baby grand piano. The piano is her favorite instrument to play. “I [have] played piano for the longest, and sometimes I still play classical songs for fun,” she said.

With her knowledge of how to play multiple instruments, Raman started to create her own songs inspired by her favorite artists. “A lot of the musicians that I listen to are singer-songwriters,” she said. “I was inspired by the fact that they write their own songs. I picked up on that, and I started to write my own songs.”

Raman’s songs reflect the music she listens to, especially the artists that create her favorite songs and albums. “My music is like [a] pop, singer-songwriter type of music,” she said. “I listen mainly to Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Lorde and Lana Del Rey. They all write their music, so my music is inspired by that.”

The music artist that she takes most of her inspiration from is Taylor Swift, who she has grown up listening to. “I listen to Taylor Swift, and I’ve probably been a fan since I was five,” she said. “She’s very inspiring because she writes a lot of her music, and one of her albums is completely self-written. I also like that she changes genres so she’s not really confined by any one genre with anything that she does.”

After the writing process, Raman enjoys recording her songs and adds her musical instrument talents to the song as well. “I record some of my songs as demos, [meaning] not with full production,” she said. “I plug in my guitar through an amp, and I have microphones and headsets. After recording, my dad helps me with using the music software and putting the pieces all together.”

To Raman, music is more than writing and recording; she also finds peace in the art itself. “Music is a big stress reliever for me,” she said. “I’ll pick up my guitar or I’ll go to the piano that I have in my house, and I play songs. A lot of the time, it’ll just be covers of songs that I’m into at the moment, and I’ll sing them.”

After many years of playing and writing music, Raman has found that repetition and experience make the best work. “By continuously practicing and continuing to write, you hone in on your craft,” she said. “All of the singers and artists that you listen to have probably written thousands of songs and do lots of edits of one song. A lot of times, the best songs aren’t the ones that come quickly.”

Created in Oct. 2021, Gunn Drip is an Instagram account created by seniors Jeannie Chung and Sky Evans to feature student fashion. Their posts include pictures of students’ outfits, captions detailing what those students are wearing and a rating.

The inspiration to create Gunn Drip came when Chung and Evans started to notice their peers’ everyday looks.“[Evans] and I were noticing aesthetic outfits on campus from both underclassmen and upperclassmen,” she said. “We were inspired by the outfits, and we wanted to showcase them in a virtual format so that other people could see the outfits and be inspired as well.”

After a few weeks running the account, Evans shifted his attitude towards his own fashion choices. “It’s interesting to see people so dressed up at school,” he said. “Sometimes, I’ll see something as cool at a thrift store, but I’ll be like, ‘I couldn’t wear that.’ But seeing people so dressed up makes you think more and makes you want to push the boundaries.”

Chung envisioned a more informal approach to posting on the account. “We wanted to have a platform where we could display all these students and staff in a way that is not super formal,” she said. “It’s just a casual, ‘look at my outfit’ type of thing.”

In each post, there is a rating of the outfit featured. The process that goes into each rating involves an in-depth analysis of how students generate their outfits.“We go over the general vibe of the outfit and take into consideration all the different components,” Chung said. “We know that an outfit that consists of just a sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers does not match the caliber of adding jewelry or other accessories. We take into account the effort each person puts into the outfit as a whole.”

Evans echoes Chung, stating that their ratings are less about the creators’ own taste in fashion. “It’s not about what I think drip is,” he said. “It’s more about how unique the drip is.”

Following the growth of their account, the co-owners created a Google Form for outfit submissions accessible at https://tinyurl.com/gunndrip or in their Instagram bio. Instead of being approached by either Evans or Chung, a student might get featured on Instagram by submitting a picture of their outfit, their name, their Instagram handle and what they are doing in the picture.

Chung and Evans came up with the submission form to expand their reach among students. “It’s kind of hard to keep track of people who had a quality fit but didn’t get our attention or cross paths with us,” Chung said. “If someone thinks that a certain outfit is cool, they can submit it, and we’ll consider it. It doesn’t guarantee a post, but it’s a good chance to get featured.”

In the future, the co-owners want to feature a wider variety of students. “Our main goal is to showcase more people and their outfits online. We want to inspire those who don’t get featured to try out new things and experiment with new materials, colors and styles,” Chung said.

The fall season is known as the maple harvest season because of the multitude of maple products on grocery store shelves. Both Peet’s Coffee and Trader Joe’s offer maple oat milk, which allows you to make your own maple latte at home. To complement your maple latte, Trader Joe’s also offers sweet options such as maple leaf cookies with maple cream filling, maple kettle corn and maple walnut biscotti.

While it’s normally made with brown sugar, pecan pie can be deliciously made with maple syrup, making it the perfect fall pie. Compared to other pies, pecan pie brings a different texture to the table with the crunchiness of the pecans. It is also relatively simple to make, with most recipes providing one-bowl instructions.

Pumpkin

With all types of squash in season, pumpkin is arguably the most popular fall flavor. In recent years, the pumpkin flavor has increased in popularity in all forms imaginable. Both Peet’s Coffee and Starbucks offer the well-known Pumpkin Spice Latte during the fall months, along with different versions of pumpkin cream cold-brews. You can also get all the pumpkin flavored products you wish at Trader Joe’s, which has one of the most extensive pumpkin product lines including pumpkin Joe-Joe’s, bagels, butter, ice cream, cookies and cinnamon rolls. They also have a turkey and pumpkin mole burrito and pumpkin ravioli for those wanting something savory rather than sweet.

With all these different products, don’t forget about the more traditional pumpkin pie. A Thanksgiving staple, pumpkin pie is a comforting and flavorful dessert reminiscent of past fall celebrations.

Apple

The change from summer to fall brings more than just orange leaves and cooler weather. Fall also increases the number of apple-flavored products.

Apples are in their prime season during the fall months and come in a variety of different types, from tart Granny Smith to sweet Honey Crisp. Caramel apples and a new Starbucks drink, the Apple Crisp Macchiato, are on the rise. Along with Starbucks, Trader Joe’s also brings in apple-flavored products, including Apple Cider Donuts and Spiced Apple Cider. Besides store-bought items, fall is the perfect time to make homemade apple pie, arguably one of the most classic American desserts. If you take up the challenge of making the pie yourself, Granny Smith and Honey Crisp apple pies both hold their shape well after baking. They have a tart sweetness to every bite.

Gottipati transferred at the beginning of his sophomore year after his family moved. Even though changing schools may seem daunting, he found the transition to be uncomplicated. “It was pretty smooth,” he said. “Because of the fact that I transferred at the end of summer, I had to rush to test for class placement. Other than that, transitioning between high schools was pretty straightforward.”

Despite the rigorous academics at Gunn, he found the environment to be more supportive and less competitive than that of his old school. “Monta Vista is more academically inclined, and the courses are a lot more challenging,” he said. “I feel like Gunn does a lot better than Monta Vista in the amount of support that it gives students. There is also a larger breadth of course material that’s available.”

After experiencing the campus culture of both schools, Gottipati prefers Gunn’s culture over that of Monta Vista and is happy about his transfer. “Gunn has a better environment than Monta Vista,” he said. “It’s much more open. A lot of the teachers are super friendly and much more receptive when it comes to helping students out with homework or negotiating a later due date for a project.”

Gottipati has also found a community within Gunn by joining two campus organizations: the Gunn Robotics Team and Speech and Debate club. “My experiences with Gunn clubs have been pretty good so far,” he said. “I enjoy spending time in the machine shop for robotics as well as after school debate practices.”

As for making friends with other students, Gottipati made conscious efforts to reach out and meet people. “I connected with other students by taking more time out of my day to socialize and hang out after school,” he said.

Gottipati has a few words of advice for future transfers or to other students who are transitioning to Gunn. “Take advantage of everything Gunn has to offer, like the tutors and the large number of counselors that Gunn has to serve a relatively small student body,” he said.

Even the most extroverted students could have found the first day of school daunting. Big social gatherings have been limited since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and with just around 2000 students back on campus, every day can seem strange and unpredictable. On top of that, for half of the student body, this was their first time attending high school with full in-person classes.

However, these circumstances are an opportunity for teenagers to adapt. In-person schooling has forced students to pull out their rusty social skills. Casual conversations have become more awkward, and there are unquestionable difficulties in relearning eye contact and how to stand during peer interactions. Still, high school is made up of awkward interactions, and communication tends to improve the more students interact. With practice, the walk across campus will become less overwhelming. After getting used to the bell schedule and finalization of classes, school will become routine, relieving some of the anxiety that comes with the constant changes.

Another challenge for returning in-person is speaking up in class. There are no buttons to raise your hand, and no chat box to put your questions in a classroom. There is only the physical motion of lifting your arm above your head. Something that might seem simple is another action with a new type of hyperawareness. When students participate in the classroom, they learn to have courage and initiative as they volunteer their ideas. As different as it is, hearing their voices out loud is key to boosting student confidence.

Although students may have made new friends in breakout rooms, there is nothing like shoulder partner conversations and group projects in person. Being back in the classroom has brought back the opportunity to form even closer friendships with classmates. Whether it’s a pass in the hallway asking about a quiz that day or small talk before class has started, in-person learning has brought back random interactions with classmates, allowing high schoolers to expand out of their usual friend group.

Social interactions are the basis of human relationships. Social relationships are crucial to the growth and development of students’ identities. Although it takes time for students to get accustomed to in-person conversations and interactions, they ultimately allow students to become resilient and adapt to their new circumstances. These connections are all essential parts of the high school experience, and the skills students learn or relearn will help them in their future endeavors.

In addition to making incredible ice cream, Scoop Microcreamery is also environmentally friendly with compostable spoons, cups and napkins. Their generous opening hours are another reason to select this ice cream place, as it is open until 10 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on weekends. It will definitely fulfill your sweet cravings, and it will be a cold and refreshing snack for hot days. Small businesses like Scoop Microcreamery make our big town feel like a small town because of its homey atmosphere and friendly employees. The next time you are in the area, support the local business by getting a scoop of whatever flavor catches your eye on the menu, or get the tried-and-true favorite: Brown Sugar Banana. The choice is up to you.

Raman interned at a biotech company called Bio-Techne after sending in her résumé. “It was my first real job other than being self-employed,” she said. “I’ve taken the biotech elective at school, and I started a biotech club at Gunn. So it was nice to be in the workplace and see how real biotech companies run.’’

Even though Raman is just a high schooler, she was able to get hands-on experience. “In the beginning, I got to do organizational and inventory tasks like sorting things, and then I got to shadow some other actual lab scientists,’’ she said. “Then, in July, I got to do my own miniature project where I got to stain human liver tissue samples and evaluate the RNA content of the tissues.’’

Upon completion of the internship, Raman learned a lot in a real company lab. “I liked the independence I got because I had the freedom to learn at my own pace, and no one was micro-managing me or pushing me to do anything,” she said. “I was at my own will to go and ask for help and shadow other scientists.’’

Though the internship was just for the summer, Raman plans on doing more lab work at businesses in the future. “I think it’d be nice to go to other biotech companies to see what they’re doing because the biotech field is really extensive, so every place has its own specialty and does different kinds of work,” she said.

The second wave of feminism, commonly known as the women’s liberation movement, took place in 1960s to the 1980s and brought attention to the significant inequalities and discrimination women face in all aspects of their lives. Like the first wave, which gave women suffrage, the second wave also had a major accomplishment: the Title IX law. Title IX, an education amendment, was a major breakthrough for female athletes because it made sex-based discrimination in education illegal.

As a result, girls’ and boys’ teams were required by law to receive equal resources, social studies teacher Phillip Lyons explained. “If schools did not treat women equally as men, they were in legal jeopardy with the federal government,” he said. “So they didn’t have a choice. Even if they did not want to offer something, they had to. Title IX made it a matter of law, so they could not deny equal rights to women in schools.”

But Title IX’s accomplishments didn’t just stop at the secondary school level; it also opened up opportunities for women athletes to play college-level sports and receive scholarships.

Although Title IX prevents women athletes—and women in general—from being discriminated against in education, the change stops there. According to junior Ana Schremp, former hockey player and current soccer player, women still face micro aggressions at school. “In P.E., when I used to play hockey, I’d always be like, ‘Oh yeah, like I play hockey,’ and guys would always be like, ‘Oh, I bet I’m better than you,’” she said. “And then I would feel this need to prove myself to them, because they automatically assumed that they would be better than me because I was a girl.”

Interactions like this show how cultural factors, societal teachings and stereotypes still create an inaccurate belief that women cannot be athletes, which, according to Schremp, is reflected in the words and actions of young men. “I’ve had so many guys openly say that women’s soccer isn’t a real sport,” she said. “As a female soccer player, that pissed me off. When they say that, they invalidate everything that I work towards.”

Boys doubting girls’ athletic abilities isn’t the only reason girls are discouraged to pursue athletic careers. It’s also hard for women to see themselves as professional athletes when they’re older, making them more reluctant to participate in sports beyond their high school and college years. “If you can see yourself with a paying career for after college doing this game, then you’re more likely to do it when you’re young,” Lyons said. “For men, you can see yourself with a career in baseball or football or basketball. But, if you’re looking at [sports] careers for women when they get out of college, there just isn’t that same level of opportunity.”

One of the most significant events in college sports is the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) March Madness Tournament, which generates millions of dollars for the NCAA. In past years, the main focus of this tournament was the players and the games; this year, however, it was on the women’s weight room and how it drastically differed from that of the men. A women’s basketball player at the University of Oregon was the first to point out this inequality on TikTok. Her viral video showed how women were only provided with a few dumbbells and some yoga mats, while the men were supplied with a warehouse full of world-class gym products.

Within 48 hours, the NCAA vice president quickly released a public statement and upgraded the women’s weight room to an actual gym. However, many argued that the fact that it took a viral social media post to create tangible change reveals serious flaws in the NCAA’s system. Despite the outrage in the media, the weight room contrasts were no surprise to Stanford women’s basketball assistant coach Katy Steding. “The discrepancies were more obvious this year because of the prevalence of social media, but I’m sure it’s been happening all along,” she said. “There are deeper issues of how money is divided up and how much the NCAA actively promotes a women’s tournament versus a men’s tournament.”

After decades of fighting for equality in sports, women continue to face obstacles on the field. “Although some are hopeful that what happened to the female collegiate basketball players will not happen again, Stanford women’s basketball coach Kate Paye believes that these issues will continue to occur with the same NCAA leadership. “An issue like this starts at the top,” she said. “What happened, and what has been happening, is unacceptable and sexist. We all deserve better.”

At t he same time, the attention that the problem received shows optimism for women athletes gaining equality with their male counterparts. “Hopefully, student-athletes and coaches fight for change, and it’s going to be an uphill battle,” Paye said. “These are deep-seated, systemic issues that have been going on for a long, long time, and changing them is going to be extremely challenging. But hopefully, we’re on the path to doing the work.”

Media coverage is one of the biggest ways athletes and teams gain attention for their accomplishments, making it no surprise that women athletes do not get the same recognition male athletes receive. According to a study conducted in 2019 by the International Association for Communication and Sport, in 2019, women’s sports only accounted for 5% of airtime on televised news shows. Even then, when women’s sports do receive media attention, the attention is not angled at women playing sports, according to Paye. “A lot of times, when they cover men’s basketball, they talk about the game or the coaches or the player; they talk about basketball,” she said. “If they cover women’s basketball, they don’t talk about basketball. They’re going to talk about what a coach is wearing or something cute that a player does.”

When television networks comment on a woman’s outfit or body rather than their athletic talent, they drive the focus away from her athletic abilities and accomplishments. On the national stage, these comments can send a message to all other young women athletes: their bodies are valued more than their passion or dedication for their sport.

According to Schremp, that type of coverage harms female athletes’ views of themselves, which is why it’s time for the content to change. “[Focusing on] what your body can accomplish is what we should aim towards,” she said. “With that, female athletes will feel more confident about their bodies. They’ll know that the value is placed on what you’re able to do with your body and what you’re able to perform with it, instead of what it looks like in a bikini.”

Paye also hopes that a new type of reporting on women’s sports will soon take hold. “There should be more coverage of our incredible female athletes in so many different sports,” she said. “Their stories are incredible, and their accomplishments are incredible.”

Despite some of the discrimination women athletes still face in the media, there have been some valuable advancements. “From a marketing standpoint, if you look at Venus Williams, she’s a draw as much as any male tennis player,” Lyons said. “If they want to sell out a tournament and they get her to go, it’s the same as getting [male tennis player] Roger Federer to go. She’s going to get the same attention from female and male fans. I don’t think that would have been the case a long time ago.”

Developments like these are only the beginning of gender equality in sports, and Schremp hopes that progress will continue in the coming years. “It’s the responsibility of all athletes, men and women of all ages, to support each other,” she said. “Obviously, there’s a women’s soccer team, and there’s a men’s soccer team, but we’re all soccer players. We all want to play at the highest level. If we keep talking like men versus women, that’s never going to get us anywhere.”

For one, TikTok content is easily digestible. It’s easy to create an account, and an endless stream of videos will appear on a custom-tailored For You page, even if a user doesn’t choose to follow anyone. This For You page is one of the main draws of the app. “This feed is powered by a recommendation system that delivers content to each user that is likely to be of interest to that particular user,” ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, said in a press release explaining the app’s algorithm. “Part of the magic of TikTok is that there’s no one For You feed—while different people may come upon some of the same standout videos, each person’s feed is unique and tailored to that specific individual.”

The “tailored” TikTok algorithm, however, belies a darker reality. In the past, TikTok has admitted to blocking videos created by individuals with facial disfigurements, autism and Down Syndrome from appearing on the For You page. Last year, “The Intercept” published a document given to TikTok moderators advising them on content to restrict: “Abnormal body shape, chubby, have obvious beer belly, obese, or too thin (not limited to: dwarf, acromegaly)” was one rule. “Ugly facial looks (not limited to: disformatted faces, fangs, lack of front teeth, senior people with too many wrinkles, obvious facial scars) or facial disformities (not limited to: eye disorders, crooked mouth disease and other disabilities)” was another.

The justification issued by the company is that such content is highly vulnerable to cyber-bullying and the creator—rather than the content—is the focus of the video. Yet, regardless of intention, the end result is the same: the For You page, the heavily visited and viewed centerpiece of TikTok, defaults to promoting content from skinny, attractive and young creators.

A Narrow Beauty Standard

There’s no better place to witness the beauty standards promoted and perpetuated by TikTok than “content houses,” collaborative groups of popular creators working togetherto create videos. The Hype House, boasting alumni such as Charli D’Amelio, the most followed creator on TikTok, and Addison Rae, the second most followed creator on TikTok, had a photoshoot with its original 14 members—all of whom were white and fit a narrow, constrained definition of beauty. Similarly, the Sway House, a content house consisting of 16-to 22-year-old boys, is perhaps most well-known for videos of the creators working out without shirts on and showcasing toned abs.

The trickle-down effect? When ordinary teens scroll through their For You page, the uniform beauty standards scream out at them. For senior Hannah Schendel, who herself boasts close to 30,000 followers on TikTok, the repetitiveness is more than noticeable. “Not everyone wants to look like that, but then I feel like seeing it over and over drills it into our minds that that’s what we’re supposed to look like,” she said.

Sophomore Kyle Reyes also experienced a similar feeling after scrolling past the regularly promoted influencers on his For You page. “All the super famous guys, like the Hype House—I feel like they’re all like the same men, in terms of their build and their hair and their race,” he said. “Every day I would see these guys, and they’d have these perfect bodies. It kind of changed my perception of perfect, and I wanted to look like those guys.”

As a result, Reyes recently decided to delete TikTok.

Rather than actively taking steps toward diversifying beauty standards that appear on the app, it seems as if TikTok only continues to reinforce a harmful standard on a platform reaching millions.

And, of these millions, it’s the teens who are especially susceptible to self-comparison, according to psychiatrist Maria Daehler.“[Teens] are going through puberty, and sex hormones are creating differences and changes in [their] brains that are causing them to be more aware of their own body,” Daehler said.“There are literally parts of their brains that are changing to be more aware of differences between them and another.”

The popular content that teens witness, for the most part, does not reflect the diversity of bodies in society. “What gives us this standard of beauty doesn’t necessarily tend to be very diverse,” Wellness Outreach Coordinator Rosie Castillo said. “I think it does give us a really tiny perception of what’s beautiful and what’s acceptable and what’s normal, and the folks that deviate from that may not necessarily get as much attention, which is unfortunate because really, [social media] should reflect our society just the way that it looks.”

And it’s not like creators are au naturale on TikTok. Before filming a video on TikTok, digital beauty filters may blur a creator’s skin, erase away any blemishes or pimples, and make the lips appear larger while whitening their teeth and altering their face shape. A clear message is sent: in order to be considered “beautiful,” lips should be bigger, skin clearer and the face skinnier.

Such filters reflect directly on self-esteem. “‘Are we looking at authentic images reflected back of ourselves?’ is a question we have to ask if we have to put the Zoom makeup fixer on our face every morning,” Daehler said. “If I’m putting it on because I think that I need to look better than who I am, that speaks to low self-esteem, and we internalize that more and more.”

Unplugged From Reality

The COVID-19 pandemic, predictably, has only worsened the discrepancy between beauty on TikTok and beauty in reality. When students cannot interact with each other in person, the only main exposure they get to other teenagers is through social media, especially TikTok. Senior Shira Tamler, a frequent TikTok user, noted how social media has impacted her self-confidence during the pandemic. “I think [TikTok] gives us really unrealistic self-standards and makes us way too hard on ourselves, especially in quarantine, where you do not see people a lot,” Tamler said. “You’re just with yourself, and thinking about how you look. Being on TikTok kind of makes it a little bit worse because you see all these girls, and you see a lot of people saying really mean things about them.”

Hurtful comments and a general lack of empathy online only worsen the problem. When there is something acutely “wrong” with a person, people in comment sections frequently point it out, and bullying has become a frequent problem. “Sometimes I’ll see someone who’s not traditionally or conventionally ‘pretty,’ but then everyone will be very positive in the comments,” Schendel said. “But then, other times, like I remember seeing this one girl and people thought that her eyes were a little bit far apart, so they just kept commenting that on her post.”

It’s not just the creators who are negatively impacted. “Let’s say there’s this guy,” Reyes said. “He has a perfect body and someone comments, ‘Wow, you look weird.’ People are gonna think that’s not a perfect body. Do I have to do even better than that?”

Schendel has noticed a similar effect from TikTok comments. “I think it could definitely have a really bad impact on people’s perceptions of themselves because of other people making negative comments about their appearance,” she said. “They’ll probably think less about themselves and maybe even develop insecurities that maybe they otherwise wouldn’t have had.”

The end result is a strongly negative atmosphere on the app.“It’s inevitable that you’re going to see a bunch of unrealistic beauty standards and people cyber-bullying each other in the comments,” Tamler said. “At this point, it’s so easy for people to bully others on the app that it’s become normalized.”

It’s also harder to view what’s beneath the surface online. According to a BBC survey of female university students, women reported that they tend to compare their own appearance negatively with both their peer group and with celebrities. The comparison group that had the strongest link to body image concerns, however, were the distant peers, or acquaintances.

In other words, women are often aware of that fact that celebrities’ social media posts are heavily edited to appear artificially “perfect,” while it’s already understood close friends don’t have perfect lives, despite what it might look like online. Yet when it comes to the in-between acquaintances, it’s difficult to perceive the extent of editing tools used—and the artificiality of what’s portrayed—making it easier to force a comparison.

While the effect is sometimes subconscious, the constant reinforcement of a certain beauty standard can have a lasting impact on teens’ perceptions of themselves. Castillo frequently interacts with students and, before the pandemic, watched students engage with TikTok. “The way that [TikTok] has been negatively affecting our students is pretty apparent,” Castillo said. “There are mental health issues that stem from cyberbullying and body-image issues because of what they see online.”

One example? “What I Eat in a Day” videos are a common phenomenon in which users on TikTok share often unrealistic diets and unhealthy weight loss methods. “I think it’s promoting a lot of eating disorder behaviors,” Schendel said. “I see really young girls in some comments be like, ‘I’m not gonna eat today because I don’t look like that.’ It’s definitely very concerning.”

Seeing certain body types on social media can create the perception that there’s an ideal body type for teens. “Social media makes it easier for people to see the wide differences in the way that we look,” Castillo said. “The money that you see YouTubers and Instagrammers spend[ing] on altering themselves to look acertain way—it’s like they’re trying to fit into a mold. And when the user can’t, for whatever reason, it creates some distress. We’ve seen definitely an increase [of distress], and it’s widespread.”

With each passing year, it seems, the age at which children are first exposed to social media becomes younger and younger. On these platforms, kids have access to content past generations certainly never had, but there’s also an immense pressure that their parents didn’t feel. “When [our parents] were our age they got to live more in the moment, and they didn’t have to worry about looking a certain way over social media,” Tamler said.

Part of the pressure adolescent creators feel is to look the way popular, older influencers look, resulting in a skewed perception of what behaviors and appearances are “normal” for any given age group. “There are 13-year-olds who look like they are 20 [on TikTok].” Schendel said. “That is weird for me because I am 17, but I don’t even look like that. So how does a 13-year-old look like that?”

Creating New Movements

In the face of all this, new movements are striving to promote different and diverse beauty standards; there has been an increase in social media influencers gaining popularity for their body positivity videos and posts. 16-year-old Sienna Mae Gomez, for example, is known for showing videos of herself after eating, when she’s bloated, or for squishing parts of her body that women are traditionally insecure about—such as stomach rolls and cellulite—in an attempt to normalize such features. Other creators such as Victoria Garrick, a former Division I athlete, frequently discuss taboo subjects about women’s bodies, including counting calories and an “intuitive eating” approach.

Body positivity activists, such as pop singer Lizzo, have also posted videos of their bodies in their natural state to challenge the idea of the “perfect body.” Lizzo recently made a video displaying her body at all angles, discussing her struggles with body positivity and encouraging viewers to accept themselves, no matter their size. “I’m so proud of you for making it this far in a society that gives us a headstart into self-loathing, that hands us a dysmorphic mirror and leaves us desperate to catch up with who we think we should be,” she said.

Besides individual creators, some brands have also shown their support for more inclusive beauty standards. For example, Dove has committed to “always feature real women, never models” in their ads, and launched the Dove Self-Esteem Project, aimed at educating the next generation on body confidence. The American Eagle brand Aerie has also made steps toward promoting women of all body types in their ads and has pledged to no longer airbrush their models.

Daehler thinks that campaigns like these provide a more hopeful outlook for teens.“The more that [girls] click and look at social media, they tend to have a lower sense of [body-image],” she said. “But there are some studies that are suggesting that the way the body is presented on social media can counteract some of that. So, instead of just blocking social media or blocking teens from seeing social media, show multiple different types of bodies and focus more on women’s personality and their intellect and not objectify them so much in terms of just their physical appearance.”

Even though body positivity content is hardly the focus of TikTok—while Gomez has amassed over 14.5 million followers in the last few months and Garrick has 703,000, these numbers are only a fraction of Charli D’Amelio’s 108 million—the steps being made by these creators and brands are showing that there is push for a more diverse idea of beauty on social media.

As for TikTok, viewers are urging the app to highlight all types of creators. “TikTok should promote different body types, different races and pull away from the current standard that’s set in stone,” Reyes said. “What they’re doing right now with only putting muscular, white guys or skinny white girls on the For You pages, is not [acceptable]. They definitely should pull away from that and promote more diverse people in terms of skin, race, body type and content.”

Yet, at the same time, physical safety has come at the cost of mental wellbeing, as child psychologist Dr. Wendy Froehlich recognizes. “I’d love to say that safety is the top priority, but you can break safety down to include physical safety and mental health safety,” Froehlich said. “And we have competing interests right now within those two areas.”

Froehlich’s words point at the deeper issue of maintaining a careful balancing act between mental health and physical health amidst the pandemic. According to a recent Harvard study, strict lockdowns and curfews have led to widespread feelings of isolation, causing children to experience symptoms of depression, anxiety and misbehavior. Similarly, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported significantly higher levels of depression and anxiety in students who had been quarantined for 30 days due to COVID-19.

In short, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a far more invisible mental health pandemic, especially amongst adolescents and teens. “Without a doubt, the pandemic has been hard for a large majority of individuals I work with,” Froehlich said. “From a general social perspective, [since] high school teenagers are at such a transitional period in life, it’s been really, really difficult to live through this pandemic.”

New Challenges

At Gunn, things are no different. According to counselor David Leftwich, since Gunn shifted to virtual learning, there have been an increased number of meetings arranged for students requiring interventions to support them academically. Leftwich noted that student anxiety has been an underlying theme in all of these meetings. “I think that those meetings have anxiety underneath them, where [students are] saying, ‘I don’t know if I can do this, I need some help. I’m worried about getting through all this. It feels so different. It feels so scary,’” Leftwich said.

Mental Health and Wellness Coordinator Genavae Dixon noted a similar trend, citing the fact that there have been more students reaching out for support. “We definitely have more students reporting about depressive-like symptoms than we have had before,” Dixon said. “Especially for students having these situations happen for the first time, [I hear them saying] ‘wow, it’s really hard for me to get out of bed, it’s really hard for me to have some level of motivation and to finish my schoolwork, or to even interact with my family or text my friends back.’”

Teacher-student relationships have also felt more distanced. According to Leftwich, it’s considerably more challenging for adults to detect when a student is struggling in a virtual schooling format. “[Counselors] get a lot of our referrals through teachers,” he said. “In the classroom, they can look out over the class and they can see when a student has their head down. But online, students just have their camera off, so it wouldn’t be a red flag for that teacher.”

Even when students meet with counselors, it has become harder for counselors to fully understand a student’s mental state. “On campus, it’s easier to get a feel for a student,” Leftwich said. “When I talk to a student, I’m reading their body language in a different way than I do when I do a Zoom meeting with them. I can hear their voice differently, or they speak differently to me in my office than they do when they’re in their living room. Understanding the mental health challenges of students on campus is easier when you’re on campus and meeting with students face to face.”

For its part, Gunn has recognized the need to take steps in supporting the mental wellbeing of students inside and outside the classroom. Since on-campus support is no longer available, new virtual support systems are being developed and offered to students.

The Wellness Center staff, for instance, has been coming up with different online initiatives to provide support for students in a variety of different ways. There is now a Bitmoji classroom where students can drop in 24 hours a day to get different types of resources. Students can also receive direct assistance during school hours from wellness professionals (These resources can be accessed at tinyurl.com/gwellness). These new resources have helped some students adjust to online learning; according to Reach Out, Care, Know (ROCK) President Kate Williams, who is a senior, school-led activities have helped her feel more comfortable in the online environment. “I think Gunn has really helped us by using the Gunn Together times and the SELF times to really talk about mental health,” she said. “I feel so supported, especially by [Wellness Outreach Worker Rossana Castil], who is really helping by posting things on Schoology—ways that you can continue to work on your mental health.”

A Reason To Reopen

Given the challenges distance learning poses to maintaining wellness, it’s no surprise students’ mental health has been cited as a reason for reopening schools to resume in-person instruction. The Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) school board has strongly encouraged reopening and unanimously approved reopening plans for both elementary and secondary schools. Chief among the reasons for reopening, according to PAUSD Superintendent Dr. Don Austin, is mental health. “Students have been isolated for nine months, and are starting to have issues,” he said. “When you get to be around people that you know care about you, your mental health improves naturally, and that’s my belief system. I think the board is, as a whole, pretty aligned with that.”

School Board Member Jennifer DiBrienza echoed Austin. “I know a lot of students that are doing absolutely fine academically, but some are depressed or are just disengaged,” DiBrienza said. “There are some kids that we know of who are struggling with isolation. I think that there’s a disappointment of not being able to open in January [given the] real academic concerns and mental health concerns.”

Under the PAUSD reopening plan, students would only return in-person for their English and social studies classes, leading Dixon to voice uncertainty on whether the plan would effectively support students. “I think that for our students that truly need the structure of school to be able to get their work done, that it would be helpful,” she said. “But, overall, it would still be that most of your classes would still be in distance, so there still would be some discrepancies and some issues around that.”

While PAUSD’s secondary school plan has been shelved due to the county’s spiking COVID-19 case count, if students do go back to school in the near-future, Dixon worries about potentially new forms of student anxiety. “I think it does add or it brings in a level of health anxiety,” she said. “‘Now I’m coming to school, is everybody taking their precautions? Is everyone wearing their masks? How do I interact?’ My colleagues that I work within other [reopened] schools say that has been a big point of stress for students.”

At the end of the day, there’s no right answer in what to prioritize when reopening schools, according to Froehlich. “I don’t know that there’s a way to say that there’s just one most important variable to be looked at [in reopening],” she said. “I think there are a multitude of variables that have to be weighed, and the challenging part is they’re probably different for each individual and each family. That’s where this creates such a challenging situation because there is no great one-size-fits-all.”

In looking toward the future, regardless of how reopenings will look, Dixon emphasized reaching out for support. “Reach out to Wellness [staff]—we are here to support you,” she said. “We want to be here to support you with those things and talk through strategies and be really individualized with our support for our students.”