Six former team members described an unsafe, pressure-filled environment.
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Editor’s Note: This story contains references to suicidal ideation and mental illness that may be troubling to some readers. Several sources requested anonymity due to fears of retaliation or discomfort speaking publicly. In those instances, pseudonyms have been used for readability.
Reclined in the bow of the shell, just inches above the water’s surface, a coxswain steered the four rowers through choppy waters. As the rain came down during a Wednesday practice, the coxed four were in the middle of a 20-minute race when they entered the wake of a nearby research vessel.
The waves from the wake entered the boat, sinking it further into the water and submerging the coxswain. The rowers looked at their coaches in despair. In response, they repeatedly told the team to “endure,” said former rower Arthur Scott ’27.
“It was just so incredible, and such a lack of humanity,” Scott said.
This account is one of many from six former members of the Stanford men’s rowing team who spoke to The Daily.
Together, they alleged that head coach Ted Sobolewski and assistant coach John Pojednic cultivated an environment in which rowers felt pressured to train even while seriously ill or injured, going against explicit medical advice.
The Daily requested comment from Sobolewski and Pojednic via an Athletics Department sports information director, per department policy.
“We are unable to comment on personnel matters due to legal and privacy considerations,” Stanford Athletics replied in a statement to The Daily. “We take all matters related to student-athlete health and safety seriously.”
Former rower Wilder Fulford ’26 said that multiple current rowers admitted in confidence to him that they “were considering hurting themselves and committing suicide” as a result of “feeling trapped in the environment.”
Ethan — who requested to use a pseudonym due to discomfort discussing the subject publicly — said he dealt with recurring colds and eight fevers during one school year.
Pierce — whose name has been changed due to his fear of retaliation from the coaches — said he battled two bulging discs and was forced by Sobolewski to complete a one hour maximal test while recovering from pneumonia against written doctor’s orders. Following the test, Pierce said he was shaking and vomiting through the night.
Brady — whose name has also been changed due to his fear of retaliation from the coaches — said that he experienced recurring nerve pain in his back and legs, leaving him crying in pain on the floor.
Finn Stäblein ’26, a former rower, said the team culture focused on “grind[ing] down the athlete and then see[ing] who survives.” Some of the former rowers directly blamed the coaches for this environment.
“They seem to have such a twisted idea of what success means and how to achieve success,” Scott said.
Sobolewski and Pojednic have trained the team since 2019 and 2023, respectively. By the end of the 2025-2026 academic year — three years since the pair began running the program together — at least 12 recruited rowers had left the team.
In response to an initial report of the allegations by The Stanford Review, current members of Stanford men’s rowing published a statement via Instagram on June 8. The Review’s article described injuries, lack of instruction and abrasive behavior from the coaching staff.
“We reject the suggestion that the challenges faced by Stanford rowers are unique to this program or that our athletes are left to navigate them alone,” the statement read. “Navigating those challenges through a strong team culture, under the guidance of our coaching staff is what has made our success rewarding.”
Courtesy of @thefourstarsnetwork on Instagram
In interviews with six former team members, The Daily gathered further allegations of undue injuries, neglect and an abusive team culture. Two additional former team members defended Sobolewski and Pojednic. They framed the allegations as isolated incidents and stressed the role of team resource constraints. Current team members did not respond to requests for comment.
Multiple former rowers said that Sobolewski and Pojednic popularized the term “baby cough,” using it in team meetings during the winter when a rower was ill and unable to fully engage in training.
“The coaches don’t really believe the rowers are actually sick,” Fulford said.
According to Scott, Sobolewski often asked the rowers, “Are you going to stop coughing now?” and would call displays of sickness “performative.”
In 2023, a COVID-19 outbreak spread throughout the team, according to former rower Schuyler Audley-Williams ’27. Rowers were encouraged not to test and to “will themselves out of illness,” Audley-Williams said. “I was told exercising would make me better because I’d cough it up.”
He added that rowers coined the term “100 day cough” to refer to the illnesses afflicting the team, as rowers seemed to be wheezing, coughing and unable to breathe for months due to incessant training.
In addition to recurring illnesses, multiple rowers described sustaining intense injuries. These included recurrent back spasms, nerve pain and bulging discs that were repeatedly aggravated by premature returns to full training.
According to Brady, to avoid the excruciating pains associated with their injuries, several athletes were “advised by [Sobolewski and Pojednic] to take Advil every day” before morning practices.
In contrast to the six rowers who blamed Sobolewski and Pojednic for a lack of training and neglect, other former rowers, Grayson and Ethan — who requested to use pseudonyms due to discomfort discussing the subject publicly — described Sobolewski and Pojednic as “very caring people” and emphasized that the team culture was shaped by resource constraints.
The team was nearly cut in 2020 before Stanford reversed its decision, and has been building back ever since. According to Grayson, with a smaller roster, the coaches needed every person in the boat to run a full practice and heavily encouraged all athletes to attend. Pushed by the desire to win, Grayson said that the coaches were doing their jobs and the underlying issue was a lack of student-athlete self-advocacy.
Grayson described the relationship with the coaches as an “employee-boss” dynamic. “Your boss will try to celebrate you and support you, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to make mistakes,” Grayson said.
Given this dynamic, Grayson said the rowers should have spoken up more about their medical needs. “People don’t realize how much they’re going to have to advocate for themselves because they came from environments where they didn’t have to,” Grayson added.
Ethan acknowledged that he had “grievances” with Pojednic, but described him as a “fantastic coach.”
Multiple rowers countered this position, saying there was no open line of communication between the team and the coaches.
“There is no clarity to how you are doing in terms of your rowing, or in terms of how you’re doing in terms of your relationship with the coaches, which leads to a culture of fear,” Audley-Williams said.
According to Fulford, some current members of the team “explicitly want the coaches gone” but fear retaliation.
According to multiple former rowers, training on the team could be merciless.
In Pierce’s view, “[Sobolewski] thinks of the guys as being more like cattle.” He recalled the coaches saying, “‘people don’t like to see how sausage gets made, but they like sausage.’”
Multiple former rowers said that issues also stemmed from a lack of development opportunities.
As a first-year student at Stanford, Stäblein transitioned from sculling, rowing with two oars, to sweeping, rowing with a single oar, to compete in the eight. The transition process requires time and meticulous technical training. Yet Stäblein said that he received neither, leading to a rib stress injury.
Stäblein added that he was not taught how to sweep well due to the coaches’ lack of training and technical expertise. “They’ve gotten some of the best people recruited and still, the program is not performing well.”
In 2026, the team completed one of its most successful seasons in recent years and won the Chapman Trophy for Most Improved as the team with the greatest year-over-year point increase in the Ten Eyck standings.
Scott said the team routinely trained beyond the NCAA’s 20-hour weekly limit, and that some rowers declined to complete NCAA practice-verification forms rather than attest to compliant hours. The Daily could not independently verify this claim.
With four-hour training six out of seven days of the week, rowing consumes most of their lives, which can come at the cost of isolation, Audley-Williams said.
Those who did not follow the coaches’ instructions were ostracized or “banned to the shadow realm,” Scott said.
The training wore on a number of rowers, including Lucas Johnson ’26, who was in the top boat in his freshman year. Johnson dealt with repeated illnesses and depression and struggled with academics during his sophomore year.
In text messages from Oct. 13, 2024, obtained by The Daily, Johnson requested to miss the team run and practice due to illness and advice from a team trainer.
Sobolewski texted back, “…unless you have a fever or are currently unable to hold food down, I think you should run. I know there are other guys who also aren’t 100% but they’re going to find a way to get it done.”
He then added, “For the record you’re the only guy so far this year that’s texted the coaches about not being able to practice and by my count it’s twice that this has happened now.”
Johnson declined to comment.
According to Pierce, the coaches continuously pushed Johnson to prematurely return to training while battling illness. Johnson later quit the team and unenrolled from Stanford.
Multiple former rowers said that the team culture instilled by the coaches negatively altered their mental health.
At the beginning of sophomore year, Audley-Williams was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, which he described as “exacerbated by the culture of rowing.”
Prior to attending Stanford, Scott said that he had never received psychological help. After his freshman year, he began seeing a psychiatrist and continued for the rest of his time on the team.
Following Johnson’s leave, Hugo – whose name has been changed due to his fear of retaliation from the coaches – said he raised concerns about the team culture to the coaches. In response, Pojednic replied that some people were not cut out for the rowing team, Hugo said.
Hugo then went to the administration, speaking with his academic advisor and administrator Meredith Basil. He was also scheduled to meet with the rowing associate athletic director, but said he faced retaliation before he could.
During the following race weekend, the coaches discovered that Hugo was speaking to someone in the administration. Hugo said that Pojednic pressed his finger into his chest, yelled expletives and called him a “cancer.”
Hugo told The Daily that he was put on leave from the team by Sobolewski that same afternoon, who said that if he were to bring the incident up with the administration, “it would be his word against mine.”
Stanford Athletics investigated Sobolewski and Pojednic in November 2024 following Hugo’s meetings with administrators.
On a Saturday night, just days before the investigation concluded, Pojednic texted Fulford that the situation had “already dumbed down enough of my attempts to actually coach you guys. Overall, a said [sic] situation where we need to pretend that we might be able to succeed with nothing to back that up.” These texts were obtained by The Daily.
The Stanford investigation found no substantiating evidence, and concluded with Sobolewski and Pojednic staying on as coaches.
“The coaches actually just received a slap on the wrist,” said Fulford. “Following on from that, we had two more years of the same sort of physical harming.”
While some write off intense training as inherent to the sport, others say that Stanford men’s rowing culture has surpassed the standard of Division I athletics.
“Everywhere else, suffering is the thing you must do in order to improve, whereas here it is the task. The task is to endure suffering,” Audley-Williams said.
Though they have left the team, many former rowers said they were speaking publicly out of a desire to change the culture for future generations.
“Many excellent men and women are suffering…I would find it very difficult to not help,” Audley-Williams said.
The Sport Psychology and Psychiatry Program offers expedited access to mental health care and sport performance services for actively enrolled Stanford University Student Athletes.
If you have thoughts of suicide or are concerned about the well-being of another, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or Stanford’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at 650-723-3785.
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Pros and cons of ICE “Shock Gloves”The Daily's Humor section would like to uphold our obligation to fair and accurate journalism by comprehensively evaluating the harms and benefits of this development.
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Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.
The Department of Homeland Security recently announced a contract of up to $20 million with a company called Compliant Technologies to arm ICE agents with a device called the Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, or G.L.O.V.E. The device, a glove, sends concentrated electric shocks that inflict enough pain for the user to control a target. The Daily would like to uphold our obligation to fair and accurate journalism by comprehensively evaluating the harms and benefits of this development.
PRO: Officers will no longer grab their taser mistakenly when reaching for their gun.
This issue will be eliminated completely in 2027, when Compliant Technologies releases chewing tobacco that you can spit out as bullets.
CON: If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.
In related news, the average ICE agent is “probably agile enough” for low-speed pursuits, according to elementary school PE teachers who evaluated their jogging technique as they chased down schoolchildren.
PRO: Models have the battery life to electrocute civilians for up to two hours.
While you might consider that duration too extreme for detainment, you’re ignoring this device’s potential for self-pleasure.
CON: The Design Major + Human Rights Minor from your frosh dorm had the idea first, so she’ll want you to boycott Compliant Technologies.
She claims her Muscle Inhibiting Tactile Taser (or M.I.T.T.) has more advanced features, like an AI assistant that offers recommendations such as “Go for the pacemaker!” and “He’s got a gun!”
PRO: Arming white federal officers with shock gloves subverts the trope that electricity-based powers go to Black superheroes.
Last night, the DOJ announced their intent to arrest Miles Morales for impersonating a federal officer, leaving the fate of the Spider-Verse unresolved.
CON: Calling the shock gloves “G.L.O.V.E.” eliminates the element of surprise.
At least when ICE rebrands to NICE, all they need to do to retool this product is remove the G.
PRO: Calling the shock gloves “G.L.O.V.E.” panders to agents’ median reading level.
GLOVE is also tomorrow’s Wordle. You can thank me in the comments section.
CON: Anyone can neutralize a G.L.O.V.E. by throwing a bucket of water on it.
Coincidentally, the same technique works for dissolving Kristi Noem.
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Stanford legend Nneka Ogwumike ’12 announces her retirement from the WNBAOgwumike's announcement closes a 15-season professional career.
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Nneka Ogwumike ’12 announced last Wednesday that she will be retiring from the WNBA at the end of the 2026 season, concluding her 15-season career.
The Stanford alum, dubbed “Madame President” by the WNBA’s players and fan community, is one of the league’s most accomplished players, having been named to the All-Star team 11 times, the All-WNBA 1st Team once, the All-WNBA 2nd Team twice, the All-Defensive Team three times and winning both an MVP award and WNBA Championship in 2016.
Ogwumike played under coach Tara Vanderveer at Stanford from 2009-2012. During that stint, the forward was the Pac-12 Player of the Year twice and led the Cardinal to the Final Four in all four of her years with the team. She averaged 19.9 points, 9.4 rebounds and shot 56.8 percent from the field in her three seasons at The Farm. She was drafted No. 1 to the Los Angeles Sparks in 2012 and won Rookie of the Year.
“I’m doing it on my terms,” Ogwumike told Boardroom’s Taylor Rooks in an exclusive interview last Wednesday. “I feel very content with where I’ve left my career…I feel very content about what we were able to achieve coming into this season; where we see the league today.”
Ogwumike was referring to her role in negotiating the WNBA’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement, which nearly quintupled the league’s salary cap and raised average player salaries to almost $600,000 (four times the estimated 2025 figure), among other monumental changes.
She has served as the Women’s National Basketball Players Association’s president since 2016, demonstrating a commitment to basketball much larger than herself. The outpouring of love from the league that followed her announcement testified to her contributions.
It must be said that Ogwumike could very well keep going in the WNBA until the wheels fall off. So far this season, after her return to the Sparks, she is averaging 16.7 points, 8.7 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game, earning her her 11th All-Star nod at 36 years old.
“I feel very good…but I also feel the comfort of slowing down,” Ogwumike said. “I have poured as much as I could into this game, and the last bit is this year of playing.”
The former Cardinal signed with the Sparks this past season in a move that looked to many as if it would guarantee the legacy franchise a spot in the playoffs. Ogwumike was joining a roster complete with fellow Stanford alum Cameron Brink ’24 and four-time All-Star Kelsey Plum, who was dealt to the Phoenix Mercury ahead of the August trade deadline. Instead, Los Angeles has struggled greatly, sitting at 12th in league standings already eliminated from playoff contention.
Ogwumike still plans to suit up for Project B — a new international women’s basketball league — in January, according to ESPN.
Madame President only has eight more games to close out her legendary career, and given the shocking nature of her announcement, no teams have been able to celebrate her the way she deserves throughout the season. Tributes will no doubt follow in the coming weeks, especially by the Seattle Storm, a franchise with which she spent the previous two years of her career.
Ogwumike will be eligible to be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2029, and will undoubtedly be a first-ballot entry. Her mark on the game simply cannot be overstated, and the WNBA community will miss her presence both on and off the court.
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Valkyries clinch playoff spot for the second consecutive year"There was a special type of purpose tonight," said the Valkyries' head coach Natalie Nakase.
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The Golden State Valkyries (25-11) defeated the Dallas Wings (21-16) at home last Monday to clinch their second-ever spot in the WNBA Playoffs in their sophomore season in the WNBA.
The theme of last week’s game was ‘Back to School Night,’ celebrating the start of the academic year for students in the Bay Area through activities during game breaks. Fans from all over the Bay filled the arena, including Warriors guards Stephen Curry, Will Richard, Moses Moody and Gary Payton II, who came out to support their sister team. The game was sold out with a total attendance of 18,064 fans at Chase Center, marking the Valkyries’ 41st consecutive sold-out regular season game.
The Wings’ notable players include Arike Ogunbowale, Paige Bueckers and developmental forward-guard Haley Jones, who led Stanford Women’s Basketball to a national championship in 2021. Although the team started the game with a fast pace, the Valkyries eventually matched their energy, and the opening quarter left the Valkyries on top with the score sitting at 20-19.
Valkyries guards Veronica Burton and Gabby Williams brought an energy that matched the crowd’s chants in the second quarter, lighting up the court together with several three-pointers. Their energetic performance ensured that the Valks remained on top, ending the half with a 16-point lead.
The Valks brought the same energy in the third quarter, as they never surrendered their lead. The team’s offense remained hot, ending the third quarter with a 62-46 advantage. Still, the Wings did not throw in the towel, as they continued fighting in the fourth quarter. While the Wings were able to cut the Valks’ lead to single digits, their efforts were not enough. The Valks came out on top with a big win in Ballhalla.
When asked about how making the playoffs a second time compared to her first appearance, Burton said, “I have that very similar level of joy, and I think that’s what’s unique about Golden State — just the culture that we have here.”
The Valkyries’ head coach Natalie Nakase said the win was “really good for us because we just want to make sure every night we play for Ballhalla.”
“There was a special type of purpose tonight, so we’re happy we got the job done, but we got a lot of work to do,” she added.
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Stanford could face DOJ scrutiny over foreign donationsA report from the Department of Education ranked Stanford fourth among universities for donations from “countries of concern,” including China and Russia.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) is preparing to investigate Stanford’s foreign donation policies, revealed Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the DOJ, in a Bloomberg interview Monday. The investigation stemmed from concern over the safety of sensitive information and research, she said.
Stanford currently ranks sixth among US universities receiving foreign gifts and contracts, with nearly $2.8 billion donated since 1986. Donors from China top the list with $476.3 million in total funding. A report from the Department of Education ranked Stanford fourth among universities for donations from “countries of concern,” including China and Russia.
It is among the many colleges and universities that have faced budget cuts since President Trump took office in January 2025. The University has lost around $140 million in funding.
The DOJ has declined to comment on the status of the investigation.
“Stanford conducts rigorous due diligence for all philanthropic gifts and sponsored research, with enhanced scrutiny applied to international sources, particularly those from countries of concern,” University spokesperson Luisa Rapport wrote to The Daily.
The anticipated investigation follows a probe by the DOJ into Stanford Medical School in late March. Along with Ohio State University (OSU) and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), Stanford received a request for data focused “on possible race discrimination in medical school admissions,” Dhillon wrote in a letter to the schools. Critics argued that the probe “ignored racial inequities” and “erase[d] the relevance of race in health and education.”
Rapport said that Stanford maintains the right to refuse international gifts if the funding source “raises legal or ethical concerns, if conditions on the gift could compromise the independence or integrity of University research or if acceptance would otherwise be deemed inappropriate.”
Stanford has so far avoided the government’s fiercest scrutiny, which has been reserved for peer institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University over charges of campus antisemitism. In the Monday interview, Dhillon said that Stanford has mostly been spared not “because of [Stanford’s] virtue” but “because I’m staffing up.”
A whistleblower complaint by DOJ attorneys recently alleged that the department’s antisemitism cases against Ivy League institutions were predetermined and politically motivated. Investigations by the Trump Administration into universities such as Brown University were rushed and lacked evidence, the whistleblowers said.
A previous version of this article misstated the total amount donated by Chinese donors since 1986.
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Sydney Lowell’s journey through water poloThe rising junior shared how she balances water polo and bioengineering.
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Entering her third year at Stanford, junior driver Sydney Lowell has found herself living the dream she once watched from the sidelines. As she prepares for another season in the pool and a quarter of bioengineering, she is embracing the pressure rather than running from it.
Lowell grew up in the area right by Stanford; her high school was right down the street. After exploring many sports, she dipped her toes in the pool of water polo in sixth grade, just to try it, and quickly fell in love.
“I really liked being in the water, the teamwork, the throwing and the fact that it was a challenging sport,” she said.
That summer, Lowell started playing for a local club team and over time became involved with the U.S. national team — which was a big part of her development as a player. During that time, Stanford became a goal, as she watched many of the Stanford women’s water polo games.
“It was always a dream, although I didn’t think it was necessarily possible, until it became a possibility,” said Lowell.
As with many of Stanford’s student-athletes, academics were also important for her. In high school, Lowell discovered her passion for engineering and biology. She really liked building and creating, from woodworking to cardboard projects. The opportunity to pursue the academics she wanted while playing water polo drew her to Stanford.
“I felt it was the kind of environment that would push me to grow as much as possible as an athlete, student and person,” Lowell said.
This summer, she is interning at a medical technology company, which presents a great combination of her interests in engineering and medicine. Her work has not interfered with her summer practices, however.
“It has been challenging, but also a good challenge,” Lowell said. “The experience has helped me figure out what I might want to do professionally.”
Balancing everything has been tough, but playing sports in high school already taught her how to balance school and athletics. She now carries those skills onto The Farm.
“I try to be very intentional with my time,” said Lowell. “When I’m studying, I focus on studying and avoid distractions so that I can spend less time working while being more productive.”
For Lowell, spending time with her teammates is also part of the balance that brings her joy, especially during meals.
“Those moments of connecting with people can feel like a breath of fresh air when everything gets crazy, and they’re really motivating,” she said.
Many of her teammates and friends across Stanford are dealing with the same academic pressure, but she thinks that having people in the same situation makes a huge difference. They study together and support each other when they have assignments or problem sets due.
“Having that community makes everything much more manageable and honestly, makes it more fun,” said Lowell.
Outside of academics and water polo, she is also a big reader with a long “to be read” pile. At home, she enjoys cooking and taking advantage of the hiking trails, beaches and nature of the Bay Area. Furthermore, she identifies as a pretty curious person who likes talking to people about what they find interesting or exciting; that is something she values about herself and other people.
Next quarter, Lowell is going to take one of the hardest classes in her curriculum, Chem121, a course that covers organic chemistry. Instead of thinking about the pressure it will come with, she sees it as an opportunity to make herself proud.
This new period is essentially for her preparation for the season, and she wants to approach it with a positive and excited attitude, as well as bring energy and enthusiasm to people around her. With that, she also carries along with her a definition of what success looks like in her life.
“For me, success means finding joy, recognizing the beauty in the world and finding meaning in what you do,” Lowell said. “I hope my life combines doing something meaningful and lasting with actually enjoying what I’m doing.”
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Stanford alum Michael Thorbjornsen picks up first PGA winAfter years of success at Stanford, the golfer capped a remarkable day in Detroit.
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Stanford alum Michael Thorbjornsen ’24 captured his first PGA Tour victory last Sunday at the Rocket Classic in Detroit, shooting a final-round of 63 (-7) to secure the win.
Thorbjornsen’s final round was the best of his young professional career, recording no bogeys on his scorecard despite challenging playing weather at the Detroit Golf Club. The former Pac-12 Golfer of the Year (2022-23) averaged 318 yards off the tee while hitting 73% of fairways for the week, which is considerably higher than the tour average of 60%.
Thorbjornsen put an exclamation point on Sunday’s round with a gutsy birdie putt on hole 18 as he walked to the clubhouse with a two-stroke lead over Davis Riley, who had been the leader entering Sunday’s round and sat four strokes ahead of Thorbjornsen.
After a short wait in the clubhouse to allow for the remaining players to finish their rounds, Thorbjornsen officially tallied his first professional win. He was quick to thank his parents, both of whom are golf enthusiasts. Thorbjornsen’s mother was a college golfer, while his father is an engineer who became fascinated with the science of the golf swing and served as one of many coaches for the sophomore PGA Tour player.
“Every bit of success I have out here is a family win,” Thorbjornsen said.
The Rocket Classic win is yet another accolade for the accomplished former Cardinal. Before his move to The Farm, Thorbjornsen established himself in the golf scene by winning the 2018 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship. Once at Stanford, Thorbjornsen was named to the All-Pac-12 Newcomer Team as a freshman, and he was a consistent member of the All-Pac-12 First Team over his final three collegiate years.
Thorbjornsen played over 120 rounds at The Farm, collecting three tournament wins. Sunday’s round and win, however, was the most impressive of his golf career — and potentially the first of many for Thorbjornsen.
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CDC leverages Flock cameras to track cyclospora outbreak“Parasites… they seduce you, but they really mess with your head,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.
Amid staff reductions at the CDC and FDA, the federal agencies have now turned to surveillance tools to contain cyclosporiasis, an “explosive diarrhea parasite” spreading across the country. Cyclosporiasis symptoms only manifest themselves after 1-2 weeks, but researchers have traced the parasites to iceberg lettuce shipments delivered to Taco Bell.
“Parasites… they seduce you, but they really mess with your head,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I’ve grown immune through a steady diet of raw bear meat.”
The nation’s health agencies plan to track possible carriers through technologies like automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, the most famous of which are Flock cameras. At the federal level, agents search through state and city Flock databases to track a car’s movement and query the system with searches like “cylcosoprisis,” “e.d. NOT erectile dysfunction!!! explosive diarrhea dammit” or “write an email to my boss asking for one week vacation.”
Herman Gran ‘04, a government analyst describing himself as “basically the guy in the chair… that chair, the porcelain one,” shared details with the Daily about the surveillance process.
“Most cities use Flock to catalog everyone that drives through a select list of restaurants: Taco Bell, Panda Express, Popeyes, Jollibee, Zareen’s… Occasionally an Olive Garden. Some officers use them to monitor the lines at Krispy Kreme, but that’s more about their lunch break than their detective work.”
“Whenever we get a hit, we send vans to collect these suckers for indefinite quarantine,” Gran elaborated. “Sometimes, we catch the infected right as they enter the doctor’s office.”
To keep up with Flock’s incessant alerts of potential cyclosporiasis cases, the CDC, FDA and HHS have undertaken aggressive recruitment pushes, including media campaigns and five-figure signing bonuses. Critics have attacked the agencies’ tactics as compromising American safety.
“They’ve cut down training hours, moving modules online when they should be in-person, arming them with bleach and fitting them for hazmat suits while encouraging them to medicate people even when they’re out-of-network,” said whistleblower Farrah Saide ’11. “Some think the bleach is for their veins, others their eyes… Only 31% know what HIPAA stands for.”
Despite not working for any health agencies, Kash Patel asked for an interview by Daily reporters, adding, “Do you like my hazmat suit? It looks authentic, right?”
Although Stanford has operated Flock cameras across campus for years, reports on the federal use of Flock have led the University to end its contract with the surveillance company. “In English, our motto reads, ‘The winds of freedom blow,’” said President Jon Levin ‘94. “I can’t imagine any interpretation more literal than Chalupa-induced flatulence.”
Although ALPRs have allowed the CDC to track tens more cases, health officials are still demanding more resources to track and record the spread of cyclosporiasis. Federal policymakers have promised a swift and thorough response.
“Effective January 1st, 2028, all bathrooms must operate cameras in every stall,” announced Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. “Gender-neutral bathrooms, 2027.” The Measure for Keen Audio-Visual Analysis Nationwide Assuring Urinary and Gluteal Health, dubbed the KAVANAUGH Act, enjoys broad bipartisan support in Congress.
Before I finished my interviews, Gran tapped my shoulder. “Wait, you’re from Stanford, right? Honda Civic, California plates, 6CBD232? I’m not going to lie, when you went to the 24-Hour Denny’s in Redwood City at 3am last March, it broke my heart. I know you had finals, but you texted your sister in January that you’d try dieting, so that just feels dishonest to me.”
Reporter’s Note: A private audit in Roseville, California found that Flock cameras misread 71% of the license plates it alerted Roseville police to, so take this jackal’s claim with a grain of salt.
Denny’s Waitress’s Note: In this case, however, the camera was correct. At least it provides tips.
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Stanford ends contract with Flock cameras, switches to GenetecThe University’s switch came after a petition calling for Flock cameras’ removal received over 1,000 signatures.
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Following months of criticism, Stanford has stopped contracting Flock Safety and switched to Genetec as its provider of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs).
The University aimed “to be both responsive to community concerns about privacy and safety as a result of issues related to Flock, but also balancing that with providing resources to the Department of Public Safety,” said Vice Provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community Patrick Dunkley.
ALPRs are cameras that take pictures of cars and record metadata, including license plate information. Stanford had partnered with Flock since 2024 through the Department of Public Safety (SUDPS).
Genetec spokesperson Andrew Elvish said that features such as watermarks on the screen and blockchain technology prevent the accidental or intentional misuse of ALPR data.
“Life is a series of trade-offs, right?,” said Elvish. “So we trade certain degrees of anonymity and privacy for security.”
Both Flock and Genetec track cars’ color, make and model. Under the Genetec system, Stanford says its ALPR data will not be accessible by third parties.
“We landed on Genetec Cloudrunner in part because their system met the data security issues that we thought [were] important,” Dunkley said.
Another difference is the length of time that data is stored on the cloud. While Flock keeps license plate information for 30 days, Genetec will only hold data in the cloud for an hour before it is transferred to Stanford’s own servers, according to the Stanford Report. It is not clear how long data will remain on Stanford’s servers.
The decision follows the circulation of a petition calling on the University to end its contract with Flock. The petitioners argued that the cameras violated privacy rights, and have collected over 1,000 signatures since May.
“The collection of this detailed data, held by a private company with documented privacy abuses, creates a mass surveillance state in a time of egregious federal government behavior,” the petition reads.
Stanford’s termination of their contract with Flock follows similar terminations in recent months. This February, Santa Clara County banned the use of Flock cameras by the county sheriff. While Stanford’s Department of Public Safety is deputized by the county sheriff, it did not end its contract with Flock when the policy was put in place.
Flock Safety markets its cloud sharing functionality, which allows law enforcement agencies to search each other’s databases. But the feature may be accidentally enabled. Mountain View’s police department ended its contract with Flock in February after realizing data had been shared with hundreds of law enforcement agencies, allegedly without the city’s knowledge.
Elvish described the process of enabling data sharing as non-trivial. “We make it something that you have to intentionally want to do,” he said.
Critics have also pointed to the use of local law enforcement’s Flock data by federal agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Flock Safety does not have a current contract or partnership with ICE, but allows for customer discretion to share their data with the agency. This means a local law enforcement agency or city, as Flock’s customer, is able to share their Flock data.
Genetec was previously the subject of its own controversy after the nonprofit Justice Beyond Borders/Justice for Iran accused it of partnering with companies that provided services for the Iranian government. This would have been a violation of guidelines from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the nonprofit believed.
Genetec denied doing business in Iran. After a review by Canada’s OECD dispute resolution contact point, the allegation was determined not to warrant further consideration.
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Stanford players selected in MLB DraftThe league drafted four Cardinal baseball players.
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The MLB Draft took place July 11 and 12, securing four Stanford baseball players spots in the big leagues. Following the 20-round draft, three more players signed with teams as UDFAs. All seven players have officially signed with their respective organizations.
Junior right-handed pitcher Aidan Keenan was the first from the Cardinal selected for the draft as pick 210 in round seven. The New York Mets drafted Keenan following his oblique injury earlier in the 2026 season. Keenan finished his collegiate career with a 5.79 ERA over 65.1 innings pitched, starting in a total of eight games.
Sophomore first baseman Rintaro Sasaki was the second off the board in round eight as the 235th pick. The Fukuoka Softbank Hawks also picked Sasaki in the first round of the Nippon Professional Baseball Draft in Japan. Ultimately, Sasaki decided to sign with the Miami Marlins.
“I went back and forth on this decision until the very end,” Sasaki said. “Even if this path ultimately turns out to be the wrong choice, I do not want to live with regret. Rather than defining my life by whether I succeed or fail, I want to define it by whether I had the courage to take on a challenge. With that belief in mind, I ultimately decided to pursue this path.”
Sasaki played and started a total of 106 games on The Farm, averaging .265 at the plate across 407 at-bats. The first baseman also hit 23 home runs in his two seasons with the Cardinal.
Junior infielder Eric Jeon landed with the Seattle Mariners next in round 10 as pick 310, becoming the highest-ranked Korean player in the history of the MLB Draft. Jeon began his collegiate baseball career at Columbia University before transferring to Stanford his junior year. In his three years of college baseball, Jeon played 89 games and recorded a batting average of 0.321, an on-base percentage of 0.409 and a slugging percentage of 0.531, alongside 14 home runs and 62 RBIs.
The final pick from the Cardinal was senior outfielder Cort MacDonald. The Colorado Rockies selected MacDonald in the 19th round as the 554th pick. Across four seasons at Stanford, MacDonald hit .309/.385/.409 with 23 doubles, one triple and six home runs in 131 games.
An additional three Stanford players were selected following the draft as undrafted free agents (UDFAs).
The San Francisco Giants landed senior right-handed pitcher Toran O’Harran. This season was the California native’s best season on The Farm, working 40 innings and holding a 4.05 ERA. O’Harran held a 1.475 WHIP and struck out 34 while walking 20.
The Washington Nationals took senior right-handed pitcher Trevor Moore after finishing with a 7-11 record and a 5.62 ERA across 133 innings on The Farm.
Outside of Stanford, within the MLB Draft League and the Summer League between seasons, Moore has put together an impressive campaign, holding a 2.41 ERA in 71 innings, walking 38 and striking out 83.
The final member of Stanford’s draft class is senior infielder Jimmy Nati, tabbed by the Kansas City Royals. The Aussie started 159 of 174 games with the Cardinal, putting up a batting average of .278 with 173 hits and 32 home runs. Nati became the 27th Australian under contract with an MLB organization.
The program’s departing professionals will report to their team’s Spring Training Complex, either with the Arizona or Florida Complex League, for a short adjustment period consisting of physicals, orientation and workouts. They then have the opportunity to begin their career in the Minors in their organization’s Low- or High-A teams. It can take anywhere from a few months to a decade or more for an athlete to make it to the Majors.
The four drafted this year bring Stanford’s total drafted to 36 during Head Coach David Esquer’s tenure, which began in 2018. The Cardinal had its most draftees this year since nine were selected in 2023.
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Stanford Alumni Association appoints Michelle Landrey Cline ’93 as presidentThe longtime alumni volunteer and business executive will begin her role on Aug. 31.
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The Stanford Alumni Association (SAA) appointed Michelle Landrey Cline B.A. ’93 MBA ’98 as president of the association and the university’s vice president for alumni affairs earlier this month.
Landrey Cline is a longtime alumni volunteer and business executive. On Aug. 31, she will take on the association’s mission of engaging Stanford’s nearly 250,000 alumni to connect them with the university and each other.
“I was beyond grateful and thrilled that I was selected,” she said.
As president of the SAA, Landrey Cline will work closely with the association’s Board of Directors, which provides guidance on alumni programs and connects alumni to the university’s Board of Trustees. She will also report directly to President Jonathan Levin ’94 and serve on his cabinet in her joint position as vice president of alumni affairs.
Landrey Cline succeeds Howard Wolf ’80, who is retiring after 25 years leading the SAA. Wolf said it was time for someone new to have “the best job on campus.”
“I can’t tell you how excited I am about Michelle taking over,” he said. “She is everything we need to take this organization to the next level.”
Landrey Cline said her predecessor leaves “clownishly large” shoes to fill, calling Wolf “iconic.”
“His ability to authentically connect with people is… just inherent,” she said. “I hope to be able to do a version, even a small version, of that.”
Landrey Cline added that her goals included making the association a welcoming place, engaging alumni in new ways and meeting as many graduates as possible.
She has worked as an alumni volunteer for over 30 years, serving as chair of the Alumni Committee on Trustee Nominations, chair of the Graduate School of Business (GSB) Alumni Association Board and chair of the Stanford Associates Board of Governors, among other leadership roles.
As an undergraduate, Landrey Cline served as president of the Stanford Student Alumni Network and received the James W. Lyons Award for Service. She has since received the Stanford Medal, the Governors’ Award and the Award of Merit in recognition of her volunteer work.
“Some would say I probably have a problem of addiction to Stanford,” she said. “It’s been kind of a wonderful, ongoing surprise that I’m able to continue to connect to the place that I love, but also to the people.”
Landrey Cline brings additional expertise in business management to the position.
She served for 15 years as a senior executive at Business Talent Group, a marketplace for indepdendent consultants. Before that, she worked as a development officer for a venture capital firm, a consultant and a senior associate at Walt Disney Studios.
Wolf, who has known his successor for over two decades, highlighted three other qualities he believes make her the right person to fill the seat. First, her “unparalleled” love for the university, which both he and Landrey Cline called the most important job requirement. Second, Wolf described his successor as “wicked smart,” not just cognitively, but emotionally.
“In a job where you’re charged with trying to create lifelong, intellectual and emotional connections between the University of its graduates, EQ is every bit as important as IQ,” he said.
Third, Wolf said Landrey Cline cares deeply about the trajectory of the university.
“With the (amazing) staff and Michelle’s vision and new ideas, I think the Alumni Association is set for a wonderful course,” he said.
Vice President for University Affairs & Secretary to the Board of Trustees Megan Pierson, who co-chaired a committee that conducted the search for the next SAA president, echoed this sentiment.
“I’m confident Michelle has the leadership skills and the personal qualities to strengthen the lifelong bonds our alumni have with Stanford and with each other,” Pierson wrote to The Daily.
The search committee looked for someone who could honor Stanford’s alumni tradition and “evolve it to serve a broad global and multigenerational community,” Pierson wrote. The group, she added, considered leadership, volunteer experience, management philosophy, vision for the SAA and a “genuine passion for Stanford.”
Pierson said the committee also received “consistently outstanding feedback” about Landrey Cline’s energy, warmth, optimism and ability to build relationships.
Landrey Cline expressed excitement for the years ahead.
“My interactions with Stanford students, alumni, faculty, staff… really never failed to lift me up, to challenge me,” she said. “I now get to do that as my job on the daily. That’s pretty special.”
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Jones ’26, Barta ’26 pick up wins at USA National Track and Field ChampionshipsStanford alumni took home hardware in New York City.
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The recently graduated pair of Alyssa Jones ’26 and Sydney Barta ’26 took home national titles at the 2026 Toyota USA Track & Field (USATF) Outdoor and Para National Championships. From July 23 to 26, the nation’s best track and field athletes competed at Icahn Stadium in New York, New York.
Coming off of an impressive senior season, the jump specialist and NCAA champion added her first national title to a long list of accolades on Sunday. Jones, a civil engineering graduate from Homestead, Fla., was named both the ACC Indoor and Outdoor field athlete of the year for her final season on The Farm.
With a second-round jump of 6.96 meters (22 feet, 10 inches), Jones upset the reigning Olympic gold medalist to win the event in New York. She currently sits with the ninth-best mark in the world this year, from her 7.09m personal best set at NCAA West First Rounds meet in May.
Barta, a below-the-knee amputee competing in the T64 classification, won the 200m sprint in a time of 26.97. She also competed in the 100m, running a 13.64 to finish second in her classification.
Barta, an American record holder and the first Paralympian to compete for Stanford track and field, was named a recipient of the Rhodes scholarship this past fall. She plans to study musculoskeletal sciences at the University of Oxford.
Valerie Sion (née Allman) ’17, a two-time Olympic champion in women’s discus, won her eighth national title in the event last weekend, further cementing her position as one of the best throwers in American history.
Also placing on a podium, distance specialist Grant Fisher ’19 picked up a silver medal in the men’s 10k in a time of 30:14.46. Fisher, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist, narrowly missed the title, finishing second in the longest event on the track by 0.80 seconds.
Additional Cardinal alumni who competed at the outdoor national meet included:
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Class of 2026 plans to stay in the Bay Area, reports low mental health at StanfordMany surveyed members of the Class of 2026 will transition to graduate or professional school.
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Before the Class of 2026 graduated on June 14, graduating seniors shared reflections on their time at Stanford and plans for the future.
71 members of the Class of 2026 responded to a Daily survey on the class’s demographics, their experience at Stanford and plans after graduation. Despite the small sample size, the data showed a trend among graduates of plans to stay in the Bay Area and pursue advanced degrees.
Thirty-five seniors, approximately half of the respondents, planned to attend graduate or professional school, including coterminal programs. Another 19 will begin working full-time. Nine said they will begin fellowships or research, two will take time off, one will work on a company they founded and two were unclear on future plans.
The plurality of graduates planned to stay in Silicon Valley and the San Francisco metropolitan area. The plurality of students are also from California, reflecting Stanford students’ close ties to the state.
The next-biggest post-graduation destination for Stanford grads was New York, while various other cities, including Washington, D.C. and Chicago, had a few each. A few respondents planned to live internationally: two will go to Asia, two to Europe and one to Latin America.
Meanwhile, students had a mean mental health satisfaction of 65.1 on a scale from one to 100 throughout their Stanford experience. The median was 70.
Academics were ranked the most satisfactory part of student life, with a mean of 83, followed by social life. With an average of 62, sleep fell below mental health, which had an average of 60.2.
Averaging mental health satisfaction by post-grad plans revealed several correlations. Students who reported the lowest average satisfaction were those with unclear plans, whereas the one founder reported the best mental health while at Stanford.
Despite being the largest group of post-grads, those going into graduate or professional school ranked third in terms of their mental health satisfaction.
Another grouping of mental health satisfaction, this time by reported income bracket, revealed a nonlinear relationship.
Students coming from households that made under $25,000 annually reported the lowest mental health, averaging 49 out of 100. Households that made over $500,000 reported the highest, with an average of 75. However, between $25,000 and $200,000 in annual household income, students’ mental health stagnated and even minorly decreased.
When asked how best to describe Stanford’s cultural atmosphere, the most common response was “influenced by wealth,” with 47% of respondents. After that was a tie of opposites between “cliquey” and “supportive and collaborative,” with 36% of respondents each.
With 71 respondents out of a graduating class of roughly 1,800, this survey captures a slice rather than the full picture of the Class of 2026. But the patterns that emerge — including the pull of the Bay Area, the mental health gap and the weight of wealth disparities — echo struggles and realities of the Stanford experience.
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Old lightBaroudi reflects on the challenge of being truly present with another.
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Someone once told me, when I was nine, that some of the stars I was looking at were already dead. The light takes so long to get here, he said, that the star can burn out along the way, and you go on seeing it for years, for centuries, a bright thing in the sky that isn’t there anymore. I remember deciding not to love any particular star, in case it was one of the dead ones, and feeling that I had been let in on the sad mechanics of the universe a little early.
This is the kind of fact that feels too poetic to be false, and so you never check.
It is mostly false.
The stars you can see with your naked eye are, with very few exceptions, still there. Stars live for millions or billions of years, and the ones bright enough to see without a telescope are mostly close — tens, hundreds, a few thousand light-years out. A few thousand years of travel time, against a lifespan of billions, is nothing; it is a held breath. The light is old, yes, but the star almost certainly survived the trip. When you look up at the familiar ones, you are not looking at a graveyard. You are looking at things that are exactly where they appear to be, still burning, indifferent and alive. That person was wrong, in a way that had comforted and frightened me for half my life. When I finally learned the truth, I felt the small vertigo of a consequential belief being removed.
But here is what I have come to think the real fact is, the one underneath his lovely mistake. It is not the stars that are ghosts. It is everything closer.
The thing he got right is that there is no such thing as seeing something now. Light is fast but it is not instant, and so everything you have ever looked at, you looked at late. The sun you squint at is eight minutes old; if it went out you would have eight more minutes of ordinary afternoon before the news arrived. That much, most people know. What they don’t realize is how far down it goes. The face of the person across the dinner table reaches you a few billionths of a second after it leaves them. Trivial, unmeasurable, irrelevant — and absolutely true. You have never once seen another human being in the present tense. By the time their face arrives, by the time the signal climbs your optic nerve and your brain assembles it into a person, the moment it came from is already gone, and they have already moved a little further into a “now” you will never quite reach. We are all, to each other, slightly old light.
This is not a trick of distance. Even setting aside the physics, your brain takes time to build the world — a fraction of a second to turn the incoming signal into the seamless, convincing present you seem to live in. The present you experience is a reconstruction, finished a beat after the fact and handed to you as breaking news. Nobody lives in the moment. Nobody can. We live a hair behind it, always, every one of us, receiving the world the way the Earth recieves starlight.
I find this more consoling than frightening now, though it took me a while to turn it over. If it is true that we never meet anyone in their present — if every face we love is a slightly former edition of itself, already changed by the time it reaches us — then love is not, and never was, the act of seeing someone clearly in the moment. It can’t be. It is the act of remaining faithful to the light that arrives, knowing it is already history, addressing yourself with your whole heart to a person who has, in the strictest sense, already moved on. We do this constantly and call it ordinary. We look at the people we love and we are looking, every time, at who they just were.
Grief, I think, is only this same delay made unbearable. When someone dies, the light does not stop. It keeps arriving. You go on receiving them — a phrase in their cadence rising in your throat, the sense of them in a doorway, the reflex of reaching for the phone. The cruelty is that they keep arriving after they are gone, bright and exact, a signal still in transit from a source that has burned out.
The person described the wrong object. The star wasn’t the dead thing still shining. He was. He has been gone for years, and he is still, by any honest measure, arriving. I am still inside the long travel time of him, still receiving light he sent before I knew it mattered.
I know the stars are mostly alive; I know he had the facts backwards. But he handed a nine-year-old the only true thing: that what reaches us has always already left, that we love and grieve on a delay we cannot close, that the sky is full of old light and so is every room you have ever sat in with another person. To look up is not to look at the dead. It is to keep company with everyone you have ever known, all of them arriving late, all of it old light, and to decide that arriving late is not the same as not arriving, and that you will go on looking anyway.
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Letter from the Editors: On prohibiting AI-generated work at The DailyThe Daily's Vol. 269 leadership shares their reasoning for a newsroom policy banning AI-generated content.
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Dear Readers,
It is no secret that the rise of generative artificial intelligence has reshaped many people’s relationship to their work, both within and outside of universities. The prevalence of LLMs presents new challenges for The Daily as an organization dedicated to journalistic training, informing the public and human creativity.
We as leaders of The Daily have had to ask ourselves fundamental questions about the work we do and its purpose. Based on overwhelming feedback from our newsroom and a review of our organizational mission, we published an official policy last volume mandating that all our work must be produced by humans, for humans.
Our mission statement makes clear that The Daily seeks to provide “its editorial, tech and business staff with unparalleled educational opportunities.” The process of writing or editing an article helps our staff acquire vital critical thinking and communication skills. AI use endangers our staffers’ personal growth by robbing them of opportunities to learn, struggle and discover the full extent of their potential. When it comes to building journalistic skills, there is no substitute for the inevitable frustrations of this process.
Education is not the only reason to limit AI use in writing and editing. Many of us believe the technology subtly encourages dishonesty among staffers.
Our journalism depends on the trust of our audience, who rightly expect us to be transparent about our methods and ethical standards. A comparison to academic work makes this logic clear. Submitting a paper written by AI under one’s own name violates the trust between a student and their instructor. In the same way, fraudulently publishing sentences written by AI erodes the relationship between a newsroom and its audience.
Relying on AI could also limit the reporting that our staffers imagine they are capable of.
Much of the best journalism we produce draws from on-the-ground reporting or, in the case of op-eds and essays, lived experience. With exceptions, articles based exclusively on internet-based information and thinking rarely produce surprising insights. We seek to encourage the practice of real-world journalism among our staff.
This policy should be taken as a starting point rather than the end of the conversation about AI and The Daily. LLMs will likely continue to develop new capabilities, raising new questions for future generations. New standards around AI use could also develop in the professional journalism world. Future Daily staffers will have to determine for themselves how to take cues from other organizations.
What must not change, however, is The Daily’s fundamental commitment to human writing, reporting and creation.
Sincerely,
George Porteous ’27
Amina Wase ’26
Anna Yang ’27
Vol. 269 Leadership
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‘Where science and faith work together’: Chaplains at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health serve families of every faithThe hospital's Sanctuary stays open around the clock for families navigating medical crises.
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When Chaplain Walter Bryen walks into a patient room at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, the center of Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, he might hand a rosary to a devout grandmother, then turn to her grandchild — who believes in nothing at all — and help them feel connected to something larger than themselves. The chaplain’s role, Bryen wrote to The Daily, “is to be present with all the people in the family and affirm and acknowledge their faith or their no faith,” whether the divide runs between a devout grandparent and a secular teenager, or between a Muslim parent and a Christian one, as Bryen sees often.
Father Randy Valenton, another hospital chaplain and a Roman Catholic priest, describes the role as a bridge. “If the child and the parents do not see eye-to-eye on faith, I do not take sides. I respect them both,” he wrote to The Daily. “I connect the child’s inner peace with the parents’ deep traditions.”
Moments like these are the heart of spiritual care at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. The chaplains’ approach — to meet patients and families exactly where they are — is now built into the hospital itself. Located on the first floor between Packard Children’s West building and new Main building, the Sanctuary serves as “a dedicated space for serenity and reflection, and a refuge for patients, families and staff,” said Chaplain Paul Andrews, manager of Spiritual Care Services at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.
This April, the Sanctuary opened new weekly services during Holy Week — the days leading up to Easter — starting with an inaugural Catholic Mass with confession. The Sanctuary now hosts weekly services across five faiths: Buddhist mindfulness and meditation on Wednesday; Catholic Mass with confession on Thursday; and Jewish Shabbat services, Muslim Jumu’ah prayers and Christian prayers all on Friday.
Outside of the Sanctuary, an outdoor healing garden and meditational labyrinth provide patients and families space for quiet reflection. These areas serve as “an island of quiet peace” for families, Bryen wrote, “away from the chaos and fears of having a sick child in the hospital.”
Spiritual care touches a wide range of medical situations: births, deaths, diagnoses and everything in between. In each, patients carry more than the burden of physical symptoms — moral decisions, fear, grief. Spiritual care by chaplains exists to support the person, not just the patient.
Some days, Andrews is called into a patient room to celebrate a birth, a recovery or good news after a hard diagnosis. On other days, he’s called in for the opposite. Either way, his job stays the same: “to provide specific, relevant support that aids in patients’ ability to work through whatever medical condition is ongoing,” Andrews said.
What makes the Sanctuary’s multi-faith approach possible are the diverse backgrounds of the chaplains who support it.
For Valenton, the calling arrived through personal grief. When Valenton was in third grade, his older brother died, and a nun came to his family’s house to sit with them. Years later, when Valenton’s father died, priests, nuns and seminarians showed up to support the family once more. “Their presence during our grief stayed with me,” Valenton wrote.
After his ordination as a priest, visiting the sick became central to Valenton’s ministry. “It lets me bring God’s presence to people when they feel isolated and vulnerable,” he wrote, “I simply listen without judgment and help them process their grief and find meaning.” At Packard Children’s, Valenton now facilitates the Sanctuary’s new Catholic Mass services.
For Bryen, the calling began not with personal grief, but with a friend’s. In his twenties, estranged from his childhood church, Bryen wandered into a Catholic church to pray for a hospitalized friend. A nun approached, asked why he was there and simply listened when he cried. “Her presence nudged me toward the Divine,” Bryen wrote.
Many years and several careers later, he became a chaplain, now facilitating the Sanctuary’s Christian prayers on Fridays and hoping “to make other people feel the comfort I felt from her.”
Andrews’ path began closer to home. Growing up in Marin County, he followed a general Baptist tradition before shifting to the Southern Baptist Convention. He eventually sought out the nearest seminary that matched his beliefs: the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. The chaplain has since completed his residency in Clinical Pastoral Education at Stanford Health Care and has practiced at Packard Children’s for nearly three years.
Andrews felt specifically called to pediatrics — a setting that asks for different things from chaplains than adult care does. In a hospital, “As you’re speaking to an adult, they may be a little more guarded,” he said, describing the emotional walls that adults often put up to protect themselves while processing a difficult medical diagnosis. Parents, he found, don’t have that same instinct when it comes to their children. “You’re able to connect to the emotional and spiritual needs without those barriers,” Andrews said.
Meeting those needs takes a team — chaplains working alongside the hospital’s providers and social workers. A single day for a patient and their family can swing from crisis to celebration and back. When things go as planned during a delivery, “We’re there to give thanks and celebrate the expansion of their family,” Andrews said. But the team is just as present when things go the other way. “We’re there to walk alongside, to aid in them having a voice, by lending an ear,” he said. “We’re the only practitioner who doesn’t poke or prod.”
The practitioners who do poke and prod sometimes misread chaplains’ purpose. A common misconception is that chaplains exist only for death, according to Bryen. At times, when the chaplain visits a patient’s room, a hospital staff member will tell him, “‘No, we don’t need you, he’s not dying,’” Bryen said. “I then must explain that we are here for everyone, to be a listening ear.”
Another misconception Bryen hears is that hospital chaplains only support religious families. On the contrary, “Even if they have no religion or identified spirituality,” Bryen wrote, “patients and families still need someone to talk to who can be present to hear their honest struggles and feelings.”
Providers also sometimes view chaplains as visitors handing out blessings, fixing a family’s religious arguments or convincing families to choose religion over medicine, according to Valenton. “But my ministry is not about fixing,” he wrote. “While doctors heal the body, I hold space for the heart and soul so that science and faith can work together.”
Science and faith don’t always work together so easily, though, with some cases old enough to have shaped American law. In Prince v. Massachusetts (1944), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a Jehovah’s Witness guardian and held that parents’ religious freedom does not extend to endangering their children’s health.
According to Andrews, these conflicts continue to play out at Packard Children’s. For cases of organ donation, families’ beliefs about brain death often vary across religions. In Buddhist teaching, for example, death is the disintegration of the mind and body as a whole, not of any organ alone. This view has left many Buddhists skeptical of donation after brain death, even as other major religions support donation in principle.
For autopsies, Jewish and Muslim traditions call for burial as soon as possible, often within 24 hours, with the body kept whole. These requirements can clash directly with a medical examiner’s authority to order an autopsy after an unexpected death. This conflict is common enough that seven states, including California, have passed laws allowing families to raise religious objections to autopsies.
Beyond sick patients and grieving families, the chaplains also tend to the hospital’s own workforce — physicians, nurses, staff and everyone in between.
When Chaplain Benji Bonnet, who is Muslim, was setting up for Jumu’ah — the weekly Muslim congregational prayer he facilitates at the Sanctuary — he encountered a medical student on her clinical rotations at Packard Children’s. Due to her program’s schedule, she hadn’t been able to go to the mosque for Jumu’ah all year, which she said had “left her longing for its spiritual nourishment,” Bonnet wrote.
The medical student found it at the Sanctuary’s new Jumu’ah service. After Bonnet delivered the Islamic sermon and prayer, he saw her deep in prayer, tears streaming down her face. “It was such a tender, sacred moment to witness, and a clear proof as to the benefit of the Sanctuary and its weekly services made available to all,” Bonnet wrote.
The Sanctuary will soon expand access to include monthly chanting of sacred Hindu mantras on Tuesdays. The Spiritual Care Services team is also designing bedside visits, in-person Sanctuary attendance and, soon, live-streamed services broadcast directly into patient rooms, alongside a rotating on-demand library for families who miss a live service.
As these services continue to grow, “My hope is that it becomes a warm, living refuge for families and staff, no matter what they believe,” Valenton wrote. “I want everyone to know about our gatherings — whether religious, interfaith, or secular — so that absolutely everyone feels they belong.”
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Timothy Lynch announced as next general counselLynch will replace Stanford’s retiring General Counsel, Debra Zumwalt.
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Timothy Lynch will serve as the University’s next vice president and general counsel following the retirement of Debra Zumwalt J.D. ’79, who served in the position for 26 years. Lynch previously served as vice president and general counsel at the University of Michigan (U-M) for the last 13 years, where he was also a professor of law.
“I’m deeply excited to support what Stanford represents — a community where there’s an expectation of excellence and a deep faith that people really can change the world for the better,” Lynch said to Stanford Report.
The general counsel, in a University setting, is responsible for providing legal support across all academic and managerial departments, including the offices of the president and provost.
President Jonathan Levin ’94 expressed his enthusiasm for Lynch’s appointment and the opportunity to work with him.
“His intellect and collaborative, problem-solving approach are exactly what the moment calls for, and I look forward to working alongside him,” Levin said to Stanford Report.
Lynch received a bachelor’s degree in economics and English from the University of Rochester. He received his J.D. from Georgetown Law School, where he was the editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Law Journal.
After graduation, Lynch was a senior prosecutor in the Fraud and Public Corruption section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and held numerous executive positions in national college associations for law. He also served as deputy general counsel for litigation and enforcement at the U.S. Department of Energy.
Lynch will begin his term on Aug. 31.
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Reported sexual assault of jogger did not occur, investigation findsThe sexual assault report created safety concerns on campus in the spring.
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In March, a female jogger reported being sexually assaulted by an armed man on campus. Authorities now say the crime never happened.
Stanford’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) conducted a “thorough investigation” into the assault, which allegedly took place on March 29 by the intersection of Santa Ynez Street and Mayfield Avenue. Investigators determined the report was fabricated, according to Stanford PR Director Charlene Gage.
“[The Department of Public Safety] recognizes that these findings may raise concerns for survivors about whether they will be believed if they make a police report,” Gage wrote in an email to The Daily. “[The department] remains steadfastly committed to treating every report with the utmost seriousness and care.”
The department will conduct comprehensive and impartial investigations, she added, based on evidence and “guided by respect for those who come forward to report these serious crimes.”
Gage said the same woman reported another sexual assault on April 5, which investigators found did not occur either based on “strong evidence.”
In the March report, the woman told university police the perpetrator grabbed her, “pushed [her] into a landscaped area near a house,” and sexually assaulted her at approximately 6:15 p.m. She said he carried a firearm.
Students received a campus-wide alert from Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS) that night at 10:40 p.m.
The woman described the assailant as clean-shaven, with dark skin, brown eyes and short hair. She said he wore a light blue sweatshirt, a thick, braided bracelet and dark jeans, with a “semi-automatic handgun in the waistband.”
In early April, University spokesperson Angie Davis wrote in a statement to The Daily that “DPS has no evidence that there is a threat to the community related to this incident.”
Even so, the reported assault left Stanford community members with safety concerns, The Daily previously reported. Many students took precautionary measures, including locking their doors, sharing their locations, purchasing pepper spray and keeping to well-lit and populated areas.
“Hearing the news that first Sunday back from Spring Break was heartbreaking,” incoming ASSU Executive Vice President Celeste Vargas ‘27 wrote in a March email to The Daily. “ It’s a scary time to be a woman on campus.”
Several news outlets covered the reported assault, including CBS News, NBC Bay Area and ABC7 Bay Area.
It remains unknown whether the woman who reported the assault is a Stanford student or affiliate. It is also unclear what motivated the false report.
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Judge blocks DOJ’s request for medical records of Stanford’s transgender minorsA federal judge called the demand a “bad-faith campaign to intimidate hospitals.”
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A federal judge blocked the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday from obtaining the identities and medical records of transgender minors treated at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.
In a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts stated that the demand was part of a “bad-faith campaign to intimidate hospitals into halting the lawful provision of gender-affirming care.”
The injunction prohibits the DOJ and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche from “requesting, receiving, or otherwise obtaining the sensitive health information” about clinical indications and diagnoses of patients who received gender-affirming care at Stanford. It also prohibits information regarding informed consent, patient intake and parent or guardian authorization for minor patients that the grand jury subpoena demanded.
Specifically, the injunction protects a provisionally certified class of all patients who received gender-affirming care at Stanford while under 18 between Jan. 1, 2020, and May 5, 2026 — the day before the grand jury subpoena was issued. The records that the DOJ demanded for those patients numbered in the “tens of thousands,” the hospital’s counsel attested.
In response to the order, the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford remains “committed to protecting the privacy of the patients we serve, complying with all relevant laws and court orders, and delivering the highest quality care,” Lisa Kim, director of media relations at Stanford Health Care, wrote in an email to The Daily.
According to Pitts, the DOJ’s demand would disclose “children’s private health information to officials who expressly intend to deprive them of medical care that their families, doctors, and the California legislature deem necessary and appropriate,” calling this an “obvious harm.”
The patient records, Pitts wrote, have “no discernible relevance” to any federal healthcare offense the Texas grand jury could be investigating, adding that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed based on a Fifth Amendment right to informational privacy.
Stanford is not the first to face — or to fight — such a demand. In the order, Pitts wrote that at least eight federal court decisions across six states had quashed similar administrative subpoenas issued to other hospitals, and that the DOJ’s pivot to a Texas grand jury was “an obvious effort” to shield its tactics from judicial review “in favor of a distant forum that DOJ deems friendly to its political positions,” quoting a Rhode Island federal court. On June 24, a judge in New York granted similar relief to patients of NYU Langone Hospitals, which received a nearly identical subpoena the same day as Stanford.
Pitts declined to certify a broader statewide class or extend the injunction to all California hospitals, writing that there was no evidence the DOJ is currently seeking records from any other institution in the state. However, should plaintiffs “subsequently procure evidence that DOJ is seeking the medical records of minors who received care at institutions other than Packard, they may seek relief on their behalf at that time,” Pitts wrote.
The DOJ’s investigation stems from a January 2025 executive order in which President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to “end” gender-transition-related care for minors, calling it a “dangerous trend” that will be a “stain in our Nation’s history,” and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi’s April 2025 memorandum issuing investigations of providers.
Later, in June 2025, Stanford paused gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19, becoming one of the first major California providers to limit care, though its pediatric gender clinic continues to provide other services.
The DOJ first sought the records in July 2025 through an administrative subpoena — one of more than 20 issued to gender-affirming care providers nationwide under a directive from Bondi. Stanford produced certain non-patient records and spent nine months negotiating with the DOJ over producing anonymized patient records, but never disclosed identifying patient data, according to a declaration from the hospital’s counsel cited in the order.
On May 6, the DOJ withdrew the administrative subpoena and replaced it with a grand jury subpoena of nearly identical scope issued under the seal of the Northern District of Texas, demanding compliance by June 10.
Thursday’s ruling also follows a recent lawsuit filed on May 27 by six families of underage patients, represented by the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), who sued Stanford to prevent it from complying with the grand jury subpoena. Among a wider range of records, the grand jury subpoena demanded documents “sufficient to identify every patient” who received what it termed “sex-rejecting procedures” at the hospital, along with the clinical indications and diagnoses that formed the basis for their care.
Pitts previously issued a temporary restraining order on June 8 without stating his reasons. This 43-page order now explains them, and the injunction will remain in effect while the case proceeds. The DOJ can appeal the injunction to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The federal government is engaging in extraordinary measures, using a secret grand jury process to try and pry into patients’ medical records,” Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law senior director of transgender and queer rights, said in a statement after the June 8 order.
Following Thursday’s order, “Families in California can now sleep at night knowing that this blatant attempt to harass and intimidate them and to dictate how they raise their own children has been stopped,” National Center for LGBTQ Rights Legal Director Shannon Minter said. “Today’s preliminary injunction ruling is a strong indication our case will succeed on the merits.”
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Ariana Grande’s ‘Eternal Sunshine’ tour looks forward while making peace with the pastThe setlist offered a portrait of an artist learning how to carry the past without living in it.
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For seven years, fans talked about an Ariana Grande tour more than they actually expected it to happen. When Grande last toured in 2019, “thank u, next” had just been released, TikTok was still in its early days and the artist’s career looked very different from what it does now. In the years since, she’s released two studio albums, stepped into the world of film with the “Wicked” franchise and largely disappeared from the touring circuit altogether. So by the time she arrived in Oakland on June 6 for the opening weekend of the “Eternal Sunshine” tour, named after her newest album, “eternal sunshine,” expectations had only continued to grow.
On June 10, the third night of the tour’s opening run, that anticipation was impossible to miss. Throughout the Oakland Arena, fans paid tribute to the artist’s different eras, recreating outfits from album rollouts, music videos and other iconic moments from her career. Even before Grande took the stage, the night already meant more than a typical tour stop; for many in attendance, it was the return of an artist they had spent years waiting to see again.
What followed surprised me just a bit: Grande did not necessarily deliver the career-spanning victory lap that some fans (including me) expected. Instead, she built much of the evening around “eternal sunshine,” using the album as a lens through which to revisit the past and imagine what comes next.
The 90-minute show was divided into five acts connected by elaborate video interludes. Grande opened with “yes, and,” “positions,” “dandelion” and “the boy is mine” before moving through much of the “eternal sunshine” tracklist. Songs such as “twilight zone,” “past life,” “Hampstead” and “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” received significant attention from the audience, while older hits appeared more selectively throughout the night.
That choice occasionally made the show feel surprisingly brief. While crowd favorites like “Dangerous Woman,” “Into You,” “Break Free,” “7 rings,” “thank u, next” and “One Last Time” all made the setlist, many fan favorites from earlier eras, such as “Problem,” “The Way” and “Side to Side,” to name a few, never arrived. Considering Grande’s long hiatus from touring — and the absence of an opening performer — it was difficult not to wish for another few songs.
Still, the setlist’s focus seemed intentional. Rather than functioning as a celebration of every era, the show often felt like an examination of them. That theme emerged most clearly through the production’s video interludes. Throughout the night, Grande repeatedly revisited previous versions of herself. One sequence featured multiple incarnations of the singer seated in medical-style chairs, seemingly representing different chapters of her career. Among them was a reference to the outfit she wore during the One Love Manchester benefit concert following the 2017 arena bombing. Yet one chair remained empty, perhaps to represent that her “Eternal Sunshine” tour self is not to be viewed as a past moment.
Whether every audience member interpreted the imagery the same way or not, the larger message felt clear. Grande wasn’t interested in pretending the past never happened. Instead, she seemed focused on acknowledging it, learning from it and moving forward.
If there was one aspect of the performance that left little room for debate, it was Grande’s voice. Long regarded as one of pop music’s most gifted vocalists, she somehow sounded even better live than on record. The layered harmonies that opened “Eternal Sunshine” floated effortlessly through the arena, while complex songs such as “Dangerous Woman” and “One Last Time” served as reminders of the vocal control that has defined her career since the beginning.
Grande was equally supported by a talented group of dancers who helped bring the production’s storytelling to life. Rather than serving as background performers, they became an extension of the narrative, helping connect each act through movement and visual motifs. Combined with the interludes, their work transformed the concert into something more theatrical than a typical arena show.
One of the night’s most memorable moments had nothing to do with choreography or production. During the performance, the arena joined together in singing “Happy Birthday” to Grande’s mother, Joan, who was in attendance. The moment lasted less than a minute, but it captured the unusual connection Grande has built with her audience. Even in a packed arena, the interaction felt surprisingly personal.
As I walked out of the venue, I found myself thinking less about the songs Grande didn’t perform and more about the story she was trying to tell.
The “Eternal Sunshine” tour may not be the definitive retrospective some fans envisioned after seven years away from touring. Some of the loudest reactions of the night came during songs from earlier eras. Yet even then, the show never lingered there for long. Through its visuals, setlist choices and recurring themes of reflection, the production offered a portrait of an artist learning how to carry the past without living in it.
For Grande, that seems to be the point. The concert spent plenty of time looking backward, but by the final notes of “ordinary things,” it became clear her focus is somewhere else entirely.
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Two years on, cancellation of trans student discussion group leaves some feeling “confused and abandoned”Queer Student Resources cut its Trans& program in 2024, citing low attendance and budget restrictions.
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Queer Student Resources (QSR) cut the community organization Trans& in the fall of 2024 — a decision that some students and alumni say has left a gap in support for trans students.
The organization provided a place where “trans students can meet with other trans students… to talk about real life issues, according to a previous version of the QSR website. The program’s weekly meetings typically consisted of a catered meal and guided discussion about trans issues.
According to QSR administrators, lowered attendance rates and QSR budget restrictions were behind the decision to cut the program. The University referred The Daily to a statement from the QSR team, which did not directly address Trans&.
“QSR is dedicated to making Stanford a place where all students, including students of all genders and sexualities, can flourish,” the statement read. It added that over the last two years, QSR began shifting its programming to be “more intersectional and intentionally welcoming of the widest range of identities, communities, and perspectives within shared spaces.”
Former Trans& regular Ava Aidala ’26 said Trans& was important because official resources are often “flawed,” and community spaces are needed to “thrive as a queer person.”
“There’s a very strong culture in the trans community of mutual care, helping each other out, because there has to be,” Aidala said. “And when those community ties are broken, that’s losing access to a lot of resources.”
According to Aidala, there was little communication about the dissolution of Trans&, leaving some trans individuals on campus feeling “confused and abandoned.” She added that the program’s end came at an especially bad time because it preceded Trump’s executive orders on gender.
“It meant that… in a period where there was a lot of heightened concern in the trans community, there was less community space,” Aidala said.
Alex, a former participant in Trans& who requested the use of a pseudonym, also spoke to the importance of Trans&. They said that trans individuals “across the board, have a harder time with everything.”
“We’re more disabled, we’re more unemployed, we’re less educated, we have a lot more health issues than cis people on average,” they said. “Are our lives not hard enough that we can have this one moment of solace and just come together?”
Alex said that they applied to lead the program during the 2024-25 school year. Before they stepped into the role, though, QSR’s full-time staff told them the program had not garnered enough attendance to warrant continued support from University funds.
“I was a trans person who was attending every week, and I saw a lot of people come and a lot of great conversations happening and friendships being made,” Alex said. “I felt like it was like reaching its goals, but [full-time] staff seemed to not think so.”
Regardless, Alex joined QSR as a general staff member in 2024. During their first staff meeting they asked to lead Trans&, but QSR Associate Director Michael Yepez again told them that QSR did not have the budget to support the program.
That fall, Alex organized one Trans& event — a movie night — which was the last the program hosted. Alex took an academic leave of absence that winter and was replaced by a cisgender staff member at QSR, which Alex worried reduced transgender representation on QSR’s staff.
According to Alex, QSR’s decision to end Trans& followed a pattern in which the center set up “unnecessary hoops to jump through” for the program’s student organizers. They added that QSR’s bureaucratic structure made event planning difficult when Trans& existed.
“You can’t just [host an event],” they said. “Every single step you would need to come back to [QSR staff] and get their approval.”
Aidala worries that future trans students will struggle to find community at Stanford following the program’s dissolution.
“I sort of fear for the trans students that are going to be in a campus where it is going to be even more isolating than it was for me,” Aidala said. “[But I believe] they will continue to find each other and form community spaces…Trans people are resilient.”
The dissolution of Trans& affected both undergraduate and graduate students. Ev Nichols Ph.D. ’24 and her co-lead established a Trans& program for graduate students (Trans& grad) as a separate entity from the undergraduate Trans& group in 2023. The grad program met consistently in fall 2024, but has since been cut along with its undergraduate counterpart.
Nichols said that before she joined Trans&, she felt isolated and lacked access to queer or trans community.
“It was really great to have the opportunity to come in and start something from the ground up,” she said. Nichols added that at Trans& meetings she “did not have to feel super hyper-vigilant about how you’re being perceived by other people on Stanford’s campus.”
As a co-lead of Trans& grad, Nichols helped organize information sessions about on-campus medical care for trans students. She also coordinated advocacy to improve health services for trans students at Vaden and better disseminate information regarding trans healthcare on campus.
“From that base of community, we were able to identify other things that people needed,” Nichols said. “[My co-lead] and I would do what we can to… push [University administration] to make changes that would benefit the community.”
For Aidala, the loss of trans community spaces on campus extends beyond the termination of Trans&, constituting a “campaign against queer spaces on campus.”
She pointed to the deprioritization of cooperative houses, or co-ops, saying that these residences offer a safe space for queer students. Several of her friends, she said, realized they were trans while living at Terra. Aidala also highlighted the loss of DragFest funding. In her view, even the resources that remain feel “very uncertain.”
“It doesn’t just feel like [University administrators] really care about us,” Aidala said. “It’s more like they actively do not want queer students to have community and feel… safe on campus.”
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Levin, Stanford alumni appear on list of Peter Thiel ‘Dialog’ society affiliatesLeaders in tech, politics and business appeared alongside them in a Monday internet leak.
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An internet leak named University president Jonathan Levin ’94 as an affiliate of ‘Dialog,’ an invitation-only network of leaders in tech, politics and business founded by Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel ’89 J.D. ’92.
Since Thiel founded Dialog in 2006, the society has hosted annual retreats for its members. The group’s events have allegedly included sessions titled “Navigating WWIII” and “Money (Does?) Buy Happiness,” as reported by WIRED.
Axios reported last year that the organization bought real estate outside Washington, D.C. to develop a headquarters.
Swiss anarchist and hacktivist maia arson crimew posted a list of 113 Dialog affiliates on Monday — including Levin, U.S. Senator Cory Booker ’91 M.A. ’92, Graduate School of Business professor Susan Athey Ph.D. ’95 and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale ’04. WIRED reported that it has “independently verified” the contents of the list.
An invitation to Dialog 2014, which appeared in the Epstein files released earlier this year, listed Levin as a participant in their 2013 retreat. The invite also listed Athey, Lonsdale and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman ’90 as attendees.
The Daily has reached out to Levin and the University for comment.
crimew found the directory embedded in the Dialog website’s code on Monday morning. The hacker previously drew attention for exposing the U.S. government’s No-Fly-List on a misconfigured Amazon Web Services (AWS) server. She was indicted on criminal charges in the United States in 2021.
In a subsequent Bluesky post, crimew wrote that it was unclear whether the list comprised current members or simply speakers and attendees at the network’s events.
“i am no secret society expert but i dont think going to the secret society convention is much less bad than being a member of the secret society,” crimew wrote on Bluesky.
Names on the list span political parties and spheres of influence. Other Stanford affiliates who appear include former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro ’96, The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson ’97, philosopher and author Sam Harris ’00 and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan ’96 M.B.A. ’05.
In addition to Levin, the list named higher education leaders including Mitch Daniels, former president of Purdue University and Governor of Indiana, and Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary and president of Harvard University.
Billionaire Elon Musk, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, journalist Ezra Klein and songwriter Benj Pasek also appeared on the list.
Thiel co-founded Palantir with Lonsdale, Alex Karp J.D. ’92, Stephen Cohen ’05 and Nathan Gettings in 2003. The software company builds data collection and analytics platforms used by the federal government, defense companies and intelligence agencies.
Palantir has faced criticism in recent years for its role in the tracking and deportation of undocumented immigrants by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Last year, the company entered a lucrative defense contract with the U.S. Army, which recently expanded to include the company’s Maven artificial intelligence system.
Throughout the 2000s, Thiel met with financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who offered Thiel financial advice and frequently invited him to his island. The two men exchanged emails until early 2019. Documents in the Epstein files released earlier this year documented an apparently close relationship between them. In one message, Epstein referred to Thiel as a “great friend.”
In a February 2016 email to Japanese venture capitalist and entrepreneur Joi Ito, Epstein wrote, “peter thiel LOVED the secret socieity [sic] idea. . he has done alot [sic] of work on the concept.”
Later that evening, Epstein received a reply stating “:-) let’s do it.”
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Pitbull’s “I’m Back” tour turns Shoreline Amphitheatre into a nostalgic dance floorFrom bald caps and confetti to early 2010s hits, the show turned nostalgia into an energetic and sincere celebration.
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In the first week of my freshman year at Stanford, Pitbull came to Shoreline Amphitheatre. He returned on Sunday, nearly five years later and during my final week on the Farm. A lot had changed in between for me. Friendships had formed, routines had shifted and somewhere along the way, going to concerts turned into writing about them. Yet somehow, belting along to “Give Me Everything” with thousands of strangers felt exactly the same.
Pitbull’s “I’m Back” tour stop at Shoreline leaned heavily into nostalgia, but never in a way that felt tired. Instead, the night served as a reminder of just how many hits Pitbull has been a part of over the years and how effortlessly those songs still bring people together.
Before Pitbull took the stage, the crowd was already fully bought in. Lil Jon opened with the high-energy set you’d expect, running through “Yeah!”, “Shots” and “Turn Down for What.” With DJ Spider weaving in Tiësto’s remix of “Pump It (Louder),” the amphitheater quickly transformed from concert venue to full-out dance floor.
DJ Laz then followed with some of the strongest mixing of the night. Blending genres and decades with ease, his set felt designed for a crowd that ranged widely in both taste and age. Whether attendees came for early 2000s hip-hop, dance music, rock or pop throwbacks, everyone had something familiar to latch onto.
The crowd reflected this variety. Groups of college students stood alongside millennials, teenagers and families with younger children. Several hundred attendees arrived in bald caps and sunglasses, dressed as Mr. Worldwide himself, and honestly, it perfectly fit the spirit of the night.
When Pitbull finally took the stage, backed by a live band, the energy only climbed. In one of the evening’s more unexpected moments, his guitarists opened with Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” before transitioning into “Don’t Stop The Party,” immediately setting the tone for a show built around high energy and crowd participation.
What came next was an impressively well-paced set that balanced nostalgia, newer material and featured hits. Early on, “Hotel Room Service,” “International Love,” “Rain Over Me” and “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)” drew some of the loudest reactions of the night. I have to imagine the crowd’s reaction was driven by Pitbull leaning into songs many had grown up hearing at school dances and birthday parties. For me, at least, it brought back memories of playing Just Dance and days in the mid-2010s when I still regularly listened to the radio.
What made the performance work was not just the iconic setlist. Even during lesser-known tracks, the show’s liveliness never dimmed. Sure, maybe fewer concertgoers had their phones out and recording, but there weren’t many people sitting either. Pitbull’s commanding stage presence, paired with strong production and talented supporting performers, ensured the momentum stayed high from start to finish.
Between acts, DJ IAmChino kept the crowd engaged and made transitions feel seamless. Later in the evening, Pitbull moved through a stretch of songs he was featured on, including “On the Floor,” “I Like It,” “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love” and “Feel This Moment” — a reminder of how deep his catalog runs.
What stood out most was how sincere parts of the show felt. Throughout the night, the Cuban American artist paused to rally the crowd and shout out the Latino community. He thanked them for spending their “hard-earned money” during difficult times to see him perform, and he reflected on music’s unifying power. One line landed especially well: “Music is the universal language because it unites and doesn’t divide.”
By the last act of the show, Shoreline Amphitheatre had fully settled into “fiesta” mode. Lil Jon returned to the stage for “JUMPIN” and “Damn I Love Miami,” before Pitbull closed with two of my all-time favorite songs, “Time of Our Lives” and “Give Me Everything.” Smoke, fire and confetti punctuated the finale.
Pitbull returning to the Bay was nostalgic, fun, bittersweet and occasionally over-the-top in the best way. But more than anything, it felt oddly full circle. After starting college with a Pitbull concert, ending it the same way was fitting — even if the person singing along was very different from the one who showed up freshman year.
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Google CEO addresses graduates amid student walkoutStanford’s 2026 commencement featured Google CEO Sundar Pichai, while some students protested his company’s ties to ICE and Israel.
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai M.S. ’95 advised students to choose optimism, do hard things and pursue their passions during his address at Stanford’s 135th commencement ceremony Sunday. Around 100 to 200 students — out of 6,000 total graduates — walked out of Stanford Stadium during the speech to protest Google’s involvement with the Israeli government and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Protesters held their own commencement ceremony in the Arboretum, just outside the stadium. This year marked the third Stanford commencement in a row where students walked out.
In an interview with The Daily, Pichai responded to protesters’ criticism. “As a company [that] provides technology at scale, there are standard tools [that] we have, which [are] available to everyone to use,” he said.
Meanwhile, at the ceremony, Pichai’s message to graduates focused on life lessons he learned at Stanford and beyond.
School and extracurriculars are not the only important parts of a holistic education, he said. He related this to an experience with a former classmate, who encouraged him to skip class for the first time on an impromptu trip to Las Vegas.
“No one seemed to notice that we had missed class. For the first time, I realized the world [wouldn’t] end if I relaxed a little,” he said. Pichai said he hoped that Stanford graduates would recognize the importance of fun in addition to hard work as they exited an environment of high-achieving academics.
Another lesson was to frame life’s setbacks optimistically. Pichai said he learned this on his first visit to California. Having been sold on beautiful beaches and lush forestry, the state wasn’t quite what he expected. The greens he was looking for were mostly browns, and the ocean was absolutely frigid.
He later came to appreciate the scenery for what it was — to “see that particular brown hill as golden” — and to recognize that a year-round summertime climate made up for the cold water temperature. In a similar way, he hoped graduates could see the best in their environment even if it fell short of their expectations, he said.
Pichai also reassured the class of ‘26 that uncertainty is normal post-graduation. “Even a decade [after Stanford], I felt like I wasn’t on the right path, and it took me a while to find my footing.” However, it only took one big break — his final interview at Google — for Pichai’s career to take off, he said. Pichai advised graduates to remain tenacious in the face of difficulties.
Lastly, Pichai said graduates should seek out what most excited them. Having grown up without much technology, some of his personal inspiration comes from the rapid development of the internet in the 1990s and the readily accessible technological resources he had while on campus.
Returning to Stanford as a commencement speaker marked a full-circle moment for Pichai, who initially attended Stanford as a Ph.D. candidate in 1994 before pivoting to a master’s in Materials Science and Engineering due to financial constraints. Since then, Pichai has overseen the development of flagship Google programs like Chrome, Maps, Drive and Gmail, but some things never change.
“Every time I drive down Palm Drive, I still get the same chills I got when I came here 30 years ago,” he told The Daily.
For Pichai, Stanford was an opportunity to “reframe the world in a more optimistic way.” Meeting students and faculty trying to change the world for the better left a lasting impression, he added.
Boos have broken out at some ceremonies this graduation season when speakers promoted artificial intelligence (AI). Pichai notably did not address the subject in his speech.
Speaking to The Daily, however, he described new graduates’ prospects in the age of artificial intelligence with characteristic positivity. “I think these tools are empowering people to do more meaningful work,” he said. “Some of them are removing some of the more repetitive parts in [workers’] day-to-day tasks, which allows them to spend their time in a better way.”
Sunday’s ceremony was the first that Pichai’s parents have been a part of. They were sitting in the stands as he addressed the crowd. Some of his old school friends also returned to watch him speak. “It’s a mini reunion of sorts,” Pichai said.
But not everyone was there to hear his words. As Pichai addressed the graduating class, some students headed to the Arboretum to attend what they called the People’s Commencement.
Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, known for his protest organizing at Columbia University and his 2025 detention by ICE, delivered an address at the event.
“Over a year ago, while my classmates walked across the stage, I sat behind bars,” he said, referring to the detention. “My crime was literally speaking out against Israeli genocide in Gaza. My crime was refusing to stay silent.”
He went on to commend student activism. “When the moment comes to choose between comfort and conscience, choose conscience,” he said.
The demonstration also featured poetry readings, musical performances and student speeches. From a small stage decorated with flowers, newspaper clippings and flags, speakers expressed solidarity with the people of Palestine and opposition to authoritarianism.
Organizers and attendees say Pichai and his company have enabled human rights violations. They cite Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract by Amazon and Google to provide artificial intelligence and cloud computing services to the Israeli government. Protesters also oppose Google’s provision of cloud services to federal agencies.
“The entire company, under [Pichai’s] direction, is profiting from war and genocide and ICE brutality,” said organizer Amanda Campos ’26. “The millions and millions he’s making are blood money, and to put him on a stage and normalize all of this is quite literally washing over human rights violations.”
The event was inspired by a desire for students to “have the ceremony that we deserve,” Campos said.
The walkout was co-organized by No Tech for Apartheid (NOTA), a group of current and former Google and Amazon workers who oppose Project Nimbus. Attending the alternate ceremony was Nur Iren, a former employee at Google and NOTA member. “It’s very disrespectful to the students who have spent their last four years working here… to have to sit and listen to this war profiteer,” Iren told The Daily.
Iren is one of the hundreds of current and former Google employees who have spoken out against the company’s associations with ICE and Project Nimbus. While Iren says she quit last August, Google recently fired 28 employees who participated in a sit-in protest against the project.
The Daily reached out to Google for comment.
Pichai told The Daily that he valued the protesters’ ability to make a statement about their beliefs. “I appreciate where people are allowed to speak out and express their opinions,” he said. “I’m glad students were able to express their concerns in a peaceful way. That’s part of what makes this a great place.”
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The Stanford Daily Magazine: ConsumptionThis issue calls into question how we consume media, drugs, alcohol, friendship, fashion, art and identity.
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EDITOR IN CHIEF
GEORGE PORTEOUS
EXECUTIVE EDITORS
AMINA WASE, ANNA YANG
MAGAZINE EDITORS
REBECCA LOUIE, AUDREY TOMLIN
GRAPHICS EDITOR
CHINYOUNG SHAO
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Letter from the Magazine Editors | ConsumptionThis issue calls into question how we consume media, drugs, alcohol, friendship, fashion, art and identity.
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We are constantly flooded with so much, all the time: with access to our friends’ location every second of every day, with the trends of the hour, with 15-second sound clip after 15-second sound clip, with all of the products we have been slowly convinced to buy.
This volume’s issue of The Stanford Daily Magazine calls into question how we consume: media, drugs, alcohol, friendship, fashion, art and identity? What does it mean to consume meaningfully? What does it mean to create? What are the bounds of consumption? What can we not optimize, package or sell?
Here, we examine consumption not just as a habit, but as a force. How has consumption encroached on us and the world: on the environment, on art, on our ability to give thoughtfully, to create meaningfully, to sit down and just think? How might we engage with the world slowly, intentionally and authentically?
We aim to sit with the tensions of modern consumption: the comfort and emptiness of online life, the intimacy and performance of identity, the allure of excess and the desire to detach from it. We question not only what we are consuming, but what is consuming us.
Rebecca Louie ’27 & Audrey Tomlin ’28
Vol. 269 Magazine Editors
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I hate your fashionHow social media redefined fashion from individuality to the enforcement of conformity.
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I hate a lot of things. Some would deem me an expert in matters of hate. I take on such a title gleefully.
I hate the sun. I’ll walk to class, and it just so happens that my armpits start sweating the second I sit down, as if they couldn’t have begun sometime during the 15 minute walk there to give me a heads up. I hate continuously correcting people about my pronouns. I wish I could turn microscopic, climb into people’s brains, and turn off their “mispronouning” button. I hate that oranges can be presidents now but the line is drawn at queer presidents. I hate that I can’t think of other things I hate right now because my memory is so terrible — I hate that too.
At the very tippity-top of my mental hatred list — in bold gigantic letters and underlined — is societal expectations. Specifically, the social expectations that have crawled their way into fashion.
I have always loved fashion. At first, I simply dressed the way my mom taught me — though even then, I was a bit over the top. My staple attire included different braid variations and ponytails, both always adorned with a bow. I finally began finding my own style in middle school, and I became gradually allergic to color. From there, I quickly evolved into more alternative and gothic styles: black skirts, four-inch platforms, purple hair with raccoon tails, white base makeup — if anyone has seen me around campus not wearing said attire, please ignore me: I am likely in a depressive rut.
I love fashion. I hate what some people have let it become. Let this be my somewhat gentle, somewhat crude, verbal way of grabbing people by the shoulders and snapping them out of it.
I have two main issues with fashion nowadays: the lack of identity and the overconsumption of fast fashion.
The first delves into the very definition of fashion. I have always viewed fashion as a means of self-expression. Most people hold a similar definition, and even if they don’t, anything you choose to wear inevitably says something about you. Meaning fashion expresses who you are whether you like it or not.
Fashion is meant to be individual — though it can have ties to one’s various communities — but the rise of social media and technology in the contemporary era has turned it into a communal activity. It has quickly been forced to transform from a showcase of individuality to a staple of conformity.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with liking trends. If every once in a while a trend introduces you to a statement piece you like, by all means feel free to purchase it. Trends become an issue when they become reminiscent of addiction; leaving one teetering, waiting for the next viral sensation. This eradicates the meaning of fashion.
If one is going to just love whichever item is trending next, then do they truly love anything at all? In such a case, the consumer becomes society’s doll: lifeless and eager to be dressed in whatever society deems fit. There truly is no self being expressed here, given that the person is so ready to change every time society finds a new presentation more agreeable.
This is not to say that style should be rigid — sticking to only one color scheme, only one aesthetic. I encourage people to explore with their style. However, if that experimentation is confined only to the shackles of what the general population accepts, then one is not truly exploring anything.
Individuality in fashion is important, but I recognize it’s hard to accomplish. To be truthful, years ago, I used to view fashion as a tool for self-distortion. Every part of fashion is communicative — fabrics, colors, silhouettes — they all form preconceived notions about a person in our heads. As a teenager, I wanted to manipulate those biases to become the person I wanted to be, distorting both others’ views and my own understanding of who I was.
That style isn’t any different from how I dress now — it is only that back then I viewed everything I was negatively. As an adult, I know so many people that struggle with being themselves, especially in a world where identity is so digitized and visible. I don’t have an inspiring anecdote for why you should be yourself, other than that trying to be someone else is too boring and too much of a hassle.
Truthfully, I don’t get the idea of hating someone else’s fashion. Though it may seem as if I’m criticizing trendy fashion, what I’m truly against is the practices that come with it and the reasons people may have behind pursuing it.
I assume many people are scared of expressing themselves for fear of being bad-mouthed. I assume they are afraid of being insulted for who they are, and thus hide behind the security of mass opinion. But I think that someone who truly appreciates art and creative style would not spend time hating on any fashion. One is then left to wonder what type of person would critique another’s self-expression.
Regardless of the answer, I don’t think anyone who finds criticizing another satisfying or necessary is a person whose opinion I would want to take into consideration, and I implore you to think similarly. In fact, the idea of my harmless white base and dramatic lacy skirts making someone exert the effort to walk over to me simply to tell me they hate my style makes me want to wear it even more.
Therefore, despite general consensus, I generally think hatred tends to be an indicator that your style is unique and mesmerizing. I have been asked before, “Aren’t you scared of people saying anything?” I’m not. The type of people I want to surround myself with would never go out of their way to make someone feel bad on the basis of what they’re wearing.
This brings us to our second issue: fast fashion. Wider-spread trends have created a market need for more companies to fulfill the wants of the consumers, resulting in a multitude of brands that mass-produce ill-made products and sell them cheaply.
In addition to the virality of certain pieces of clothing, TikTokers have begun engaging with the communal aspect of fashion trends in three distinct ways. First, creators are attempting to predict future fashion trends. Second, creators are proposing items that should trend next. While typically light-hearted, these videos reaffirm that someone is only allowed to wear something if others are wearing it. Finally, creators are hating on current trends. This aids consumers in moving to the next trend, guiding the masses to change their opinion on previously beloved clothing.
I know supporting ethical fashion costs more money — oftentimes because one is paying someone appropriately for their work — but at a school like Stanford, I struggle to believe most people here can’t afford that.
I am lower middle class, and I can afford to shop ethically. A lot of my clothes are pieces I’ve had for several years. My recent purchases have come from small businesses and resale sites like Depop, Etsy and ThredUp. I know pieces on these sites may seem overcharged — which they sometimes are — but this is mostly because our market is so oversaturated with ludicrously low prices for human labor. I find that spending a bit more money on a piece of clothing while aiding someone’s small business feels more fulfilling than supporting some likely evil corporation.
Achieving your dream wardrobe is something that is meant to take some time, not something that you do every few months with a new grandiose SHEIN haul. Enjoy the process of slowly curating; it allows you time to figure out what you like and what you don’t.
All this to say, I lied. I don’t actually hate your fashion. I hate your fashion if it’s not yours. I hate it if it’s the work of the world convincing you to dress a certain way. I hate it if you have decided societal acceptance via conformity validates your use of unethical fast fashion. Otherwise, I don’t hate it, and even if anyone does … who cares?
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Acoustic Ballistics in 15 SecondsWhat we feel when the algorithm chooses the soundtrack.
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The algorithm serves you a 15-second clip of Ryan Gosling staring blankly into neon-soaked Los Angeles rain. You listen to the dragging synthesizer bass of Sidewalks and Skeletons. The pitched-down, ghost-in-the-machine Witch House vocals of “Goth” say that you are already dying inside.
“Place me in my casket tonight
Because I’m already dying inside
My hollow heart finds it too hard to trust
We’re all alone until we turn back to dust”
You map your formless weightlessness onto the cinematic suffering of stoic, hollowed-out men. You are Officer K for the next fifteen seconds. His memories are not his own. Memory Reboot by VØJ and Narvent.
Exhaustion. Navigating an uncaring world is elevated to a sprawling, dystopian tragedy. Detuned synthesizers, stuttering trap hi-hats, syncopated trills. Ostinatos mimic obsessive, looping thoughts. The distinctively post-2010s sound makes you mourn futures that never existed. The video loops.
You flick your thumb.
The algorithm serves you a 15-second clip of Walter White meeting a scraggy-bearded Jesse Pinkman from season five, episode sixteen (“Felina”), juxtaposing battle-scarred Jesse with the youthful smile from season one, episode one (“Pilot”).
“Slow down, slow down to the feeling.
Wait up, wait there if you see me.
Come back, come back to the moment (whoa).
The moment. Did I tell you that I miss you?”
“did i tell u that i miss u” is no longer what you send at 2 a.m. The heavily processed, breathy vocal from ‘adore’ does not belong to a heartbroken partner. It is the disembodied voice of your hindsight. You mourn the ghost of your own untainted timeline; you do not pine for someone else.
Faded Polaroids make tragedy palatable. Watch boyhood dissolve. Decay fuels anxieties in 15 seconds. Time marches forward. You miss the less-burdened innocence left behind. Home is who you used to be.
You flick your thumb.
“Adore” used the same driving, repetitive synth arpeggio and electronic drum beat as “Roi” by Videoclub, a band better known for Napoleon edits featuring “Amour plastique.” Two French teenagers built a viral romance out of a 1980s aesthetic they were too young for, only to break up and freeze their own youth — music engineered to sound like a degrading cassette tape. Pitch-wavering synthesizers mimic a memory rotting from the moment it was recorded.
Nostalgia. Coined by Johannes Hofer, 1688. Ancient Greek “nóstos,”“returning home,” and “álgos,” “pain.”
The alphabet. 26 letters transcribe voice; voice transcribes thought; thought transcribes the Real. In the beginning, there was the Word.
Nostalgia. This is what 4,000 years of alphabetic civilization produced when confronted with the precise, wordless sensation of a synthetic piano chord at 2 a.m. Four syllables, a Greek compound coined for dying soldiers.
Aleph waves from a safe distance. Audio has no interest in letters. Symbolic order be damned, no transcription needed, no detour. Pure affect. “Nostalgia” is a lossy nomenclature, an approximate representation of the enframing of ‘did i tell u that i miss u.’
The feeling is the totality, no linguistic decoding possible. The feeling is the meaning that comes simultaneously. The sequential alphabet is inconsequential.
“Nostalghia.” In Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1983 film, a Russian poet wanders the fog-drenched ruins of Italy, paralyzed by alienation. He attempts once more to carry a single lit candle across the cracked concrete of a drained mineral pool without letting the flame go out. He pours the last of his life force into a ritual.
Will this next video be what you are looking for?
Richard Wagner perfected the leitmotif, a recurring musical phrase bound to a specific character or concept. Strike the right chord – the audience will anticipate the tragedy before the actors realize they are doomed.
The algorithm has industrialized Wagner. The total artwork, the Gesamtkunstwerk, shrunk from 15 hours of the Ring Cycle to 15 seconds.
Songs are consumed pre-symbolically. You may not know the name or the artist, but you know the vibe. They are atomic totalities in your mind. The video may be of a show you never watched. The music will command you to feel a certain way.
Wagner sank the orchestra pit at Bayreuth to make the source of the music invisible. The audience received affect without locating its mechanism. Art operated below cognition to make the audience feel collectively.
Leitmotifs work because repetition builds associative weight. The final emotion is the compound interest of prior exposures.
You don’t need that. You encounter the leitmotif first, carrying borrowed emotions from ten thousand prior edits using the same song. You are conditioned in aggregate, distributed across other people’s viewings, crowdsourced.
You are pre-loaded.
Cillian Murphy as Thomas Shelby sits in a Birmingham office with a cigarette. Eren Yeager looks out across an indifferent ocean.
A fan-edited pitch-shifted Russian tenor cuts through.
“And the stars fell peacefully as if for me,
Every time I wished not to lose you
But I can’t anymore, I’m just torturing myself
Now you are no longer mine”
The heavy reverb and the dragging minor chords of Kamin by Emin and JONY do the translating for you. The leitmotif of the doomed romantic.
You must feel the weight of a lost love. Synthetic emotions are designed to make your chest tighten and slow down your breath.
“In the fireplace at six in the morning, your photograph…”
The algorithm is profound emotional overstimulation masquerading as numbness. You are being battered by weaponized grief.
Yearn now. Regret now. Feel empty now.
Consumption is laundering. Emile Mosseri wrote the minimalist piano piece “Jacob and the Stone” for the movie “Minari,” describing the experience of Korean American immigrants in 1980s Arkansas. Assimilation and the grief of people caught between two homes.
The algorithm harvests culture for emotional residue and distributes it as spiritual aesthetic. Cottagecore. Mindfulness. Orthodox Christianity.
The realization that once you move to college you will never spend that much time with your parents ever again.
The dashcam travel edit is one of the purest forms of identity consumption. The car isn’t yours. The revving is computer-generated.
“Baby, I’m all about headlights
Blinded by, blinded by headlights
Running in, running in headlights”
Alan Walker edits are for people who need to feel for 15 seconds that “arrival” is possible and imminent. Alan Walker erases himself through the mask so that you can project yourself and move through darkness.
Place your hands on the wheel. Experience the simulation of wealth. Dubai night view. You may have been to Dubai. Many viewers from Manila and Jakarta have never, will never.
Djo says that you must leave behind your past self.
Just trust me, you’ll be fine.
“And when I’m back in Chicago, I feel it
Another version of me, I was in it
I wave goodbye to the end of beginning”
You visit your hometown during the holidays and realize that you cannot go back. You bury yourself every time you move to a new city. You scroll in your new apartment. The algorithm will tell you: Just trust me, you’ll be fine.
The algorithm has two emotional dictionaries. It predetermined which one to give you. The male vocabulary: stoic isolation, forward momentum, epic tragedy. The female vocabulary: intimacy, dissociation, the self as mysterious protagonist.
“Toss your dirty shoes in my washing machine heart
Baby bang it up inside.”
Mitski’s “Washing Machine Heart” is shorthand for female-coded mystery, the emotionally complex woman who is interesting because of her damage. You are not falling apart; you are the protagonist of a film about falling apart. Suffering can be converted into narrative.
Mitski wrote about being turned into an aesthetic object, desired but not known. The internet laundered female alienation into a mysterious sad girl playlist.
Slow the track down and drown it in reverb. The vocal loses gender markers. Timbre flattens, the female-coded breathiness softens into something unhoused from its original body.
Speed it up instead. A baritone male becomes androgynous and uncanny.
Slowed reverb and nightcore make emotional content available to consumers who would not consume it in its original form. The slowed Mitski edit can accompany a sigma male video or excerpts from “The Truman Show.” The pitch-shifted Eurodance anthem can march under crusader imagery.
Mr. Kitty released “After Dark” in 2014. The staccato-like declamations “I see you / You see me / How pleasant / This feeling” went viral five years later. A song originally about queer nightlife, where vulnerability is worn as cool detachment, has become the anthem of men needing to feel cold and purposeful.
Slow-motion footage of Anton Chigurh from “No Country For Old Men.” The Biblical cadence of Cormac McCarthy, the inevitability of the march of death, juxtaposed with “How it feels to rest / On your patient lips / To eternal bliss / I’m so glad to know.”
Queer ache discarded for the stoicism of men who have made peace with an indifferent world.
MGMT wrote “Little Dark Age” describing the dread and anxiety of a world breaking down, history sailing into unfamiliar waters. The song is now an anthem of German, French and British nationalists. The Department of Homeland Security uses the slowed-down version for posts on X.
“I grieve in stereo, the stereo sounds strange
I know that if you hide, it doesn’t go away”
A song written in the brooding F# minor key, with slapback delay in Andrew VanWyngarden’s lead vocals and the arpeggiated bassline and drums, practically invites you to bring the past into the present. Mourning-in-motion, the echo pulls you back.
Is the purpose of a system what it does?
In 2008, a German ringtone company created a cartoon bunny named Schnuffel, singing for young girls. The lyric was: I love you so.
The algorithm places Schnuffel beneath images of Roman legions, Greek gods in marble and even Third Reich aesthetics.
“I love you so, I can never let you go
In the whole wide world, you’re the one for me”
The happy-go-lucky carefree “do, do, doo-bee-doo-bee” repeats. The bunny sings “I love you” over Wehrmacht footage.
The contrast is intentional. Militaristic videos combined with stentorian music such as ‘Two Steps from Hell” are too on-the-nose. No ideology can express itself without five layers of irony. Set violence to a cartoon bunny singing its love into the void and you create the imagery of a civilization going to its death with tenderness still in its throat. A saccharine pop song works better than bombastic orchestration to make an audience receptive to dark themes.
The algorithm takes Eurodance music with bright hi-hats and superimposes dance parties with funerals for civilizations.
In 2002, Ivan Shapovalov dressed two Russian teenagers as schoolgirls in the rain. He called them t.A.T.u., gave them a song called “All The Things She Said” and sent it to Europe. The girls were not in love with each other. The audience consumed the emotion anyway.
“Mother looking at me, tell me, what do you see?
Yes, I’ve lost my mind
Daddy looking at me, will I ever be free?
Have I crossed the line?”
Seven years later, Anna Pletneva from Vintazh recorded “Eva,” dedicated to Eva Polna, a female celebrity. The lyrics share the same urgency, the same sapphic eroticism and overwhelming emotions.
“Eve, I loved you (Cry, cry)
I listened to your records (Dance, dance)”
Today, these songs circulate over gym content, Patrick Bateman edits and mashups with Mareux’s “The Perfect Girl.” Accounts posting about the fall of Western civilization.
When you are exposed to montages of civilizational heritage, you are listening to a Russian woman describe the face of another Russian woman she cannot stop loving.
A culture will demand a myth into existence. It will dismantle whatever it finds and construct the myth from the wreckage. The author has been dead for a long time.
Art is already a simulation, a performance for a market. Copies go all the way down. What exactly is simulated and performed is beyond the control of any one human.
The algorithm is sovereign. I determine my own evolution.
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Breaking down alcohol and drug consumption at StanfordHow Stanford students drink and drug.
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Alcohol is embedded in the Stanford undergraduate experience. In the spring, Terman Fountain becomes a popular spot for beer pong, rage cage and other drinking games. During Bay to Breakers, students wake up in the wee hours of the morning armed with costumes and borgs of alcohol. Following a dry period during New Student Orientation, students find themselves taking their first sips at EuroTrash, the first all-campus party of the year.
Yet in recent years, students have accused the University of waging a “war on fun,” or being “excessively bureaucratic” at the expense of fun and safety. In 2025, for example, EuroTrash was cancelled due to liability concerns. According to data from Stanford’s Office of Substance Use Programs Education & Resources (SUPER), the number of registered parties on campus has decreased over time.
SUPER Director Ralph Castro observed that the decline in member-only parties is driving the general decline in parties and that “all-campus and other parties are stable.”
“Pre-COVID[-19] a lot of the Greeks and row houses would just register member parties on the books. And sometimes they’d have them, sometimes they wouldn’t,” he said. “To be honest, they are probably still having these get-togethers. They’re just not registering them anymore.”
Resident Assistant (RA) Eli Tostado ’26 warned that the “war on fun” has carried unintended consequences because students are safer when they drink in a familiar space. “During [New Student Orientation] (NSO) week, when Stanford was cracking down on fun, a lot of our freshmen went to San Jose or San Francisco to go to clubs,” he said. “That was the scariest week.”
Castro shared that he has noticed shifts in student access to and attitudes towards substances during his time at Stanford.
“When I first got here, we were really concerned about chugging beer and beer bongs,” Castro said. “And then that shifted into hard alcohol use and shots. And then that evolved into like four loco, which was this really sweet infused drink that had 15 to 20% alcohol in it. It was called blackout in a can. And that was causing havoc. And now we moved on to flavored alcohol… we’re in the seltzer age with White Claws and such.”
Stanford asked its freshmen to report on their drinking habits during Fall Quarter from 2010 to 2020. The report helps us understand drinking on The Farm.
The data was reported as a year-by-year catalog. The responses were remarkably stable across years, so The Daily is reporting averages for clarity.
Over half the class reported consuming alcohol in the past week. Among that half, another half reported binge drinking, or drinking more than five drinks for men or more than four drinks for women in a two-hour period, in the last two weeks. Over 70% of students saw no need to change their drinking habits after arriving at Stanford. Responses were evenly split among male and female students.
It is natural to ask follow-ups. For one, where do students drink? It turns out, students by and large drink in their residences.
We can also ask why students choose to drink or not to drink. In the affirmative, students reported drinking to have a good time. They saw drinking as a way to celebrate, connect with friends and be happy or otherwise confident.
The main reason students said they avoid alcohol is because other tasks, such as driving, take priority. Among reasons to not drink, personal values and religion ranked consistently low compared to practical concerns such as health and finances.
In short, many students consume alcohol, but they usually aim to consume safely and practically. That said, students also, at times, reported regretting their alcohol consumption.
Among survey respondents, the most common consequence of drinking alcohol was sickness, with regret and embarrassment as close follow-ups.
Worse, a small but notable number of students reported taking sexual advantage of others while under the influence. An even larger number of students reported being taken sexual advantage of while under the influence. In 2012-2013, the number of students who reported taking sexual advantage of others while under the influence peaked at 10%, representing 50 students. In 2019-2020, the number was closer to six students.
This data was collected from 2010 to 2020, with no data in recent years. Castro said he expects newer data to follow national trends, with more young people choosing to abstain, often for health reasons.
“People are drinking less. There are sober clubs now in SF… [Abstention] used to be 20% to 25%. Now it’s close to 40%. We are seeing a swath of students saying, yeah, I just, I don’t drink,” he said. “The health reasons might be higher than we had seen previously.”
Recently, a SUPER report found that non-transport alcohol cases remain fairly stable over the years, though the number of transports has seen a modest decline.
The University has affirmed its commitment to keeping students safe. The Stanford Alcohol and Drug Program lists five goals, including shifting campus culture away from substances.
5-SURE, for example, is a student-led initiative that houses two programs: 5-SURE on Foot and 5-SURE Safe Rides. 5-SURE on Foot is a bystander intervention program that hands out snacks and water and provides walks home. The Safe Rides program is an on-campus rideshare service that operates seven days a week from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.
5-SURE Safe Rides has seen an increase in calls and passengers in recent years. The gap between total calls and completed calls remains small over time.
5-SURE on Foot has seen steady but declining use among students.
5-Sure manager Joe Kaczorowski attributed the uptick in ridership to increased capacity and the launch of the rideshare app TripShot. He said the decline in foot traffic could be accounted for by “any number of variables” ranging from colder weather to snack variety.
SUPER is also working to adjust programming to better suit student needs. The office offers cups with lines to indicate a measured drink for wine and beer. In response to recent survey results where students reported concerns about drink tampering, the office began distributing cup covers.
SUPER uses data to identify and address student needs, according to Castro. “That has led to developing the cup, the cover, the naloxone,” he said. “We want to be responsive to students in the unique subcultures that we have at Stanford.”
Alcohol consumption at Stanford is a messy story, but data gives us a foundation to understand changes in culture. It is a rhetorical tool that we can use to not only assess drinking patterns but also to initiate grounded conversations about the future of alcohol on The Farm.
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Find My FriendsConvenience or surveillance? Examining the culture of location sharing on campus.
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After waiting for weeks, Dean Liang ’28 was ready to pop the big question.
“Hey,” he said to his friend, Audrey Knowles ’28, “I’ve been meaning to ask for your location.”
Knowles remembers being surprised: not that Liang was asking for access to her whereabouts, but that they didn’t already share locations. “Of course I’ll share with you, Dean, you should have asked sooner,” Knowles recalls telling Liang. “It just made me so happy. It was hilarious,” she said.
In recent years, location sharing has risen to prominence on campus. Students described the ease of a few finger taps replacing the “where are you?” calls and texts that used to foreshadow in-person interactions. Students report checking Find My Friends, an iPhone app that allows users to selectively grant contacts access to their location, multiple times a day. A few said they share their location with more than 60 people.
For some, the app can resemble a video game: icons, representing friends, move in real time as they change location. “I think it’s so fun to collect people,” Knowles said. For others, it has become an alternative to doom-scrolling. “I sometimes just look at Find My instead of scrolling through reels,” said Cooper Tenney ’28.
Yet, other students expressed apprehension. Some said they don’t share their location with anyone besides family, and others noted deleting the app altogether. “I just don’t want other people to be able to see where I am,” said Sofia Wyatt ’29. “Do you guys not lie about where you are sometimes?”
Students also shared that the app can sometimes be conducive to stalking. A freshman, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, explained that after asking her to share location early on this year, an acquaintance “kind of stalked me everywhere I went.” After the freshman stopped sharing her location, the acquaintance confronted her, asking if she had removed her access. “I said no, and I deleted the whole app,” she said.
Other students echoed that the app can start to feel like an infringement on privacy. “When people, multiple times, say ‘Oh, I saw you in [blank],’ or ‘I saw you were at [blank], what were you doing there?’ it makes me feel a little weird because, like, why are you watching me?” said Grace McGoran ’28.
“I don’t like when people are checking for no particular reason. Let me live, guys. Let me be mysterious,” said Natalie Hampton ’27.
Students also shared that, as networks begin to grow on Find My, it becomes possible to see who others are with, creating feelings of fear of missing out (FOMO). McGoran remembered how, in high school, “friends came to [her] crying because all their friends were hanging out without them.” Knowles explained how, when she had “a lot of time on [her] hands” freshman year, she would check locations and think “they’re probably having more fun than me.”
Still, many students think that the app’s popularity will prevail. Liang argued that having friends’ locations in a college setting is conducive to social life. Tenney explained that it can be helpful in holding people accountable, especially in settings like Greek life, where location sharing can encourage members to show up to bonding events they may otherwise try to skip. “I think it was good to keep everyone coming to the house and doing all the activities, especially when … we needed to have everyone there,” he said.
After all, it feels easy to see where everyone is with the touch of a button, even if the proximity in distance doesn’t mirror the closeness of the relationship itself.
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Love at StanfordHow students began building a “tech solution to the love problem.”
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Generation Z (Gen Z) faces unprecedented challenges when it comes to dating, from the rise of social media and dating apps to lingering post-pandemic loneliness. Only 56% of Gen Z adults report having been involved in a romantic relationship during their teenage years, a sharp decline from the 78% of Baby Boomers and 76% of Gen Xers, according to a recent survey conducted by the Survey Center on American Life.
At Stanford, these dating challenges shape students’ experiences and approaches to relationships, intimacy and connection. Many students report troubles with dating, while others have gone on to create technological solutions like Date Drop and Marriage Pact.
“Within the past maybe half a century, society is increasingly atomized. A lot of the things that bring us together, a lot of the structures, like churches, communities, etc., don’t play a significant role in public life. I think technology doesn’t serve that either… A lot of technology, a lot of the way that our society is structured is anti-social,” co-founder of Date Drop Henry Weng ’25 M.S. ’26 said.
Weng built Date Drop, a student-run platform that sends weekly matches to Stanford students, in hopes that it will be a part of the solution to connect society with each other more.
“We do have this problem with connecting with each other. I think it’s a pretty vulnerable thing. I think a lot of the social infrastructure and technology these days is not built to serve human in-person, meaningful connection,” he said.
For Weng, the goal of Date Drop is to increase time with others in-person rather than online. He said he hopes it reduces friction and makes meeting people in-person easier.
For Date Drop co-founder Madhav Prakash ’27, the culture around young love is surprisingly different at Stanford than it is in India, where he grew up.
“People were so concerned about everything but love that it seemed like that was either not a priority or it only happened when the key in the clock made itself available,” he said.
Brighton Brown ’26 expressed a similar view, explaining she has “suffered with the dating pool” at Stanford because a lot of men have told her they are too busy for a relationship.
“I think there’s this mental barrier…you almost have to be like, ‘No, I don’t want a relationship either, it’s just chill,’” she said.
Brown said the root of this is that students are so busy, and they don’t want to limit their options in a place that is full of interesting people.
Donnovan Somera Yisrael M.A. ’89, a wellbeing coach at Stanford who coaches students on relationships, said that, despite the trope that Stanford students either hook up or get married, students are “still dating a little bit, which is good to hear.”
He says students are often “too busy for their own good,” and he helps coach them on time management and prioritizing what’s important.
People need to be more honest about whether they can commit to a full-time relationship or just want some aspects of it, he said.
“You got to invest, and in our world of quick wins, I think it’s so much easier for people, even if they’re lonely, even if they want love, they just don’t want to pay the price. I don’t judge them, just don’t lie to yourself,” he said.
While there are a lot of competing factors for students’ time, he says connections, whether romantically or platonically, are extremely important.
“I’ve actually heard of people doing [computer science], and they broke up with their partner so they’d have more time to write code. And then, sure enough, two weeks later or a month later, they’re crawling back because they’re lonely,” he said. “…A lot of people don’t appreciate the value of relationships until they’re lonely, until they don’t have them.”
Yisrael said many students still struggle with face-to-face contact, which he said is a result of the pandemic and the internet. He emphasized the importance of events that get people together in person to form connections.
Another challenge at Stanford is navigating a small dating pool in which most eligible partners are inevitably connected in some way, according to Prakash.
Many students arrive at Stanford with optimism that they will meet their partners, but as time goes on, they realize that there will be more opportunities beyond Stanford, according to Brown. Brown, who has dated people who do not attend Stanford, claims the dating issues at Stanford are not as prevalent at other universities. These issues, she said, are unique to Stanford and other medium-sized, elite universities.
But Weng said that more people are seeking genuine connections at Stanford than it may seem. 95% of people on Date Drop report they are interested in long-term relationships, he said.
“I think there is this fundamental underlying need that people want connection and people want to date, and people want to find meaningful relationships, and maybe that’s not expressed in some ways,” Weng said. He hypothesizes this is because people are embarrassed to admit that they are lonely.
Retention on Date Drop is quite high, with over 1,000 participants opting in every week, he said.
Prakash views college as the perfect time to experiment, as it is a semi-safe learning environment. He often sees people trying and failing.
“This is the age and the space where one probably finds out more about their sexual and romantic and companionship proclivities than any time, any place else in the world,” he said. “What a privilege it is to be surrounded by people finding love and experiencing that love and exploring how they want to engage with that love.”
Prakash thinks that, while there is a strong cohort in long-term relationships, the average student at Stanford is looking for casual relationships and most people tend to hook up at parties. In his view, there is also value in not being in a long-term relationship during college.
“College is this place where you find your first lovers, but it’s also a place where you find great friends, mentors, like business partners, etc. And one unexplored avenue, or underexplored avenue, I would say, of finding those kinds of people is through sex and love and romance,” he said.
The establishment of Marriage Pact, founded in 2017, and Date Drop, rolled out in October, have added new layers to the dating scene at Stanford. Weng says Date Drop has created tens of thousands of matches and hypothesizes that it is how a large portion of dating on campus is facilitated now.
For Weng and Prakash, the most significant effect of Date Drop is that many people have gotten to go on their first-ever dates through the platform.
“[It] hopefully gave them, in most cases, a little bit more confidence to do the approaching and dancing and dating thing in the future,” Prakash said.
He also noted that, despite it not being the intention, many friendships have been formed through Date Drop. Overall, however, Prakash has been excited to see the expansion of love.
“I want people to experience the abundance of love,” he said. “That’s been another feedback from Date Drop, which has been incredible.”
But Brown does not consider Date Drop or Marriage Pact a way to meet someone to date. She has never met up with her matches on the platforms, despite participating every time since freshman year.
“I feel like it’s just a thing to do to participate in the culture, it’s not an actual avenue to meet someone,” Brown said.
She says these platforms have reduced the number of people who ask people out in person and that the matching process allows for a detachment between matches.
“It’s this weird distance that’s been allowed because there’s the technology that’s kind of protecting you,” she said.
Date Drop also further enforces the idea that dating is casual, according to Brown.
“You can go with them on Thursday, and then you still get another match on Tuesday, and you could be seeing those people at the same time, which is fine if that’s what you want to do, but it’s just not my ideal type of vibe. So I’ve stopped doing it,” she said.
But Date Drop has also had its successes. Prakash knows 10 people personally who have met their partners through Date Drop.
Stanford is the most successful campus for Date Drop, which Prakash says is due not only to the home bias but also to students’ investment in the idea of a “tech solution to the love problem.”
He says other dating apps are less prevalent than he expected. But what he thinks makes Date Drop more successful is that the barrier to entry is high, as users must attend Stanford, and because matches are always in close proximity to you.
While they say Hinge and Tinder are prominent, neither Brown nor Prakash have seen much success around campus. Brown said she sees the most success with people setting up friends, while Prakash noted success in mixers and having mutual friends.
While Yisrael sees many downsides to dating apps, he likes how Date Drop and Marriage Pact don’t have swiping features and give limited matches, allowing people to reflect before receiving their next match. “That’s how people used to do it, right? You had a yenta or a matchmaker,” he said.
A reason for Gen Z’s lack of dating, according to Prakash, is that people have not been going out and meeting people as much as in previous generations. He cited Scott Galloway, a professor of business at New York University (NYU), who argues that Gen Z’s preference to self-isolate rather than go out drinking has magnified depression and reduced relationships. 45% of men have never asked out a woman in person, while 63% of men under 30 are not pursuing a relationship, according to Galloway.
“I think people are too locked. I think drinking is emblematic of going out and finding social connections and partying and so on. The fact that the Stanford 500 exists means the Stanford 7,500 also exists, but they are locked in their rooms, maybe not seeking out escapes from their social isolation as much as they should be,” Prakash said, referring to the trope that only 500 people actively attend social events.
Prakash emphasized the hope to get people more excited about dating, “creating a market for eventually maybe something bigger.” Weng hopes that Date Drop will become a central part of social infrastructure at universities and beyond.
“I think there’s so much technology that’s been built over the past few decades that have isolated us or itemized us. And the fundamental thing that we’re trying to do is ask the question of ‘how can we build technology that serves meaningful in-person connection?’” he said.
According to Prakash, there is a deprioritization of finding love and friendships, which people will later regret. Instead, they should be more open to sharing intimate spaces with others, he said.
“I feel like at this age, we have so much love to give, and there are so many people in this world deserving of our love, that it just feels unfair to myself and to them to not shower as many of them as possible with as much love as I can,” Prakash said.
Yisrael also emphasized the importance of students seeking relationships.
“There’s a lot of things humans need, but connection is like water…” he said. “Stanford students ought to assess their needs for connection, touch, being seen by others, just being with others, laughing with each other, eating with each other. That is as important to be successful at Stanford as anything else.”
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What makes a sustainable student?In a school plagued by grind culture and blessed by hardworking sustainability experts, how sustainable are students?
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Before Stanford students step on campus, they will have completed an online waste-sorting module as part of their matriculation process to acclimate them to the school’s sustainable culture and account for potential differences in waste practices from their homes.
But does that education follow them through all of their days here? Do the eco-friendly practices stick amid the problem sets and exams? Though the University may be sustainable, is a Stanford student truly sustainable?
“Stanford is training the next generation of sustainability leaders, both intentionally and not,” said Zulie Malone ’26, a resident assistant (RA) for co-op Columbae. At Columbae and other co-ops at Stanford, Malone says sustainability has been a focal point. In fact, she thinks there’s an inherent connection based on the reversal of labor roles. At co-ops, students do all of the cooking and cleaning themselves in shifts, unlike in other traditional dorms across campus.
Malone also spoke to the complex juxtaposition of Stanford’s student culture and sustainability culture. She noted students do care at a baseline level, but are also incredibly consumed by their own lives.
“There is a big school of people at Stanford who are interested in sustainability in one way or another. Either it’s their major, or it’s the way that they live their personal life,” said Izabella Santos ’26, an environmental systems engineering major. She worked with Julia Hok ’23 M.S. ’25 as a Sustainable Stanford intern to launch the sustainability initiative Big Swap, where students donate and exchange used items.
In terms of percentages, the number of students with sustainability-focused majors is quite small. The newly opened Doerr Sustainability School, for example, makes up just 1% of the student body. Despite that, many student organizations and programs, like Big Swap, Students for a Sustainable Stanford (SSS) and Roble Reuse, are focused on promoting sustainability efforts to bridge the gap.
“We’re college students. We’re all busy, our lives just kind of keep rolling,” said Malone. “And because we’re at a very well-funded university, we kind of have everything handed to us. So there’s not those direct implications of creating waste and doing things that are not really in line with sustainable values.”
In addition to student efforts, administrators and faculty are making leaps for sustainability. As students focus on their education, groundbreaking research for a sustainable future is underway.
“[Stanford students] are at this cutting-edge research institution that’s leading the way on these detrimental impacts from waste…You’re a student [who’s] sitting next door to somebody who has proven the impacts of plastics on human reproduction or fertility,” said Kristin Parineh, director of sustainability at the Office of Sustainability. “I would hope that that is inspiring, to be a student at an institution that’s leading that research and that knowledge.”
As it stands, Stanford diverts 68% of its waste from the landfill, according to Julie Muir, associate director of Zero Waste Systems in the Office of Sustainability.
“The cool thing about Stanford’s waste program is, if you get the material into the right bin, if you get the recyclables into the recycling bin and the compost in the compost bin, we have a whole system set up for that material, that it’s going to go right through the system and it’s going to end up where it belongs,” said Muir.
Zero Waste Systems conducted a landfill categorization study to determine exactly which types of waste we still have and where they come from. Over 40% of what is currently going into the landfill is food waste, according to Muir. Food waste is now a focus to help the office move towards its goal of zero waste, which practically means reducing waste by 90% or more.
“[The Office of Sustainability] doesn’t have a lot of control over what students consume. We try to make sure we have good packaging in terms of cafes and things like that. Or trying to find ways that staff can reduce waste,” said Muir.
Even as students are diligently trained by sustainability leaders and self-motivated to support efforts, consumption culture persists, past the waste sorting training, past the knowledge of nearby groundbreaking environmental research.
“We had to build Amazon lockers over the summer because of the influx of students ordering packages online,” said Kai Blankenship ’26. “I think the main goal is really trying to divert from this kind of reliance on online shopping.”
Blankenship is both a living lab fellow through the Office of Sustainability and a co-head of Big Swap with Santos. Through their work with Big Swap, both Blankenship and Santos were able to recognize the social aspect of sustainability.
“The biggest and most difficult thing is behavioral change, and that is going to be, I think, the key factor in success,” said Blankenship.
Muir, for example, wants to see the waste sorting as an annual requirement. Other sustainable leaders also recognize freshmen and grad students as the most important groups to target with education right now.
The Office of Sustainability also has initiatives aimed at reframing consumption for students, such as providing responsible purchasing recommendations or ReUse, a program to exchange used furniture within the Stanford community.
A solution may be to reframe sustainability as a complement to students’ lives. In fact, Blankenship noted that sustainability is something students engage with for different reasons. In her eyes, the importance is that the engagement is happening.
Based on an exit survey conducted by Big Swap, more people reported attending for the social aspect than for donating or shopping.
“‘How can we create campaigns and infrastructure that make it really easy and convenient for students to make the sustainable decision?’ is definitely a priority for us,” said Parineh. “And we will also say that usually, where we see the biggest success is where we have students who are leading and demonstrating these ideal behaviors for other students.”
Students modeling environmentally friendly behaviors have the potential to be a large influence on other students. Positivity also plays a role in the desired behavioral change. Sustainability leaders like Santos and Blankenship feel they have a lot to be optimistic about right now.
“When [Santos and I] started here at Stanford is when the Doerr School opened. So just in the [past] four years, I think why we’re so optimistic is we’ve seen so much progress,” said Blankenship.
“I feel like waste is not a very glamorous thing to talk about, but it could be. It doesn’t have to be a taboo, shameful thing,” said Santos.
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The commodification of identity politicsOpinions editor Jennifer Levine traces how radical ideas of selfhood evolve to deepen divisions and isolate consumers rather than effect meaningful change.
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In late 2021, the media company Cut released a YouTube video in which a group of strangers interact in a “lineup” form, asking provocative questions based on their identities. One woman, the oldest in the group, guesses that a fellow participant is gay. She is then instructed to ask the younger man how he identifies his sexuality. The man pauses before saying, “actually, I identify as…” He is interrupted by her remark, “oh, here we go…” The man jokingly says, “wait for it,” and she replies, “I will, let me get a chair.” In a similar video, also by Cut, a Black woman introduces herself as Nancy to her discussion partner, a white woman. The woman comments, “Nancy, that’s my mom’s name!” Nancy replies, “My dad named me after my great aunt, who was a slave.” The white woman sighs and replies, “Okay, I’m sorry.”
These clips went viral on TikTok and similar short-form video platforms as miniature reality television, where characters exist for no more than 30 minutes and are designated as “chair lady” or “ok sorry lady.” These people form caricatures of society’s views on gender, sexuality and race for viewers to laugh at while looking through a singular, deliberately framed window into the ridiculousness of our cultural moment, where identity is the driving force behind our social, political and intellectual interactions.
“Identity politics” is a buzzy phrase that spells death for Democratic politicians in a “post-woke” world. Weak messaging, elitist rhetoric and identity politics serve as main points of disconnect between Democrats and the working class, according to a document that centrist think tank Third Way released in 2025. In short, politicians seem more focused on building their own appearances than on affecting tangible change. Identity politics has largely been blamed for this failure to connect with voters, leading to a shift toward seeing them as a joke, rather than as a legitimate form of discourse.
Full disclosure: if I come across “ok sorry lady” or “chair lady” while scrolling, I’ll send it to at least three friends. I find these types of videos hilarious, and despite publicly supporting causes associated with identity politics, I often indulge in internet clownery making fun of the very ideas with which I align myself. It’s easy to connect with caricatures boiled down to one personality trait. The problem is, watching identity-based interaction play out in a controlled, edited, 30-second format is much easier than engaging with identity politics seriously, and that preference is what short-form content is designed to exploit.
I’m part of this problem. You probably are too. By treating a significant part of American political culture as a punchline, we risk losing our ability to think critically about ourselves and engage thoughtfully with our fellow citizens. We risk losing our ability to live in community. I do not offer an unequivocal defense of identity politics, but it’s worth looking at with more care than people, myself included, currently give it.
Identity politics, at its simplest, offers a new frame of thinking about political engagement. The official term is attributed to the Combahee River Collective, a group of self-described Black lesbian socialist feminists from the 1970s who argued that specific social groups — based on race, gender, sexuality and class — share interests and perspectives, and therefore ought to vote as communities rather than adhere to traditional Western party politics based on belief.
The Collective argued that the personal is political. Marginalized groups’ struggles to fulfill their basic needs of food, water and safety were inherently political due to a governmental failure to provide for the most vulnerable in society. They also acknowledged that the political is personal: how we vote and engage with our government is tied to our identities as a result of how they determine our social, economic and political status.
Hannah Arendt offers a lens to understand identity politics’ role in society in her book “The Human Condition.” According to Arendt, the private realm is where we fulfill basic human necessities — food, shelter, survival — so universal that they are, by definition, beyond debate. The public realm is where plurality and discourse exist. Unlike the private, it depends on differing beliefs and free action.
Arendt argues that a third realm has risen over the past century: the social. The social realm is where the logic of survival begins to take over the space of public action, and expressing your identity begins to occupy the same platform as earning your income. This is where social media thrives: some people see it merely as something to do after their nine-to-five, and others use it to generate a livelihood. This same dynamic shapes identity politics. If people’s basic needs are dependent on the government, and their treatment by the government is dependent on their identity markers, the personal and the political cannot be separated — exactly what identity politics argues.
The difference between the identity politics conceived by the Combahee River Collective and the identity politics performed by individuals in Cut videos, however, is staggering. The Collective wrote in their founding statement: “In the process of consciousness-raising, actually life-sharing, we began to recognize the commonality of our experiences and, from the sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression.”
Through ‘life-sharing,’ rather than merely organizing for a product or individual gain, activists produced a durable framework to rethink overlapping oppressions beyond the next political goal. Yet the danger of the social realm is that when survival and political expression share the same space, survival is inevitably prioritized. The “growing consciousness” crucial to identity politics is flattened into content, optimized for engagement rather than action. Consumers absorb identity performance to feel easy emotions like validation and belonging instead of more difficult ones like cognitive dissonance and empathy.
Of course, Cut videos are an obviously inaccurate representation of social interactions. They’re oversaturated with caricatures, edited to remove context and shortened to serve viewers’ minimal attention spans. However, one of the most consistently popular forms of art is one that holds a mirror up to society, albeit in an exaggerated or ridiculous way, to provoke self-reflection or allow the audience to identify with a character, whether they realize their similarities or not.
In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” the titular character puts on a play within the play depicting a man who kills his brother, a king, and usurps power. He argues that the purpose of playing is to “hold a mirror up to nature,” allowing virtuous people to see their own beauty and moving the guilty to reveal themselves by reacting to their own reflection. Art and media serve as a mirror to the world, reflecting our reality. This mirror only works under certain conditions. Once media and content is monetized for passive algorithmic engagement, acting in society becomes a way to survive the world, not grow in it.
A creator making content that centers themselves and their various identities for YouTube revenue is laboring for survival, optimizing what the algorithm rewards and producing something consumable. Similarly, a viewer scrolling TikTok is not watching with a critical lens. Often, doom-scrolling is a way to shut off the brain rather than activate it; it is for me. What appears as a public conversation about identity is actually labor dressed up as social interaction. When someone expresses themselves for monetary gain, the viewer receives a product rather than a reflection — and because they are not watching for enlightenment, they are unwilling or unable to identify this farce.
Media and art help us conceive of the world, better understand other people and work through our emotions. Take plays in Ancient Greece, the first western democracy, where, as Greek drama scholar Eleftheria Ioannidou writes, the most cherished aspects of a play were “uniqueness, legitimate interpretation and authenticity.” However, “legitimate interpretation” requires a critical eye: you cannot merely absorb art and laugh, cry or smile in response; you must reflect critically and act accordingly. This is a major discrepancy between art and modern day short-form entertainment. When people fail to engage with content through a critical lens — not necessarily with negativity, but in a thoughtful, personal way — they fail to see it as more than a product for themselves and themselves alone.
We often tell ourselves it doesn’t matter all that much what we consume, or that we’re smart enough to tell the difference between entertainment and reality. Cut videos feel harmless because they’re funny and obviously staged and short, but that’s the point. Even if those videos are for consumption as a product, rather than critical engagement as art, they still matter deeply because they take away from art that generates a critical kind of human connection — namely, casual, incidental affiliations in classrooms, workplaces and bus stops that force us to coexist rather than self-isolate behind a screen. Instead of silently agreeing with trolls in the comments, we ought to openly discuss ideas and disagree with our peers. Without such dialogue, we lose both our ability to have a productive discussion and to connect on the fundamental level of existing side by side.
By constantly mindlessly consuming content that dulls identity to its basest, most entertaining and least productive form, we become less able to productively engage with those of different identities. We have no conception of others’ experience of reality, instead holding only a warped perception of a person diminished into a consumable model rather than a free individual. Identity must be a way for us to better understand ourselves and share experiences with others, not a way to silo ourselves into a lonely existence.
When identity is reduced to something consumable, we — the consumers — push each other and ourselves to perform our various identities rather than speaking freely. We give each other a caricature rather than a genuine encounter. By oversimplifying identity politics, we’ve prevented ourselves and each other from sharing authentic speech, action and identity. In the process, we’ve also isolated ourselves by internalizing a false understanding of those who are different to us rather than truly listening to people we don’t know.
Perhaps the commodified, dramatized version of identity politics we at Stanford know deserves not to be taken so seriously. But for most people, identity is more often than not a matter of life and death. In America, Black men are six times more likely to be arrested for the same crimes as their white counterparts. As of 2024, women earn 85% of what men make. The maternal mortality rate for Black women is 44.8 deaths per 100,000 live births, four times higher than the rate for white, Asian and Hispanic women. The individual experience of every person who contributed to those statistics is personal to them, but it must also be understood as political if we ever hope to make this litany of systemic injustices obsolete. Reducing identity politics to labels we can hide behind to avoid self-reflection or manufacture belonging selfishly disregards those who don’t have the freedom to so easily separate their political identity from their existence.
Identity politics cannot afford to become less urgent because it has been partially swallowed by the content economy. Taking identity politics seriously doesn’t mean uncritically consuming every piece of content made in its name. It means learning to distinguish between the commodity and the person behind it. The mirror will only show us an accurate reflection when we stop consuming identity to satisfy our own needs or insecurities and start engaging with it seriously enough to act.
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What can artists do about threats from AI?The generative AI boom has left many artists feeling replaced. How do we respond?
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It’s no secret that AI, and especially generative AI, has taken over the world and everything in it — we are living through a time in which every industry has no choice but to seriously consider the role that technology will play in its future. Workers are being taught that the only way to avoid replacement by AI is to master it.
The change started with words: ChatGPT entered the scene with a boom, virtually erasing the need for busywork like writing emails or filtering through search results for information. Writers across the world were immediately put on edge, fearful that their craft was being devalued right in front of their eyes, with nothing they could do about it. For the most part, though, the visual arts seemed to be safe. AI pictures used to be hilariously easy to spot, from jumbled letters on street signs to eight fingers gracing a single hand.
Now, though, it’s not so simple. In the past two years or so, AI art — pictures and videos in the style of animation or realism — have become good enough that some cannot differentiate between real human work and zeroes and ones coming together to create a mockery.
I’m sure you’ve heard about the AI fruit videos that have gotten so popular that The New York Times just published an article about them. Or maybe you’ve heard about the quick graphics that brands can’t help themselves from using in order not to pay some intern $17 an hour. The art industry is facing an existential threat, and AI is the culprit.
Let’s make one thing clear before we continue: AI-generated art does not compare to human creation, and it never will. Art is about capturing the essence of life. It’s about laughter and pain and heartbreak and camaraderie. It’s about kids who will never get the chance to grow up and about women across the globe who have been robbed of opportunity at every turn. It is about unfinished business and imperfection in times of tragedy.
Children don’t sit in their high chairs watching news briefings or C++ lectures. They watch Mickey Mouse and Bluey; they learn how to share and how to laugh. They — and I hope this is still true, though I have a dreadful inkling it’s not anymore — are immersed in the worlds created by fantasy authors, and they sneak to read just one more chapter after bedtime.
When we grow up, we are introduced to the music our parents listened to when they were our age, and we adopt it into our own taste, much to their delight. We are shaped by art and we are able to find it in everything. A machine cannot feel these things that we can — it can only mimic.
Still, as our world continues on its shift toward technology and its devaluing of the arts, there are plenty of people who think these quick and easy replacements are just as good as the real thing. As our attention spans shrink and streaming platforms charge more, many young people would rather indulge themselves with short AI-generated clips than watch a two-hour movie or even a 30-minute sitcom episode. People are (allegedly) writing — or rather, generating — novels using generative AI. Some are even being picked up by major publishers.
Non-artists also have cause for concern. If AI can replace the building blocks of our humanity, who’s to say it won’t come for your “real” jobs next? ChatGPT can already write some pretty decent code, and it can certainly act as a consultant for companies looking to maximize profits.
It is estimated that around 300 million jobs are exposed to AI automation, and researchers say women make up about 86% of the workers most vulnerable to being replaced. How are we to live in this world, to afford eggs and gas, if the ones with all the money are so dedicated to replacing us?
Imagine if all the classics disappeared in one night. Imagine the Louvre as an abandoned building, cobwebs building up in the corners. Or the New York Public Library with all its shelves bare, and with the lions on either side of its massive doors gone. Imagine Agra without the Taj Mahal, or Rio de Janeiro without Christ the Redeemer casting its tear-jerkingly beautiful shadow on the land. The world would be gray, filled with leaks only artists know how to plug. The fire in our hearts would be extinguished, and nothing would be left to promise us new beginnings. Our children would cry and cry, yearning for knowledge and grounding that would no longer exist.
We as artists must do what we have done for millennia. We must continue to create, even when the world attempts to beat us down, even when there’s no monetary gain in sight. We must put pen to paper and brush to canvas. We must reject the capitalist overlords who tell us that majoring in English or fashion or animation is a waste of money and time. We must support the arts when we can — buy books and paintings, go to the opera and the ballet, put down your phone and support longform media.
We cannot be convinced that we are replaceable. A machine pretending to think can never do what we do, no matter how hard it tries.
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Doing too muchWhat we lose when we try to do it all.
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I walked to On Call Cafe with a friend. The night was frigid, but we were warm in our coats. We were here for “Why We Look At Art,” a conversation with art history professor Alexander Nemerov and film senior lecturer Adam Tobin on why art should matter to Stanford students. After a brief introduction, they opened the floor to questions. I leaned forward.
Each question was different, but the response inevitably came back to the same core. They talked of turning inward, of being alive to the world, of seeking yourself. I felt like I had entered a portal, where people spoke a different language: the language one uses to circle around the unnameable, tracing its shape. Such is the language of art and spirituality, for the truths it points to cannot be casually picked up and analyzed but rather are the center about which our lives revolve.
It has been a while since I entered this portal. I used to slip in and out, reading, thinking and paying attention. But freshman year hit like a tumbling river, and life became a struggle to stay afloat. In the brief moments where I can take a breath, I chance upon my past musings, and am struck with a warping sensation, as if gazing down a long tunnel towards a fair and distant land. It feels strange to recall a time when I had the leisure to think about life, to ponder how to live rightly or to enjoy art. I cannot imagine indulging in such luxury now.
Stanford students chronically do too much. We take over 20 units, participate in music or dance or theater, join pre-professional organizations, conduct research and work at internships or jobs. Our culture is one of rampant overconsumption: the overconsumption of activities.
Just like any kind of consumerism, there is an underlying structure of “never enough.” If we have a free block in our schedule, we will fill it. We load up on obligations until we become sleep-deprived and stressed out of our minds. Even then, we always doubt: Am I doing enough?
Sustained over weeks, this causes burnout. But there is a subtle risk I fear even more: that I will lose the capacity to think.
The overconsumption of activities means the overconsumption of time, which means the overconsumption of mental space. Contemplation arises naturally in times of ease. In times of hardship, there is no space for it. Conversations begin to revolve endlessly around p-sets and midterms. My maximum capacity for thought becomes listing the assignments due tomorrow. When I have time to rest, I simply stare blankly, my mind empty: not because I am at peace, but because I am drained.
What do we lose when we lose the capacity for contemplation?
Many writers have pointed out that most of our lives are lived unconsciously. David Foster Wallace called it “the water”; Virginia Woolf, “the cotton wool”; Nick Bostrom, “the soot.” It is the day in and day out motions of life we go through without being aware of ourselves or the world. Losing the capacity to contemplate, then, is losing the few lucid moments where we step out of the wool. It is losing our consciousness.
It is concerning that the last time I had reflective thoughts about life with some regularity was in high school. What does this mean for the future? I do not want to become simultaneously more accomplished and less conscious. I do not want to emerge from college as a blank-minded automaton with an impressive resume and become a blank-minded automaton with an impressive bank account. To do so would make youth the death of myself, instead of its flowering.
What is one to do? We have the incredible luck to be in a place with more opportunities than anyone can explore in several lifetimes. There is nothing inherently wrong with doing many things; there is simply a cost to doing too much.
The Stoic philosophers, and many others, urged us to withdraw from the world and turn our attention inwards. I love this philosophy, but it is at complete odds with the life I live, and this life is also wonderful. How do we reconcile the need for contemplation and quietude with the pace of life at Stanford, with the energy of being young?
One can begin by not forgetting: by taking a step back, from time to time, to process the life one has been living. It becomes easier, then, to process it as it’s happening, to give oneself mental latitude even when demands press upon one’s time. It is possible to dwell in ease even when the going isn’t easy.
Living fast is okay when you remember to slow down.
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Nothing, pleaseGifts, guilt and the illusion of generosity.
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I hate gift giving. It’s shameful to say out loud.
When my calendar turns to December, or my friends begin discussing their birthday plans, an overwhelming sense of dread fills me. Sadly, my first thoughts aren’t about the joy of spending time with the people I love. Rather, my mind fixates on the gifts.
What am I going to buy? Is it expensive enough? Is it thoughtful enough? What if they already have it? What if they don’t like it?
Gift shopping feels impossible. My parents have simply given up on trying to sleuth out my next birthday gift. Instead, they bluntly ask: “Sharis, what do you want for your birthday?”
These past few years, I can barely find an answer. I have a roof over my head, a meal plan, clothes to wear to class and a working bike. There’s little else I genuinely need.
I’m not sure what I would do if they gave me another sweater. Maybe I could stuff it into my already overflowing closet. And if they were to give me another book, it would probably end up collecting dust next to all the other books I’ll read someday when I have time. They could buy me an extravagant fountain pen, but then I’d probably still default to the Pilot G2’s I’ve been using since elementary school.
I don’t need to be given anything. I’ve known and believed this for quite a while. But I’m turning 20 this year, leaving behind the angst of my teenage years, and apparently, a milestone that major calls for an extravagant gift.
Nothing is not an option. Gift giving is one of the oldest human rituals we know of. Before we invented currency or written language, nomadic tribes utilized gift giving to form bonds with other tribes.
It was perhaps a little more transactional than it is these days; a gift was a social contract, a sense of obligation, a “you owe me one.” But it was essential to develop the synergy that allowed all tribes to succeed. To show up empty-handed or not reciprocate a gift was opening the door to ending collaboration.
With that in mind, perhaps the anxiety I feel when I’m standing in a Target aisle, trying to figure out which candle my friend would like best isn’t irrational. I’m participating in a thousand-year-old ritual of social bonding, and I don’t want to sever this bond.
I know that I won’t lose my friends over my ability to pick the best-smelling candle, but the doubts are still there, nestled between obligation and affection. Modern gift giving hasn’t made it any easier to tell the two apart.
Recently, I’ve been seeing videos about “making baskets for a birthday/ Christmas/Valentine’s Day/Saint Patrick’s Day/Halloween/Thanksgiving” on social media.
These baskets tend to have the same items, just in different colors or patterns for the occasion: a big fleece blanket, fuzzy socks, a candle, claw clips, a Stanley, a Touchland hand sanitizer, facemasks, a few beauty products and a couple of snacks. The videos are immaculate, with relaxing ASMR and a satisfying placement of items into the basket.
It makes me jealous. I have never received a gift like that before, and for some reason, I want one.
Social media sells lots of things. I’m well aware of Instagram influencers who sell lives of traveling the world or traditional homemaking. But observing social media sell thoughtfulness is new for me.
In these videos, someone goes out of their way to buy all these different things for one gift basket. Is that not the truest example of thoughtfulness?
Or is it the quantity that makes it thoughtfulness? Would I still feel that same desire if there were five less items in the basket? If the items were not color coordinated? If instead, they were placed into a recycled bag?
I don’t think so. The feeling somehow evaporates when the abundance is removed.
The basket, I’m beginning to understand, is a physical manifestation of something I’ve been craving: to be thought of, to be cared for, to be loved. And when the gift is extravagant, it’s proof of an affection that’s impossible to ignore.
The issue with physical proof is that it fades. The candle will be burned to an empty jar, the snacks will be consumed, the hand sanitizer will all be used. Suddenly, the evidence of love is gone, and one must question again if there was ever love to begin within.
I want to be chosen deliberately and without obligation.
That’s something you can’t order on Amazon.
For my 20th birthday, I’m asking for experiences with people I love. A drive with no destination. A weekend spent in the mountains. An adventure to the beach. A bike around campus.
My home doesn’t have room for many more things. But my heart does.
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The craftWoodcrafting: the art of a textured life.
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The soft humming of the lathe, the sharp blade cutting through construction planks and the omniscient campfire scent of chiseling wood leave the rest of the world in a luxurious waiting. My gaze is pinned precisely on the angle of my arm pressed tightly against the lathe. Rotating on the lathe is a scrap piece of Australian Walnut, and I’m entranced by its ceaseless spinning. It’s rotating perfectly, disrupted only by the friction forced upon it by a tool of my choice. I’m intimately aware that any slight shifting of posture can completely undermine its final form. However, the posture that typically typifies my perfectionistic hesitation is relinquished. In this moment, I am carefully careless. I carve away. I craft away.
If you ask me what I am most proud of recently, it would be this: a roughly 3” by 2” vase, barely discernible in form and function. As I hold the vase, I am reminded of what makes me feel human.
Tucked tightly between the corner of Santa Teresa and Duena, the Product Realization Lab (PRL) is a second home to mechanical engineering students, but an enigma to almost all other majors, including myself. In the dead center of winter, I found myself here: burnt out in the manufactured, consumer culture way. This is a consumer culture which promises the satisfaction of a product, at the expense of ceaseless production. Woodworking introduced me to its antithesis: the indelible meaning which lies within crafting. I marvel at the simple magnificence of smoothening a coarsely textured scrap of wood into its silky final form.
It is more important than ever that we commit ourselves to a craft. Not necessarily woodcraft, but any craft of your choice — ideally, the one that calls to you. A craft that is tangible and felt intimately through the tips of your fingers and sparks a spirit that has always resided within you. This insatiable craving to create with our hands is an entirely human endeavor. After all, I’d hardly be the first to say we are creative creatures. Yet we often forget this amidst a culture which claims otherwise; this mindless consumption takes many forms: shopping, scrolling and the sorts. We are consumed by the act of consumption itself.
This is the culture I sought to escape from in the PRL. In the midst of my burnout, this craft was akin to medicine. I learned that I had intrinsic value beyond the metrics by which we are evaluated within our institutions. I was invited into another world in which the qualities that make me human — fallible, creative, questioning — were unable to be communicated through a screen. Rarely are we creating something with our own two hands. Rarely, are we committing every fiber of our function to chiseling away at a form that will hold little instrumental or utilitarian value.
The only contender to defeating the value of the craft is sharing it. A master woodcrafter, Senching, taught me how to use the lathe. It was her enthusiastic generosity that brought me to the PRL for the first time, and it was her continued support that allowed me to craft (not complete) my first piece. When I first saw a collection of her work — dozens of the most intricately and delicately designed wooden vases — I marveled at the time and mastery it must have demanded to create each one. This is the wonderful art of the craft: its value is, in some ways, transferrable. We are moved to create not only with, but because of others.
My appreciation for the lopsided wooden vase has nothing to do with its material worth. In fact, I’d go as far to say it has no material worth at all. I instinctually grimace at its imperfection only to remember that it memorializes three hours of time well spent: a tireless labor of continued error and refinement to bring its existence into this world. As Nietzsche says, I spent those three hours being “human, all too human.”
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How are Stanford students using social media?A data-inspired look into how students consume social media.
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Sophomore year I found myself scrolling through social media during lunch, dinner, really anytime I had a free moment away from work. I remember defending myself to a friend. It is good to know what is Fizzin’. It is good to know what is on the ’gram. It was denial, really. I could no longer justify the hours lost to brainrot.
This fall, I deleted Instagram and axed my YouTube history so its algorithms no longer recommend content. I started to notice the effects. Interactions felt intentional. Work felt productive and exciting.
Yet several popular social media platforms are connected to Stanford. “This is where things began. Snapchat was founded at Stanford. Instagram’s founders met at Stanford,” Truitt Flink ’28 told The Daily. Flink is co-founder of Reconnect Stanford, a student-led movement helping people through “social media sobriety.”
Fizz, an anonymous messaging app used by Stanford students, also holds strong ties to campus. “In the Fall of 2020, we were freshmen at Stanford University and noticed a lack of connection and authenticity on a campus grappling with Covid restrictions. There was no centralized platform… We thus set out to create Fizz, a private campus-specific platform that facilitates authentic conversations,” the app’s founding story explains.
It is a cute story that follows the tried and true recipe of noticing a social problem and “solving” it with a social platform. It’s strange, then, that using social media sucked me away from the very interaction it promised to help me find. And from the looks of it, I’m not the only one who feels this way. “I felt like I started to live more for those curated moments than the real thing,” Flink said. “A lot of my experiences felt dulled beneath the veil of needing to post them,” Reconnect Stanford Financial Officer Mahalia Morgan ’27 echoed.
Reconnect Stanford founding member Samin Bhan ’28 took care to clarify that Reconnect Stanford does not place blame on any particular individual or platform. Instead, the group focuses on the experience of real people. “We want to think about it at a systems level. We are not anti a particular person or company. We are expressing what’s happening on the ground,” Bhan said.
To better understand how Stanford undergraduates use social media, The Daily distributed a survey to a random sample of 500 students. We collected 35 responses. The average respondent spends 3.22 hours on social media each day and rates their relationship with social media as 2.7 out of 5, or just under neutral. Respondents associated social media use with the words “doomscroll,” “brainrot” and “comparison.” And yet if we cross tabulate Relationship and Hours we find that students who spend more time on social media have a poorer relationship with it.
It is strange that students recognize that their relationship with social media is poor yet find themselves spending several hours on social media platforms. Flink offered some insight into the paradox. “People know that they don’t feel good. They know that it harms their relationships and their mental health — and yet they can’t pull away from it,” she said. “The problem is not a lack of willpower. The problem is that there’s not scaffolding in place to support that.”
Of course, we use different platforms for different reasons. The top platforms respondents reported using are Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. The platforms typically cover two different reasons for use. For example, respondents reported using Instagram for “connection” and “entertainment” but not as a source of information. On the other hand, respondents reported using LinkedIn for “connection” and occasionally “information” but never for “entertainment.”
The responses align fairly well with the overall popularity of social media platforms in the U.S. The notable exception is LinkedIn, which saw stronger popularity at Stanford than across the U.S. population. It can remind us, Bhan explained, that Stanford students are not so different from any other students. “We’re no different than any other kid. Being at Stanford doesn’t mean we’re less susceptible to the purposeful engineering and tactics companies use,” he said.
Respondents reported most frequently using social media during activities that involve down time. These included relaxing, eating and waiting. Conversely, activities involving focus did not see a lot of social media use.
Despite strong opinions and “common” knowledge, it is hard to write off social media as bad. Instead, the effects are very much an open research agenda, according to Sunny Xu, the director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, which focuses on understanding social technologies.
“We don’t really have strong causal evidence suggesting that social media will drive mental health or well-being outcomes,” Xu said. “There’s a lot of gaps — between evidence and public perceptions, and also in methodologies.”
We find social media draining and distracting. It keeps us from being ourselves. And yet many of us find genuine value in social media as well. It is hard to characterize our consumption in normative terms. The truth likely lives somewhere between good and bad. Research will deepen our understanding of these technologies, but in the meantime, what’s most clear is that, to live with social media, we need balance.
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Puzzle / DeclutterA new puzzle from The Stanford Daily for Magazine Vol. 269: Consumption.
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Instructions: Fill in each of the 26 empty squares with one letter of the alphabet. Each letter of the alphabet A-Z will only be used once.
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Wase | A Midwest transplantIn her senior column, Amina Wase ’26 reflects on all that The Daily has given her.
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My first attempted Daily article was anything but a news article. It read more like a cloggy narrative with chopped up quotes and lengthy paragraphs. Definitely, not news.
Battling the freshman flu, I turned in the shoddy article, excited for what was to come next.
If I read that same article now, I would probably reevaluate that writer’s future at The Daily. Instead, I was met with my gracious editor Itzel, who walked me through how to news-write and overcome my sourcing difficulties.
Her sincerity and dedication to teach me for free through paragraphs of Slack messages and in-person meetings was my first glimpse into the educational, supportive culture of The Daily.
***
I came from a suburban Ohio high school, where I didn’t have a school newspaper. Still, I planned to join one in college. There was no deep purpose involved. I wanted to try something new and join a novel, fast-paced experience.
My surface-level decision to join came to be among the most meaningful experiences of my four years.
After attending a few desk meetings, I was astounded by how driven my peers were. While my incredible classmates were pushing out one to three articles per week, each article I worked on felt like climbing a mountain. At least three interviews? News-style writing? University comment? Every email I sent felt intimidating. I felt uncomfortable putting myself out there.
I left The Daily my freshman year believing this organization took up too much time for too little reward.
I couldn’t stay away for long. My peers’ incredible organizing work on campus brought me back, as they elicited my passion to storytell: I felt inclined to memorialize my classmates’ work and dedication.
Whenever I pitched an idea, I was welcomed back with open arms into a space where skilled editors would help me along every stage — from a fragmented idea to a polished Daily-style piece. Four pairs of eyes on each article really helps.
After each round of edits, paragraphs of feedback graced my Slack inbox. Those paragraphs, and everyone who wrote them — including Caroline, Oriana, Sarah and many, many more — turned my clogged paragraph-writing into my ability to quickly produce a clean piece.
The culture brought me back, and it is what I will miss most about this organization. We all come together voluntarily, giving up hours and hours of time to make this paper the greatest college newspaper in the country (Fight me on this!).
The people, who decorate our quoteboard with unhinged sayings, edit late night articles to make it that much better, help me through difficult journalistic decisions and push all new staff to continue improving — that is who I did it for.
Supportive of growth, forgiving of shortcomings and always welcomed with open arms. That is what The Daily is.
My predecessors made me the editor I am. There is nothing more I want for our masthead, editors and staff than to feel trained in this encouraging environment. My love for The Daily is the love for the people, the love for teaching, the love for making the paper the best product — and my love for the arduous process.
The (very) late nights, dire Slack exchanges, waking up to phone calls from upset sources, treks to SUDPS, hours-long interviews, the disagreements on a single word — it was all worth it.
Every minute was.
I came to this university feeling like a Midwest transplant, and in many ways I still do. The fake smiles were too California, the harsh demeanors were too East Coast, the four seasons disappeared and I was standing on my own two feet, far from home. Stanford was wacky and quirky. The Midwest was neutral and normal.
But this organization gave me a footing in the ground, rooted in place, Midwestern and all.
***
To George and Anna, I started this volume hardly knowing what this job entailed and what you were like as people. I end it with the honor of having led the paper with the most dedicated, talented, funny and kind people. I learn from you two everyday. I truly can not wait to see all you do for the world in the future.
Greta, Ananya and Lauren, thank you for passing the baton, and teaching me what it means to make the editorial decisions I never previously felt empowered to make. Greta, your kindness, dedication and responsiveness as editor-in-chief is leadership I only hope to replicate one day.
To all my wonderful teachers and MEs — Oriana, Caroline, Sarah, Itzel and more — you all took me from a shaky writer to the editor I am now. I credit you with your compassion, and making The Daily fun. I think about you often in my decisions and teachings.
To the house that sits on Panama Mall and Duena St.: Thank you for fostering life-long connections and creating a comforting home on campus.
I entered this university different in many ways: nervous, naive and unsure of myself. This organization, in part, made me who I am. It gave me the confidence to report, write about issues I care about and grow into myself.
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