The purpose of this study is to investigate the nature of mental health themes in popular music pre and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Themes will emerge from the data but could include trauma, depression, suicide along with other themes that are often tied to mental health like the quality of relationships, identity, self-esteem, and gender. We want to understand what societal topics are being discussed in music and what topics the general population is listening to specifically. Additionally, we want to know if the nature of those messages has changed based on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring the content that is in music is important because this research could serve to give valuable information about messages adolescents receive about mental health or any related topic for that matter. To gather data, we are qualitatively evaluating songs from the Top 100 Billboard charts of the years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 respectively. Top 100 song lyrics will serve as the data and will be the top 100 songs for the year. MAXQDA will be used to organize the coding and thematic analysis. We will examine if there has been an increase in mental health themes in popular music and a shift in topics (e.g., relationships, identity) between year 2019 to 2022. The findings of this study will provide a better understanding of how music ties to global stress and crisis which can inform how we understand the impact of music on socioemotional states nationwide.

The folklore genre of memorates, or the rational, personal narratives of experiences with the supernatural are influenced by their community and culture. The distinction between legend and memorate lies in the first-person; when repeatedly retold by others, firsthand details are lost, transforming it into legend. This presentation is a literary analysis of the “Hogle Hall Ghost” a memorate collected in May of 1997, found in the Westminster Folklore Archive as told by an unidentified female student. The “Hogle Hall Ghost” memorate speaks to similar experiences shared by students and faculty working and living on Westminster’s campus. This analysis is the foundation of a larger project which asks the question, “What will a rhetorical analysis and comparison of memorates, and true crime podcasts reveal?”. The memorate is not new but folkloristic analyzation of this genre at the academic level is, despite the large numbers of believers in supernatural phenomena in the United States. This research was performed using feminist, gender, and socio-economic lenses to perform a close reading of the “Hogle Hall Ghost” memorate. Early findings reveal similarities and differences of rationales specific to the narrator's lived experience and varying gender perceptions of the same ghost. This research argues that the perceived believability of memorates formed by their close proximity to community, culture, and rational is seen in the popularity of true crime content.

The Grand Theft Auto video game series is one of the top selling video games series of all time. Video games provide players with experiences as "virtual selves" that are not otherwise available in everyday life. Grand Theft Auto V and San Andreas offer an immersive experience of "blackness" that subverts racism. I found that through application of critical race theory, an understanding of the types of racial disgust, and with the lens of black aesthetics as a guide, GTA is a beneficial teacher of equity and identity as a virtual space for learning and reflection.

This article examines the murder of Chynal Lindsey a Black trans woman and the deployment of her image in a now taken down GoFundMe for “Shanna.” I move away from a ‘hate’ framework to argue that her murder is emblematic of the enduring and structuring force of anti-Blackness. I analyze the discourses around the GoFundMe campaign to question, through a queer/Black feminist framework, how Black trans debilitation is productive for racial capitalism and neoliberalism.