But why does oversharing even happen? For starters, it can feel good to vent your problems on the internet, as it offers almost instant validation or advice from others. Often, it can even feel easier to share personal stories on social media, as there is a sense of anonymity behind usernames and online profiles that can erase the expectation to meet certain social boundaries. You don’t have to look your audience in the eyes when telling the story, they don’t need to know your history, and you can more easily manipulate your story to generate greater sympathy. As hundreds of likes, comments, and messages flood in, the poster can begin to feel seen by an online community, replacing the support and relatability that may be missing from their personal lives.

Further, the crazier the story, the more likely it is to go viral, which can add to creators’ desire to share wild — and often very personal — life events. In addition to receiving validation from strangers online, there are algorithmic motivations involved with sharing stories with high shock value. For those posting these stories, receiving a higher amount of views can come with the ability to monetize content and get brand deals. On the other hand, social media algorithms keep track of what videos get engagement, and push this kind of content onto more and more feeds. Put simply, sometimes a person will share their story online and receive attention that piles on as the algorithm continues to promote it. Hence, they feel validated and continue to share more. Encouraged by their favorable algorithmic engagement, the people who share these deeply personal stories can turn them into a
series, or in severe cases, their brand. One would no longer simply post to help themselves process complex feelings or life events, but to perform for an audience who will engage with their media.

In a viral series titled “Who Tf Did I Marry,” user Reesa Teesa amassed over 500 million views within three days by sharing her experience while married to a pathological liar. As her story gained traction, the videos began to end on cliffhangers and her retelling of her past trauma began to resemble an episodic entertainment series. Furthermore, her favorable engagement granted her “influencer status” that secured her brand deals and monetization with merchandise containing catchphrases from the series like “I Survived Legion.” Her journey illustrates how social media storytimes can transform deep personal trauma into a commercialized performance and personal brand.

Creators aren’t the only ones contributing to a culture of online oversharing. As viewers, we want creators to “drop the receipts”: get into the nitty-gritty details of their personal lives and provide evidence for them through screenshots of chats, photographs, and so on. As consumers we comment, share, demand updates, speculate, and choose sides. In this way, viewers contribute to an online culture of oversharing by rewarding and encouraging over-vulnerability online simply by engaging with it.

So what? How does oversharing affect both creators and consumers of social media, and what kind of repercussions can come from such extreme vulnerability? For one, excessive disclosure of personal information and experiences can negatively impact the way we view ourselves and the ways that our peers — both online and in real life — perceive us. By posting about traumas and personal experiences for the world to see, we expose ourselves to the judgment of complete strangers. While supportive comments can help us feel seen and heard, they also might condition us to measure the value of our experiences in proportion to other people’s reactions. Over time, it can become easy to associate receiving attention online with the way we are supposed to process deeply personal events and their significance. What is so dangerous about the externalization of self-worth and personal experiences is that vulnerability can feel rewarding when an audience responds positively and disappointing when they do not. This affects our abilities to autonomously discern what is important to us, as we rely more and more on the opinions of strangers to make choices and interpret feelings that ultimately affect us and not them. The more we overshare, the harder it becomes to separate how we feel toward an issue or life event and what we have learned will receive online attention.

Meanwhile, as viewers spend hours consuming other people’s family conflicts and relationship struggles, we become increasingly comfortable treating private experiences as entertainment. Someone’s worst trauma can become just another piece of content to scroll through, desensitizing us to serious topics and life experiences. Furthermore, constantly concerning ourselves with other people’s difficulties can create emotional exhaustion. If our feeds are consumed by recounts of mental health struggles and familial betrayals, we may start to be psychologically affected by experiences that aren’t even ours. Finally, constant exposure to intimate personal details pushes oversharing to become a normal expectation for everyone. This blurring of privacy lines makes us feel entitled to know intimate details from others, both online and in real life. This can strain relationships and harm our understanding of what is meant to be shared and what is not.

But what if you just really enjoy scrolling and posting on social media? While it’s not very realistic to delete all our socials these days (though it is possible with enough determination), we can still implement small strategies into our daily scrolling and posting. Before posting something particularly personal, think twice about whether you are simply seeking validation or actually wanting to share something valuable. Even consumers of social media content can take steps to cultivate a healthier online environment through altering their engagement habits. Engaging selectively allows us to flag oversharing content and disengage from content that feels too personal for social media. In doing so on a large scale, we can teach our algorithms that oversharing doesn’t have to be such a critical component of online entertainment. Lastly, if there is something you desperately want to vent about, maybe consider getting a journal instead of smashing that post button. Not every experience needs a vast audience, and some things are best kept between you, your friends, and a good old-fashioned diary.

The post Did the Journal Factory Explode? appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Personally, I was met by dim ambient lights punctuated by small chatter and the whoosh of drinks being poured when I walked into TSC this summer for my first shift as an intern. It was the second night of Montreal Sketchfest.

Montreal Sketchfest is a two-week-long run of sketch comedy troupes from all over the country, run by TSC’s in-house non-profit called Le Nouveau International. It features Francophone nights, afterparties, and a best-of-the-fest finale in which the funniest, most charming groups take home like the “Best Local Troupe.” 2027 will be the 20th year of Montreal Sketchfest, representing Montreal’s longstanding commitment to comedic innovation and indie theatre.

At my first shift working Montreal Sketchfest, I had no idea what was going on. There were people in funny costumes, dancing crotch-forward, infamous “your mom” jokes, and actors pretending to be weird bouncers — just about anything you could think of.

But it worked. From my seat at the back of the theatre, I was laughing. I was laughing at how ridiculous some of the scenes were but also, how true they rang.

Comedy offers a unique social critique. It humorizes real-life situations and reproduces them through a lens of joy while simultaneously calling attention to society’s flaws.

In one of Key & Peele’s most iconic sketches, Obama Presidential Handshake, Peele plays “Obama,” greeting a crowd of citizens. As he shakes the hands of white supporters, he maintains a rigid posture, a calm voice, and polite remarks. However, once a Black supporter steps in, his entire demeanour changes from one of polite formality to informal familiarity as “Obama” daps the supporter up. The changes become more absurd as he shifts among people of varying race and gender. In exaggerating the contrasts between “Obama”‘s different reactions, Key & Peele satirize the social dynamics and unique pressures faced by Black public figures to cater to all social demographics, drastically switching from persona to persona. They show codeswitching as the navigation between two worlds. Through sketch comedy, artists are able to call attention to and critique true issues they may face.

Cathy Hong Park, author of Minor Feelings, acknowledges this truth, writing in her essay “Stand-Up.” She notes that “[t]here was a transparency to comedy that [she] wasn’t finding in poetry.” Comedy is
blunt and refreshingly honest, which is exactly why it can be transformative.

Kristina Gueverra, creative director at TSC, says in an interview with the Daily, “Comedy is important because it is revolutionary. In order to integrate joy in your life amongst this capitalist, white-supremacist patriarchy, we need to make intentional and conscious efforts to be happy sometimes. Healing is laughing. Comedy is medicine.”

Zooming out of Montreal Sketchfest, TSC boasts the longest running improv show on Sundays with a free workshop and $10 show. As an intern, I created graphics highlighting the entourage of artists, which consisted of both emerging and established Montreal comedians, cast in the weekly show.

TSC as an organization is a bilingual theatre for plays, comedies, music, and films. It is a true representation of indie theatre: local and run by people, for the people. In addition to Sunday Night Improv, it also hosts a free French improv workshop and show on Mondays called “Les Lundis.” By day, TSC is also a cafe with an ever-expanding menu of pastries, and a new visual artist highlighted on its walls.

“I love that [the improv show] empowers not only people who are seasoned [professionals] but also emerging artists … We have people coming back all the time. There’s so much history in these walls, within these bricks,” says Gueverra.

In addition to hosting these open-to-all workshops and shows, TSC provides some of the cheapest rental prices among venues in Montreal, making its space easily accessible for artists to produce shows. There aren’t any “big barriers,” as Gueverra puts it. If you have an idea, you can see it through.

“TSC is such a good representation of Montreal. It’s not just one thing,” Gueverra says before describing the Theatre’s diverse set of programming. I saw first-hand exactly what she was talking about: booking requests from punk bands, small comedy troupes, international stand-up stars, and even a guy who wanted to do a live comedy talk show requiring lottery tickets to enter.

Within a narrow, three-floored building on Sainte-Catherine, TSC demonstrates how art isn’t simply about fancy exhibitions or a critical acclaim — but the act of creating from the ground up.

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Following a 12-year hiatus from Montreal, the Vans Warped Tour returned in full force this past summer as part of a limited run of shows celebrating its 30th anniversary. Founded by music promoter Kevin Lyman, the festival toured nonstop from its inception in 1995 up until 2019, establishing itself as the longest-running travelling music festival in North America and the epicenter for pop-punk, punk rock, and ska culture. To understand how the Warped Tour became a defining fixture of alternative music, we have to look back at the acts, stories, and unique quirks that gave the tour its legendary status.

“A freak show takes the stage”

To look at the Warped Tour through the same lens as other well-established music festivals would be a grave misunderstanding. Tickets are cheap. The tour does not have any official headliners. Lineups are a mix between well-established names within each sub-genre alongside a number of up-and-coming acts, who you can often catch hanging out at their on-site merchandise tents. Set times are announced the day of the show and are posted on an inflatable billboard at the venue.

For those on tour, days were long and sets were short. Bands quickly packed their equipment into cramped vans before rushing off to the next stop as soon as their sets ended. Well-established and mid-sized bands often took smaller paychecks in exchange for the opportunity to stay on tour while some lesser-known bands would cover their own expenses by renting out their unused bus bunks to food an merchandise vendors.

Up-and-coming bands were eager to join in on the action — prompting Lyman, in 1998, to create the longstanding tradition known as the “BBQ Band.” In essence, the BBQ Band was a lesser-known artist or band who, in exchange for a thirty minute set time, would have to buy and cook food for the bands, stage workers, and sponsors.

To put it bluntly: touring was chaotic. Musicians were young, energetic and non-conformist. In its infancy, the Warped Tour may have looked like a travelling musical circus barely scraping by. But in reality, the seeds for an explosion of counterculture had been planted, and no one was more aware of this than the bands who took its stages. The prospect of superstardom was close — and they knew it.

“Maybe it’s not my weekend / But it’s gonna be my year”

The Warped Tour helped launch a number of musical acts into the mainstream consciousness while also benefitting from a time when punk and pop-punk albums were flying off the shelves.

Sublime, who headlined the Tour’s 1995 debut, went from being a club-playing ska-punk band in Long Beach, California to a major international success thanks in part to Warped and their 1996 self-titled album which spent 179 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart. From getting kicked off the tour when the band’s mascot dalmatian, Lou Dog, bit multiple people, to the death of lead singer and guitarist Bradley Nowell just months before the release of their most commercially successful album, the star-crossed icons embodied the madness that was early Warped.

Blink-182 was another band who found themselves at the centre of mainstream success while being a staple of the tour. Having been introduced to Lyman by Pennywise guitarist Fletcher Dragge in 1996, the young, crude and remarkably talented group went from being a lesser-known skate punk band playing in their underwear to pioneers of the pop-punk genre, selling over 50 million records worldwide.

“We’re the somber media darlings”

Ultimately, though, what made Warped such an effective springboard to mainstream success for so many bands wasn’t just the exposure it offered — it was its ability to unite different subcultures into a wave of anti-conformist culture.

We’ve come a long way from shows being overrun by agents of chaos inciting havoc on and off the stage. But the ethos remains the same. Today’s shows bring together young talent, like the Paradox, with renowned veterans, like Sublime, now led by Nowell’s son Jakob. Together, they channel the same angst, rage and, rebellion that made the Warped Tour the celebratory cultural scene it is today.

What makes the Warped Tour so special is not a claim to understand everyone in a world of people longing for acceptance. Instead, the tour’s magic rests in showing concertgoers just how much conformity the mainstream demands — and giving them the freedom to say, “fuck that.”

The post I Couldn’t Wait for the Summer and the Warped Tour appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Although it was coined by Freud in the 20th century, the Madonna-Whore Complex is centuries old. One of the most notable historical references of it is in a painting from the 15th century CE titled “The Madonna of Humility with the Temptation of Eve.” An article by Brooke Brownlee, a clinical counselor, introduces the complex by dissecting this very painting. The composition shows Madonna, the Virgin Mary, nursing infant Jesus in her arms. She appears luminescent with a halo and is surrounded by archangels Gabriel and Michael as well as the martyr Saint George, an image of purity. Brownlee describes the Madonna, as “nurturing, motherly, and modest.” The arrangement itself is telling: below the Madonna, in the dark, a lustful and naked Eve dwells. Brownlee describes Eve as “using her naked body as a form of temptation, sexuality, and…[sin].” This is an overt example of the contrast between Madonna and Whore — the former is nurturing, while the latter is corrupting.

Another instance of the complex in history is outlined in historian Anna Clark’s book titled, Desire: A History of European Sexuality where she discusses gender roles in Ancient Greece. Clark breaks down the views of Apollodorus, an ancient Greek writer and scholar. Apollodorus described women’s roles as divided by function: mistresses for pleasure, concubines for care, and wives for legitimacy. However, Clark notes how a woman is never allowed to be all three.

These historical examples show how far back the complex stretches and therefore, how deeply rooted it is in society. While these patterns are often disguised in modern life, Apollodorus’ views surrounding women shows how blatant these ideas were in the past. The Madonna-Whore complex plays a subtler role now, but it systematically persists in the media we consume and therefore, the norms young girls learn to embody long before they learn to question them.

Children’s media embody the Madonna-Whore split in classic Disney films, where kids are introduced to the concept of heroes and villains. Princesses are often gentle, modest and innocent, while female villains are sometimes seductive, vain and sexual. A clear example of this is in The Little Mermaid, where the villain of the story, Ursula, with her dark lipstick and strapless, tight black dress reads as the evil seductress. Ariel, on the other hand, plays the Madonna. She is deserving of love and marries Eric in the end, while Ursula, the Whore, dies. This shows how deeply ingrained the Madonna-Whore Complex is in children’s media, working to socialize them into this fixed structure.

If we turn to pop culture, female celebrities are often forced into binary public images surrounding their sexuality. Britney Spears is a classic example of this. Spears started her career with her debut album and song “…Baby One More Time.” This album was followed by her hit music video where Spears plays the character of a Catholic schoolgirl. The character’s image was promoted as an innocent Madonna, with an emphasis on her virginity. However, the discourse surrounding Spears’ body had already categorized her as the Whore. As argued by Emma Spector in a Vogue article, Spears’ virginity was scrutinized by hungry fans, nosey journalists and news outlets. While the public so desperately wanted insight into Spear’s sexuality, they became outraged once Spears began to embrace it in her later music such as in her sensual single, “I’m a Slave 4 U.” Other cultural observers further argued that “If Britney had been more conservative, she would have been probed and prodded by hungry vultures, but when she confidently embraced her femininity, the crowd wanted her head.” Ultimately, Spears’ experience exposes the fundamental contradiction of the Madonna-Whore complex: women are condemned whether they embody purity or embrace their sexuality. There is no acceptable category for a woman to occupy, only different ways to punish her for failing to conform.

These examples boil down to a single message: before a girl has even begun to understand her own sexual identity, it could have already been moulded by the harsh dichotomy of a reality in which women hardly ever “win.” Although these examples are not all-encompassing of the pressures a young girl may feel to submit to the duality, she may first experience the jarring nature of the split in stories she consumes in childhood, where the gentle princess is rewarded and the glamorous villain destroyed. As she develops, she will further understand how this split functions in the real world, she watches it play out in public where a woman like Britney Spears is both scrutinized as the Madonna and condemned as the Whore.

What is the tangible cost of the Madonna-Whore framework? Research suggests that many women internalize it, meaning they adopt the judgments passed on them as their own, often resulting in shame irrespective of the Madonna or the Whore category. For the Madonna, the cost of the framework regards her own pleasure. A study shows that women who most often endorse the dichotomy rated their partner as more entitled to sexual pleasure than themselves. This sexual shame can be inherent for the Madonna, as she is valued for her purity and maternal nature and thus may never be fully sexually gratified. On the other hand, the Whore experiences sexual shame through her objectification. For her, the cost is being treated as a body and nothing more. In another study, researchers examined 160 couples and found that women’s self-objectification predicted greater sexual emotional labour partnered with lower orgasm rates. This shows that when a woman learns to see herself as an object for pleasing others, she may focus solely on how her sexuality serves a partner and entirely overlook herself.

The effects of sexual shame are not isolated to a woman’s sex life. Vladimir Hedrih, a professor in psychology at the University of Niš, claims that sexual shame in women “can manifest as a negative body image, difficulty discussing sexual desires, or avoidance of sexual experiences due to a fear of judgment.” This is particularly significant since sexuality shapes how we experience emotional and physical attraction, how we connect with our community and understand our own feelings. In a broader scope, it is a core facet of identity. For some women, being disconnected from one’s sexuality through shame can create fractures in one’s own identity.

So if the Madonna-Whore Complex is so deeply ingrained in society, how do we move forward? What does that entail? The Madonna is both rewarded and restricted by purity; while the Whore has sexual freedom, yet is reduced to her sexuality. Maybe the deconstruction of this double bind begins in realizing that the Madonna and the Whore are not all that different. What may appear to be two opposing classifications actually follow the same pattern: society’s constraint of a woman’s sexuality. The view of women should not have to be confined to the limits of choice between these reductive patriarchal models; she can want to be both or to be neither. She can change her mind while exploring her sexual identity, even understanding it differently over time. In other words, women should have the freedom to determine their own relationship with their sexuality on their own terms — without having to sacrifice one form of worth to gain another.

The post The Madonna-Whore Dichotomy: The Impossible Woman appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Chief among them is Chef On Call, fast food gone fine dining, but only in price. During Frosh this will serve you well. Very quickly though, you’ll realize that Chef prices are brutally unsustainable. You’ll go further afield, to Alto, or Poke Monster, maybe Poulet Rouge if you’ve got taste. But even those costs will start to add up, and finally, half-starved, you’ll stumble into a Montreal specialty: a shawarma shop, and you’ll realize that reasonably priced protein does exist in this city.

Welcome to Boustan, Shawarmania and Farrouj Express, among others. These will be, if Chef On Call hubris doesn’t consume you, the bastions of your McGill career. More than just being pragmatic options for your wallet, these places are delicious. Try a chicken shawarma, sided by potatoes with garlic sauce at Shawarmania, as a library study break one evening. Flavourful and filling. Be warned though, gum is a requirement if you’re going back to studying (in public) afterwards.

An easy way to tell that these places are great is that they’re growing. Leading the pack is Boustan, a Montreal institution expanding into the US with locations in Florida and New Jersey and more on the way. Boustan has numerous locations near campus, differing both in their design language and (I find) in taste. New locations now have a corporate sheen that is reflected in the food as well, which is somehow less smoky and less fresh. It’s still pretty good. If you’re looking for what I’d consider the best Boust in the city, you have to go to their original location, on Crescent. It’s a small shop compared to newer locations, but it feels larger in spirit. It’s lovingly adorned with photos of politicians and athletes who dined there in days of yore, and its shawarma remains smoky and fresh in a way that brings you back to those days. This may still be set to change: Emad Saad, the current ruler of the Boustan empire, isn’t today looking to slow down anytime soon, and has recently initiated a major corporate rebrand.

If you’re looking for an up-and-comer that’s gone vertical in the past two years, look east from McLennan and see Shawarmania. It’s a family operation, opened in 2024, that is fresher and more full of vegetables than Boustan. It’s more of a meal and less of a treat. Nowadays, there’ll often be a line, but fear not, it moves quick. In the winter, the double doors open to allow in customers, and with them, a glacial breeze — something loyal Shawarmaniacs will know and appreciate to be worth it.

If you’re looking for an under-the-radar classic, see Farrouj Express. A great pick for students living in New Residence and Metro shoppers alike, it’s fresh and unique in flavour (somehow sweet?). It’s also underground, literally and figuratively. Along with great food, the proprietors offer exceptional community. After only a few times eating there, I was a regular, my name and order memorized.

Don’t take the occasional lines and US expansions as signs of an industry without woes, however. Growing industries are cutthroat, and Big Shawarma is no exception. A friend of mine and fellow industry speculator put it aptly: “It’s tough out there, eat or be eaten right now. In an industry like [shawarma], mistakes mean shuttered doors and boarded windows.” Well said.

The best example of this is the sad demise of Basha, once a darling of the shawarma space. With an outpost just a block from New Residence and a stone’s throw away from the McGill Ghetto, Basha had a clear future. It offered a nearly unbeatable trio deal (shawarma, potatoes beverage) at $9.99. Despite basement-low prices (or perhaps because of them) this Basha now sits empty, not even two years after its One Card-fuelled heyday. Its sign, still visible, serves as a vestige of a simpler time. Basha’s second location near campus, on Sherbrooke, is also shuttered. At this location, there’s no evidence that a Basha ever existed. Its walls have been repainted, its tables redone, now with more glamour. Boustan had arrived.

Zooming out, shawarma in Montreal is special for a few reasons (taste, and variety of choice in every neighbourhood, important among them) but mainly because of how neatly it represents a city that we students all too often see as McGill or not. Shawarma itself (from the Turkish word çevirme, for turning) is an evolution of the Turkish döner, which spread across the Levant in the 1800s. This diaspora, which is particularly concentrated within Canada in Montreal (the city contains more than a third of the country’s Arab population) has brought the practice of shawarma with them. As a senior at McGill, I’ve taken the time recently to open my eyes to the city at large. While doing so, I have been struck by an appreciation for its diversity across languages and customs, and its depth of cultural blending. Shawarma is the paragon of this.

As the city grows colder and more forbidding, look local and find warmth in shawarma. The proprietor will ask if you like it spicy, and if you’d like a drink. Regardless of your answer, you’ll be home.

The post Shawarm-off! appeared first on The McGill Daily.

While the Sweeney sparked debate and conversation across the internet, it is only a variation on a theme that has been prevalent for years with the rise of social media. Because many people have access to social media, we are all in constant conversation with and about others’ internet personas and lifestyles. Following Sweeney’s misogynistic and tone-deaf ad, it is necessary to have a conversation about what responsibility women with large followings have to their audiences, which largely comprises young women. Are they required to be their role models? And how should social media users respond to content that objectifies and reduces female athletes to their sexuality?

Amassing thousands to millions of viewers and followers comes with a large responsibility, regardless of whether creators are willing to accept it or not. Creators dictate “trends, livelihoods, and norms about groups of people and ways of life. On Alex Cooper’s podcast Call Her Daddy, pop star Chappell Roan complained about the expectation that female celebrities must “tour, write, perform, interview, sleep, and eat…How can they do it all…and be so politically educated?” While her frustration is valid, the reality is that celebrities should be held to higher standards as their larger platforms have the power to affect large audiences, unlike the average individual. Thus, they should politically educate themselves and fight for what is right. It is precisely because Sweeney has this responsibility that her ad is not simply “playful.” Rather, it actively promotes patriarchal depictions of female athletes for millions of female and male viewers, establishing them as sexual figures rather than competitors to be taken seriously.

The sexualization of female athletes at the expense of acknowledging their skill is a recurring pattern which must be fought in order to ensure social equality in sports and beyond. We see this pattern when “health” influencers, celebrities, and creators choose to promote the importance of bodily aesthetics, appealing to patriarchal expectations of beauty where women must be lean and healthy for male validation. However, this healthiness cannot translate into muscularity, grit, and competitiveness, as these traits are “unfeminine.” Kiara Gaspari from Change Creates Change Eating Disorder Care, an eating disorder treatment centre, argues that “[s]elf-proclaimed health influencers often promote restrictive dietary patterns and extreme fitness regimens under the disguise of a ‘healthy lifestyle’.”

Sweeney’s ad and the world of aesthetic-obsessed health influencers serve as a manifestation of the pervasiveness of patriarchy in female athleticism. This content teaches girls around the world that genuine athleticism — which consists of pain, tenacity, and imperfection — and physical attractiveness are mutually exclusive. We should fight these misogynistic practices and norms by uplifting celebrities, professional athletes, and creators who affirm women’s ability to be athletic, skilled, and strong. British 2:50 marathoner Mary McCarthy is a great example of someone who young girls should look to. She is known for measuring her success against herself and emphatically appreciating people who tell her “I began running because of you.” In response to the Sweeney ad, she made a video that says “Sydney Sweeney, I HATE your ad…we need role models… who value what they can do, NOT what they look like.” Rather than avoiding the responsibility of having an online following McCarthy embraces it. She, and many others, want to push themselves, want to win, want to be role models to young women worldwide.

Part of being a role model to young women and girls is also showing them that beauty can coexist with athleticism. Freestyle Olympian skier Eileen Gu exemplifies this as she is a three- time Gold medalist as well as a model for high-profile brands like Louis Vuitton. Her example demonstrates that celebrities like Sweeney do not have to diminish athletic ability in order to be perceived as beautiful. Sweeney’s ad was particularly problematic as sports industries are entrenched in sexism that affect women and girls’ self- perception as athletes. According to UN Women, by the age of 14, girls drop out of sports at a rate twice as high as boys in their age group.Moreover, 70 per cent of girls “don’t feel they belong in sport due to gender stereotypes.” Sweeney’s salacious advertisement only serves to reinforce these sexist barriers and stereotypes, promoting the untrue notion that women in sports are only sensual and unskilled. This is not only harmful for the millions of girls who already experience pressure to leave sports, it is also harmful as male viewers are further emboldened to discreditand sexualize female athletes.

Sweeney’s ad reduces female athletes to their sexuality and physical attractiveness, diminishing their athleticism and their historical and present-day commitment to fighting for gender equality in the male- dominated sports industry. In doing so, Sweeney reminds society that we must continue fighting for better female representation in sport. It is time that we replace the voices of misogynists with those of incredible female athletes. Women and girls online deserve to see female athleticism for what it truly is: a testament to female grit, beauty, and resilience.

The post Girls Deserve Better: The Online World’s Responsibility to Young Female Athletes appeared first on The McGill Daily.

On December 7, 2025, Crick opened for DeMarco at MTELUS. While such a gig is a remarkable achievement, the significance of this feat seemed to be lost on much of the crowd. Crick noted that while performing his opening set, “the crowd seem[ed] to talk a lot over us,” a distraction which he contrasted with his band’s “very quiet, chill music.”

Crick’s musical language consists of buttery piano licks, introspective lyrics, and measured pacing. He makes music perfect for curling up with a book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. While he doesn’t exactly make moshing music, one would still expect a greater level of respect from the audience, especially from DeMarco’s fans of lo-fi music. Crick even remarked, “[The crowd talking over us did] make me want to write music that people want to dance to.” Nevertheless, his authenticity ultimately shines through, finally settling on the fact that “[he] still want[s] to write chill music.”

This self-assurance has followed Crick throughout his musical career. Crick grew up in Coledale, a small coastal village in Australia’s New South Wales. “When you grow up in a small town,” Crick muses, “everything seems so much grander… you work hard and dream big.” Eventually, those big dreams became reality for Crick. The singer-songwriter had his first taste of musical success right after graduating high school in 2012, when he toured with Australian pop-rock artist, Kirin J. Callinan, as a backing keyboardist and bassist. While on tour, Crick met DeMarco, and the two eventually became close friends after multiple run-ins at stops in the US and Australia. While Crick would send his recordings to DeMarco expecting nothing in return, DeMarco would offer to mix these recordings in his own studio, polishing them for Crick’s sophomore album, Live… In New York City, released in early 2021.

Crick wrote the cozy pop piano album as an ode to day- to-day life in the city, while he trained as a piano repair apprentice. In fact, he recorded the album using the very piano he dragged off the street and repaired himself. In signature Crick style, he mixed it on an vintage eight-track tape player, not owning a computer at the time. Despite being a major milestone in his career, being that this was his first album released under ‘Mac’s Record Label,’ Crick remained humble when discussing the project. “I hadn’t really ever sung — no one in my family knew I [could]. I kind of just recorded the album to see if I could do it.”

Crick’s stripped-back style followed him into Droplet, his most recent project: a mellow album filled with 27 short, delicate piano grooves and instrumentals. Despite its playfulness and dreamy melodies, audiences weren’t as supportive. The album received a 58/100 rating by audiences on Album of the Year, whereas Live… In New York City received a 77/100. He released it while riding the wave of fame that came with signing with Mac and his successful 2023 complete album release, Sweet Dreamin’, so audiences seemed to have been expecting more. Crick described how “It got some weird reviews because people expected it to be Tex’s new album, but to me, this is a fun little soundtrack I did on the side, all recorded on one keyboard. It’s all very simple and raw.”

Just like any other art piece, music is another form of self-expression. Through deliberate technical choices in instrumentation and structure, the artist is able to communicate what they want to express at that moment — a feeling, a thought, an idea. There are no boundaries to what the right kind of music can or should look like: artists can produce atmospheric vocal albums like Live… in New York City or they can also create fun and playful instrumental projects like Droplet.

Crick’s experimentation with the role music plays as an artistic vehicle has incurred less-than-savoury reactions, via critics and audience reactions on tour alike. Yet, many forget that pieces such as these can serve a purpose outside of just instant gratification. Crick hopes that his music can serve as a source of comfort to listeners above all else: “[When listening to my music,] I hope listeners can relax and forget about the stress in their lives. Just enjoy the music.”

Crick’s work reminds us that an artist’s ability to remain authentic in the face of criticism or apathy is of the utmost importance. His musical quirks are precisely what makes him so charming. It’s this timeless quality that comes about because he’s “really terrible at keeping in touch with new music,” that is actually a strength of his rather than a weakness.

Perhaps the audio clips of the bustle of the streets of Manhattan and the clinking of glasses at a classic New York bar featured in Live… In New York City aren’t designed for a live audience performance, but they immerse you in a moment and feeling that you can’t escape while listening. So while Crick’s stripped-back production may sound unpolished to the general public, its raw flair is precisely what makes his work so fresh in a music scene saturated with ultra-polished production.

The post Tex Crick: Indie Through and Through appeared first on The McGill Daily.

As a co-representative for the Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society (AUTS), it was a pleasure to meet everyone that evening and get the chance to speak to students about the many theatrical undergraduate opportunities within AUTS, on the level of performance and production. Alongside Players’ Theatre were other veteran companies like Tuesday Night Café Theatre, McGill Savoy Society, McGill Improv, McGill Comedy Club, and sketch group Bring Your Own Juice. Newly-founded groups Club de Théâtre Francophone de McGill, McGill Chinese Drama, and Exposition Theatre rounded out the presentations, as well as a special message from McGill’s satire magazine, The Plumber’s Faucet. Together, these companies form one of McGill’s liveliest student scenes; one overflowing with creativity, community, and of course, fun.

Partaking in numerous productions as an actor, stage manager, producer, and a director has enriched my university experience far beyond what simply attending classes could do. In my very first semester at McGill, acting in one of Players’ Theatre’s mainstage shows offered me an outlet as I adjusted to university life. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, so I spoke to a few of my peers. When asked what participating in theatre at McGill means to them, the majority echoed similar sentiments.

“I have met some of my favourite people from McGill theatre,” says Odessa Rontogiannis, Finance Director at Players’ Theatre, “and that means a lot to me.”

“The community that has been created throughout all the clubs is great,” says Elias Luz, Publicity Director at Players’ Theatre. “People find common interests, and common ground here, and I think that’s really beautiful and really important. It’s an incredible opportunity to make friends.”

Indeed, the tight-knit theatre community at McGill is special. McGill (and some non-McGill) students across years, programs, and experience levels come together to develop a unified project, pouring their passion and creativity into something outside of school: something just for themselves and their community, offering a creative outlet and a release from the everyday stress of academic life. Luz further notes that McGill theatre is “a great way to dip your toes into the performing arts and try things out. I think that performance and creativity benefit you in your daily life. Being able to work with diverse groups of people is really important.

Similarly, Hodgins adds, “[theatre] really helps me express myself…[and] live for the moments that truly matter.”

Are you convinced? If you are looking to get involved in this community, all of the groups mentioned above are in search of students for all roles within their productions. Whether you’re a designer, an actor, a stage manager, or something in between, there is a place for you. Even if participating in theatre is not your thing, come see a show! Becoming a patron of the theatre is a social and low-stakes way to spend your evenings. All companies have student prices for tickets, as well as pay-what-you-can deals to ensure financial accessibility.

Tuesday Night Café Theatre and Players’ Theatre have their first productions of the year throughout November, and tickets will go on sale late October. No matter your faculty or experience levels, don’t hesitate to get involved with McGill theatre and take your bow. Break a leg!

The post McGill Student Theatre: Beyond Backstage appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Charley Tamagno for The McGill Daily (MD): In The Concordian, you mentioned that you see yourself as an activist first and artist second. What does this distinction mean to you? Would you consider music a medium for your activism?

NIIVI (N): Definitely. I think music is my number one medium for my activism. The most important thing to me is being on the ground and being hands-on involved with the community, because if you’re an activist and you’re not actually doing anything in the community, then it’s just performative.

My activism is my main job. The biggest way I’m doing that right now is teaching at a pre-collegiate CEGEP Prep Institute … I’m teaching precolonial arts and also language revitalization through arts because we have a lot of terminology for art. I work specifically with youth from Nunavik. I also work with Nunavik Pride – I’m one of the founders. My main thing really is trying to better my community through activism.

MD: Do you spend the majority of your time here in Montreal or in Nunavik?

N: I live in Montreal right now because I’m also a student, and all students from Nunavik have to move to the city to have a higher education. I moved here when I was 16 to start going to CEGEP after graduating high school.

MD: Could you tell me your story ofhow you got started with music?

N: With music, it was never really a decision. Music has always been an inherent part of me; not only me as a person, but in my culture as well, even though we’ve lost a lot of our cultural music practices. My father, Ito Snowball, is also a musician. He goes by Sinuupa. I grew up while he was on tour. And so when I was born, it was a given that I would be in music in some way. I was born with the ability to sing. I never really made the decision to actively pursue music. It was just there.

MD: How much of your time do you split between music and being a student?

N: I think, honestly, music takes up more time than me being a student because I am fully self-managed and independent. I book all my own gigs, and that definitely takes up more time than being a student.

MD: I understand that you come from a long line of artists. So who would you say are some of the biggest influences on your music?

N: I would say my father is definitely my number one influence … I listened to a lot of classic rock growing up and punk music. My dad[‘s] own songs sometimes delve into some heavier, even metal genres, and his lyrics have always been political. I think my lyrics reflect that, and I was influenced by that in my own writing style – having a very political storytelling approach. For broader influences, I would definitely say Tanya Tagaq. She is the ultimate alternative artist.. She’s a contemporary throat singer, and she’s super punk, [and] really awesome, and I got to get close to her this last year. She’s been such a big supporting factor to me, and I’ve always just really looked up to her since I was little. I would also say Beatrice Deer. She is another Inuk artist from Nunavik, I grew up with because she’s friends with my dad. I have gotten closer to her since I moved to Montreal because she lives here now. She is an incredible…multidisciplinary artist… and I would love to be her. When it comes to musical influences, I would definitely say … Ribbon Skirt [and] Ethereal Tomb.

MD: How does your experience growing up in Nunavik currently influence your songwriting and performances?

N: I think my experience as Inuk influences every aspect of my music, even when the subject matter isn’t necessarily about being Inuk, I just am Inuk. My experience influences the way that I live my life and [how] I am treated in life as well … Every single part of my music is influenced by my indigeneity. Growing up in Nunavik, my family really highlighted the importance of our history, and not only the history of our colonization … but the pre-colonial history: the art, the culture before we lost it. It really highlighted the importance of language and cultural revitalization … Always the number one priority was … the survival of our culture. And I think that reflects in my music as well.

MD: How would you say that you incorporate your culture into your music?

N: The opening song on our album is … an ancient, traditional song – it’s so old that even the Inuktitut in it is an ancient Inuktitut. I start the show in a drum circle, and I sing the song in this drum circle with the crowd, and then I run up on stage, and we all come in in the middle of the song as a band and continue it. It highlights the importance of tradition and culture, and we can honour [it] by starting every show with that. It’s only something we can do whenever we have the space to do it, because I have to be able to get on the ground and interact with people in the drum circle. Also, it jumps into a more modern aspect with the full band right in the middle of it. So, it’s highlighting the way that we can keep traditions while also being progressive.

And then also my throat singing, that’s an ancient part of our culture. It’s one of the things that has been heavily intertwined with my life because I’ve been throat singing since I was 4 years old. I learned how to throat sing before I even knew how to sing in the usual sense. I really love including throat singing in my songs, and I also think it includes a very unique part to the sound.

MD: Have you found performing in Montreal different than when you’ve been in the north?

N: I think the main difference is being in Montreal, I feel the sense of responsibility to explain. A lot of the people here don’t even know that we [Inuit] exist, even though we’re in the same province. It’s really weird to live in this disconnect because I know so much about Indigenous people and my culture and even other indigenous cultures…. You have to be educated in order to survive as an Indigenous person today. But then you come to the city and then everyone is absolutely clueless about Indigenous people, and there’s even people who don’t know that you exist, who don’t think or don’t even know that Indigenous people still exist. A lot of people think that we’re extinct because of colonization. It’s crazy, the amount of ignorance and unknowingness of the public here. When I’m in Montreal or in any city, I treat my shows as a history lesson where I explain the context of the songs in a brief way just to be able to introduce people to this concept, and maybe open their minds and their curiosity to going and learning about it.

MD: What has been your community’s response to your music?

N: There’s definitely mixed reviews. Nunavik is still extremely Christian, and there is a lot of homophobia and fear of difference – there is even a fear of our culture because we were so indoctrinated into Christianity. A lot of older Inuit still believe that our culture is the mark of Satan. A lot of older Inuit still think that practicing our culture even throat singing, is satanic. And so there are a lot of [people] that are still scared of their own culture. It’s really difficult, and it’s sad to see. Youth are getting out of that idea, but, as a teacher of youth, you can still see this ideology affects them. Shamanism is definitely the number one, most feared thing of our culture because we were taught that it was satanic and that even if you talk about it you’re going to hell. So, even youth, whenever you say the word shaman, they get scared and they freeze up and you have to reassure them: “No, it’s okay, it’s okay to talk about these things.” These things are not scary. This is part of who we are and it’s a beautiful thing. We’re still so affected by colonization [and] Christianity that we have this fear of difference, and almost this fear of ourselves. But whenever I do get support from my community — and I do have a lot of it, I do — it makes me feel as though I’m doing the right thing.

MD: How does being both queer and Indigenous show up in your work and your activism?

N: I’m two-spirit, but in a more feminine way. In my culture, being two-spirit is about carrying two spirits with you. I was given my great grandmother’s name, Jenny Snowball, to carry with me. And then I have my own spirit of Niivi. I don’t know if I’ve talked about it specifically in my music, but I definitely advocate for queer people a lot. I do a lot of activism for queer Inuit specifically because I grew up thinking that there was something wrong with me because there’s absolutely zero Inuk queer representation. The only reason why I felt like it was okay was because there was one other queer person in my community who was trans, my chosen brother … [My chosen brother and his friend] put on the first ever Pride parade in 2020, and I joined them the next year, and we helped create the Nunavik Pride organization. One of the most important things is just having that representation and being a queer Inuk that is visible in the community, because there are so many queer Inuit who think that it’s just not possible. There’s so much misinformation: whenever someone comes out as queer in our community, [people claim] it’s not traditional, and that’s just not true. That’s just Christianity speaking, and Christianity is not our culture. We’ve had Christianity for a while, but it’s not our culture. In our original culture we had space for queer people, they were in fact important members of our society. Even our creation story is one that is extremely queer.

MD: Who is in the band for NIIVI?

N: My bandmates right now: Ollie Capello. She’s the bassist. She’s amazing; she’s also the best visual artist ever. She’s a painter and that’s her main thing – she actually painted the album cover that we’re gonna use, and she’s probably the best visual artist that I know. Kirk Koshkin, our guitarist, he’s also the lead singer and guitarist of his own band called Honey, which is how I found him. Our current drummer right now is Emilio, from a Montreal band called Dollhouse, which is also another incredible band. It’s really nice to be so involved in the Montreal music scene and have this community of musicians. It’s the only way that I felt comfortable living in Montreal. When I first moved to Montreal from my hometown, I really hated it, because it felt so individualistic compared to coming from a very communitarian place.

MD: If someone were looking to delve into the world of artists from Nunavik, who would you recommend?

N: I obviously first have to say my dad, his artist name is Sinuupa. My favorite song by my dad is “Simple Man” off his Arctic Darkness album. It’s so, so 90s. And also “Make Her Happy.” That song is from the same album. It’s a musician song – there’s saxophone, flat bass, background singers – that song is just crazy.

And then I would say Beatrice Deer. My favorite album of hers is her newest one, the Inuit Legends album. I got to open for her release show that she did here in Montreal. I absolutely love it. It’s basically a bunch of songs telling the story of traditional Inuit legends and it’s incredible. Then I would also have to say my cousin, Kathy Aputirajuk – it’s our original last name before the government decided it was going to be Snowball. Those would be my main three from Nunavik that I would recommend.

The post NIIVI: A Queer Indigenous Musician on Representation and Her Experience appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The Roundhouse, which is right outside the Atwater Station exit in Cabot Square, does not possess the lavishly decorated storefront you might imagine with a typical cafe; nor is it, like other cafes situate along the bustling Rue Sainte-Catherine, sandwiched between a myriad of fluorescently-lit stores. Rather, it operates out of a stone gazebo structure that one might not even recognize as a cafe at first glance. With no easily visible signage or in-house seating, the cafe is evidently meant for those who know to look for it.

And who would know to look for it? According to L’Itinéraire’s website, The Roundhouse’s primary mandate is to promote interactions between various Indigenous communities. This demographic was reflected in the individuals populating the small, jewel-toned round tables outside the cafe. The lunch rush meant that my food got served after a 30-minute wait, yet it was graciously topped off with a free bannique sucrée (“sweet bannock” pastry) for our patience.

I ordered an Indigenous Taco: bannock bread stuffed with juicy ground beef and topped with diced tomatoes and sour cream. Justin got a cappuccino and a BLT between two pieces of bannock bread. A key symbol of Indigenous culinary identity, bannock bread has historically been a quick and effortless source of carbohydrates, especially in times of hardship and food rationing. Before European settlers arrived in Montreal, Indigenous peoples made bread out of dried camas bulbs, which were then flattened and baked. Later, English and Scottish traders arrived and introduced bannock, an unleavened flour, which Indigenous peoples began to incorporate into their recipes. Now, bannock bread is an important dish in Indigenous cuisine, its recipe having been tweaked and perfected over centuries. Justin remarked on its slightly olive-y notes and density in his BLT. Meanwhile, I noticed an imbued smokiness that was brought out in the bannique sucrée, which was dotted with cranberries and white chocolate.

This was supposed to be an article reviewing the cafe, simply detailing my first time trying Indigenous food and promoting the presence of establishments that offer it, given that they are few and far between. However, as Justin and I sat at Square Cabot that fine Thursday afternoon, other things became apparent to us: the amount of police presence in a relatively peaceful park in broad daylight, the tents of the unhoused that peppered the area, and the array of interactions between Indigenous peoples in the hour and a half we spent there.

As I would come to learn, Cabot Square is a site where many Indigenous people congregate to resist political structures and mobilize amongst themselves. The Cabot Square Project, launched in 2014 by the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal (NWSM), aims to provide support, safety, and advocacy for vulnerable populations in and around Cabot Square. The Roundhouse is directly involved in the fulfilment of these objectives: it uniquely employs Indigenous people, many of whom are unhoused and/or under vulnerable circumstances. In fact, a 2023 report from the government of Quebec showed that 13 per cent of Montreal’s unhoused population identified as Indigenous, despite Indigenous people only comprising 0.6 per cent of Montreal’s overall population. Therefore, issues of homelessness and Indigenous marginalization can be understood as highly intertwined.

In addition, due to gentrification in Ville-Marie, more and more unhoused people are being pushed into Cabot Square. A volunteer for Resilience Montreal, an Indigenous-led organization that aims to support unhoused and Indigenous people in the area, told the Daily how gentrification in Ville-Marie had systematically displaced many unhoused people. According to her, this was done in an effort to raise estate value and quell dissent from business owners, who view unhoused people as liabilities. This also explains the police presence Justin and I noticed in the otherwise serene park, instead of along the busy adjacent road.

Cabot Square, then, is a space defined by contradiction. It is meant to be a place where unhoused Indigenous people can seek refuge and community; however, it is also where their behaviour and bodies are most surveilled and disciplined. Significantly, Cabot Square is also representative of the place that Indigenous people occupy in the greater Canadian social sphere: present, but hidden from plain sight, sidelined into corners that then come to be understood as places to be avoided. This is especially ironic considering that Canada as we know it stands on unceded Indigenous land. Indigenous people are deprived of ownership of and autonomy on land that was once theirs, all while colonial mentalities which paint Indigeneity as a threat are continually reproduced, intentionally or not.

Nonetheless, we observed the hope and everyday joys ever-present in this space. People basked in the early autumn sunlight and its temporary warmth, chatting warmly and loudly. One of the employees at The Roundhouse showed us a painting he had made that read, “Happiness is not a destination, but a way of life.” While the sun is out and the “feels like” figures are above freezing, consider taking a trip down to Cabot Park and The Roundhouse cafe (if you can find it). The food is cheap, good, and most importantly, full of heart.

The post Roundhouse Kicks appeared first on The McGill Daily.

In a CBC interview on The Bridge radio show, Kuujjuaq based artist Thomas Whiteley (ᑖᒥᓴ) describes how “a lot of effort…[has been done] to bring [dog sledding] back, but it hasn’t come back in the same way.” This is where Whiteley’s art comes in, integrating, on the one hand, traditional Inuit knowledge (qaujimajatuqangit in Inuktikut) and, on the other, contemporary art spaces.

This integration is notably evident in Whiteley’s first solo exhibit, “Qamutik,” at La Guilde, a non-profit art museum spotlighting the heritage of Indigenous and female artists. At La Guilde, Whiteley’s exhibit centres on a nearly 4-metre-long dog sled known as a qamutik, featuring “scenes of northern life…and animals.” These scenes are carved out onto the qamutik’s wooden panels and used as stamp templates to transfer the images using ink onto Japanese paper, “giving premium results… [as opposed to] linoleum,” says Whiteley. Whiteley, and his mentor, Nadine Bariteau, took two years to curate the exhibition. Bariteau taught Whiteley his printmaking skill set, as “there were no [printmaking] studios in Kuujjuaq.” However, prints have always been present in Whiteley’s worldview; “they’ve always been in our homes,” he further emphasized, “it felt like Inuit art was printmaking and stone carvings, so it felt natural going back to that…because it was always present.” Carving was specifically passed down patrilineally in Whiteley’s family, with his father and grandfather also being woodworkers. The material has a life of its own; the wood, Whiteley elaborates, “is alive…it’s got cracks, it’s lived.” This element of vitality is further enhanced by storytelling when carving iconography. Whiteley describes how the qamutik —a being with a mouth, on the front of the skis, and panels on its sides, — is “the bowels of the beast.” In this way, the wooden carvings capture mobility complementary to the practical use of qamutik for qimutsik.

Hence, qaujimajatuqangit directly relates to Whiteley’s lived experience, in which he grew up in “disconnect,” splitting his time between Nunavik in the north of Quebec and Quebec City in the south of the province. This distance was mended once he permanently moved to Kuujjuaq as an adult. In this way, “the land inspired the artwork…[meaning there] couldn’t be one without the other.”

Whiteley’s prints also have a life of their own, as seen in “The Eternal Battle Between Dog and Raven.” In this work, the raven (tulugaq in Inuktikut), who has both a role in Inuit creation stories and as a “trickster” in a multitude of Indigenous tales, appears to either be giving or taking food from the qimmik. While the food appears to be grain-like per the raven’s diet, the lettering featured at the bottom of the print denotes a “battle” between the animals, illustrating a conflict of interest. One can infer that instead of offering food to the raven, the food may be taken from the qimmik without their consent. This is particularly significant considering the raven’s shapeshifting role as a “trickster” enables it to morph into human form, meaning that the “battle” between raven and qimmik is also that of man and qimmik, which can directly refer to the qimmik massacre. Although not explicitly stated, the raven’s deception may parallel the state’s “betrayal…[to] live in partnership with Inuit” and its failure to apologize for the qimmik massacre until 2024.

Moreover, the qamutik carvings are more than just tangible art; they are also vessels “of knowing.” As previously mentioned, the qamutik is a sled and thus, also has a practical purpose. The qamutik bridges art and utility as seen when Whiteley rode the sled with his cousin’s sled dog team (qimutsiit in Inuktikut) in the exhibition’s film. According to the Inuktitut glossary at La Guilde, dog sledding is “the action of mushing, or using a dog team and dog sled for transportation, entertainment, or sport.”

Without the qimutsiit, Inuit people were severed from a core aspect of their identities Whiteley illustrates how the partnership with the dogs meant security when hunting, freedom of mobility, self-determination for “men…to provide for their families,” and most of all, access to the land. Correspondingly, the qimmik massacre led to forced displacement and food insecurity.

Ultimately, “dogs couldn’t have lived without us, and we couldn’t have survived without them,” said Whiteley. “Dogs are partners, not pets …It’s a symbiotic relationship.” Whiteley additionally described how one can lose their cultural traditions if they do not practice them. This sentiment best informs the importance of Whiteley’s work to revitalize “dog sledding and that kind of partnership between dog and human.”

The post The Art of Inuit Self Determination appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Despite McCamman’s recent success, his path to gaining momentum in the indie world wasn’t straightforward. As recently as 2024, he was feeling increasingly stifled playing guitar in the Philadelphia punk band Blood, despite the group having released a full-length album and built a small fanbase. He took a risk by leaving the band later that year, instead moving to New York to be the frontman of his own project: Victoryland.

The ambition which led him into leaving Blood and starting Victoryland drove him apart from many of his musical peers in Philadelphia. But two years on from that move, it has become apparent that he made the right decision. Following the release of My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It, LCD Soundsystem’s frontman James Murphy took a liking to Victoryland, eventually giving them the opportunity to open for the legendary New York band’s North American tour. Their first stop was in Vancouver, where Radio TinTin had the chance to speak to McCamman about what some would call his selfish decision to leave Blood and found Victoryland, pursuing the goal of making “perfect” pop music.

A musician’s decision to leave their band is often characterized as ‘selfish’, and it’s easy to see how an artist could take offense at being described this way. Yet McCamman readily agreed with the label: “I like that you called it selfish, honestly… because it was. I think the inception of this project was me starting to prioritize my own songwriting over songwriting for [Blood], which had been restricting my creative urge to write true hits and accessible [pop] music.”

The abrasive punk sound of his previous band eventually became limiting for McCamman, although it took him a while to realize the appeal of a more “mainstream” outlook. “When I was younger, I really loved experimental music, and I really liked challenging myself [with it],” he recalls. “But when I got older, I think I realized that it takes a real skill to write a simple song that is really infectious.”

“I love music where every part of the song is really satisfying, and you can really do that with music. I think about that a lot — how music can be ‘perfect.’ The appeal of what he calls “perfect” music soon became a fixation for McCamman. “I got really obsessed with how people say they can’t stop listening to a song, and what goes into making [that].”

The notion of “perfection” goes against the grain of most of the independent music realm. Victoryland itself is labeled as an “alternative” band — so how could they be chasing the very “perfection” they’re branded to reject? Their answer is by aligning “perfect” with music that’s accessible, not necessarily mainstream. Making music for the masses doesn’t have to be synonymous with chasing universal appeal or losing creative nuance.

The “perfect” song à la Victoryland can still be deeply authentic, especially in its lyrical content. Using a catchy, danceable pop beat to propose deeper or more psychological themes is something they share with LCD Soundsystem. While the New York band is firmly “alternative,” it’s hard not to dance to singles like the aptly titled “Dance Yrself Clean,” regardless of your musical background.

McCamman loves this dichotomy: “My real hope is that someone is jumping up and down and singing to [our] music, and then slowly realizing what they’re saying is [actually] really gross or violent. Because that is [the] thing about pop music [that] is really interesting to me — the way people feel it before they really hear what is being said.”

The authenticity of Victoryland’s lyrics has become a core feature of their music. The words allow McCamman, a passionate songwriter, to showcase his more unsavoury tastes in a way that to him feels both confrontational and strangely inviting. “If I was to tell you some of the gnarly thoughts I have regularly, I think people would be like, ‘What the hell is wrong with him?’” McCamman says with a chuckle. “But everybody has those thoughts.”

Through Victoryland, McCamman seeks to amplify the uglier thoughts that come with being human. Singles like “Here I Stand” channel that same candour into a disregard for outside expectations, turning the abstract aversion into something blunt and immediate. In it, McCamman sings: “Here I stand / Whoever said it’s foolish / Fuck you and everyone else.”

Victoryland’s pursuit of perfection is one that not many are willing to take on, and McCamman is intent on pushing back against the indifference toward ambition that has taken hold in younger creative circles. “The poison of nonchalance and people who are ‘too cool for school’ are everywhere, especially on the East Coast,” McCamman explains, “I really hate that shit.” He pauses, then reiterates emphatically: ”I hate that shit.”

He continues: “Because if you fail and you weren’t trying to appease people, then you didn’t really fail, right? And there’s a failsafe, like, it’s like, ‘Oh, I failed? I didn’t try that hard,’” he says with a shrug. “And, well, you should try for something big and fail really hard, you know? An awesome failure is better than a safe layup. You just might as well go big.”

In terms of his creative ambitions, McCamman leaves no space for guesswork. He is continuing to strive towards making ‘perfect’ music, according to his own definition.

The post Victoryland: The Selfish Pursuit of Perfect Music appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Burnside elaborates: “It’s exciting — like with my favourite artists, every time they release a new record, I wanna be like ‘What?’” — his face contorts with a mixture of confusion and disgust — “I want to ask myself, ‘What is this?… They must’ve lost their minds.”

As Burnside alludes to, artists pushing the limits of their musical experimentation can often come at the cost of losing fans. The Strokes are one notable example, having recently altered their sound against the expectations of many of their listeners. Their latest album, Reality Awaits, released in late July, provoked mixed reactions from critics and fans alike. In addition to being touted as the “auto-tune” album, it features a prominent diss to popular music critic Anthony Fantano in the song “Lonely in the Future.” Reality Awaits has achieved an undeniable prominence in the Strokes’ discography — one that can be seen as either a jarring break or a welcome breath of fresh air from the rest of their work depending on the individual listener.

“Every songwriter I know is always trying to challenge and push themselves, some more than others,” says Burnside, “but it’s rare to meet anyone who wants to do the same thing over and over again”.

The reactions of fans, whether positive or negative, can be used as a gauge by artists to test whether they are pushing the boundaries of their own musical landscape to a sufficient extent. While Burnside himself hasn’t been tinkering with the wonders of auto-tune, he has been experimenting with a different emotional palette. His latest record, titled It’s Not Going to be Okay, marks a morbid turn from the more wistful, subdued tone of the rest of his catalogue. Written and recorded in the wake of the death of his best friend, Dean Jendoubi, Burnside used the project to process his grief. Centering an entire record around mortality marked a new direction for Burnside, one he deems significant to
his artistic development.

“You know…you understand how music works after a while, and how melodies and emotions intertwine. Music is like magic, isn’t it? It’s just like trickery. You’re tricking someone’s brain into feeling certain emotions with melodies and chords. But you have to kind of go, ‘Okay, don’t do that. You’ve done that before, or you’ve heard that before. Do try and do something else.’”

Making music that deviates from the norm is a deliberate craft. Commercial success in the music industry can often be crafted from a set of predetermined components that have been shown to work. There are identical melodies in hundreds of songs topping the charts (such as the pervasive “Gen Alpha melody”).

After more than a decade of releasing music, Burnside knows the “formulas” for gaining an audience. “You know all the tricks. You can do all the nice stuff, but you don’t. [In] so much music I listen to, you’re expecting this particular melody, [but] they went the other way even though it’s not as nice. It’s not as ‘done,’” he explains. “They chose to do the sort of grosser thing. And you’re like, ‘ah…I respect it.’ And then you grow to love it.”

In order to be appreciated, music relies on the interaction between the artist and listener, meaning that to some extent artists have to balance taking creative risks with maintaining a universality of appeal to the audience. For Burnside, that conflict is constant in his creative process.

“It’s so hard, when you’re making the music, to choose those paths sometimes. You’re like, ‘if I land on the four [chord] here and do this melody, it’d be really tasty…’ but it’s probably [already] been done. It’s hard to choose the path less taken,” he concedes.

Later, Burnside used the age-old adage “with great power comes great responsibility.” Artists like him maintain the cultural core of our society, wielding their craft to shape people’s everyday emotions. With the current state of our society making it increasingly enticing for people to retreat into the comfort of media and art, artists must continue exercising their creative influence in a meaningful way. Joshua Burnside, for one, keeps us wondering what he’s going to take on next — and how he is going to continue challenging his devoted fanbase, who for now seems to have withstood his attempts to drive them away.

The post The Art of Losing Listeners appeared first on The McGill Daily.

New York City is the City That Never Sleeps. Paris is the City of Light. Chicago is the Windy City. And, according to Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks (2025), Montreal is a City To Waste Away In, before maturing to the Big Kid City: Toronto.

I caught wind of this film in April 2026, a few months into my exchange semester in Melbourne, Australia. As a Montrealer born and raised, I took it upon myself to rave about my city to my peers on exchange who, if they knew anything about Montreal, labelled it “Canada’s French city.” I had hoped that a movie like Mile End Kicks could provide a nuanced, thought-provoking depiction of a city as unique as its namesake. It did not meet my expectations.

Mile End Kicks features Grace Pine (Barbie Ferreira), a music critic in her early twenties from Toronto who moves to Montreal to write a book on Alanis Morissette. She meets a cast of Canadians immersed in Mile End’s underground music scene. Set in 2011, the film presents a view of Montreal that both glorifies it as the only Canadian city where art can thrive, while also nullifying and reducing the city to drugs, parties, and rude French speakers. The movie misses the mark on what could have been a great way to break barriers between the Canadian anglophone and francophone worlds. Mile End Kicks uses Montreal as the backdrop to a mildly likeable protagonist’s foray into independence, simplistically reducing the city to a music scene built for Albertan male artists feigning tortured souls.

To its credit, the film accurately conveys the highs and lows of moving to a new city as a young person. Following my brief move to Melbourne, I am no stranger to embracing a city head on without fully grasping its culture. Grace is easily swayed by people who act like they know what they are doing. She holds the misconception that moving to a city known for being a centre of the arts, or a place to fall in love, means that every piece of her life will fall into place.

Archie (Devon Bostick), a Prince Edward Islander guitarist and Grace’s eventual love interest, declares Montreal the antithesis of Toronto, describing the two cities as youthfully creative and corporately bleak, respectively. Quebec’s metropolis is consistently reduced to a melting pot for free-spirited, artistic Canadians who will eventually desert it to return to what constitutes real life. However, by the end of the film, Archie consoles Grace by saying that all her tribulations in Montreal would have happened just the same if she had stayed in Toronto, ironically effacing the previously emphasized notion of Montreal’s singularity. Ultimately, since barely any aspect unique to Montreal itself was discussed throughout the film besides its so-called esotericism, I was ultimately led to wonder why the movie was even set here in the first place.

Grace’s grasp of Montreal is also coloured by her exposure to people from Quebec — only two of the main characters. Her roommate Madeleine (Juliette Gariépy) welcomes her to their Saint-Urbain apartment with open arms, a kindness she later takes for granted. While Grace does attempt to learn French, importantly highlighting the need to learn Quebec’s only official language, the film plays into stereotypes of Quebecois people being rude or unsavoury to English-speakers. From the get-go, Madeleine’s boyfriend Hugo (Robert Naylor), describes Grace, in French, as an “anglo” who is “colonizing” Quebec. An opportunity for productive dialogue is missed here, as Hugo’s prejudice against Grace is never addressed or corrected. Moreover, his disdain for her makes less sense when one considers that all his bandmates are also from other Canadian provinces.

Grace asks Archie why “French people,” (the conflation of French and francophone is not lost on me) hate her. He replies that they do not hate her, rather that they do not care about her, and goes on a tirade about needing to speak French to get a job. This scene could have been a learning moment, for Grace and for audiences alike, of the historical framework for such language laws. Instead, Archie’s pejorative attitude toward learning French in a French-speaking province adds fuel to the fire of longstanding misunderstandings. The film does little to ease, or even simply address, the depth of these century-old tensions.

There is a lack of contextualization for anything Montreal. Grace visits an iconic Montreal bagel shop, St-Viateur Bagel, which is oddly empty despite the usual hefty queue at the door. The shop fades into the background of the scene, and so the film misses a talking point regarding Montreal’s culinary history. The Mile End is a hub for young creatives, but the film seldom mentions that the neighbourhood was also built on and sustained by the immigration of Hasidic Jewish and Greek communities, to name a few. The characters scarcely mention any landmarks nor do they really discuss anything other than their own drama. Obviously, this movie is a coming-of-age one, but in spite of it being a film about Montreal, there isn’t a lot of the actual city in it.

For all my qualms with this non-Montreal Montreal, Grace’s time in the city is similar to many McGillians’ and other young adults’ experience. A common topic of conversation on the McGill Reddit page is that students from out of town fail to really leave the Plateau, Milton-Parc, and Mile End area. Young people are not necessarily to blame for this limitation. It’s only natural to want to stay in a safe and fun bubble. Still, there are so many other parts of Montreal to be explored and appreciated; like the centenary houses of Westmount or the crowded Beaubien Street restaurants of Rosemont. For those who live or choose to stay in Montreal, life goes on beyond dimly-lit basement concerts, hangovers, and bagel runs. This film starts and ends with the idea that Montreal is a sort of ahistorical fantasy land for young people to dream in before reality kicks in and they return to their hometowns.

My bone to pick with Mile End Kicks is not related to the plotlines of the movie, but the minimal spotlighting on what I think should have been of central focus: the city on which the whole movie is meant to be based. The movie may be an accurate survey of many young people’s move to a new city. Nonetheless, I left the film with the bad aftertaste of seeing an unsatisfactory depiction of my city, which is as complex as the people that make it up.

The post A (Not-So) Montreal Story appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Charley Tamagno for the McGill Daily (MD): What’s the day-to-day of an RLF like?

Ksenia Boyer Voutova (KBV):

Right now it’s a lot more intense because we’re doing Welcome Week. Being an RLF feels more like an extracurricular than a job. Because it’s part-time, I still have a busy academic and social life. When I’m working, there’s a lot of different tasks – we either have events or office hours. For the events, we plan them and have to attend them. The office hours can happen from 9 to 5 every weekday. During office hours, you work on project planning and advertisements – whether that be making a poster on Canva, making a reel, [or] replying to student questions on Instagram. We have a lot of meetings, whether that be with our manager or with our teams. There we discuss feedback and brainstorm our next events.

MD: How do the first two weeks differ from the rest of the year?

Olivia Morawetz (OM): You work pretty much full time. Usually, throughout the rest of the year, you work six to 10 hours, and then in the first few weeks you’re working 40 hours. So it’s a full-time gig.

MD: Do you feel like these first two weeks are more rewarding than the rest of the year because you’re really meeting the students? Can you see yourself having an impact?

OM: The first few weeks are definitely the best in terms of visibility. We do hall meetings, where we talk to every single student in the building, and that’s really motivating in terms of making sure that they know who we are and know that we exist. During the rest of the year, attendance really goes down, and it makes you feel like nobody wants to attend events anymore. At the beginning of the year, people are really, really motivated to go to events and meet people and see us and find out who we are.

KBV: I would say there’s still some events in the middle of the year that feel more rewarding than others, especially big ones where you go out of the residence or on trips. You feel more connected to the community.

MD: What kinds of questions are people asking?

OM: Mostly about logistics, either the rules of residence or the events themselves.

KBV: Sometimes they can ask us questions unrelated to residence life, just [because] we’re upper year students at McGill.

OM: I wish more students knew that RLFs are a resource of upper year students who can answer questions about registering for classes or homework or certain subjects. Last year in Upper Residence we did study hall events that were specifically for studying. We would post “I’m going to be at the study hall today, and I’m studying biology,” so that students who study biology can come and ask that person for help.

MD: What was your experience with Floor Fellows in place of RLFs? Do you think there really is a tangible difference between the two?

Note: Before the 2023-2024 school year, Floor Fellows were upper-year students who lived with residents year-round in residences, working more hours than RLFs in addition to being a 24/7 support system. McGill terminated the Floor Fellow program ahead of the 2024-2025 school year.

OM: It’s not just not living in residence — the job changed a considerable amount. There were some union restrictions the first year [after the switch] that made it so that we weren’t allowed to do any job that the Floor Fellows did. We weren’t allowed to put door decorations up because that was something the Floor Fellows did. [Now] it feels a lot more interactive. We have a number of required monthly events. My Floor Fellow didn’t do any events, so I never saw him after the initial meeting at the beginning of the semester. It was very hands-off. The only people that were running consistent events were the council, which I was on. RLFs are definitely more connected and
interacting with the resident community than the Floor Fellows were.

MD: Do you feel like it’s hard to odd template

actually make a connection with the community?

OM: It depends on the person. Yes, because there are specific residents or groups of residents that don’t interact with us at all, and that’s fine. But there are definitely people who I’ve found, after a few years of doing this, who will come to as many events as they can because they just like having free events that they can attend.

MD: How do you pitch events to first years, and is it important for them to attend those events?

OM: I feel like something we’ve been trying to do more recently is asking first years what things they want to see. I think asking students what events they want to see is important, and a lot of them don’t realize that they can message us and be like, “Hey, I want to do a masquerade ball,” and we’ll be like, “Okay, we’ll try and do that.”

Feedback is a really important part of the job. Even when they designed the project planning template, feedback was built into it. You have to write down feedback after every single event. They started doing the symposium last year, which is a place where all the RLFs go to present their most successful and least successful events of the year, and provide feedback on how those went. Then we could take events from other RLFs.

MD: How do you get inspiration for different events?

KBV: A lot of the time, it’s just things we want to do. We all have different hobbies, so Olivia wants to do something and then I want to do something and then we end up having two different events.

OM: Or in previous years we’ve had really good cultural diversity [on the RLF team]. We had specific cultural events because we had people on the team that were part of those communities and were able to let us know that these things were happening.

MD: Do you have a favorite memory or a favorite event?

OM: Well, we did a formal last year, which was our biggest event, and it had a really good turnout in November, which is really rare for our late events. Usually by the end of the first semester, attendance starts to dwindle a little bit because people have made their own friends or it’s exam season and they don’t want to go to things. We had a bar where we had a menu of mocktails that we made [and] we ordered 50 pounds of sushi. It was insane. I was like a waiter running around with sushi. We had a dance floor. We hired a DJ who was a student in Upper. Some guy showed up with a saxophone at one point and was playing that on the dance floor. People were attending it because of the event. Obviously, with that many moving parts, things are bound to go wrong. But the things that went right outweighed the things that went wrong by a million times, and it was a really, really successful event.

KBV: I loved going to the PWHL [Professional Women’s Hockey League] game. It was really fun because it was just different. For a lot of students, it was their first time seeing a hockey game. That was my first time seeing a hockey game. What’s good about these events is that students are able to try out new things.

MD: Is there anything else you would like to add?

OM: I love my job. I love my team.

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