2023 Opinion

By Rylie Lockerman As the highly anticipated live action Barbie awaits its release to theaters, we fortunately were fed a piece of what the movie experience will be like with the soundtrack. I made no hesitation to dissect and replay the songs. 9 to 5 Dolly Parton Much like Barbie, Dolly Parton is an insanely successful and talented woman who with no doubt has introduced country music to me as such a deep, uplifting genre. 9 to 5 was the first track of hers that reeled me in and kept me for years to come. While the movie won’t be…

By Hannah Joo and Becca Jolly We hate coffee.  On our journey to becoming coffee lovers, we decided to go to Starbucks. We asked the barista to make us a drink that coffee haters would like. She gave us a brown sugar, oat milk iced blonde espresso. Starting off with appearance, the drink was creamy brown ombre with ice. Visually, the drink was very pretty. It made us feel like cool coffee girls. However, it looked a little bland and basic. We rated the appearance an 8 of 10. Our drink smelled like cinnamon and almond milk, with a traditional…

By Kylee Crisswell, Yukon High School Similar to how wind can carry waves softly and peacefully, music can carry emotion. The sound of music wading in the listener’s ear can be comforting. However, looking past the surface, there are often more complexities and rough edges waiting to be discovered underneath the water.  Zach Bryan is an artist from Oologah, although he was born in Japan. The artist found his start in music by releasing songs online through YouTube. This began with him and his friends uploading music on YouTube in 2017. His debut album is one that the artist dedicated to…

By Kylee Crisswell, Yukon High School  Culture and demographics often shape a person’s ideology. What people are raised to believe is what people believe. What people believe ties back into how they perceive the world around them. What happens when people are encouraged to question things? What happens when people start questioning what they have always known?  Elizabeth Acevedo was born Feb. 15, 1988, and today she is known as a Dominican poet and author. More specifically, her books focus on the genre of young adult novels. The poetry foundation named her the year’s Young People’s Poet Laureate in 2022.…

By Becca Jolly, Harding Charter Preparatory, Oklahoma City Taylor Swift shocked fans with the re-release of her third album Speak Now on July 7. Call me a hater, but this album has always been lower on my rankings. I don’t even know why because I love so many songs. Many fans, including myself, were surprised and upset by “Better Than Revenge (Taylor’s Version)”.  The original lyrics are “She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress.” The new lyrics are “He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches.” Fans on TikTok went ballistic over this. Some were…

By Jensen McKey, Epic Charter Schools “Across the Spider-Verse” was a highly anticipated film, which caused many people to inflate their expectations, and ultimately be disappointed. The movie had amazing characters, including a “spider society” where different versions of Spider-Man/woman all interacted, and worked together to keep the spider verse from collapsing. There are thousands of characters in this movie, but the most notable are “Team Miles” and “Team Miguel.”  Team Miles includes Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, Hobie Brown, Pavitr Prabhakar, Penni Parker, Peter B Parker, Spider Noir (Peter Parker) and Spider-Ham.  Miles’ World is designed in the classic comic OK…

By Madisson Cameron, Mustang High School Billie Eilish released her song and music video for What Was I Made For [From the Motion Picture “Barbie”] on July 13. The somber song has a lot of symbolism within the lyrics and the video.  One of the lyrics that sticks out to me is, “Looked so alive, it turns out I’m not real, just something you paid for.” This line can represent many things. Taking into consideration the movie, it could be the realization that Barbie has about the world around her being fake. However, I believe there is a deeper, real world meaning. Celebrities…

By Becca Jolly, Harding Charter Preparatory, Oklahoma City “Guts” by Olivia Rodrigo comes out Sept 8. Rodrigo recently released the first single off this album called “Vampire.” I have been a fan of Rodrigo since she was on the Disney show Bizardvark. I continued to follow her work as she starred on the Disney+ show High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. Since the release of Rodrigo’s debut album “Sour”, many fans, including myself, have been desperately waiting for new music.  I fell in love with “Vampire” the first time I heard it. It has been on repeat ever since.  I’m not…