Two years ago, I embarked on a crusade: I 
removed every social media application from 
my phone save for Snapchat and YouTube. I 
got rid of TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Face-
book, Pinterest — all in an effort to improve my 
mental health and mitigate my growing phone 
addiction. During the pandemic, I would cycli-
cally download and delete these apps, a bit like 
a toxic relationship. Of course, I still have full 
access to some sites like Instagram, Twitter 
and Tumblr on my laptop, so I haven’t totally 
removed myself from the proverbial grid. 
The interactions I was still having with social 
media, either on my computer or on my occasion-
al “cheat days,” were still negatively affecting my 
mental health. I continued to fall prey to the com-
parison and isolation that pervade social media, 
and after some time of quietly dealing with these 
repercussions, my crusade was clocked by a real-
ization. My issues weren’t coming from the social 
media sites themselves, but from the content I 
was seeing on them. My Instagram and TikTok 
feeds were a personal hellhole of unachievable 
beauty standards, upsetting news, even more 
upsetting memes and users flaunting lifestyles I 
could only hope to afford. 
All of this is to say that Instagram, Tumblr 
and TikTok are not inherently bad or bad for 
you, but their algorithms, or how these apps 
decided what content I would and wouldn’t 
see, were bad. Or, more accurately, I had trained 
the algorithm badly. So my crusade changed. I 
was no longer removing these apps from my life 
altogether. Rather, I began asking myself, how 
do I make social media serve me? What I dis-
covered through various guides and videos was 
that it is entirely possible to train my algorithm 
to show me content that improves my time 
online — bands and shows that I like, people 
that represent me and actually good memes. 
So after almost a year and a half of experiment-
ing, I can proudly present four steps on how to 
change your social media algorithm, and what 
this change can do for you. 
1. Budget your likes, follows and comments
We’ll start easy with the foundational step of 
this process — not every single post that comes 
across your feed or messages deserves your 
digital currency. I know, I know, it’s tempting 
to like every Instagram post or YouTube video 
that you click on, whether out of habit or a sense 
of obligation, but this is one of the most damag-
ing things you can do in the quest for the perfect 
algorithm. For example, I couldn’t understand 

why I kept seeing deep-fried TikToks (which 
I, respectfully, hate) on my For You Page, until 
I realized that it was because my roommate 
kept sending me them and I kept liking them. 
So I stopped liking and interacting with them 
entirely. You can’t always stop people from 
sending you posts you may not love on social 
media, but you can mitigate how much you 
interact with that content. By freely giving likes 
and follows to anything and everything, your 
algorithm is more likely to continue showing 
you that same anything and everything, rather 
than curating itself thoughtfully and positively. 
2. Interact with things you’re passionate 
about
My Instagram Explore page used to be a 
messy hodgepodge of anything I paid atten-
tion to beyond a click or a view — hence bud-
geting those likes and shares! Memes or news, 
models or cooking, you name it. It was there, 
and so was I. So, just as I began to turn away 
from giving a like to anything I opened, I start-
ed furiously liking only the content I really 
loved. Any Florence + The Machine post on 
my Instagram Explore page? Like. A “Down-
ton Abbey” scene on my TikTok For You page? 
Comment. Whatever the equivalents are for 
you, start interacting with them when you see 
them on your feed! The more you do that, the 
more your social media algorithm will figure 
out what topics you’re actually interested in 
and start making your feed something you 
actually want to view and interact with. 
3. Follow people who represent you
Social media, for the longest time, fed into 
my own lack of self-confidence. Everywhere 
I turned I was met with Victoria’s Secret 
models and Paris runways and that began to 
destroy me. I don’t say that to slander these 
women — I say it to highlight the difficulty of 
growing up as an imperfect young woman in 
a social media landscape obsessed with being 
perfect. Still, I was the one interacting with 
impossible beauty standards, so one day I 
purged my social media of people who didn’t 
represent me. I turned to following and lik-
ing mid-sized women, writers, body positiv-
ity activists, musicians and anyone who I saw 
myself in. Maybe for you, this means following 
more people of color, individuals with disabili-
ties or members of the LGBTQ+ community. 
Soon, though, your feed could saturated with 
people and accounts that reflect you and 
inspire you to be the best achievable version of 
yourself possible. There’s a way to escape that 
unachievable version of beauty and happiness, 
and all it takes is a reorientation of who you 
allow to grace your social media.

4. Stop hate-following
Why do you still follow that girl from high 
school whose life choices you simply reject? 
Seriously, why? Don’t tell me, I know the 
answer because I did it too — and still do, if I’m 
totally honest. 
I am Sisyphus and hate-following is my boul-
der. 
Why do we do it? Why keep following people 
whose Snapchat stories leave you red in the face 
and with a sour taste in your mouth? For the 
drama, mostly. Getting angry over what some-
one posts is like a hit of adrenaline, but despite 
that fleeting high, it is unhealthy. We are left 
with an overload of negativity invading our 
mental health that can have tangible effects on 
our real life, such as increased anger or obses-
sion with others’ lives. 
How do you think I feel after watching that-
girl-from-high-school’s Instagram story? Not 
any better about myself, I can tell you that. 
Unfollow the people you know you can’t stand 
— I’ll do it if you do — and, if you still crave a bit 
of drama, vent to a roommate or watch “River-
dale.” That’s what I do. 
***
It’s no secret that social media can have 
negative effects on mental health — we’ve 
known this for a long time. Social media sites 
are “designed to be addictive and are associat-
ed with anxiety, depression, and even physical 
ailments,” and can instigate jealousy toward 
others or a crippling sense of FOMO — “Fear 
of Missing Out” for those of you who missed 
the memo. It is difficult to express, personally, 
how growing up in the social media age was 
damaging to my perception of self and the out-
side world, and I know I’m not alone in feeling 
this. 
However, half this battle is what we con-
sume on social media, not just the consump-
tion itself. I understand that, and because it 
would be foolish of me to suggest that we all 
delete all of our social media all at once, I want 
others to understand this as well. Today we are 
all so deeply invested in our online presence, 
and considering we spent over two hours on 
social media every day in 2020, I don’t see this 
investment losing traction. If we’re going to 
continue to live in the virtual landscape, why 
shouldn’t we make it as comfortable and safe 
as possible? It takes time and honestly a lot of 
concentrated effort to create a welcoming and 
positive digital environment for oneself, but 
that time and effort are more than worth it in 
the long run. 

“Eternals” was always bound to be 
weird.
First and foremost, the Eternals 
are the brainchild of Jack Kirby, the 
oft-neglected creative engine of Mar-
vel, renowned and cherished for his 
creativity and wacky artistry. For ref-
erence, the visual designs of “Doctor 
Strange” and “Thor: Ragnarok” are 
heavy with the fruits of his labor.
It’s also got a truly gonzo, behe-
moth cast that throws together a 
dozen names from disparate corners 
of the acting world, including the likes 
of Angelina Jolie (“Come Away”) and 
Kumail Nanjiani (“The Lovebirds”) 
— that’s right, Angelina and Kumail, 
co-stars.
Perhaps most bafflingly, it’s helmed 
by director Chloé Zhao. Yes, the 
Zhao who just won Best Picture for 
“Nomadland,” a quiet indie film about 
the woes of a transient working class 
in post-recession rural America.
“Eternals” was always bound to be 
weird, most of all for a Marvel movie. 
And woefully, wonderfully, it is. There’s 
on-location shooting, with natural light-
ing and limited green screen! There’s 
absolutely no character from any other 
Marvel movie present! And … there’s 
sex! Chaste, tame, downright boring 
sex, but sexy sex times all the same! 
The film is of biblical, operatic scale 
— opening with a title crawl, the film 
throws out colored and capitalized 

words to describe a Marvelized cre-
ation myth that will be the first of many 
moments of exposition. The Eternals, a 
race of immortal, preternaturally beau-
tiful space gods, are sent to Earth by the 
Celestials, another race of space gods 
(these ones giant and not at all attrac-
tive), to safeguard humanity from the 
predatory Deviants — stringy space 
beasts that look like wolves and lizards 
and wolf-lizards and have the grimy, 
prismatic sheen of oil on water.
Their one rule: Only punch some-
thing if it’s a Deviant. Otherwise, sit 
back and watch as humanity devel-
ops across the millennia. The fall of 
Tenochtitlan? Not their problem. The 
dropping of nuclear bombs on Japan? 
Not the mission. Thanos snapping his 
fingers and murdering literally half of 
everything? That’s chump change — 
trust in the Celestials. 
After thousands of years, a Devi-
ant finally arrives in London and tries 
to bite off the head of Gemma Chan 
(“Let Them All Talk”). Bam — the 
film begins, time to get the band back 
together.
“Eternals” is a janiform crea-
ture: Each strength is matched by 
an imperfect foil, producing a film 
composed of conjoined blessings and 
curses left and right.
For one, there is a whole lot of talk-
ing. Zhao’s strength is quiet character 
dramas, and this sensitivity and focus 
on the tender and the personal is abso-
lutely present in “Eternals.” Charac-
ters quip and squabble and break up 
and make up, communicating with 

each other clearly and without reser-
vation. Sometimes this ventures into 
the cardinal sin of a visual medium 
— telling rather than showing, a crime 
Zhao rarely commits in her filmogra-
phy. “Eternals” exposits like no other, 
frequently punctuating the film with 
awkward flashbacks that themselves 
are mostly the characters standing in 
a circle hashing it out, grinding the 
pace to a yawning halt. 
It doesn’t help that the characters 
are thinly-drawn and weirdly poor 
acting abounds. With 10 Eternals and 
a few other supporting players, there 
is precious little screen-time to go 
around. Chan, who receives the lion’s 
share of minutes in her role as Sersi, a 
people-lover with powers of transmu-
tation, struggles to emote in more than 
one way. Richard Madden (“1917”) 
does well as a brooding Superman 
clone but lacks any and all chemistry 
with Chan, with whom his Ikaris is 
supposed to be hopelessly in love. Don 
Lee (“Start-Up”) is fun to watch as 
Gilgamesh, a bruiser who fantastically 
bitch-slaps monsters with galore, but 
often fumbles the delivery of his lines. 
Lia McHugh (“Songbird”) barks her 
dialogue as ever-adolescent illusion-
ist Sprite. Jolie as the mentally ill war 
goddess Thena; a gloriously buff Nan-
jiani as Kingo, a Bollywood movie star 
with finger guns; Lauren Ridloff (“The 
Sound of Metal”) as a super-speedy 
Makkari; Barry Keoghan (“The Green 
Knight”) as the jerkishly moralistic 
mind-controller Druig; Brian Tyree 
Henry (“The Woman in the Window”) 

as Phastos, a really good engineer that 
can make magic blueprints; and Salma 
Hayek (“The Roads Not Taken”) as 
Ajak, the healer and motherly matri-
arch of the team — are all charming 
and wonderful in their own ways, but 
have pitifully little to do.
If you got tired reading through 
that exhaustive gallery, well — yeah.
This lethargizing focus on feelings 
means that, despite most characters 
being more or less one-note, the film is 
completely character-driven — it’s all 
about people forming convictions and 
acting accordingly, never beholden 
to the plot. Everyone has a personal 
ethos, and it’s a delight watching them 
realize them in ways that run counter 
to what one has come to expect from 
Marvel fare. 
“Eternals” still has some of the usual 
stakes and tropes of a Marvel movie — 
the world is ending (oh no!) and char-
acters are wont to shout nonsense like 
forming a “uni-mind” and trying to 
stave off the “mad weary” (which is 
actually spelled “mahd wy’ry,” because 
of course it is). The CGI baddies are 
bland and boring and perhaps the big-
gest disappointment of the film, mak-
ing little sense and acting in baffling, 
ultimately impotent ways. 
Where “Eternals” begins to shine 
as maybe something special is in the 
locus of conflict. It’s not really about 
beating up some bad guy. These 
threats exist, but the dilemma isn’t 
external, it’s entirely internal — not 
a question of will our heroes save the 
day, but should our heroes save the 

day, how should they save the day. It’s 
ponderous, contemplative — what’s 
worth more, one life now or ten lives 
later? Which is nobler, loyalty to a 
cause or loyalty to those you love? 
In some ways, “Eternals” is self-
reflexive of the superhero genre as a 
whole. The Eternals grapple with the 
questions the audience often has look-
ing in — why do super-powered folk 
primarily use their gifts to punch stuff? 
Can’t they — shouldn’t they — do more? 
The irony is not lost when Nanjiani’s 
Kingo, who endeavors to filmically 
document the Eternals’ adventures, 
shouts, “We need action scenes,” as he 
blasts monsters in the face with lethal 
and admittedly thrilling precision.
“Eternals,” is a thorny, philosophi-
cally rich, audacious sci-fi epic. Its 
greatest irony is that it’s overlong while 
all the while feeling unfinished — if 

only there were a little more develop-
ment here, a few more minutes there. 
But within that ill-constructed chas-
sis is a bounty. Under Zhao’s direction, 
it’s beautifully shot, the visual effects 
are beautifully rendered and by some 
miracle, it sidesteps the cacophony 
of Chrises and populates itself with 
faces and bodies that reflect the world 
we live in. It struggles under its own 
weight, but it does not crash. Flawed 
but meaty and, above all, interesting — 
a singular entry in the MCU.
The fact of the matter is that comic 
book movies and blockbusters at large 
are the most dominant genre on the 
planet, with a death knell nowhere in 
sight. “Eternals” takes big, ambitious 
swings. They may not land quite right, 
but if more blockbusters go the route 
of “Eternals,” cinema will be all the 
better for it.

Content warning: abuse, sexual 
assault
The first time I saw University of Mich-
igan alum Andrew Lippa’s “The Wild 
Party” was when I was a freshman in high 
school. It was a time when I loved literally 
every single musical I listened to on Spo-
tify, but still, this production excited me. 
It was my first time going to a theatre that 
wasn’t housed in my school or dedicated to 
national tours.
It felt like I was watching “real” theatre. 
I loved every moment of it. I remember the 
show so vividly. It explored how abuse and 
addiction affect each other, and how adult 
themes can be explored in theatre. As I left 
the theatre, it felt like I was stepping into 
adulthood, as being able to watch a story 
of abuse without being talked down to felt 
validating as a young person.
I don’t feel like that anymore. “Wild 
Party” isn’t a story that validates me. I didn’t 
realize that until weeks after sitting in the 
Mendelssohn Theatre on Oct. 16, watching 
University Production’s “The Wild Party.”
This is a critique of the story, of the 
characters and nothing else. I have noth-
ing short of praise for the actors and tech-
nicians working on “Wild Party.” Their 

work made the production vibrate with a 
pandemic’s worth of energy waiting to be 
released.
This is a critique of Andrew Lippa, a 
U-M alum, and his lack of awareness and 
inability to update a problematic script.
The story of “Wild Party” was not con-
ceived by Lippa. Adapted from the long-
form poem of the same name by Joseph 
Moncure March, “Wild Party” represents 
the superfluous freedom of living in the 
1920s. (How free were the ’20s when only 
white men were allowed to vote?)
The musical carries a lack of aware-
ness in the way it represents its protago-
nist, Queenie. Queenie is a woman who 
has lived as a vaudeville dancer, enjoying 
herself through sex. That is the length of 
Queenie’s textual personality. Instead, 
the script focuses on the way she looks, 
describing her with lyrics such as “her 
face was a tinted mask of snow,” “her legs 
were built to drive men mad” and even 
“she liked her lovers violent.” Lippa estab-
lishes Queenie as a figurehead of sexual 
promiscuity. Yet, nothing else of Queenie’s 
personality or history is explored besides 
her sexuality. Instead, Lippa limits what 
Queenie can be as a protagonist, letting the 
focus fall to Queenie’s abuser: Burrs. 
We never hear about the complexity 
of their relationship besides understand-
ing that it is abusive. How am I supposed 
to understand Queenie as a woman when 

we are robbed of her individual story as 
it exists outside of her relationship with 
men? Queenie as a character has so much 
more internally to explore rather than the 
relationships she has with her partner 
Burrs and new lover Mr. Black.
Still, we watch these two men speak for 
her. She is sexually assaulted in the first 10 
minutes of the show, only for the script to 
use the event as a catalyst for a wild party. 
Queenie uses the party as a way to escape 
the trauma she experienced, but the script 
avoids the assault in favor of focusing on 
the love triangle between Queenie, Burrs 
and Mr. Black instead.
How much agency can a character have 
in deciding to throw a party? Not enough 
to make up for two and a half hours of men 
talking over her. Calling her a “child,” a 
“whore,” a “slut,” a “bitch,” all culminat-
ing in her supposedly “poor and virginal” 
nature, a paradox Lippa is unable to speak 
appropriately on.
Why does virginity need to be a plot 
point in Queenie’s story?
Why does a chorus need to sing over a 
depiction of assault?
Why are theatres outside of Broadway 
so opposed to the idea of updating scripts? 
Why do licensing agencies, schools, direc-
tors, producers, everyone that controls 
theatre hate the idea of changing words 
that have rotted with time?

Why did the University production not 
change its language for the show? Why rely 
on a misogynistic script? Why leave the d 
slur? Why have Mr. Black murder Burrs 
instead of Queenie? Why? Why does a man 
have to save the day? Why, why, why? 
These 
are 
rhetorical 
questions; 
they don’t need an answer because the 
answer is clear to everyone except Lippa. 
I feel guilty having watched this musi-
cal twice, enabling Lippa to profit off of 
a script that does so much harm and so 
little good.
I loved “Wild Party” in high school 
because it allowed me to see explicit 
themes in theatre for the first time. Now, 
I don’t need to see abuse for the sake of 
feeling validated at my age. I’ve come to 
understand that explicit themes that war-
rant trigger warnings must be offered 
alongside artistic justification. 
Shrouded in layers of misogyny, “Wild 
Party’s” truth comes from the perspec-
tive of a privileged white man. This is not 
satire. I find “Wild Party” to be an escapist 
pipe dream for Lippa to indulge his deeply 
harmful desires.
Somewhere along the line, Lippa lost 
Queenie as a protagonist, shifting her to 
be a fixture to validate the male-centric 
themes that make the musical easier to 
write but so much worse to watch. “Wild 
Party” needs to be better. And so does 
Lippa.

How did we come to this? 
A review of ‘Wild Party

MADDIE AGNE
Daily Arts Writer

MATTHEW EGGERS
Daily Arts Writer

Design by Lindsay Farb

‘Eternals’: A beautiful, rare Marvel flick, equally awkward and audacious

JACOB LUSK
Daily Arts Writer

This image is from the official trailer for “Eternals,” distributed by Walt Disney Studios 
Motion Pictures.

Arts
Wednesday, November 17, 2021 — 3

Social Media 101: How (and why) to fix your algorithm

Design by Kristina Miesel

Read more at MichiganDaily.com