Items

• 
  2020-03-31

  TikTok Saving Millions from Boredom During the Pandemic

  I chose this because I think it was actually really significant during the pandemic, and also just in 2020. TikTok is an app where people create 60 second videos, it can be dancing, making food, doing pranks, whatever you want. TikTok started becoming popular in 2019, but it really blew up in March when we were all stuck inside. I know from myself, I spend endless hours on TikTok, so did the rest of my family, even my parents. I haven’t met anyone who didn’t go on TikTok, or at least see TikToks online during lockdown, it was everywhere. I think this is significant to the pandemic and 2020, because it was how most of us kept busy, around the world. We were all watching the same videos, doing the same dancing trends, cooking the famous food for that week, etc. TikTok now has 850 million users.
• 
  2020-04-09

  Twenty One Pilots one of the first to release a song during lockdown, “Level of Concern”, to help relieve anxiety

  I think this item is really interesting, and it does fill an archival silence, about musicians and what they did in lockdown- if they stopped producing music, if they were even more eager to, etc. I first heard this song in the lockdown, and it made me feel like I was connected to the band- he was singing about the same things I was experiencing, I realized everyone was going through similar things in quarantine. I had never thought about what musicians and singers were doing, for some reason I thought their lives didn’t change much, but they did. I thought it was really cool Twenty One Pilots saw that people were down, stressed, etc. and wanted to relieve some stress with a song about the pandemic.
• 
  2020-12-10

  Rajni Komal Oral History, 2020/12/10

  The contributor of this item did not include verbal or written consent. We attempted to contact contributor (or interviewee if possible) to get consent, but got no response or had incomplete contact information. We can not allow this interview to be listened to without consent but felt the metadata is important. The recording and transcript are retained by the archive and not public. Should you wish to listen to audio file reach out to the archive and we will attempt to get consent.
• 
  2020-03-19

  Online Courses to Help with Anxiety Amidst the Pandemic

  During the pandemic, I was an intern at a nonprofit, LEAD Inc., where we created online courses and webinars that give people tips and tricks to dealing with anxiety, working from home, and things to do during the pandemic. I think this item amplifies the voices of a marginalized group, people who struggle with anxiety already, and who struggled even more during the pandemic. It is also a great example of a small non-profit who took an advantage of the pandemic, and worked to try to help people during an unprecedented time. A lot of items I found were just things people did during the pandemic to pass the time, but at LEAD, we actually put together an online course to inform and help people who struggle with the anxiety of uncertainty, and we give lots of information and tips in the course.
• 
  2020-10-07

  “Your pandemic hobby might be doing more good than you know”

  Since I wanted to focus on hobbies in quarantine, and finding ways to pass the time, this article gives a lot of useful information on why having a hobby during the pandemic can do wonders for our mental health and stress. “And that's important in the middle of a pandemic, said Jeanine Parisi, an associate scientist in the department of mental health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. ‘Everything seems a little out of control. Activities are the one thing that could provide structure and give you back a sense of personal control.’” (Merschel, 2020). I really resonated with this because everything did feel out of control for me, and my hobby, painting, really did give me a sense of personal control. I think this can relate to my generation during the pandemic, because we are used to having a schedule- whether it be school, job, etc. Getting rid of that schedule and having no structure was really difficult, and we all had to come up with ways to pass the time and provide some sort of structure. I think this responds to the needs and considerations of an ethical archive, because an archive needs some sort of facts and research, not just items that people made or hobbies that they did.
• 
  2020-04-15

  Painting In Quarantine

  During quarantine, we were all very bored and going a little stir crazy. I really wanted to get into painting because it is relaxing for me, and it takes up a lot of time. This is important to me because it was something during lockdown that made me feel relaxed and calm. It was a stressful time for everyone, and we all had to find hobbies that would keep us busy, which is important to understanding 2020 and the lockdown. I think that is what this says about the pandemic, we had to find these little things to keep us going throughout the long days stuck inside, and painting really helped me do that.
• 
  2020-04-15

  Painting in Quarantine

  During quarantine, we were all very bored and going a little stir crazy. One day, I really wanted to get into painting because it is relaxing for me, and it takes up a lot of time. This is important to me because it was something during lockdown that made me feel relaxed and calm. It was a stressful time for everyone, and we all had to find hobbies that would keep us busy. I think that is what this says about the pandemic, we had to find these little things to keep us going throughout the long days stuck inside, and painting really helped me do that.