Letter from the Editor 04.16.2020

I’ve been re–watching Daria since school went online. I think it’s relatable and hilarious, but maybe that’s just because the main character of this cult hit cartoon series is a sarcastic and pretentious bespectacled brunette, and so am I. I’m not going to go very far into explaining the premise or characters or different seasons, because that’s mostly irrelevant to what I’m going to write about. (I also want to clarify that the bangs I may or may not give myself during quarantine are in no way, shape, or form inspired by Daria herself.)

Daria was an escape from quarantine, until it wasn’t. I made it through four seasons (they’re short episodes, I swear), and got to Is It Fall Yet?, a film–length installment of the show between seasons four and five. Besides occasionally relevant one–liners, like “Why couldn’t I have been born during an influenza epidemic?!” (that one aged poorly), the movie shouldered its way into real life in the form of a story arc about a bizarre summer camp for sensitive kids. The camp is called the “Okay to Cry Corral,” and the counselors wear shirts featuring a weeping face and the words “It’s ok to cry.” Fantastic.

The camp proved to be an unmitigated failure of an experiment, and to be frank, crying doesn’t get much done at all. But it also does not, however, deserve to be stigmatized as completely useless. Catharsis takes many shapes, and maybe having a good cry could be one of them. It could also take the form of a really, really long run, or an angry journal entry, or a FaceTime call. I see a lot of people baking banana bread on social media; maybe that’s some kind of release. Or it might just be banana bread — I’m not sure. Your cathartic activities could be none of those things. It’s really up to you.

We live in strange times. Everything is uncertain, and much of it is sad. Your mental health may be suffering due to the circumstances, but ultimately, the cartoon is right — go ahead. It is okay to cry.