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Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Opinion

OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Nonlinear shows are creating a new age of TV, and I can't stop watching them

Television shows are Mad Libs to me. I turn on a cable TV show, sit there and try to finish the character’s sentences, fully aware that I am the worst type of person to watch TV with. Correctly guessing the ending to a show can be so satisfying. Nothing is as fulfilling as saying out loud exactly what a television character says with the same timing and beat. But on the other hand, when I am wrong, the results are devastating — yet so humbling.


Groundhog Club co-handler John Griffiths, center, holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 133rd celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa. Saturday, Feb. 2, 2019. Phil's handlers said that the groundhog has forecast an early spring. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
OPINION  |  EDITORIALS

Groundhog Day is the only non-problematic holiday of the year

One of the weirdest days of the year passed Saturday when America stopped and waited upon the actions of a groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil to play the role of meteorologist. And somehow nobody has questioned this tradition in the nearly 150 years that Groundhog Day has existed. In fact, in Pennsylvania, the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club celebrated Groundhog Day from Sunday, Jan. 27 to yesterday, nearly the same number of nights dedicated to Hanukkah — an entire religious holiday.


OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Talking trash about your professor won’t get you that A

In the wake of the statistics exam came a slew of angry messages. It was another test that hundreds of students spent hours studying for, starting early in the day and ending late in the night. The material wasn’t meant to be easy, but many felt that it wasn’t meant to be so hard.


generic Darts and Laurels
OPINION  |  DARTS LAURELS

Darts and Laurels: Feb. 1, 2019

You wake up and immediately check the weather, suppressing a groan when you see it’s 38 degrees outside for the third day in a row. On the bright side, it gives you a reason to break out your Gator beanie that’s been collecting dust in the back of your closet.


OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Scholarships aren't as rare as you think

The topic of scholarships is often tied to large-scale economic problems and all of that complicated, serious mess. But this discussion of scholarships will not be attempting to slip Marx and Engels into your ideology like a sugar cube into a cup of tea.


OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Asking what position I play is wrong

If you had mistaken me for a college athlete when I was in high school, I would have been flattered. But when I started my freshman year at UF in 2015, I quickly realized the hidden meaning behind the question: “What position do you play?”


OPINION  |  COLUMNS

College doesn’t have to be the best four years of your life

It was the summer of 2017. I had just arrived in Gainesville for the first time as a student two weeks earlier. As I laid in the twin bed in my dorm room, I struggled to fall asleep. There was a throbbing pain in my jaw, and I could feel it spreading. I tossed and turned. I rubbed my temples hard, and when I turned to look at the clock, it was 3 a.m.


OPINION  |  COLUMNS

This is not our parents’ movie industry

For some time now, I have been intrigued and disgruntled by the state of American cinema — specifically, by the movie industry’s obsession with sequels and remakes. Perhaps obsession is a dramatic word; after all, a fraction of the movies available in theaters today are sequels or remakes. Let’s substitute obsession, then, with fixation.


OPINION  |  EDITORIALS

Career Showcase isn’t your only ticket to success

Time to break out the blazers because Career Showcase is approaching. Next Tuesday students will be running back and forth between classes and the O’Connell Center, hoping to make that one life-changing connection. It’s the perfect opportunity to talk to your dream company, and it can feel like your one chance at a big break. But then the nerves start to set in and the doubts in the back of your mind creep in.


Zac Efron as Ted Bundy in the trailer for “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.” 
OPINION  |  EDITORIALS

The media is romanticizing the murderer

For the past few weeks our Twitter timelines have blown up with tweets about “You,” a recently released thriller series on Netflix. The show, which aired on Lifetime last fall, tells the story of Joe Goldberg and his infatuation with Guinevere Beck, a woman he develops an unhealthy relationship with, eventually leading him to stalking and murdering.


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