Trigger warning: child sexual abuse, assault.

Jenni was being abused and brutalised by her father 

 since she was a toddler. The abuse included sexual assault, psychological manipulation, and physical damage. To cope with the trauma, her brain developed 

, her first alter at the age of four. Symphony herself is a four-year-old toddler who loves Jenni and deeply cares for her. Her job was to endure all the abuse alone so it doesn’t reach Jenni. A few other main alters include 

, a strong teenager. Muscle’s job is to take action and protect Jenni from the inflicted abuse. All these personalities have been living in her brain, and have their own designated spaces. The few mentioned are the ones that stay with her throughout, and keep on taking the stage regularly. The alters or the host doesn’t quite have the exact memory of experiences of the other alters, but they do recognize the sounds, smells, and sights of them. Jenni’s autistic mother couldn’t detect the ongoing situation, as she was being heavily drugged by her vile husband. When Jenni grew up and started to tell her story and seek help, the police didn’t believe her. The system and the society were uncooperative and insensitive. Her struggle of seeking justice took several years off her life until she met detective sergeant 

. He was one of the few who believed in her and helped her in getting the justice she longed for. Upon serious investigation, the shocking and horrendous details of the crime were brought to light which shook the judiciary. Symphony recently sued her father and won the case. The most crucial element of the judgement was the testimony of toddler Symphony who explained her agonies in great detail leaving the court numb. This was perhaps the first testimony of a dissociative personality to be recorded and validated by the judiciary. Richard Haynes, at the age of 77, pleaded guilty was sentenced to 45 years in prison, marking the toughest penalty for child abuse in Australian history. The case turned out to be a landmark for the acceptance of exceptional factors like split personalities in the judicial process in Australia.

 pursued a degree in psychology, a masters in criminology and a phd. With the help of her psychiatrist, she has written a book expressing her traumatic life and experiences called ‘

“. Jennifer has forgiven her mother for her absence and they both share a close bond with each other. She states that she is in the process of overcoming her fears and healing from the trauma. She is a living example of courage and strength and is currently making efforts to reclaim her life from the hands of the monster.

Jennifer Haynes: A Landmark Case Towards Validating Dissociative Identities

Lawrence had been an advocate for the importance of nature in human life. His desire to spend a life away from materialistic chaos inspired him to create a community called ‘

‘. He believed that humans are an extension of nature and it brings them comfort and solace. In the novel as well, Mrs. Morel is shown to find solace in the moonlight when thrown out of her house.

Being the son of a coal miner and therefore facing the cruelties of the revolution first hand, Lawrence believed that the course had been harmful both to nature and its extensions. The revolution deemed mechanical development to be superior to human life. The value of beings became directly proportional to the need they cater to. The revolution brought a rise in capitalism and changed social arrangements. It gave birth to rapid classist outcomes.

In the novel, the characters have been directly or indirectly affected by the course of action. Mr. Morel is shown to be a victim of the unhealthy work ethic that emerged due to the revolution. The desire for development gave rise to a large number of workers working in dangerous environments. The revolution gave birth to greed for extracting resources, which brought up the need for mining and let the labourers work in unhealthy conditions. Humans seem to be equivalent to objects or even less than machines. Mr. Morel worked in similar conditions in a coal mine. He, along with other workers, was degraded because he belonged to the lower section of society. He is shown to be trapped in the clutches of a capitalistic society. He, along with his family, dwells in buttons.

Due to the endless working hours, he ends up losing his emotional elements. He is struck with chronic poverty and has no time to converse with his wife or children. The dull, gloomy coal pits have seemed to erase the lustre of emotional needs from his heart. This results in his torn marriage life. His wife, Mrs. Morel, is also a victim of the system. She belonged to “Hell Row,” where the upper class dwells. Though she marries a coal miner out of love, her marriage life stays in jeopardy due to the unseen issues created by the class divide. Mrs. Morel is shown to be a culturally affiliated woman, which is common for women in the upper class. Mr. Morel, a lower-class guy struck with chronic poverty, is unable to provide her with the intellectual companionship she desires. The shift in class makes her life suffer in the dark, gloomy localities adjoining the grey coal mines.

The dysfunctional family dynamic, later on, puts enormous pressure on the sons of the family to provide Mrs. Morel with her desired emotional and financial needs. This shows the tragic reality of lower-class children, who would spend their lives working tirelessly to shift from one class to another. William, the elder son of the Morels, dies in the city due to overworking. The younger son, Paul, spends his life untangling the threads of chaos intertwined due to the unsettling reality of his family, which has been strangling his happiness.

The novel has been an influential take on the degradation of humans at the hands of the tyrannical power of mechanical advancement. The readers get to witness the hidden conflicts that emerged as an outcome of the industrial revolution, which shook the pillars of familial bonds as well. It has managed to shed light on serious subjects including the alienation and objectification of humans, the messing up of moral values, the belittling of human worth, and the equalisation of lives with assets. The novel has definitely been an impactful effort in creating awareness about the tragedies that await a society where money becomes God.

Sons and Lovers: Industrial Revolution through the lens of Literature

The emperor was quite famous for inviting Christian missionaries over, hosting them and making efforts to get acquainted with their beliefs. He would often let these leaders tutor his kids to get them familiar with the ways of the world. He was known to have initiated ‘

’, a centre for religious debates among the various religious preachers.

It’s amusing to know that these debates often ended up in heated arguments and even took a physically violent turn at times. Apart from having a keen interest in various societies and cultures, the emperor was also renowned for his curiosity in interpreting human behaviour, which is evident from the 

The emperor Akbar instructed his subordinates to send away twelve newly born infants into isolation at a distant palace. The palace came to be known as ‘

‘. The children were meant to be kept in utter solitude from the exterior, social world. Mute nurses were appointed for their supervision and feeding needs, to avoid any hindrance in the procedure. The children were deprived of any kind of social interaction, while their necessities for survival were arranged. The isolation period was called off a few years later.

The emperor had presumed notions about language being a learned behaviour instead of an inherent proficiency which was the root of conducting the project. The outcome of the experiment turned out quite close to his expectations. The consequence of the experiment led these children to not develop any language, instead, they used sign language for communication purposes. Later on, the scholars considered the outcome to be ambiguous, considering the development of sign language was caused by the deterrent in the process. It was observed that the mute nurses might have communicated to the children or within themselves, through actions, which led the kids to observe and develop sign language as a mode of communication.

The experiment is known to be the Forbidden Experiment, considering its unhealthy and hazardous effects on the behaviour of its subjects. When a child is isolated from the social structure, they develop to be incompetent to survive in society later on. They are most likely to live a life full of chaos and anxiety. The Forbidden Experiment has been represented in pop culture through content like Paul Auster’s ‘

Interestingly, this experiment wasn’t the only one conducted for discovering the inherent mode of communication in humans. There have been four historically recorded accounts claiming the conduction of similar experiments. In Herodotus’ book ‘

 (664 – 610 BE, i.e. 200 years before Herodotus) carried out such an experiment and concluded the inherent language of humans to be the Phrygian language. The conclusion was backed by the claim, that one of these children babbled a word that is known to have its origins in the Phrygian culture. Another instance of this experiment could be traced to the holy Roman emperor Frederick II ( 13th century). He claimed, the children developed fluent Hebrew, which is perhaps the original language of humans. Apparently, both of these conclusions were criticised to be fabricated, lacking authentic substance and solid evidence.

, despite providing ambiguous outcomes, is the sole experiment considered imprecise yet authentic by scholars. However, the inherent mode of communication in humans continues to remain a mystery.

Akbar and The Forbidden Experiment

Social media platforms cater to a variety of content, ranging from reaction channels, to lifestyle vlogs and many more. While an impressive amount of people on these platforms tend to be sensitive to the idea of consent, it doesn’t take away the fact that there is an abundance of creators, who are completely oblivious to sensitive topics, including consent. These influencers, as we call them, are more than happy to tear apart anyone’s privacy without batting an eye on the emotional harm that is being caused to the person. There is a wide variety of such content creators, some of which will be discussed further.

This category includes the creators, who mainly curate lifestyle-based content, which includes their private moments with their family as well. While these types of vlogs might be quite entertaining to the viewers, it has the power of causing severe harm to the children of these vloggers. There are many content creators who feature their pre-teen children or toddlers in these vlogs; children who might or might not want to be associated with the social media world, once they grow up. The free choice of being or not being involved in this part of the social system gets taken away from these individuals, since their childhood. Even if they pull away from these platforms once they mature, the trauma caused to them never wears off. As a consequence of being subjected to online bullying in the comment sections during their childhood period, these individuals tend to develop self-esteem issues in the later part of life. The idea of their privacy being taken away from the beginning; of not having any security, could haunt them forever. According to a case study performed by 

, by appearing in nearly half of the video titles as well as in the videos themselves, one might infer that kids are the primary players in family vlogging. The parents use sensationalistic strategies in an effort to boost the channel’s appeal. This tactic appears to be effective as, when combined, five videos under analysis received an astounding 408 million views. This significant exposure not only violates the privacy of the youngsters but also leaves them defenseless. As per few child psychologists, the exposure to fame and consent pressure of performance since infancy or early toddler years, could lead to depression and PTSD in future.

Ever since numerous social media platforms introduced the feature of short videos, there is an overflowing amount of short street interviews, where random questions are being asked to a bunch of individuals, imploring their opinions, ranging from personal to non-personal ones. While most of these videos are consensual, one cannot deny the existence of non-consensual ones. For instance, there are a large number of videos where an individual, shy of such interviews or non-cooperative, is made fun of, through quirky editing styles and background scores. The control of being or not being there, in the eye of the masses is taken away from these individuals, who might be uncomfortable in social situations. This could augment the levels of social anxiety among such people.

Perhaps the worst-case scenario, mentioned above, pertains to this area of the social media world. These are unsolicited, uncalled-for videos, where the content creators try to pull pranks on, mainly, the common public. This format is not only a drastic invasion of one’s private space but might also result in physical or mental damage to the target. Being extremely damaging, in multidimensional ways, such videos continue to exist and thrive on social media platforms. They often attract online bullies over the victim rather than the offender, creating an unsafe environment for the former individuals’ mental health. In one such case, 11 year old 

, hailing from Michigan, killed himself as a trauma response after hearing about the death of his girlfriend through social media. The death later turned out to be a prank pulled by her and her group of friends. In another instance, YouTuber 

, got killed in self defense by a man he was pulling a robbery prank on.

In conclusion, due to the abundant nature of such videos, it’s nearly impossible to escape from the constant invasion of privacy. But, the problem could be dealt with, in a better way through improved monitoring methods. The higher-up authorities need to enforce substantial laws or codes of conduct, for the matter of private space, and the implementation should be looked upon keenly. Furthermore, the corporations running these social media platforms need to be rigidly held accountable for the type of content going up on their sites. The formats mentioned above, might be quite entertaining and fun, but should never reach a point of causing any sort of harm to any individual involved.

Social Media and Lack of Consent

The manic pixie dream girl has been quite popular in 

 as well as in films abroad. She is often portrayed to be conventionally attractive, reflects an enchanting charisma from the get-go and has a cheerful and bubbly persona. Furthermore, she is outgoing and fun to be around. She is generally quirky and fits the 

 cliché, as her speech and actions suggest. She belongs to the creed of 

The instances of this trope can be traced from various movies, including 

 and many more. While women with these characteristics are undoubtedly amazing, the trope turns out to be problematic because of the misrepresentation of these characters.

Firstly, the portrayal of their personalities is mostly dimensional and the characters often lack depth and layers to their identity. As the name suggests, these women are merely an object of appeasing male fantasy, who are often mistaken to exist in reality. Secondly, while these characteristics could be a part of one’s personality, they are incapable of defining the person entirely.

The manic pixie dream girl generally does not have her own goals and problems in life, and exists, only for a matter of enlightening the dull male protagonists to adapt to a cheerful vision of life. On the part of the makers, there is little to no accountability shown towards the mental health of this character. She is invariably available to enrich your mental health, but the concept does not exist on her own.

The trope is perpetually and unrealistically cheerful, even when suffering through befallen misery. This strengthens the preconceived notions towards a woman’s personality that often lacks awareness of her mental health issues. This trope imposes an immense amount of pressure on female romantic partners, as it is quite impossible to conform to the unrealistic standards set in the minds of the majority of men in society. The trope is often composed from the male perspective and leaves no room for a realistic portrayal of the dimensions carried in the personality of women.

The Character of Geet: Breaking Stereotypes

, is frequently labelled as being the ultimate manic pixie dream girl. While she is shaped by various qualities of the trope, 

 managed to break the stereotype in the second half. Being cheerful and outgoing does not make Geet the manic pixie dream girl. This could be traced from the portrayal of her character when befallen misery. Geet exhibited human emotions when her feelings were hurt by an individual. Instead of fitting the cliché and laughing off the feelings, she rather embraced her emotions and gave herself the needed time to grieve. Her character was portrayed to be multidimensional and went through various phases and showed realistic development. Even from the get-go, she had her ambitions and goals in life. Geet, one of the most iconic characters of Bollywood, managed to break the manic pixie dream girl stereotype and felt like a breath of fresh air.

Although the manic pixie dream girls are more or less likable characters, they should be looked at through a different and realistic perspective. The makers, writers or the directors, need to add more depth to such characters, hence formulating them to be multi-dimensional and realistic.

Hazards of ‘The Manic Pixie Dream Girl’

The haul culture basically stands for a trend of videos, termed hauls, where people showcase the products they’ve purchased recently, and the positive and negative impacts the said products created in their lives.

This type of content is mostly consumed in the fashion industry. The internet is flooded with fashion tutorials, which may or may not perform well in terms of reach and engagement. The haul videos, however, bag a larger view count. These hauls are created to enhance one’s experience while shopping for their desirable entities. They turn out to be pretty useful for a better understanding of the latest fashion trends. While the idea sounds quite helpful, here are a few reasons why it could be incredibly destructive for some of us, especially when consumed irrationally.

. Consumerism refers to the ideology of relating happiness with the assets we own. It endorses the belief that if one is consuming or purchasing more and more, he will ultimately achieve happiness. The more you have, the happier you are. Now there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the ideology itself, as it’s true in some cases. Few people actually attain a feeling of happiness on acquiring an asset. But it becomes toxic and destructive when done excessively or done to attain long-term peace and happiness, as honestly, happiness is not something that could be ultimately achieved by ticking off a bunch of stuff from our bucket lists.

Excessive consumerism puts you in a situation where your happiness and satisfaction become completely dependent on the things you are capable of purchasing, and you end up being emotionally exhausted. Your state of fulfilment and peace of mind is immediately pulled away when you find yourself in a situation where you are not capable to acquire the object.

Secondly, it has started to cause harm to the environment. The constant consumption of such haul videos thrown around social media makes us purchase clothing and stuff, just to fit into the latest fashion norm and look trendy enough to be socially acceptable. These fast fashion brands come up with numerous marketing strategies including festive sales to lure consumers into buying what fits the trend. That being said, fast fashion trends change within a span of a few weeks. This makes the consumer purchase clothing quite often, which includes pieces they might not wear after one or two uses. The out-of-trend clothes create bulks of waste, which puts the dumping grounds in a difficult situation.

Lastly, the haul culture has been causing tremendous damage to the mental health of the masses. Most of the time, the haul videos are sponsored by fast fashion brands where they target the masses by getting their product endorsed by renowned influencers. The strategic video titles with must-have thumbnails constantly try to shove down things into our wardrobes that we don’t really need.

 by creating a false need to consume certain objects for leading a life that is complete in each aspect. Most videos are portrayed in such a way that one begins to get consumed in the contemplation of not being fulfilled enough and new voids begin to exist in one’s personality. The fact that neither everyone has the same requirements, nor every person among the audience owns the finances to afford them, gets forgotten in the process. The constant consumption of such content takes away the control of reasoning from one’s hands, and they are left with confusion, chaos, and an inferiority complex.

A way to break out of the pattern of mindless purchasing is to ask oneself a few questions while out shopping or when about to get indulged in online purchasing. One must assess if one would need the product quite often and if one already owns an alternative for the same. This could help people avoid impulsive purchasing, and could also be beneficial for the environment.

The Toxic Haul Culture

Trigger warning: Sexual Assault, Severe Physical Assault, Murder

 remains a matter of curiosity among the masses, catering to which, numerous documentaries and movies have been created. Some of those include 

Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes

. One of the most famous movies made on him is titled 

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile

, gaining its reference from the remarks of the judge at his trials. During the court hearings, many women across America supported him as 

He lured young women mostly by pretending to be in dire need of help, using it as a facade to gain their trust. He drove a Volkswagen across the Pacific Northwest, in which he used to stalk and abduct his targets. His victims were young women, conventionally pretty, and were long-haired brunettes, indicating the preference he had for his targets. 

 who raped the distorted bodies of many of his victims after they died and would often keep a few of their body parts as souvenirs. Bundy spent several years in prison before being executed in the electric chair on January 24, 1989. Before his execution, he 

 was his first victim and one of the few survivors of his crimes. On January 4, 1974, she was sexually assaulted and beaten down to a pulp. She was taken to the hospital after shuddering in pain for 18 hours. As a consequence of the attack, her bladder was severely injured. She had permanent brain damage and lost half of her hearing as well as forty percent of her vision. For many years, she experienced panic episodes.

 was attacked on January 15, 1978, at her sorority house in Florida at midnight. After killing 

, sorority girls in the adjoining room, Kathie and her roommate were attacked with a golf club, which resulted in Kathie’s shattered jaw line and a torn cheek. When Bundy realized Kathie was still alive, he smashed the golf club against her face for the second time. Ted fled the crime scene, leaving three dead women and one severely injured. After spending a week at the hospital, she was sent back to her room to check if the killer took any of their belongings as a souvenir, but all she could see was blood and his fingerprints on black dust. She stood as one of the witnesses at the trial.

On the evening of November 8, 1974, Ted Bundy approached 

 at a bookstore, claiming to be a police officer, and asked her to accompany him to the police station, justifying that he had caught a guy who tried to break into her car. She tried to cooperate with the police and sat with him in his car. He drove them away and pulled them over to a curb, pulled out a gun, and held it over her head, threatening to shoot her. That’s when her defense instincts got activated. She fought for her life, and eventually pushed him back and got out of the passenger seat. She escaped by chance in an approaching car. She was the only victim who survived the Utah abductions and was even responsible for his detention later on. She realized it was Ted who tried to abduct her because the person shown on the TV had the same cold, lifeless eyes as her kidnapper. She also stood as a witness against him at his trial, which infuriated him quite a lot as shown via the tapes.

Though Lizzy was not a survivor of his attacks, she did survive the emotional trauma caused by the reality of the love of her life. 

, met Ted Bundy at a club. Given the charming and smart man that he was, she was smitten from the get-go. Being deeply in love with him, she dated him for five years. She recalls he was an absolute gentleman and never, in her wildest dreams, could she have imagined he was capable of something so brutal. Ted even shared a special bond with Molly, who adored him and perceived him as a father figure in her life. It was the year 1974 when Lizzy started noticing certain changes in his behavior, which she suspected was because he was seeing someone else. Little did she know, this was the time he was initiating a heinous journey of the bloodbath.

There were accounts of several women going missing in Seattle. On July 14, 1974, Ted Bundy abducted 

 from Lake Sammamish State Park. Their bodies were later found dumped in the woods. With the help of park footage, a sketch of a man who drove a Volkswagen was circulated in newspapers. That is when one of Lizzy’s co-workers brought a copy of the newspaper to her. Lizzy also noticed the uncanny similarity and called the police through a tip line they had issued, but it wasn’t received seriously by the cops. She was afraid of confronting him because of the possibility of it being true. Ted fled Seattle and killed a hitchhiker within 12 hours of his journey to a different state. He set off on a killing spree in a few other states of the Pacific Northwest. Lizzy came to realize the murders were now transpiring outside of Seattle, which reinforced her doubts against Ted. She tried to reach out to the police, but it went in vain once again.

In the year 1975, he was halted for a traffic violation in Utah, where the cops found a few questionable belongings in his car. He was taken into custody and was later on identified by 

, the survivor from Utah. He got out on bail and went to visit Lizzy for the last time. Molly believes they were spared because of his apparent existence in their lives which would have created problems for him if he did harm them. Elizabeth recalls she was always confused as to why he didn’t contact her even before his execution, but she was unaware that he did send her a letter before being electrocuted, stating his love for her, which was burnt down by Lizzy’s daughter as she didn’t want her mother to be manipulated once again. She stated he didn’t deserve closure after what he did to all those innocent women. Molly, to date, has been deeply disturbed by the fact that Kimberly Leech, Ted’s last victim, was 12, the same age as her when she was raped, killed, and dumped beneath a pig shed.

Several women were fortunate enough to survive and several families got the closure of their tragedies. However, the actual figure of the victims slain by Ted died with him. It is speculated that it 

Articles by Ashna Arif

Jennifer Haynes: A Landmark Case Towards Validating Dissociative Identities

Sons and Lovers: Industrial Revolution through the lens of Literature

Akbar and The Forbidden Experiment

Social Media and Lack of Consent

Hazards of ‘The Manic Pixie Dream Girl’

The Toxic Haul Culture

The Survivors of Ted Bundy

Jennifer Haynes: A Landmark Case Towards Validating Dissociative Identities

Sons and Lovers: Industrial Revolution through the lens of Literature

Akbar and The Forbidden Experiment

Social Media and Lack of Consent

Hazards of ‘The Manic Pixie Dream Girl’

The Toxic Haul Culture

The Survivors of Ted Bundy