Netflix, one of the biggest streaming platforms, has a big problem with canceling fan favorite shows. Popular shows like One Day at a Time and I Am Not Okay With This have unfortunately been canceled, along with many other fan favorites. Netflix subscribers, including me, are angry about these cancellations. This is why I strongly believe that it is very unfair to Netflix subscribers to see their favorite tv shows get canceled over unknown reasons. 

As a fellow Netflix subscriber, it always pains me to see new shows get axed after their debut. It’s so disappointing as these canceled shows are denied the chance to be able to grow as a series. This was recently shown with the new show 1899 that premiered in last November and was canceled in early January.  

1899 follows a group of European immigrants traveling from the UK to start new lives in the US. This show was very popular among watchers as it had a very complex story with an even more interesting mystery that had people wanting more. Unfortunately they were not able to receive this as Netflix was quick to cancel over an “low viewership percentage.” This is such a weird reason, as the show apparently ranked number two on Netflix’s Top 10 TV English titles 3 days after its release, with a whopping 79.27 million hours viewed. The following week, it gathered 87.89 million viewing hours. How come this show was canceled because of low viewership when it had tons of views? 

It sounds to me that if these new shows aren’t groundbreaking like Stranger Things or Wednesday, then they can kiss their chance at being a long-running series goodbye. But why is Netflix so obsessed with their big shows instead of the smaller ones? One word: money. And lots of it.

Back in 2016 when Stranger Things first premiered, it was a big hit with  subscribers. It quickly garnered a huge fan base and lots of viewership. It is recorded that the show brings in millions of views each season. Stranger Things is ending next year with its fifth and final season, but Netflix already ordered an animated series revolving around the show after it ends. 

This was seen again with Wednesday, another popular Netflix show that came out last year. The show racked in around 1 billion views in just 3 weeks after its debut, which made it the second most watched show on Netflix. Since it was such a huge success, the show was greenlit to have another season that is suspected to come out next year. 

It will make sense for Netflix to keep giving their popular shows more seasons, as it gives them lots of money, but it is very unfair to the smaller more unnoticed shows that don’t get any attention. These smaller shows are often overlooked and neglected by Netflix and aren’t advertised as much. Shows that received this treatment are most of the time cut for not having a large enough audience unlike their big competitors. For example, Warrior Nun, a show that was recently canceled, was very popular to its small fan base and even did well in views and rankings but was still snubbed. 

Netflix’s favoritism of popular shows is costing subscribers their favorite shows. If they continue, not only are they going to lose customers, but they are going to ruin their reputation. It is already becoming a running joke for the internet to pick on the streaming giant for their cancellations, evening going far as to creating social media accounts dedicated to poking fun at Netflix show cancellations. Subscribers are both losing respect and patience with the streaming app and it’s going to lead to the streaming giant losing a lot more than money. 

The more the streaming giant cancels the less shows for subscribers to watch and less content leads to an decrease in subscribers and in revenue. It has been reported that Netflix has lost around 1.2 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2022. The company blamed this decrease on them cracking down on password sharing and raising costs which could be a part of the problem but not entirely. 

Netflix needs to realize that people simply want good content to watch and if their favorite shows are canceled, then they have every right to cancel their subscriptions. 

How was your Labor Day this month? No, that wasn’t a mistake. For most of the world, Labor Day — also known as International Workers’ Day — has already passed us this year on May 1st. Unfortunately, we don’t celebrate International Workers’ Day in the United States. We only celebrate Labor Day, and it’s nothing more than an extra tiny taste of freedom we get in September — letting us mindlessly feel grateful for not having to participate in our miserable work lives for an extra 8–12 hours, while we proceed to not contemplate how or why our miserable work lives are, in fact, so miserable.

This is simply not the case everywhere else. In places where Labor Day is celebrated on the correct date, the holiday serves as an international reminder of the bloodshed the working class had to bear in order to establish the labor rights we benefit from today — the labor rights which the wealthy upper class has been quietly stripping away, ever since the United States labor movement declined in power. Yes, the inconsistency of this single holiday’s calendar date is that important. It contributes to public unawareness of our own rights, and it’s an insult to the history of the United States labor movement.

On May 1st, 1886, a general strike began in the United States. This strike demanded for the 8-hour workday to become standardized, and somewhere between 300,000 to 500,000 people participated. On the third day of the movement, strikebreakers in Chicago were escorted through picket lines by around 400 police officers. Arguments broke out, and the police murdered 6 union members in response. 

It was this event that led to the infamous Haymarket affair and the subsequent convictions of 8 innocent anarchist movement leaders — 4 of which were hanged, and 1 of which committed suicide before he could be executed. The rest were given jail time. It was this series of events that led an international group of socialists to suggest in 1889 that the 1st of May become the date for an International Workers’ Day, commemorating the general strike.

Isn’t it strange that the United States is one of the only places in the entire world where this historically “American” holiday is not celebrated? It should feel weird, because five years after this holiday was made a thing, anti-socialist US President, Grover Cleveland, signed legislation establishing “Labor Day” as a national holiday to be held in September.

Since then, the United States labor movement has faced significant hardship. The first World War, multiple red scares, and a series of unfavorable court rulings from judges swayed by capital all contributed to an unforgiving decline in power for the movement — which it never fully recovered from. This is why it’s important now more than ever to be aware of our rights, to organize and protect those rights, and to remember what our people had to go through in order to establish those rights in the first place. Happy International Workers’ Day. It may be late, but at least it’s not September.

Recently, Sudan has been overrun with an extremist military group: the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF). They are essentially a local militia tasked with defending against possible coups. General Dagalo, the leader of the RSF, has recently become disillusioned with the Sudanese government. He has done a full 180, as he himself is now staging a coup in Sudan. The RSF has been in direct competition with the Sudanese armed forces for years, fighting for control of an un-unified country. War has broken out due to the Sudanese government attempting to force the RSF to surrender and integrate with Sudan.

In the past couple of weeks, however, the RSF attacked the US embassy. Often, once a country's embassies are attacked, it signals that the attacker has ended the agreement of peace. Now, we are essentially dropping into an  active war zone, fighting a faction that is actively growing exponentially. The RSF also plans to take back South Sudan, and surrounding areas that were a part of Sudan prior to the civil war.

As dire as this situation is, it's just barely scratching the surface of the severity to see it as an isolated issue. Currently, we have an enemy — an enemy that could become an ever larger issue in a war with China over Taiwan. Like with India in WW1, it's not impossible that in the event of war with China, that they could send over troops from Africa. 

The scarier fact is that once it happens, we couldn't just sanction our way out of it. Several countries are already trying to cut out US currency and world trade domination, and that combined with a war that could spiral into future invasion spells riddles of trouble. In 50 years, I believe if they wanted to, another country could invade the US, and maybe even possibly win.

It's obvious now how severe this issue is. I believe if we want to avoid global catastrophe, then we must begin with settling tensions between the US and other countries. Our insane amount of debt, paired with growing dissatisfaction from other countries is proving to be a complex problem. This is no longer an isolated issue; it can't just be sat down and resolved per usual. 

TERFs are not feminists. Feminist theory by mainstream scholars such as bell hooks and Audre Lorde emphasizes the importance of women not being defined by others’ expectations of them. TERFs, or “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists” try to advocate for women’s rights while not advocating for the rights of trans women. To limit feminism to women that fit your criteria, you are denying participation in the movement to many women. Feminism that doesn't fight for equality for all women is not feminism at all. 

One may argue that if TERFs are right, and trans women are not, in fact, women, that TERF exclusion of them is the most feminist. However, to exclude trans women, you have to define them out of womanhood. What makes a cis woman a woman, but not a trans woman? Is it a uterus? Surely not, because many cis-women are born without one. Is it having other female reproductive organs? Once again, this is irrelevant because many trans women have these things. There is no definition of womanhood that excludes all trans women and includes all cis women. 

When TERFs try to act on their ideals, legislate trans women out of their spaces, call out trans women they see in bathrooms, and generally demonize trans people, they not only harm these trans individuals. Cis people are hurt as well. They say that you must not have certain levels of testosterone or certain chromosomes to participate in women’s sports, but many cis women have naturally high testosterone or are intersex and born with XXY chromosomes. 

TERFs say that trans women should not be allowed in women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and dorms, but the only way to enforce this is by profiling people who have traits you deem “unfeminine” or “unnatural.” This means that tall women, women with facial hair, women with deep voices, smaller-breasted women, and many more are at risk of being kicked out or harassed by those who deem them to be too masculine to be women. 

Let’s not forget the lengths some TERFs go to spread their hateful rhetoric. Posie Parker, a TERF and self-described “women's rights campaigner” has oft been cited as an example of a TERF who goes against feminist ideals, aligning herself with far-right hate groups and neo-nazis to fight ‘trans ideology’ However, she herself admits she is “not a feminist.”  Other transphobic public figures, such as J.K. Rowling, do claim to be feminists, even while aligning themselves with hateful and misogynist political pundits such as Matt Walsh, an openly sexist television personality who has tweeted his hate for female sports journalists. J.K. Rowling praised his work in the documentary “What is a Woman,” despite its blatantly sexist messaging. Conservative magazine The Critic described the documentary, “In the scripted scenes, the boys wear blue and the girls wear pink. We only meet Mrs. Walsh in the kitchen.” 

TERF ideology is not a monolith, and no individual person can be judged by the actions of those categorized under the same label, but even the most moderate TERFs are by definition excluding millions of women from their activism. We cannot allow women to be treated as less than in a community meant to support them. TERFs are not feminists, and they degrade the purpose of the movement.