Obsession
Volume 3, Issue 4
By Haven Oravec
I have a confession to make: I’m a huge Swiftie. And for a long time, I pretended I wasn’t. Learning to own that joy taught me that caring deeply isn’t embarrassing; it’s what makes ordinary days feel electric.
By Luciana Franco
What may just look like a cute shelf of Sonny Angels in my room has actually become a deeper look into how Japanese culture and blind-box marketing create emotional dependence on these toys. These naked babies ignite emotions of anticipation, nostalgia, and comfort that keep us in a cycle of consumerism.
By Jinoo Na
Serial killers have become something of a trend in modern entertainment; for some inexplicable reason, viewers love watching these deeply unstable characters stalk and butcher their fellow man. But what happens when that fascination turns into desire, and we start rationalizing their actions or even romanticizing them? This cultural criticism explores exactly that.
The Spark’s Top 10 Lists
By Liam Lincoln
By Kate Huo
The 2010s was the golden age of reality TV, and My Strange Addiction was the crown jewel of chaos. From eating sand to car romances, this list revisits the show’s wildest episodes, moments that could have only existed in a pre-cancel-culture world.
By Kolb Sun
The culture today chases “well-roundedness” with the same urgency that past aristocracies chased polish, piling decorative skills onto children like badges to be shown off. But as everyone scrambles to look broadly accomplished, fewer people sink into the one thing they might actually love. What has led to this stigma against focused obsessions?
By Liam Tremarco
In a world shaped by media and pop culture, the underappreciated films and works of art tend to go unnoticed in the face of big studios’ copy-and-paste films. The responsibility of preserving smaller works of art is one that falls upon us as consumers, a responsibility that seems to have dwindled in these last few years.
By Andrew Chan
Since Kindergarten, I had worked out an elaborate checklist on how to make friends. And yet no matter how much I obsessed over completing my list, time had formed seemingly unbridgeable gaps between me and my companions. It was my grandma’s love for Cantopop that taught me that true companionship meant something more than that.
The Spark’s Gallery of Obsession
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"I'm obsessed with Austin Butler"
-Lillian S.
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"I'm obsessed with Letterboxd"
-Justin W.
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"I'm obsessed with aviation"
-Liam L.
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"I'm obsessed with playing music"
-Andrew C.
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"I'm obsessed with the beach"
-Tvisha M.
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"I'm obsessed with pretty views"
-Vivian J.
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"I'm obsessed with Disneyland"
-Margareta T.
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"I'm obsessed with QBreader"
-Kolb S.
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"I'm obsessed with scrolling"
-Jinoo N.
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"I'm obsessed with watching & playing tennis"
-Vivaan G.
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"I'm obsessed with strawberries"
-Azara M.
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"I'm obsessed with Taylor Swift"
-Haven O.
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"I'm obsessed with Broadway"
-Naomi B.
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"I'm obsessed with clear waters & sea life"
-Ashley P.
By Luke Nicholson
The premise of the American Dream is that anyone can make it in the US, if they have enough drive, grit, and determination. But in a Trumpian America where obsessive anti-immigrant rhetoric takes center stage, it becomes hard to feel that the American Dream is attainable for all. So why is an administration governing a nation founded on opportunity choosing to amplify fear of immigrants rather than recognize how they help sustain the American Dream?
By Sidharth Maheshwari
Netflix’s You returns to New York for Joe Goldberg’s final showdown. Season 5 promises a checkmate for our favorite stalker, but instead delivers a fever dream where logic is optional and consequences vanish. Despite its ambitious plot, You delivers a hollow finale.
Meet our 2025-26 Team
By Kolb Sun
By Vivaan Gupta
Billions of people are fans of cricket, but only in India does a nation come to a halt when eleven cricketers step onto the field. Cricket is (almost) a national religion, and I’ve grown up as a strong devotee to the sport. If Team India is playing, everything else can be put on pause.
By Leon Fu
Speaking of obsessions, this is already my second AI article—which is to say, I’m obsessed with it. In a very peculiar way too; one that ultimately leads to an endless loop of self-validation and over-reliance that could quietly dismantle one’s critical thinking skills.
By Jenny Jeong
We’re terrified of losing moments. Not just the big ones – weddings, births, graduations – but all of them. The ordinary Tuesday. The inside joke. The extraordinarily-ordinary moments. We’re so afraid these moments will disappear that we’ve convinced ourselves if we just hold on tight enough, archive enough proof, we can make them permanent.
By Justin Wang
Of all the variables in my life, there’s one constant: music. Since childhood, music has been a big part of my life. As I grew, I developed an obsessive relationship with music that saw me cycle through songs, albums, and artists until their magic faded away. But the problem for me wasn’t my passion for music itself; it’s how I listened to it.
What’s Hot
A collection of timely articles commenting on current day events
By Jiawei Gu
Taylor Swift's latest and not-greatest feels like the work of an artist who's achieved everything, and now has nothing interesting left to say about it. Is The Life of a Showgirl a victory lap or a tired surrender?
By Tvisha Mirashi
In a year of political chaos, economic uncertainty, and institutional distrust, Americans found the energy to fight tooth and nail for a $30 cup shaped like a bear. The craze, however, has little to do with the cup itself, and serves as just another manifestation of our enduring tendency to attach meaning to fundamentally meaningless objects.
By Kashvi Agrawal
The Louvre robbery was a crime of audacity and spectacle, but it also became something much larger: an internet phenomenon. In a world dominated by overwhelming crises, the theft of £88 million in royal jewels turned into a form of collective escapism, sparking everything from memes to fictionalized backstories.
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