Street Sweeper: Sept. 22, 2025
(09/22/25 12:00pm)
Welcome to this week’s Street Sweeper! I’m your host, Fiona Herzog.
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Don’t Know What To Watch This Halloween? Street’s Got You Covered
(10/17/25 4:00am)
As the weather starts to get marginally cooler, it’s never too early to start preparing for Halloween. Here are ten of Street’s favorite horror flicks to take the guesswork out of celebrating spooky season.
Ego of the Week: Sydney Liu
(09/26/25 4:00am)
Can you tell the difference between house sparrows and song sparrows? Neither can I, but Syndey Liu (C ’26) can. As we sit by the Biopond, taking a break from the hustle and bustle of Locust Walk, Sydney helps me identify the birds hopping around us. She joined Penn's premier birdwatching club, UPenn Quackers, while trying to find leisurely activities she enjoys here at Penn. While she originally enrolled in the College with an interest in computer science and animation, Sydney later switched to the pre–med track. Later, she pivoted once again to embrace her true passion—teaching, which she discovered via one of the most infamous classes at Penn—CIS 1600.
Selling Souls or Selling Records?
(10/17/25 4:00am)
I would like to start this article off by thanking Beyoncé and every other artist who has been accused of devil worship or being part of some occult group of elites whose main intent is to rule the world through mind control. For as long as music has been around, listeners have loved to imagine the person behind the songs as part of a satanic cabal, trying to snatch your soul for the sake of retaining relevancy. In the 1950s, with the rise of rock ‘n’ roll, performers like Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and Chuck Berry were victims of this moral panic, accused of “corrupting” young people with their provocative lyrics on race and sexuality. This “Satanic Panic” would resurface in the 1980s with heavy metal. This time, the perpetrators were Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath—even Michael Jackson was the subject of rumor and fetishized speculation, accused of selling his soul for fame.
The Revival of the Nation’s First Public Parks
(10/17/25 4:00am)
It’s warm and green. Twentysomethings speed by on bikes, and families snack on picnic blankets. Elderly couples walk their dogs together, holding hands. Though some people are quiet, most are silent. This isn’t Fairmount Park or FDR Park, but The Woodlands Cemetery, where the living and the dead have learned the art of cohabitation: The deceased are taking their final rest while the living rejoice around them. Just five miles north of here, Philadelphia residents engage in similar activities at Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Street Sweeper: September 15th, 2025
(09/22/25 5:08pm)
Welcome back to this week’s Street Sweeper! I’m your host Fiona Herzog.
Do We Need Laufey?
(09/24/25 4:00am)
It’s the music you'll hear playing in every Bushwick cafe. Listen to it for too long, and you may suddenly find yourself in knitted clothing, pasting stickers over your laptop cover and collecting throw pillows. The artists are legion—Laufey, beabadoobee, Clairo, grentperez, Lizzy McAlpine, and so on—but their purposes are all the same: making background music that doubles as self–medication.
Certified Streamers Only: How Reactors Took the Mic
(10/01/25 2:19am)
For most, the end of freshman year is defined by the existential despair of final exams, the wistful feeling of knowing your first year is almost over, and maybe even some last–minute romantic debauchery. I, however, spent the final weeks of my college salad days obsessing over the greatest rap beef of my lifetime: Drake v. Kendrick Lamar. I had one too many data structures to study and a couple of friends to say goodbye to (no romantic prospects, unfortunately), but the thrill of infidelity, hidden children, and double agents enticed me more than anything else.
The Emperor Has No Code
(09/08/25 2:49am)
Cluely’s company onboarding package includes the following: a work laptop, ID, house keys, a five–motif Van Cleef, a corporate Hinge premium subscription, 74 servings of whey protein, and five honey packs. “Put it in your coffee next time,” Chief Marketing Officer Daniel Min (W ’25) advises on the company’s official TikTok page. “Trust me, it tastes great.”
My Community’s Community
(09/19/25 4:01am)
A few weeks after I arrived on campus my first year, a PennQuest leader one year older than me sniffed me out and texted me the details of all things queer at Penn. He divulged the basics: Swalloween is the queer–exclusive Halloween party that everybody who is anybody attends, Wharton Alliance is the application–based Gender and Sexuality Alliance club for corporate A–gays, and Carriage is its equally exclusionary counterpart for artsy queer people who love to party and take photos.
Letter From the Editor: The Birds and the Bees
(09/19/25 4:06am)
Midway through my senior year of high school, my mom and aunt sat me down in the kitchen with a college sex–ed pop quiz.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Sex
(09/19/25 4:02am)
I’ve never found that the people in my life are afraid of talking about sex. If anything, it’s the opposite—we frequently philosophize on all aspects of those inner desires. And we certainly don’t have to try hard to talk about it—sex is an almost universal object of fascination for young adults, whether they are active, curious, or utterly disengaged.
Come as You Are
(09/19/25 4:05am)
For many, the words “sexual education” often bring to mind a stuffy high school classroom—condoms on cucumbers, Googling STI symptoms, your gym teacher sitting you down to talk about “growing hair down there.” But it’s in college that these early lessons truly bear fruit. On campuses, sex ed morphs into something else entirely. Debriefs with roommates, whispers at parties, and Sidechat discourse become informal kernels of knowledge, filling in vast gaps left by inadequate high school curricula.
The Ins and Outs of Sexual Health at Penn
(09/19/25 4:04am)
For many students stepping onto a college campus for the first time—or for anyone, frankly—sex can be a lot. There is both the new opportunity to explore this formerly elusive world and a sudden thrust into the very real emotional and physical implications that come with sex. Induced shame, forced ignorance, and a lack of access to information and resources can lead young adults to feel overwhelmed about entering this new stage of their life. Navigating the world of sex health and reproductive justice on campus and in the city can be confusing—that’s why we compiled this list of resources for you.
Why Does Everyone Care If We’re Having Sex?
(09/19/25 4:01am)
Earlier this summer, The New Yorker boldly asked, “Are young people having enough sex?” Now that the latest generation has come of age, it is acceptable, at least legally, to talk about our sex lives. Or, if you believe the current discourse, our lack of it. You’d think Generation Z was either too traumatized to touch each other or too busy role–playing with artificial intelligence to have a real libido. In 2018, The Atlantic reported on what it calls a “sex recession” occurring among young adults following a 14% drop in high schoolers having sex, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A new moral panic emerges—older generations are suddenly no longer concerned that young adults are having too much sex, but rather that they are having too little.
The Birds, the Bees, and 34th Street
(09/19/25 4:03am)
On the night of my 21st birthday, sitting at a booth in Local 44 with a lavender hibiscus kombucha marg in hand, I received a revelatory piece of advice from a dearly beloved friend about my embarkment into a new era of life: “I think your 20s are all about having regrettable sex.” Now of course, the sentiment is not meant to encourage one to engage in unsafe, emotionally harmful, or dangerous sex. Rather, it acknowledges that the foray into adulthood is not so glamorous, and those sexual escapades are often a lot more awkward than you may expect. I mean, let’s be real. You’ve gotta get through the Lena Dunham Girls stage of life before you can even dream of living an episode of Sex and the City. Young sex is messy and embarrassing, and like most things in life, there is a steep learning curve. Street has had its fair share of uncouth trysts and inopportune rendezvous. Learn from our mistakes, or just laugh at us. But there’s no shame in figuring things out, even if it leaves a twinge of regret the next morning.
In ‘Overcompensating,’ the Show Never Ends
(09/19/25 4:04am)
In most queer TV shows, the performance of straightness is merely a phase. A queer character might be in denial about their sexuality or reluctant to share details about their sexuality with others. They hide parts of themselves, presenting themselves in ways they think will be acceptable, and eventually come out—a moment of revelation framed as liberation.
Marvel’s First Family, Redeemed
(09/15/25 6:19pm)
There are some superhero movies that you forget the moment the credits roll. And then there’s Matt Shakman’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps, a retrofuturistic elegy that doesn’t just redeem Marvel’s long–misunderstood “First Family,” but imbues their story with a new emotional weight.
Afternoons at the Prado With Goya’s ‘Black Paintings’
(09/10/25 12:44am)
Francisco Goya’s Black Paintings sit in a dim room at the far southern end of the Museo del Prado, across the museum from the stern gaze of his likeness in bronze at the main entrance. After walking through grand halls of romantic historical paintings and light–filled salons of sculpture, entering this small, grey room feels a little like walking through a portal. Suddenly, you’re faced with walls of twisting greys and blacks, the brightest color being the crimson blood spouting from the severed head and wrist of the child in Saturn Devouring His Son.
The Books That Built Me
(09/09/25 11:48pm)
The first time I read a book cover to cover, I felt like I had been let in on a secret. At five, however, I didn’t yet know that it was a secret not everyone gets to be in on. That not all stories are told, and not everyone gets to see themselves on the page. I grew up in a small town where school libraries did not put stories of queer love on their shelves, where classrooms didn’t discuss things like race, power, or grief. At first, I read to escape. But as I got older, I read as a form of resistance and reclamation. I read to find words for the things I felt and to make sense of the things I didn’t understand. To see worlds I had never been shown. Literature didn’t just entertain me. It built me: one book, one question, and one dog–eared page at a time.
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