Jane Doe’s lawsuit states that the 20-year-old had consumed <a href="https://www.nhpr.org/2026-09-28/cornell-agrees-to-an-independent-probe-into-its-handling-of-a-fraternity-rape-case">10 drinks</a> in the three hours before entering the Chi Phi fraternity house on Oct. 19, 2024. The drinks included multiple hard liquor shots at her sorority and then drinks at two downtown bars. 
What she says happened next — that seven men plied her with ketamine and raped her for hours — is now in the hands of a special prosecutor, New York Attorney General Letitia James. Lawyers for several of the men deny her claims, and ultimately a court will decide what is true.
However, one part of the story isn&#8217;t in dispute, though few are focusing on this detail: the night in question was built around binge drinking. 
The national conversation has been deeply focused on other things, including vile group chat that no one wants to reread. All of it matters and deserves scrutiny, but alcohol keeps appearing in this story as background information when it’s actually the main character. 
I spent four years on a “party school” campus at Indiana University, and I know the college drinking culture well. I know it so well that it’s where I honed my problematic drinking skills that turned into 20 years of addiction. Six years ago, I finally gave up alcohol for good. But, watching stories like the Cornell case unfurl reminds me of the sickening permission we give undergrads to drink without boundaries — as if it’s their right in life to be young and stupid. 
The Cornell case is, in a foundational way, a story about this kind of binge drinking. It’s about the way overconsumption of alcohol is sanctioned, promoted, and celebrated on college campuses without question. 
Drunkenness cannot be a scapegoat for rape or any other poor decision. Of course, alcohol doesn&#8217;t rape anyone and those who rape are responsible for rape, drunk or sober. Furthermore, a woman&#8217;s drinking never makes her assault her fault. But saying “it&#8217;s not her fault” doesn&#8217;t make alcohol harmless. Nor does it relieve young men and women of responsibility for what they do with their newfound freedom in young adulthood. 
The research tells the story. Global public health data <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11959743/">find that at least half</a> of all sexual assaults on college campuses involve alcohol. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15248380221134633">Some studies</a> find up to 70% include people under the influence, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism <a href="https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-topics-z/alcohol-facts-and-statistics/alcohol-and-young-adults-ages-18-25">says</a> a &#8220;majority of sexual assaults in college involve alcohol or other substances,&#8221; noting that often these cases go unreported. Then we have <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40262283/">this 2025 study</a> comparing data from 73 four-year colleges that finds those with higher rates of binge drinking also have significantly higher numbers of reported rapes. 
The alcohol factor also shapes what happens afterward. <a href="https://www.wdbo.com/news/national/cornell-rape/JI4PXO6334Y3TNI7JVM63AP4DU/">New York is one of 19 states</a> where a person who gets drunk voluntarily cannot be considered legally &#8220;mentally incapacitated,&#8221; the provision the district attorney cited when he declined to prosecute. Some states have closed that loophole. But notice what the debate concedes here: Alcohol is so central to cases like this that it can be the deciding factor in whether a crime legally happened at all.
Alcohol also shapes the hero’s narrative that never emerged at Cornell. For example, a young man in Chi Phi may have been on the infamous Snapchat chain or just downstairs hearing rumors of what was going on. But, five beers deep, he found it far easier to ignore the chaos and head to bed. We know alcohol doesn&#8217;t erase anyone&#8217;s conscience, but it does make one’s conscience slower, quieter, and easier to leave on airplane mode. 
Why aren’t we talking more about drinking? Every podcast and TikTok about this case mentions the drinking, but almost none substantially considers how much it influenced what happened in the first place. If these men and women had not been binge drinking, the odds of this situation occurring are slim. 
This is partially because we’ve decided that college is a license to binge drink. About three in 10 full-time college students <a href="https://collegedrinkingprevention.gov/statistics/prevalence.aspx">reported binge drinking in the past month</a>, according to the most recent federal survey data. And we know that <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/facts-stats/">alcohol kills about 4,000 Americans</a> under 21 every year, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
Why do we treat this like it’s unavoidable? It’s seen as regrettable, inevitable, and, really, no one&#8217;s fault. Campuses have built an entire “harm reduction” system around alcohol instead of questioning why it’s the main point of the Greek system. They’ve got posters reminding students to &#8220;drink responsibly,” online alcohol courses for rule breakers, and medical amnesty policies that protect students from discipline if they call for help when a friend is dangerously drunk. 
It’s not that these things are bad, but the assumption is clear: College students drink too much. And fair or not, it puts women in unsafe and vulnerable positions and always has. The reluctance to name alcohol as a core problem of many rape scenarios is just drinking culture protecting itself. 
We’re told that warning young women about alcohol puts the blame on them if they’re assaulted. But saying nothing only puts more of them in danger. It’s the men who count on women being too drunk to resist, remember, or be believed who benefit from our silence. And even in cases where some bit of consent is given, it doesn’t prevent a woman later questioning what happened, regretting it, or dealing with consequences of shame, guilt, or worse: STDs, pregnancy, or reputation-ruining rumors. 
I think about this every fall in my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana, when I watch students stumble between bar crawls — the same ones I trudged to and from 20 years ago. In an infamous 2011 case, a 20-year-old Indiana University student <a href="https://www.wishtv.com/news/indiana-news/lauren-spierer-missing-15-years/">named Lauren Spierer</a> vanished there after a night of heavy drinking and has never been found. 
I think, too, about my own young adult drinking years: all the rooms I put myself in where I could have been hurt. I may have been lucky or I simply don&#8217;t remember. As someone who frequently experienced alcohol blackouts — when you still appear conscious and functioning to those around you but lose entire chunks of memory from the night — that second possibility still frightens me. On multiple occasions, I had no memory of what had happened for hours the night before. 
What would a reckoning against binge drinking college culture look like? Maybe it would be universities that stop treating drinking as the default social life and fund substance-free housing and recovery communities as seriously as they fund athletics. Perhaps Greek systems held to the law, not just slaps on the wrist. It could be parents who tell sons and daughters the plain truth: Alcohol is the most socially accepted drug in America, and it harms more young people than any other. 
As for my own children, I will tell them addiction runs in our family, that alcohol is a publicly acceptable drug, and there’s so much more to dream, do, and learn in college. I don’t want them to waste their precious young lives inside sticky bars, in gross fraternities, or with people who would never protect them if they were in danger. 
***
Ericka Andersen is the author of &#8220;Freely Sober: Rethinking Alcohol Through the Lens of Faith.&#8221;
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Young woman opening bottle of beer at home party

The College Tradition That’s Gone Way Too Far

alcohol abuse

college party culture

cornell university

fraternity

letitia james

sexual assault

“Hamlet Returns.” “Gatsby II: Carraway’s Revenge.” “Casablanca: The Vichy Years.”
It’s funny to think of classics having sequels, partially because the “Fast and Furious” franchise made sequel titling conventions meme-able, but also because there’s something inherently laughable about touching perfection.
In a just world, “The Social Reckoning” would rank among those titles. Unfortunately, in this world it is an all-too-real sequel to Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher’s 2010 masterpiece, “The Social Network.” That film is a brilliant meditation on what makes us human. Its successor is a two-hour dramatization of a Slate podcast.
“The Social Reckoning” picks up a decade after “The Social Network” left off. Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) is now running a tech empire, preparing for congressional testimony, surrounded by consultants who are trying to make him seem human. But scenes with Zuckerberg are few and far between, with the film largely focusing on Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) and her efforts to expose her company’s secrets with the help of Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White).
We don’t need to dwell on the plot; the film is mostly a beat-for-beat staging of Horwitz’s 2021 stories, though it adds a Zuckerberg testimony that, in real life, happened months before. This actual news cycle dominated headlines recently enough for everyone to remember the details. At Zuckerberg’s instruction, Facebook’s algorithm began weighting reshares and emoji reactions more than likes. This incentivized people to post inflammatory content and caused that content to spread widely, a vicious cycle that Haugen and others felt posed a threat to American democracy.
The more shocking parts of the Journal’s “Facebook Files” dealt with how the company knowingly ignored the deleterious effects of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meta-settles-child-harm-case-for-billions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram on kids</a>, specifically young girls, who joined the platform for friendship and instead found bullying, untoward sexual advances, and in some cases human trafficking. But that’s more or less glossed over in the film, condensed to the essentials to make room for montages of the Jan. 6 riots.
It’s not at all surprising that Aaron Sorkin, the high priest of American liberalism, made a movie critical of social media polarization and Jan. 6. Nor would it be shocking if the movie were preachy; after all, that’s Sorkin’s hallmark. But “The Social Reckoning” isn’t preachy in Sorkin’s usual way. There are no grand ideas or sweeping monologues about human greatness. The banter-filled walk-and-talks that defined “The West Wing” are replaced by technocratic patter. The point is not to make a point, but to convey a lot of information in such a way that the audience will all come to the same conclusion. The whole thing feels small.
And that’s the problem. Sorkin works best when he goes big, when he swings for the fences. The swelling speech, the brilliant debate, the perfect needle drop. The man knows drama and understands the importance of gravitas, a topic upon which his characters frequently opine. But for some reason, “The Social Reckoning” shows no real trace of what makes Sorkin Sorkin.
This is partially an instance of Sorkin’s Achilles’ heel: The more he tries to capture reality, the more likely he is to fail. “The West Wing” works largely because it is a drama. Realistic, yes, and occasionally accurate, but a drama nonetheless, with fictitious countries and characters that advance the plot.
Compare this with “The Newsroom,” the flawed HBO series in which Sorkin built a fictional cable show in the very real world of America in the early 2010s. Even <a href="https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a73344814/aaron-sorkin-interview-2026/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sorkin admits</a> that his reliance on real events “was a pebble in my shoe” that prevented him from ever “put[ting] a good episode together of the show.”
Similarly, “The Social Network” is unabashedly cinematic. What is on paper a story about two civil lawsuits becomes, in Sorkin’s hands, a timeless tale of class and ambition. Jesse Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg is a striving outsider so desperate to join the upper echelons of society that, after being repeatedly denied entry to this higher stratum, he creates an entirely new upper class and rockets to its peak. That even this fails to satisfy him — the film famously ends on a shot of Zuckerberg, alone, refreshing the pending friend request of the ex-girlfriend whose rejection inspired him to launch Facebook in the first place — shows that Mark is human, all too human.
In “The Social Reckoning,” Jeremy Strong gives us the common caricature of Zuckerberg, the ruthless automaton uninterested in other people and singularly focused on success. One of the things that made “The Social Network” so profound is that it shattered this image of Zuckerberg. But Mark Zuckerberg can’t have depth for “The Social Reckoning” to work. He must be this frigid titan, willing to sacrifice kids and democracy and everything in between rather than lose even one Facebook user. And so Sorkin completely negates his first film, discarding one of the great characters of 21st-century cinema in favor of a cheap political prop.
The problem isn’t that Sorkin doesn’t give Zuckerberg a fair shake, but that this doesn’t make for a good movie. In “The Social Reckoning,” the heroes and villains are clear, as are their motivations: Zuckerberg is wrong because he only cares about money; Haugen and Horwitz are good because they care about the truth.
In “The Social Network,” the heroes and villains are just as clear, but their motivations and characters are tantalizingly ambiguous. Mark is both sympathetic and pathetic, a man wreaking havoc and a boy begging for attention. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer) have clearly been wronged by Mark, but they’re so arrogant it almost seems like they had it coming.
And then there’s Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, played to perfection by Andrew Garfield. In the film’s <a href="https://youtu.be/QYdma6c04jI?si=FrvHiHU2fxuujBFf&amp;t=201" target="_blank" rel="noopener">best scene</a>, Eduardo confronts Mark for diluting his shares and pushing him out of the company.
“You set me up,” Eduardo says, clearly wounded by his best friend’s betrayal.
“You’re gonna blame me because you were the business head of the company and you made a bad business deal with your own company?” Mark retorts with a condescension both biting and borrowed, as if he were trying on his father’s Hèrmes tie.
It’s an incredible moment, not just for the drama — the betrayal, the reveal, the stakes — but because, for a brief moment, you can see on Eduardo’s face that he realizes Mark is a little bit right. And we, the audience, realize it, too. Which makes it all the more heartbreaking to perceive: friendship became business, trust gave way to transaction, and everyone got hurt while the company succeeded.
There is not a single moment in “The Social Reckoning’s” two-hour run that approaches anything close to that scene, or any of the similarly great scenes that comprise “The Social Network,” one of the most beautifully written, shot, and scored films of all time. It’s a pity, too, because Madison and White are two of our finest working actors. It would have been a joy to watch them sink their teeth into a proper Sorkin script, rather than this warmed-over NPR fanfic.
“The Social Reckoning” has been called a “stand-alone sequel” to “The Social Network.” It’s an absurd, contradictory phrase — but one that makes sense once you’ve seen the film. If I were Sorkin, I wouldn’t want anyone comparing this ordinary historical drama with my magnum opus. That’s fair enough. But you need not have seen “The Social Network” to realize “The Social Reckoning” is a bad film. That much is self-evident; the comparison merely adds insult to injury.
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

socialreckoning

Hollywood’s Liberal Darling Just Ruined His Own Masterpiece

aaron sorkin

arts

facebook

film review

mark zuckerberg

the social network

Welcome to the Bright Side, a weekly roundup of all the good news and ideas you might have missed from the past week.
This week, we’re rocketing to outer space, the weirdest city in your state, and Paris Fashion Week (but for the dogs!). Then we&#8217;re wrapping it up with a little brain food, AKA the only way to eat Marshmallow Fluff. 
We’re all out of this world
Zip up your shiniest atmospheric pressure suit — it’s World Space Week. With NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 splashdown, and the <a href="https://www.space.com/stargazing/meteor-showers/the-draconid-meteor-shower-peaks-on-oct-8-before-bedtime-heres-how-to-see-it">Draconid</a> meteor shower raining down upon us (hot tip: the best seats are in the Northern Hemisphere, faced toward the Big Dipper), it’s been a stellar soiree. 
Even Pokémon got into the spirit of this year’s theme — “Rocket Revolution” — by giving Pikachu a proper fit for a trip to the International Space Station with French European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot. 
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I’m not one to jump on a bandwagon and rush out to snatch up all the Poké-merch. But my friend just sold an old Pokémon card for $800, and another claims she has a stash that could be worth a million bucks (in the newest condition, of course). Who knows what “plush astronaut Pikachu” will be worth in 40 years. My own experience as a collector remains rather limited. My only claim to “fame” happened during junior high when I once hoarded all the tennis ball can lids from my dad’s time as a high school tennis coach. If I still had them today, I bet I could rake in a whole $1 for recycling them. But a ridiculous family memory I can cherish forever? Priceless.
Is this the weirdest town in your state?
We all know our state capitals (um, mostly), but even a town population of 22 deserves its moment in the sun. This map highlights the weirdest-named municipalities. Raise your hands in the air if you’re from Humptulips, Washington; Ding Dong, Texas; or Ketchuptown, South Carolina!
As a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, native, I can confirm there’s definitely a nearby town called Intercourse, which was not named purely for the entertainment of high school kids, but rather to mark a place where people (or possibly streets) merge together. (For wholesome fellowship, not the other thing!) Intercourse beat out Blue Ball, which was another hit Amish Country destination. Did they miss any oddball cities from your state?
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The strangest town names in each state https://t.co/ude2Wxv4dr
— Josh Barzon (@JoshuaBarzon) <a href="https://x.com/JoshuaBarzon/status/2107586991173050567?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Paris but make it fashion
Paris Fashion Week wrapped up with all the drama and shocking eye candy you’d expect — at least if you like a surprise <a href="https://youtu.be/l5QOGtXvIEc?t=1638">Céline Dion</a> performance at L’Oreal, giant birds at <a href="https://youtu.be/weNFjc2l1Hw?t=332">Chanel</a> accompanied by cello, and the always-provocative, never-ready-to-wear looks from Paris-based fashion house <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdY_R5WTRVQ&amp;t=1288s">Matières Fécales</a>.
I’m partial to the color black and the “matériel” 100% cotton, so I don’t exactly give off “fashion” on the daily. But I love art, and many of these designs are meant to spin your head around and get the creativity flowing. No, you couldn’t pay me to wear the equivalent of a strip of Duck Tape as a top, but it’s fun to float away on the clouds of high fashion from afar. And that cello and piano duet at Chanel felt personal since I played “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2Wcjli8KvQ">Le Carnaval des Animaux, Le Cygne</a>” on cello in high school. Definitely not as well, but nevertheless, that song is mind-expanding and enchanting without challenging anyone’s sense of modesty.
But while celebrities may have been dying to sit front row at Dior and Louis Vuitton, the rest of Paris was marching down the Champs-Élysées for the seventh annual Sausage Walk. Hundreds of dachshunds and their owners (some dressed alike in the cutest little striped shirts or cowboy hat couture) flooded the streets and sidewalks to raise money for Teckels Sans Doux Foyer, a charity foundation that helps doxies in need. What I need is a few of these little friends to snuggle up with me like a bunch of furry baguettes and watch a Brigitte Bardot comedy.
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Happy belated National Fluffernutter Day
This is the kind of research I can get behind. According to neuroscience, a steady diet of fluffy, funny content boosts your cognition and makes you smarter. Couldn’t we all use a little more mirth in our lives? <a href="https://www.drcognitivehealth.com/blog/laughter-and-cognition-the-neuroscience-of-humour-and-brain-health">Laughter</a> triggers some of the most fun parts of our brains to lower stress, strengthen resilience, improve memory, calm our nerves, and increase endorphins. It’s a win, win, win — I lost track, but that’s why we’re here.
In keeping with the light and fluffy theme, I give you the recipe for the ultimate Fluffernutter in honor of its national day on Oct. 8 (National Podiatry Day also happened, but that doesn’t lend quite the same festiveness). If you’ve never tried one, this is your sign:
Special equipment: knife, plate, possibly a napkin
Ingredients: 2 slices of bread, peanut butter, Marshmallow Fluff or other marshmallow creme
Method: Spread a generous amount of peanut butter on one piece of bread, pile marshmallow creme on the other, and gently press together into the shape of a sandwich. Bite. [Bliss.]
Optional: Add chocolate chips and nuke in the microwave for 20 seconds like chef Matty Matheson does it.
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<section><a title="@mattymatheson" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@mattymatheson?refer=embed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@mattymatheson</a>THE BEST SANDWICH IN 20 SECONDS FLUFFERNUTTER FOREVER! PREORDER SOUPS SALADS SANDWICHES AND COME SEE ME ON TOUR!!! LINK IN BIO FOR ALL THE DEETS<a title="♬ original sound - MATTY MATHESON" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7427144681635482373?refer=embed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">♬ original sound &#8211; MATTY MATHESON</a></section>
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You guys, I feel seen by all the dog lovers in the comments section last week (and some brought tears to my eyes)! Loved the tip to check out <a href="http://doesthedogdie.com">doesthedogdie.com</a> for crowdsourced warnings of all kinds for movies and TV, and the reader who commented, “I’d go all John Wick if someone hurt my dogs.” Not to make everything about Brad Pitt, but I imagine the scene at the end of “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” with a flame thrower and the hero pit bull named Brandy. Let me know what content you’d like us to cover (you can <a href="mailto:lbair@dailywire.com">email</a> me, too). Enjoy yourselves more than a dachshund in a beret this weekend. — Lauren

Bright Side: To Infinity, Sausage Dog Fashion Week, And Beyond

bright side

dachshund

lifestyle

national fluffernutter day

paris fashion week

world space week

Allow Andrew Tate to introduce himself in his own words. 
The internet personality has explained his <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2022-12-30/who-is-andrew-tate-the-self-styled-misogynist-influencer-detained-in-romania?">preference</a> for 18- and 19-year-old women by saying he can “make an imprint” on them, while elsewhere insisting that there “is no such thing as an independent female.” Tate was 35 when he said this. 
Or <a href="https://www.the-independent.com/life-style/andrew-tate-final-message-banned-b2151544.html?">how about</a> “women should shut the f*ck up, have kids, sit at home, be quiet, and make coffee”?
And just for <a href="https://theweek.com/culture-life/andrew-tate-women-things-said?">good measure</a>, “My job is to meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her … get her to fall in love with me to where she’d do anything I say, and then get her on a webcam so we could become rich together.”
In a culture that rewards such provocation, Tate has amassed over 10 million followers on X promoting a version of masculinity for young men to adopt if they want to achieve success in a world stacked against them. In his world, your image depends on two things: extraordinary wealth and extraordinary control over your own life. The former turned out to be a lie, and the latter has been legally taken from him.
Tate was recently arrested on charges including rape, trafficking-related offenses, assault, indecent images of a child, and extreme pornography. He and his brother, arrested on similar charges, deny any wrongdoing, but this is hardly their first brush with legal problems involving the same issues. Now, court filings reveal the Bugattis and yachts in their videos were rented due to a professional incentive to appear “uberwealthy.” And this week the public learned of <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2026/10/06/andrew-tate-extreme-porn-allegations/">bestiality porn and child porn allegations</a>.
While these allegations shock no one who has been paying attention, an outsider is right to read the above quotes (provided over years) combined with the brothers&#8217; webcam porn business between 2012 and 2014 and wonder how a person like this can garner so much fame or, worse, have any defenders. Let alone conservative defenders. 
Tate didn’t build his credibility alone, and he has enjoyed the winds of prominent voices at his back for years. 
On a 2023 episode of the Full Send <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlson-defends-andrew-tate-really-smart-and-not-malicious-spirit-all">podcast</a>, Tucker Carlson said: “The spirit that animates Andrew Tate is very clear and very obvious, and it’s not a malicious spirit at all.” Candace Owens, the Hodge twins, and other figures associated with the Right have hosted him on their shows.
The fallback for these and other conservatives is to focus on what Tate is taking on rather than how he talks about it. Years ago, Tate recognized that society had pushed many boys and men to the back of the line. Decades of feminism culminated with the #MeToo movement. Men became the scapegoat for all of society’s ills. Everyone but them was prioritized from college enrollment to the boardroom — often when they were more qualified.
Pour some internet lighter fluid on this fire, and young men were searching for a water hose. Andrew Tate arrived with a full fire department: aka Hustlers University, whose <a href="https://hustlers-university.ca/about-us/">mission</a> was to “empower ambitious people [read: young men] with an entrepreneurial mindset to become the best versions of themselves.”
And herein lies the catch. Like Tate’s diagnosis of male youth, this messaging is fine — even admirable. But like so many things in life, the messenger is as important as the message.
I recently spoke with a group of conservative teenagers. One raised her hand with a comment and question: “I often begin reading books with an inspiring title and summary and find that halfway in it is either misleading or pure junk. How do you source your reading list?” My answer: “I study the author before I study the book.”
My point is the messenger is as important as the message. Anyone can write inspiring words. What matters is how he applies those words to his own life. And this is where I’m disappointed with any conservative who has ever chosen to elevate or platform Tate’s ideas simply because they fit a particular narrative. Too many virtuous men and women promote solutions to the same problems Tate has built his career on.
I propose a better list for conservatives to source from: 
Truth – Ben Shapiro
Faith – Lila Rose
Marriage – <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-trad-wife-panic-is-running-into-one-big-problem">Brad Wilcox</a>
Women – Allie Beth Stuckey
Discipline – Jocko Willink
Power – Thomas Sowell
Work Ethic – <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/weekend-plans-with-mike-rowe-blue-collar-americas-biggest-advocate">Mike Rowe</a>
Courage – <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-sophie-cunningham-became-the-wnbas-biggest-target">Sophie Cunningham</a>
Patriotism – Victor Davis Hanson
My point is not that conservatives must agree with everyone on this list. It’s that conservatism never reached the point of moral bankruptcy where it needed Andrew Tate as its substitute teacher. Tate didn’t discover truth, faith, discipline, hard work, or patriotism — let alone practice them. Those virtues predate him by millennia, and the Right has so many better messengers. 
But I’m mainly addressing adults. A 16-year-old doesn’t necessarily have the maturity to separate Tate saying “work hard” from “women should…” Most adults can make that distinction. It becomes harder when these ideas are presented to a teenager from a rented Bugatti. This is the responsibility conservative voices should recognize.
The response to Tate’s allegations has caused both movement and paralysis on social media. Some conservatives are racing to delete their social media associations with him while others are leaning on the hope of “false allegations.” Neither should matter. Andrew Tate has been telling us who he is for years.
For every worthwhile thing Andrew Tate has ever told a young man, someone better can teach it. 
***
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast We The People with Gates Garcia. Follow him on X and Instagram @GatesGarciaFL.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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The Dangerous Trap Young Men Keep Falling For

andrew tate

conservative

masculinity

opinion

sex trafficking

tucker carlson

It has been 48 hours since I watched “Digger,” and all I can say is I have never seen anything like it and hope never to again. In fact, I’m not sure if I will be able to go to another Tom Cruise movie. Let’s just say that &#8220;Top Gun 3&#8221; had better be exceptional.
What follows here is not so much a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/digger-gives-tom-cruise-a-belief-system-even-crazier-than-scientology?author=Harry+Khachatrian&amp;category=Upstream&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=7&amp;rowHeadline=New+on+Upstream&amp;rowType=Article+Carousel&amp;title=%E2%80%98Digger%E2%80%99+Gives+Tom+Cruise+A+Belief+System+Even+Crazier+Than+Scientology">review</a> of “Digger” as a reflection on what might have motivated Cruise — after all that goodwill he had accumulated with &#8220;Top Gun: Maverick&#8221; and the &#8220;Missions Impossible&#8221; — to lend his star power to such a dire movie. Cinematic talking heads claim this is Cruise’s bid to win an Oscar. However, could it be that in his choice to don “ugly-face,” Tom Cruise is also mocking us, his audience, made up of ordinary people who are not blessed with his level of beauty?
That was certainly my view watching Cruise play the fat and charmless <a href="https://youtu.be/1EAEQnZiYVU?si=Rtrqj0HBfdLjaOmH">Les Grossman</a> in 2008’s “Tropic Thunder.” I know it was supposed to be funny, but I confess I didn’t get the joke. I like my satire to be more subtle than Cruise’s blatant mocking of those who were not born as beautiful as he (aside from those unfortunate teeth, that is). Cruise seems to want to have his cake and eat it, in his donning of outlandish prosthetics to give himself a fat belly and jowly face for “Digger,” all the while showing us his <a href="https://ew.com/tom-cruise-64-flashes-abs-for-rare-magazine-cover-12123170">chiseled abs</a> and what appears to be a <a href="https://www.longevita.co.uk/blog/tom-cruise-plastic-surgery/">plastic surgery-enhanced face</a> while promoting the movie. What is going on here? 
Now, we all know that actors are emotionally like children, and children love to play dress-up. The pattern of ridiculously beautiful people who owe their careers as much to their looks as to their talent taking pleasure in performatively playing ugly people does have a “look at me, look at me” quality to it. Insult is added to injury when said actors divest themselves of their prosthetics and makeup and expect to be applauded for their bravery and artistic “integrity” in permitting themselves to cosplay as ordinary people for a while.
It is one of Hollywood’s self-evident truths that beautiful actors need to “ugly up” to win awards. Charlize Theron famously gained weight, used brown contact lenses and fake yellow teeth, and applied disfiguring prosthetics to play serial killer Aileen Wuornos in 2003’s “Monster,” for which she won an Oscar. Nicole Kidman applied a prosthetic nose to become Virginia Woolf and win her Oscar for 2002’s “The Hours.” Leonardo DiCaprio had to get mauled by a bear for his Oscar.
This pattern of gorgeous and glossy Hollywood actors needing to play gritty and unglamorous to become Oscar-worthy is probably most hilariously illustrated by Kate Winslet’s Academy Award in 2009 for playing a frumpy Nazi camp guard in “The Reader.” Winslet’s success had been <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGuxc9fIMKo/?hl=en">predicted</a> by Ricky Gervais four years earlier in his TV comedy “Extras,” where Winslet gives a speech bemoaning how only films about the Holocaust win people Oscars. 
These performances are presented as acts of artistic humility but feel more like acts of vanity. When an ordinary-looking actor plays an ugly character — Steve Buscemi, for example — nobody notices. But when Tom Cruise does it, the whole exercise depends upon our remembering how handsome he really is. It is a peculiarly heightened form of showing off. Cruise is not simply asking us to admire his acting. He is asking us to admire his rejection of his own beauty. 
Yet it all raises a curious paradox. Why do beautiful actors so often want to be seen as ugly, while biographical films so often want ordinary-looking heroes to be seen as beautiful? This is not always the case: HBO’s 2008 miniseries on John Adams cast “character actor” <a href="https://www.alamy.com/library-usa-paul-giamatti-and-laura-linney-in-the-hbo-mini-series-john-adams-2008-plot-the-life-of-one-of-the-usas-founding-fathers-its-second-president-and-his-role-in-the-nations-first-50-years-ref-lmk106-j6706-040820-supplied-by-lmkmedia-editorial-only-landmark-media-is-not-the-copyright-owner-of-these-film-or-tv-stills-but-provides-a-service-only-for-recognised-media-outlets-pictures@lmkmediacom-image368449752.html">Paul Giamatti</a> in the titular role rather than a more conventionally handsome leading man. Yet historical films routinely beautify their subjects, replacing ordinary-looking reformers or politicians with implausibly attractive actors.
An example is last year’s “<a href="https://youtu.be/Rb0ZhiDD9J0?si=Jw6LmW0iZe0QAOAH">The Testament of Ann Lee</a>,” a deeply weird but also beautiful film about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Lee">Ann Lee</a>, the founder of the religious sect known as the Shakers. No reliable portrait of Ann Lee exists, and the only <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Lee#/media/File:Ann_Lee.png">engraving</a> we have was done by a clairvoyant nearly 90 years after her death. A contemporary description of her, however, states: “Mother Ann Lee was a woman of a strong constitution, rather exceeding the ordinary size of women; rather thick but very straight and well-proportioned in form.” Another account describes “a woman of low stature, thick made, and of a masculine appearance.” Yet the filmmakers decided to go with the elfin and doll-like beauty of Amanda Seyfried to portray her on the big screen. 
Hero of the U.K.’s abolitionist movement William Wilberforce is another historical figure given a Hollywood glow-up for his biographical movie “<a href="https://youtu.be/75jqKloxzOc?si=IJAmY6pbK76jJWv7">Amazing Grace</a>.” His sons remembered Wilberforce as a small man, “little exceeding five feet four inches in height,” whose eyes possessed an “overpowering brightness.” Another contemporary summary states: “His frame from infancy was feeble, his stature small, his eyes weak,” while another describes him as “the little person, with the mild voice and winning manners.” One physical feature stands out here. Yet rather than picking up the phone and calling a Tobey Maguire, or a Tom Hollander, or even a Tom Cruise, the casting directors went with six foot tall, gorgeous Ioan Gruffudd. “Amazing Grace” is a fabulous, inspiring movie, and Gruffudd a charismatic leading man, but why did the casting directors not pick someone who more physically resembled Wilberforce?
Human beings seem always to have assumed that beauty and goodness belong together. Our oldest stories are full of handsome princes, radiant queens, noble knights, and beautiful maidens, while evil is marked by crooked noses, warts, and physical deformity. The witch is ugly because she is wicked; the hero is attractive because he is good. We instinctively want outward appearance to reveal inward character. Beauty suggests harmony, vitality, and wholeness, while ugliness hints at disorder and corruption. Even when experience teaches us otherwise, we continue to read faces as though they were moral texts. We know intellectually that virtue and beauty are not the same thing, yet some part of us still expects the morally good person to look good and the bad person to look bad.
Might we, the viewing audience, therefore be complicit in this strange elevation of outward appearance when it comes to historical figures? Does Hollywood beautify heroes because we demand it? It is true that we reward the tall politician, the handsome newsreader, and the job candidate with perfect teeth and excellent hair. We profess to care about character yet constantly mistake appearance for competence.
The classic 1987 movie &#8220;<a href="https://youtu.be/Fuhxg3mkiIw?si=LugXka3FcX48JeSz">Broadcast News</a>&#8221; is a brilliant exposé of how humans respond better to beautiful faces regardless of what might be going on, or not going on, behind that exterior. William Hurt plays aspiring TV news anchor Tom Grunick, whose extreme good looks are in contrast to his lack of brains, education, or journalistic curiosity. Fellow newsman Aaron Altman, played by Albert Brooks, is more intelligent and better educated, yet he does not have the looks to succeed in front of the camera. When Tom asks the understandably resentful Aaron, who desperately wants the anchor job his homely appearance will never grant him: “What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?” Aaron wisely responds: “Keep it to yourself.” 
Tom’s seeming lack of awareness of the pivotal role genetic luck played in his career success rankles Aaron, who has had to earn his professional achievements the hard way. Returning to Hollywood, it is no secret that exceptional actors are routinely <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahmarder/actors-who-were-rejected-for-roles-for-being-ugly">denied</a> roles because they are deemed not sufficiently attractive. Which is why the self-congratulatory application of prosthetics by the beautiful stars feels somehow offensive. It is a form of aesthetic tourism: a privilege available only to those who can safely shed their ugliness at the end of the shoot to return to magazine covers and red carpets. The rest of us do not get to remove the costume. Therefore, a little more humility next time, please, Mr. Cruise — and a little less prosthetic posturing.
***
Bridget Riley studied modern history at Oxford and completed a Ph.D. in medieval history at the University of Reading. She writes on history, culture, and the philosophy of religion.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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Why Hollywood’s Most Beautiful Stars Keep Cosplaying As Ordinary People

academy awards

charlize theron

digger

hollywood

tom cruise

At a Byron Donalds campaign stop in Kissimmee, Florida, last week, a grandmother took the microphone to ask the Republican gubernatorial candidate a question about &#8220;grandparent rights.&#8221; She told Donalds, “I have not seen my grandson since August 7th of this year. And I want to know what can happen to get the fix, because it’s because of pettiness, because I refuse to babysit, because I had plans, and that’s why I’m not seeing my grandson. And so I would like for you to do something, or at least direct me to the right people.”
The right people, she explained, were legislators who could force her grandson’s parents to allow visitation. She went on, “We could do a federal law on this so it’d be nationwide, because grandparents should be able to see their grandchildren.”
A tweet with the exchange went viral with over 8 million views, and Americans across the political spectrum weighed in on a segment of family law few people knew about before this moment. After years of culture-war debates over parental rights, Americans are learning for the first time that grandparent rights exist in the legal code in states across the country.
One such <a href="https://apnews.com/article/relationships-idaho-supreme-court-b4f1ebf9badf5abf83dbd78cd64882d8" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://apnews.com/article/relationships-idaho-supreme-court-b4f1ebf9badf5abf83dbd78cd64882d8&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1791034990616000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2JMrcmBGsAIDX6gBysGnPS">case</a> from Idaho shows how these kinds of laws work in practice. Four years ago, the state Supreme Court ruled on a case brought by Dennis and Linda Nelson, who asked a magistrate judge to award them visitation with their grandchildren after the grandchildren’s parents, Brian and Stephanie Evans, cut off contact in 2017. The grandparents requested, under a visitation law, access to their three granddaughters, which the parents fought through the state&#8217;s legal system. The children&#8217;s parents asserted that the grandparents had inserted themselves into the Evans family to an “exorbitant” extent and that the grandparents&#8217; behavior violated boundaries the parents tried to set.
The case made it to the state Supreme Court before returning to a lower court where the parents were overruled. The magistrate court <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2022/09/idaho-court-says-grandparents-dont-have-right-to-seek-visitation-when-parents-cut-off-contact.html">ruled</a> for the grandparents, “despite finding the Nelsons had harmed the grandchildren by acting in the way that they had.”
The parents asked for a ruling on the law&#8217;s constitutionality, arguing that it “did not serve any compelling state interest and that it allowed fit parents to be hauled into court by overzealous grandparents.” The high court agreed, noting that the case had cost the Evans over $50,000 in legal fees. The Evans were granted the right to decide who could access their children.
In legal filings, one conflict stemmed from a visit in which the parents asked the grandparents to take the children on a simple outing. Instead, the granddaughters were brought to Disneyland and weren’t returned at the agreed-upon time. Frequent violations of the parents&#8217; autonomy led them to decide to set boundaries through estrangement.
Estrangement is having a cultural moment, with commentators noting that the frequency with which children are <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-ugly-truth-about-treating-your-family-like-its-replaceable">going “no contact”</a> with their own parents is increasing. A recent Wall Street Journal report <a href="https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/why-are-so-many-adults-cutting-off-their-parents-d4e1190c">explained</a>, “Family estrangement is on the rise, driven by shifting family norms and changing therapy practices. ‘We’re at a cultural tipping point.’”
It’s a troubling phenomenon, and more parents (and now grandparents) may try to resolve the estrangement through legal measures, as the mother at the Byron Donalds rally wants to be able to.
Parents and grandparents should work out their differences, and estrangement should be a last resort.But parents have a fundamental right to direct their children&#8217;s moral upbringing. Byron Donalds believes this, or at least he did when he <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DcMDhOGR0f-/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.instagram.com/p/DcMDhOGR0f-/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1791034990616000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0jCYqwIOVjgnfbtC85twrB">signed</a> the Moms for Liberty Parents Pledge a few months ago. The organization&#8217;s motto, “We don’t co-parent with the government,” extends to the government declining to step into a family dispute.
Donalds had an opportunity to say exactly that in Kissimmee. Instead, he directed his staff to get the grandmother’s information and <a href="https://www.alternet.org/florida-byron-donalds-grandma/">promised</a> to &#8220;work with the members of the legislature on this.&#8221; The more principled answer would have been considerably less politically comfortable given his elderly base: Parents have a fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children, and that includes deciding which adults have access to them. That principle doesn&#8217;t disappear because the person asking the government to override the parents is a grandparent rather than a progressive school staffer.
Republicans may increasingly find themselves forced to choose between two constituencies they have spent years courting. The GOP has made parental rights a centerpiece of its education and culture-war agenda. But older Americans are also among the party&#8217;s most reliable voters and donors, and an increasingly vocal grandparent-rights movement could put those commitments in direct conflict.
Parental rights are easy to defend when the villain is a progressive school board. The harder test comes when enforcing them means telling a crying grandmother, “No.”
By the grandmother&#8217;s account, she last saw her grandson on August 7. The Donalds event occurred only about seven weeks later. Yet in that remarkably short span, she had already contacted her member of Congress and asked a candidate for governor to create a federal law that could compel her adult child to give her access to a grandchild.
Perhaps her account is exactly as she presented it: She declined to babysit once because she had plans, and her child retaliated by withholding her grandson. If so, the estrangement sounds cruel and disproportionate. But her own account of the estrangement leads one to wonder whether there is perhaps more to the story.
That uncertainty is precisely why the government shouldn&#8217;t presume it knows better than a fit parent. The Idaho case shows how quickly a seemingly sympathetic story about grandparents missing their grandchildren can become something very different, and how much it can cost parents to adjudicate a family dispute in court. Parents should never have to spend tens of thousands of dollars defending their authority over their own children.
Therapists and online culture may encourage people to sever family relationships that could instead be repaired. But repair won’t come from state persuasion.
***
Bethany Mandel (<a href="https://x.com/bethanyshondark" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@bethanyshondark</a>) is a homeschooling mother of six. She podcasts at the Mom Wars and writes for its <a href="https://themomwars.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Substack</a>.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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The Next Parental Rights Battle Is Coming From Inside The Family

2026 midterm election

byron donalds

family estrangement

grandparent rights

moms for liberty

parental rights

She’s a mom of four and lifestyle mogul juggling a high-profile marriage along with multihyphenate success in country music, reality TV, fitness, fashion, and food. But Jessie James Decker always makes time for a home-cooked meal — and her latest cookbook invites the whole family to savor the good life.
Following Jessie’s previous New York Times bestsellers, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GF8WCK1N?lv=shuf&amp;channelId=500&amp;plpRedirect=mhFallback">The Secret Sauce: A Family Cookbook Seasoned with Love</a>” hit shelves on Tuesday, featuring crowd-pleasing recipes and heartwarming stories from Jessie, her sister Sydney Rae Bass, and their mom Karen Parker. Their Southern, Italian, and Cajun heritage pops off the page, accompanied by photos of Mardi Gras chicken pasta, marry me key lime pie, and Tuscan tomato salad. Just reading it almost feels like picking garden vegetables with Nonna, cooking up a storm, and eating like you mean it. 
I chatted with Jessie the afternoon before she headed out on tour for her book. She’s a born entertainer, but I wonder if she still gets butterflies when she’s playing to more bookish, food-loving crowds than those at The Opry or one of her stadium shows. These days, Jessie’s focused on raising her kids at home — not spending life on the road. But no one’s going hungry in this family. 
“I&#8217;m not a chef and I&#8217;ve never pretended to be, but I&#8217;m a really good home cook,” Jessie says. Preferring cooking to baking, she could probably make most of these dishes by heart. Now a Nashville local with a Southern vibe, Jessie explains, “My mom&#8217;s side of the family all came down from Sicily and settled in a little town called Independence, Louisiana, and it&#8217;s filled with Italians. I was literally raised on Cajun and Italian food.”
If she had to pick a favorite from her newest collection, Jessie would point directly to her mom’s red beans and rice. “It&#8217;s a Cajun Louisiana staple,” she says. “It brings me back to my childhood. Anytime I would travel or go on tour, that was the meal I requested be there when I got home. Even now whenever Eric and I go out of town and my mom watches the kids, we’ll come home and she knows to have red beans and rice on the table. It&#8217;s sausage and rice and beans and it&#8217;s got a bell pepper and bay leaf — it&#8217;s just very, very good and the kids love it. So that&#8217;s a very special recipe to me.”
Jessie describes these types of treasured dishes as “genuinely secret family recipes that I still cannot believe my mother was okay with sharing. There&#8217;s a couple that I&#8217;ve asked, ‘Mom, have you told Gigi that that one&#8217;s in there?’” She laughs. Her grandmother ultimately approved the family’s pink maraschino cherry cookies in the final edit. 
Still, Jessie keeps the mother sauce of Italian cuisine secured in the vault. “The Sicilian gravy … will die with us,” she says.
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Jessie and her mom and sister have the kind of “fun wine mom” energy you want to participate in — even if they’re just hanging out in pajamas with coffee around the table. It’s an unbreakable bond that just seems to grow bigger as more people get added to the tribe. 
Regarding her light and cheeky Instagram where she entertains over 4 million followers, I suggest that Jessie should win Best Director for convincing her hubby to do stunts like the “naked” <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Ddz2iNtTOWB/?hl=en">cookbook promo</a>. After spending almost 16 years with her, he clearly trusts Jessie&#8217;s creative eye behind the camera. She could spot talent a mile away. The couple started dating once a mutual friend connected them via Jessie’s Blackberry. 
“She sends me a picture to my Blackberry, and it takes a minute to load,” Jessie recalls. “I saw the photo and I was like, well sh*t, this guy is gorgeous. Totally what I had just envisioned: tall, dark, and handsome.”
Fans caught a first glimpse of Jessie’s marriage to former NFL wide receiver Eric Decker on their first reality show, “Eric &amp; Jessie.” Anyone following along will remember their couple&#8217;s exit from “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” when they confirmed, &#8220;<a href="https://www.eonline.com/news/1424358/special-forces-eric-decker-jessie-james-decker-exit-after-injury">We ride together, we fly together</a>.&#8221; But it’s only an illusion that she’s offering up their full story.
“We&#8217;re actually more private than you would ever realize,” she says. “Our relationship and our marriage is very special and sacred to us. So is our family. That&#8217;s why you haven&#8217;t seen us on another reality show because it&#8217;s just too precious. You don&#8217;t have to share everything.”
As for how she does it all while maintaining a level of fitness to keep her JJD Fit community rolling, Jessie’s all about balance. “I&#8217;ve always had such a great relationship with food, and I know a lot of people don&#8217;t,” she admits. Considering that she entered the music industry as a teen, that mindset is nothing short of a miracle. “I don&#8217;t do the sad salads in plastic, like I just don&#8217;t play that game,” she says. “I want good stuff. Food to me is a celebration. I want it to be just delicious and fabulous. It&#8217;s like a treat. I look forward to it.”
“I don&#8217;t overindulge in anything,” she says. “But I never cut myself off. Don&#8217;t ever cut yourself off from the pleasures of life. If you want to have a cookie, have a cookie. If you want to have a glass of wine, have a glass of wine. Everything in moderation.”
Still, Jessie’s real about not always toiling away in the kitchen. “I&#8217;ve definitely had my McDonald&#8217;s chicken sandwich from time,” she laughs. “But I crave heirloom tomatoes and basil and balsamic as a snack.” 
Considering she’s about to head off to Mexico on a girls’ trip, a food and fitness travel show doesn’t seem completely off the table. “I would love to do kind of what Denise Austin did back in the day where I could travel to all these places, do a workout, and then go eat something after and talk about it. I do feel like fitness and food go hand in hand.&#8221;
When it comes to diet, Jessie’s advice is to go back to basics.
“We’ve gotta make it a little bit simpler. Eat your meat, eat your steak, have your butter, have your vegetables, drink your milk,” Jessie says. “These are all things that our grandparents ate. Just feed your body real food and don&#8217;t overthink it.”
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Jessie James Decker’s Diet Advice Is Refreshingly Simple

cookbook

country music

diet

eric decker

jessie james decker

The video game industry has laid off tens of thousands of people at companies such as Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Riot, Epic, and Embracer in the past few years. The cuts often come right after a company reports record engagement or record revenue. The internet&#8217;s explanation is always corporate greed. The CEO wants a third yacht, so he fires the guy who animated Kratos&#8217; beard.
But the greed accusation assumes that wanting to make money is wrong in itself. Frankly, I&#8217;d like a yacht. The real explanation is the math of making a AAA, or major, video game.
In 2004, a AAA game such as Halo 2 or Half-Life 2 took 50 to 100 people a few years. Today, core teams average 400 to 500 people. The Last of Us Part II credited more than 2,100 people across Naughty Dog and 14 outside studios. The race toward photorealism demands far more artists, far more programmers, and far longer schedules.
Take a hypothetical game on the scale of 2018&#8217;s God of War: about 300 developers working for four years. At an average salary of $120,000, that&#8217;s $144 million in pay alone. Benefits and payroll taxes add $43 million. Contractors, motion capture, quality assurance, and localization add $25 million, and offices, hardware, and software another $12 million. Marketing can easily run $50 million. That&#8217;s about $274.2 million before a single copy sells.
The game sells for $70, and Steam, PlayStation and Xbox take 30%, leaving about $49 per copy. Just breaking even takes 5.6 million copies.
Most of that budget, $187 million, goes to salaries and benefits. It&#8217;s paid out over four years before the game earns a dollar. Someone has to cover that payroll, and that someone is investors. They put up the money because they expect a return, and that expectation is what creates the jobs in the first place.
Breaking even doesn&#8217;t satisfy them. An investor could put the same $274.2 million in an index fund earning 8% a year and have about $373 million after four years. To beat that, the game has to sell 7.6 million copies.
So a game can sell 4 million copies, rank among the year&#8217;s top 20, and still count as a failure internally. It&#8217;s not because the game is bad. It&#8217;s because the money would have done better elsewhere.
Ownership matters too. Say I own a studio outright, spend $275 million on a game and earn $300 million. I&#8217;d be thrilled with a $25 million profit. If I were CEO of a public company, the same result would have shareholders asking why I tied up a quarter billion dollars for four years to earn less than a Treasury bond.
Public companies aren&#8217;t legally required to maximize profit, but they answer to shareholders who can sell the moment growth slows. Executives are mostly paid in stock, too. When the share price dips, the fastest lever to pull is payroll.
Not even Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima is safe. Last month, it was announced that Sony pulled funding for Physint, his long-running spy thriller, and Xbox picked it up. On the surface that makes no sense. Kojima made Metal Gear Solid, and tens of millions of people played Death Stranding.
But the numbers were thinner than the reputation. Death Stranding cost about $100 million and earned about $243 million. Death Stranding 2 cost $150 million to $200 million, and its sales dropped off after a strong first two months. Analysts estimate the franchise has earned about $413 million, a return of 18% to 38% over roughly six years. Keeping pace with the 8% benchmark would have taken about 59%. With Physint reportedly behind schedule and over budget, Sony walked away.
Then there&#8217;s the live service lottery. Live service games continuously update and allow in-game purchases, keeping the gaming experience dynamic and, for the company, profitable. Every publisher watched Fortnite and GTA Online print money year after year and decided it needed one, too. EA, Ubisoft, Sony, and even Naughty Dog all launched live service projects on top of their usual single-player games. The market had room for two or three winners. Concord, Redfall, Suicide Squad, and Highguard were not among them, and each cost as much to make as a AAA game. For every Helldivers 2, at least 10 others die on the vine. Then come the layoffs.
Microsoft tried to escape the math with Game Pass. On a subscription service, a game didn&#8217;t need to sell 7.6 million copies. It only needed to keep subscribers paying $10-$23 a month. That funded games that would never have existed otherwise: Double Fine&#8217;s Psychonauts 2, Compulsion Games&#8217; strange narrative projects, and Tango Gameworks&#8217; surprise hit Hi-Fi Rush.
But the 8% target just moved to a different spreadsheet. When subscriber growth slowed, the pressure came back for every studio at once. Tango was shut down in 2024, about a year and a half after Hi-Fi Rush launched to great reviews. Compulsion had to buy back its independence from Xbox. Microsoft deserves blame for green-lighting games that were never going to sell — and credit for taking the risks that got them made.
None of this excuses bad decisions. Green-lighting five live service clones at once was foolish, and spending $69 billion on a single acquisition was ambitious, to put it kindly. But trying to make money isn&#8217;t evil. It&#8217;s what pays for games in the first place.
An indie studio can be happy breaking even. A public company has to keep asking whether its money could earn more somewhere else, and, across the industry, the honest answer is often yes.
So the next time a studio you love is gutted the same month its game tops the charts, remember the math. Making money with art is hard. Getting someone to front you $300 million, then paying it back, is even harder.
***
Michael Knipp is a husband, father of five children, and nerd culture enthusiast. He works in IT at The Daily Wire.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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Why Your Favorite Game Studios Keep Dying

business

hideo kojima

layoffs

microsoft

sony

video game industry

video game industry layoffs

After Amazon&#8217;s fumble of &#8220;The Lord of the Rings&#8221; and &#8220;The Wheel of Time,&#8221; it seems the most any fan of a book can hope for is that some popular studio won’t completely butcher his or her favorite story when adapting it. My favorite book happens to be &#8220;East of Eden&#8221; by John Steinbeck, and so you might understand my trepidation when it was announced that Netflix would be making it a miniseries starring Florence Pugh as Cathy, the novel’s villain.
If “they didn’t ruin it” is close to the highest praise I can offer, let me offer it now. Netflix managed to pull off an adaptation of Steinbeck’s magnum opus that feels mostly faithful to the source material, covers the essential parts of the lengthy text, preserves the core of most of the characters, and does so in an aesthetically inspiring way. From gorgeously set title cards to needle drops as the credits roll, the show’s artistic vision is clear and compelling. What’s more, the moral center of the tale is there, and as a long-time fan of the book, I believe this is what counts.
The story follows two generations of the Trask family, and Adam Trask’s encounter with the Hamilton family (Steinbeck’s own family on his mother’s side). Stretching across the American continent from New England to the Salinas valley, the story operates as a twice-told retelling of the Cain and Abel story from the biblical book of Genesis. Adam and his brother Charles fight for their father Cyrus’s affection, with Adam receiving seemingly undeserved favor and Charles constantly wishing for love. Through a childhood of rejection, Charles’ anger is kindled and nurtured, culminating in Charles brutally beating Adam nearly to death (in the book, Charles returns home to retrieve an ax to finish the job while Adam hides. This detail is missing from the show). 
After stints in the army and a period of vagrancy, Adam returns home to Charles, discovering that their father has died and left them a fortune. Charles is suspicious about its origins, but Adam chooses to be more trusting. While arguing about the money, a beaten, bloody, nearly dead mysterious woman calling herself Cathy drags herself to their door and introduces viewers to one of the most interesting villains in American literature. After nursing her to health, naïve and lovestruck Adam marries Cathy before realizing her true nature. 
Between book and screen, the largest change and the one most likely to earn complaints is the modification of Cathy’s backstory. In the book, Steinbeck explicitly intends Cathy to be a monster through and through. She is someone who is born different from other people, as different as someone with a visible deformity but possessing a deformity of the soul instead. Where Steinbeck’s villain is nearly unadulterated evil, the Cathy of the Netflix adaptation is a victim in many senses. She recounts abuse that occurred when she was 5 years old (the viewer only sees her being lured into the woods with candy and must fill in the rest of the details) and is an apparently somewhat reluctant object of the affections of her high school teacher, rather than a manipulative seductress as she is portrayed in the book.
After threatening to show people the love letters from her pursuer, the distraught schoolteacher appears at her house in the middle of the night before killing himself in the town’s church. Cathy’s father, in another departure from the book, brutally beats her and threatens to continue to do so, suspecting her connection to the teacher’s tragic death. Cathy’s father in the book in contrast physically disciplines her exactly once, in response to her refusal to attend school. In both the book and the adaptation, Cathy responds to the beating by burning her parents alive and faking her own death. 
Cathy being a somewhat sympathetic victim certainly changes aspects of her character, but her culpability as a murderer and a manipulator of men is never in doubt even if the show attempts to make her motives more understandable to viewers. She kills her parents, sleeps with her new husband’s brother Charles, attempts to abort her children with a knitting needle, shoots her husband, abandons her infant twins, returns to prostitution, kills her madam, and does unspeakable things to men in her brothel while keeping photographic evidence for blackmail purposes. Though she is a more “nuanced” or victimized character on the screen, she remains a villain. 
The story makes clear through relatively heavy-handed allegorical and symbolic characters that some people, like Cathy, Charles, and Cathy’s son Caleb, have a certain predisposition for evil or meanness, while others like Adam and his son Aron have about them an innocence, a kindness, and a kind of naivety. However, a persistent theme in both book and show is that one need not give in to the evil they find within themselves, that even good people choose to do bad, and vice versa. Even Cathy’s lifelong villainy is a product of choice, and her progeny Caleb who carries a part of her within himself is presented with the opportunity to choose to be different despite his tendencies. The Cain and Abel story takes a prominent role in book and show, with discussion centered on the best way to understand God’s command to Cain that he “shall” rule over his sin crouching at the door. The conclusion arrived at is that the Hebrew word timshel (originally timshol) is best understood in the sense “thou mayest rule over,” a statement of opportunity and choice rather than fate. 
When Aron and Cal are young boys, Caleb accidentally overhears his father and Lee discussing their mother, very much alive despite what Adam had previously told them. Realizing that the knowledge of their mother’s leaving them and her profession would break his brother, Caleb chooses to withhold the information. He tells Aron that his father plans to send a wreath of carnations clear across the country to adorn their mother’s grave. In what is in many ways the emotional climax of the show, Caleb is later shown laying a carnation wreath on his mother’s grave, an act of forgiveness that the show adds to the book but that in many ways solidifies the novel’s central claim: that Caleb can choose to be different than his parentage, that he need not carry on the sins of his father or his mother, but instead may rule over his own sin, forgive wrongs done, and become better for it. 
The portrayals of these characters from the novel are, with few exceptions, masterful. Lee, portrayed by Hoon Lee, is a particularly excellent addition to the cast as a wise counselor figure, and his unfortunately brief conversations with Samuel Hamilton steal the show in many ways. The miniseries format means parts of the book are lost, but one of the most lamentable absences is the family dynamic of the Hamilton household. We see Samuel’s wife Liza for one brief episode, and we do not get to meet Samuel’s many children, nor Steinbeck himself who narrates the novel and appears briefly peeking out from behind his mother Olive’s skirts.
This absence is hard for me to bear, but the show makes good use of the seven-episode limited series format nonetheless. If considering other possible criticisms, it bears noting as well that those, like me, of more prudish sensibilities will perhaps be shocked at the amount of nudity the first few episodes contain (though one could hardly imagine adapting Cathy’s exploits in a family-friendly format). 
&#8220;East of Eden&#8221; is timelessly American, a story that portrays nearly every type of American and connects both coasts, multiple centuries, and America’s own internal struggles as it attains maturity across the continent. While fans of the novel may have fair criticisms, Netflix’s adaptation is in many ways exceptional, taking Steinbeck’s heartrending tale and giving it new life for another generation of fans. 
***
Philip D. Bunn is an assistant professor of political science at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, where he teaches political theory and American politics.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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This American Classic Actually Survived A Modern Makeover

east of eden

florence pugh

john steinbeck

netflix

television review

In a win for normal people, the NHL has killed its “Hot for Hockey” campaign, putting a quick end to the league’s bizarre foray into sexualizing its own players to try to create more female fans. 
Announced the <a href="https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2026/09/29/nhl-winks-at-hockey-romance-subculture-with-hot-for-hockey-campaign/">day the puck dropped</a> on the 2026-2027 season, the “Hot for Hockey” campaign consisted of short, minute-long stories written and narrated by hockey romance (read: porn, but somehow trendy) authors. The stories would feature real players and loose interpretations of real storylines during the season. 
“The popularity of hockey romance in not only this country, but North America at large, even parts of Europe, it’s unmistakable,” Sean Eggert, the NHL’s chief marketing officer, said in a release. “You can’t hide from it. And so it’s a great opportunity for us to extend and reflect that culture back in our storytelling.”
Eggert went on to say that the “Hot for Hockey” campaign was aimed at a “younger cohort” and was meant to “evoke an emotion and a reaction from a consumer in a positive way to attend and watch.”
The NHL claims that players approved the use of their names and likenesses in the ad campaign, but I’m not buying it. Specifically because of the “<a href="https://x.com/EastVanJustin/status/2105487491495297075">Chasing Connor</a>” spot.
A female voice reads:
<blockquote>&#8220;It was supposed to be a one-night thing. But when Connor McDavid comes to town, things have a way of&#8230; moving quickly. He&#8217;s fast, he&#8217;s electric, and just when you think you&#8217;ve got him — he&#8217;s already gone. Tune in to the NHL all season long for more Hockey Love.&#8221;</blockquote>
For those unaware, Connor McDavid is currently the single-best player in the NHL. He was drafted first overall in 2015, and the following year, he became the youngest-ever NHL captain at just 19 years old. In the years since, he’s won the league&#8217;s team MVP trophy three times, overall regular-season MVP five times, and playoff MVP once. 
Despite these accolades, McDavid has largely avoided the spotlight outside of the rink. He’s known for being remarkably introverted. He’s been described as a robot who lives and breathes hockey, an allegation he’s <a href="https://www.theplayerstribune.com/connor-mcdavid-nhl-hockey-canada-edmonton-oilers">only really vaguely</a> denied. The most interesting thing the public has learned about him is that he has an <a href="https://www.nhl.com/news/topic/short-shifts/heinz-pokes-fun-at-connor-mcdavid-ketchup-fear">extreme phobia</a> of ketchup. 
Does this sound like the kind of person who would sign off on a suggestive ad featuring a flirty voice and piano music in the background? 
The concept of a league sexualizing its players for ads is one that boggles the brain. It’s hard to imagine any other league — from the MLB to the Professional Women&#8217;s Hockey League to the NBA — doing this to their players. I simply cannot fathom the MLB putting out content implying some sort of romantic spark between Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, or the NBA releasing a suggestive advertising message about LeBron James.
It’s insulting to the players, it’s insulting to their wives and girlfriends, and it’s insulting for the women who actually enjoy the sport. Why was the NHL trying to cultivate the kind of audience who would be interested in hockey not because of the skill of the players or the excitement of the game, but because the players are fun to daydream about? Nobody should be sexually harassed in the workplace, and that includes elite athletes at the hands of their league’s advertising executives. 
The “Hot for Hockey” campaign has its roots in the wild success of the television shows &#8220;Heated Rivalry&#8221; and &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-amazons-hit-college-romance-series-gave-me-the-ick">Off Campus</a>,&#8221; which are both adaptations of “hockey romance” book series. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said the “data is overwhelming in terms of new fans that we acquired last year who were first introduced to hockey either through &#8216;Off Campus&#8217; or &#8216;Heated Rivalry&#8217; … so since it seems to be a cultural phenomenon, we figured why not get on board.”
&#8220;Heated Rivalry,&#8221; the Crave Original/HBO Max series based on the book series &#8220;Game Changers&#8221; by Rachel Reid, is a gay hockey romance. The main characters in Heated Rivalry, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, are very <a href="https://people.com/heated-rivalry-true-story-11862301">thinly veiled</a> characterizations of two real-life NHL superstars, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. 
Unlike Hollander and Rozanov, Crosby and Ovechkin have not, to my knowledge, had sex with each other, nor have any active NHL players. But that hasn’t <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@jackmacbarstool/video/7587266635459808567">stopped fans</a> of the show from bringing signs reading “now kiss” and “the sexual tension is killing me” to games, or acting in such an obsessive manner that a team had to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DWP_wgojdzd/">change policies</a> at practices to protect players. 
The NHL should not be catering to these people or making ad campaigns to bring in more “booktok” fans who are introduced to the sport by what is essentially pornographic fan fiction about real people. In a healthy society, they’d be shunned as the weirdos that they are, rather than embraced as a potential fanbase. It is not normal to watch a sporting event and fantasize about the players having sex with each other. 
But on Monday, not even a week into the season, <a href="https://frontofficesports.com/article/nhl-removes-hot-for-hockey-audio-shorts-after-1-week/">sanity prevailed</a>: The seven “Hot for Hockey” ads were scrubbed entirely from Spotify, and now the NHL is backpedaling on the campaign. The league had previously <a href="https://x.com/EllynBriggs/status/2107191708060397682">claimed</a> that the campaign would run throughout the season; now it&#8217;s saying it was always meant to be short-lived. 
An unnamed league spokesperson told the outlet Front Office Sports on Monday that the ad spots were “matchup specific posts created by authentic authors, illustrators and voice actors designed to run during our opening games in the first week,” and that “our marketing now is focused around many other activations including our Hockey Hits Different celebrity campaign, tune-in messages, and other initiatives.” 
The spokesperson did not explain the sudden change of plans in the campaign over the course of six days. 
As a woman who enjoys hockey, I think it’s fine to acknowledge some players are cute. It’s decidedly less fine for a league to sign off on an advertising campaign aimed at making women think about having sex with its players.
I’m glad the NHL quickly realized (perhaps because horrified fans were vocal enough to protest) that sexualizing its players is not the way to get fans in seats. The fact that this has to be said is a sad reflection of how low society has fallen and how pervasive “spicy” culture has become in everyday life.
***
Christine Rousselle is the U.S. news editor of the Catholic Herald. A native of Maine and a graduate of Providence College, she went to her first Montreal Canadiens game while in her mother’s womb and has been a fan ever since.
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NHL Tried To Make Its Fans ‘Hot For Hockey.’ They Weren’t Having It.

connor mcdavid

hockey romance

hot for hockey campaign

sports

sports marketing

I was living in Austin in May 2022 when a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, the town where I grew up. I had known some of the children. I had known the shooter. Four years later, I went to Israel still carrying that anger, expecting to find the same bitterness in people who had lost far more. I didn’t.
Growing up, I had known some of the children in Uvalde through relatives and tennis lessons. I had known Salvador Ramos. If we had not moved, my sister could have been a victim at Robb Elementary. When the news reached my high school in Austin that afternoon, I could not keep my composure. I was in a blinding panic, calling and texting family members and friends in Uvalde, trying to find out who was safe. 
In the middle of the chaos, false news rumors spread that Ramos was transgender. In my initial shock I repeated that to my peers. Friends whose politics differed from mine cut me off mid-sentence. They said they were sorry for my losses, but linking transgender identity to mental illness was transphobic and politically incorrect. 
While I was still trying to reach people I knew and the bodies of children I had grown up around were still being identified, my teachers and classmates in front of me chose to police language rather than condemn a mass murderer. 
I could not fathom how someone’s left-leaning politics could so egregiously erode their morals. Something snapped in me that day. My anger was acute, and it festered. From then on, I dedicated myself to politics and journalism with a hardened sense of purpose.
That is what I carried into Israel. I went with a group of journalists through the College Fix and Passages to see the region’s conflicts up close and to interact with Christians, Jews, Muslims, Oct. 7 survivors, and political leaders. 
War and terror attacks in the Middle East have long been the subjects that draw me most. For years Western coverage has portrayed Israelis as uniquely bloodthirsty. I never fully believed it, but the constant repetition of that narrative still shaped what I expected to encounter. What I found was different.
We spent a full day at sites of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. One of them was a kibbutz whose gate bordered Gaza. The kibbutz has remained untouched since Oct 7. The walls are riddled with bullet holes, rooms stay blackened by grenades, and children’s toys sit covered in dust among the rubble. Homes where families had lived ordinary lives became the rooms in which they were slaughtered. 
Hamas terrorists went from home to home without distinguishing between the young and the old, men and women, race or religion. They shot people in their beds and burned families alive. When I walked the grounds, I could feel the weight of the attack in my bones. 
Standing there, I found it hard to reconcile the remains of the village with the atrocities that had been carried out inside those houses. At that moment, all problems I carried from the United States felt insignificant in comparison.
At the Nova festival grounds we listened to Shalev Biton, a young man not much older than me, who shared with raw emotion the account of his survival on Oct. 7. He described fleeing as Hamas gunmen moved through the festival grounds hunting people down. 
A Bedouin Muslim farm worker hid him along with others. When the terrorists reached the farm, they shouted that they knew he was hiding Jews and demanded to know where they were, threatening to kill him if he refused. Biton told me, “I wouldn’t wish that horror on any human being, including civilians in Gaza.” He added, “In the eyes of Hamas, they don’t see Jew or Muslim; you’re just in their way.”
The Israelis I met were people who had every reason to hate. Many had lost friends, neighbors, and family members. Some had walked into their own homes and found them killed, or had survived by only a few minutes while others were taken or shot in front of them. They had endured atrocities most Americans cannot conceptualize.
I also spoke with others who asked to remain anonymous: Muslims, Christians, and Jews whose relatives had been brutally slain or tortured and who had been the ones to discover what was left of them. For many, this kind of loss is not limited to Oct. 7. In a region shaped by recurring geopolitical conflict, it has become a repeated fact of life.
Yet these people remained composed while they spoke. They wanted Hamas dismantled and had advocated for the safe return of the hostages. Some even said they hoped the people who carried out the attacks might one day change.
The difference was hard to grasp. Four years earlier, the murder of children I knew had left me with a sense of resentment. I had watched people around me defend abhorrent political correctness under the guise of inclusion, and something in me had shut down in response.
The restraint I witnessed in Israelis was the refusal to become what had tried to destroy them.
I left Israel with a deeper understanding of the conflict, but I was most struck by the people living through it. Their resilience was not performative; it was faithful and deeply human. Many had every reason to be consumed by anger and vitriol, yet what stayed with me most was their refusal to let grief harden into hatred.
***
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They Had Every Reason To Be Bitter. The Israelis I Met Weren’t.

hamas

israel

nova music festival massacre

october 7 attack

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Emma Hamilton learned she was pregnant the day before orientation at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. She was 23 and had just quit her job to attend law school. In the face of uncertainty, she decided to forge ahead with her post-grad plans and pulled up the school&#8217;s website to see when finals were. It turned out they were a week after her due date.
&#8220;I was like, OK, how feasible is this?&#8221; she told The Daily Wire during an interview. &#8220;I could do a single week with a newborn about to take exams as long as I get all my studying in.&#8221;
The plan did not hold. According to Standing With You&#8217;s <a href="https://www.standingwithyou.org/meet-the-2026-standing-with-her-scholarship-recipients/">profile</a> of Emma, her daughter arrived early after a pregnancy complicated by preeclampsia and was rushed to a NICU an hour away. For two weeks, Emma attended online classes from hospital waiting rooms. She spent Easter in the NICU, with finals still ahead.
What her school did next is impressive. Emma emailed her writing professor from the hospital to say she could not submit her portion of a motion due the next day. The reply, she recalled, told her not to give it a second thought. When the oral argument was due, the professor let her do it over Zoom. She’s now the teaching assistant for that same professor.
Unfortunately, Emma’s experience with feeling supported while pregnant or with children during college is not universal. Students for Life of America&#8217;s Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement rated 553 state colleges and universities on a five-star scale across housing, on-campus resources, financial assistance, medical attention, and accommodations and policy transparency. The average score was 3.1. 
According to the <a href="https://studentsforlife.org/campuspregnancysupportstudy/">findings</a>, which were shared first with The Daily Wire, 98.6% of the schools are missing at least two recommended accommodations. Roughly 73% offer no on-campus family housing, 91% no maternity parking, and 85% no pregnancy or parenting scholarships. Forty-six percent have no on-campus child care, and of those evaluated, only seven schools earned five stars.
Students for Life of America singled out a &#8220;Dirty Dozen&#8221; of the lowest scorers. Dalton State College (Georgia), Dakota State University (South Dakota), and Concord University (West Virginia) tied for the worst rating at one star. Nine more earned 1.5 stars: the College of the Florida Keys, Indiana State University, McNeese State University (Louisiana), Fairmont State University (West Virginia), Elizabeth City State University (North Carolina), Mayville State University (North Dakota), Rhode Island College, Radford University (Virginia), and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
&#8220;When a student can find a pregnancy test at the health center but no family housing, no child care, no maternity parking, and no scholarships, the institution&#8217;s intentions for her pregnancy are clear,&#8221; said Kristan Hawkins, the group&#8217;s president. Hawkins is asking each Dirty Dozen college president to fix at least half of what is missing within one academic year.
Students for Life is also pressing the Senate to pass the Pregnant Students&#8217; Rights Act, which would require colleges to tell students what rights and accommodations they have, including how to file a Title IX complaint. The bill passed the House in January and has stalled in the Senate since.
Luckily, Emma found herself on the opposite end of the spectrum while attending school. When she returned to campus after having the baby, she realized the school had a parents&#8217; nook for students who need to bring a child to campus and a locking room with a sink, a fridge, and a table for pumping. For very long exams, she got extra time for pump breaks. &#8220;I think this was probably the best place I could be in terms of trying to navigate that,&#8221; she said.
Emma says the worst part of being a new mom attending college was being in her own head about it. Before anyone knew she was pregnant, she had heard classmates talk about other pregnant students as if they could not possibly keep up. &#8220;I think a lot of the harmful thoughts came from my assumptions on what other people were going to think,&#8221; she said. 
Emma is clear about what else made it work. Her mother watches her daughter during class. At her undergraduate school, Grand Valley State, across the state from her family, she says she probably could not have finished. &#8220;You can&#8217;t work, then essentially you have limitations on that if you don&#8217;t have childcare, but you can&#8217;t get childcare unless you work,&#8221; she said. 
Standing With You, the Students for Life initiative that awarded her one of 12 $2,000 scholarships this year, calls her story proof of what is possible when support exists. She enters her final year this fall and plans to sit for the Michigan bar.
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This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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