While I’ve never been a huge fan of Halloween, I’ll admit that I’m going to miss the regular festivities this year. Trick-or-treating is still up in the air, but it seems unlikely that many neighborhoods will be continuing the tradition during COVID-19. Costume parties seem more probable, but it isn’t safe to be gathered around so many people, either. With all this uncertainty, are there ways to celebrate the holiday while also staying safe? Here are some ideas:

• Movies with roomies

Horror movies are a Halloween classic. You can get some snacks with your roommates and spend the night eating way too much candy and watching movies. You can make a movie bingo card, or find plenty online. Doing any activity with roommates is always a safe bet because you’re already around each other so much.

• Trick-or-treating in your dorm

You would have to get a good number of people living in your dorm in order for it to work, but I think this could be a lot of fun. Participants leave an empty bag or box outside their room and purchase a cheap bag of candy at Walmart. You can wander the dorm and put candy in people’s bags. At the end of the night, you’ll have a full bag of candy from the people living around you! Be sure to thoroughly sanitize the wrappers, just in case.

• Halloween gift exchange

You can set a budget limit and do a gift exchange with your friends. You can exchange gifts in the lobby of your dorm building while sitting socially distanced from one another. Gifts could include Squishmallows, candy, horror movies or anything you’d like! This could work, provided everyone is appropriately distanced and wearing their masks.

• Watch party with friends

Provided everyone has Netflix, you could get a group of friends to download the Netflix Party browser extension, and you can watch the same movie at the same time virtually. It’s not the same as being in-person, but you’ll still be able to watch the same movie together. I did this over quarantine. It was a little wonky, but it still worked.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many ways to celebrate Halloween safely this year. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time.

Well, that didn’t take long.

The United States has suffered greatly since the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was one of the most ardent defenders of women’s and gay rights. She championed the Obergefell v. Hodges case, which resulted in the legalization of gay marriage. Now, two Supreme Court Justices want to tear it all down.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued a statement earlier this week declaring that they wanted to repeal their previous decision on the Obergefell case, therefore stripping the LGBTQ+ community of their right to marry. Their reasoning? In Thomas’ own words, the court’s previous decision “enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss.”

See the problem here?

The first amendment in the Bill of Rights is often interpreted to require separation of church and state. The line that states this, usually assigned to Thomas Jefferson, is that the establishment clause of the amendment declares that they build a “wall of separation between the church and state.” This prevented one’s religious beliefs from interfering with their ability to serve the American people. This law ought to invalidate Thomas and Alito’s statement. Technically, they are not supposed to consider how any decision they’ve made would impact people’s religious beliefs, unless it specifically infringes on the right of religious liberty.

But guess what? It doesn’t even matter. There will likely never be a time in the American government that church isn’t somehow connected with state. There is a National Prayer Breakfast held in Washington D.C. every year hosted by members of Congress – it really doesn’t get much more obvious than that. The White House is adorned with specifically Christian-oriented decorations during the winter holidays, including multiple Christmas trees. It shouldn’t be shocking anymore that there are religious reasons why people think same-sex marriage is immoral. That right is now in very serious danger.

This address from two Justices is only one more stepping stone on the path to reevaluating the decision that Obergefell represents. Amy Coney Barrett, who President Trump has nominated for the Supreme Court, has been very vocal about her Catholic beliefs. In 2015, she voiced her dissent with the Supreme Court’s decision to allow gay marriage. Should she truly be appointed to the Supreme Court, it’s almost inevitable that the decision will be appealed. Obergefell barely made it last time, scraping by with a 5-4 outcome. Barrett would sway that vote in the opposite direction.

I don’t know how many times the LGBTQ+ community needs to say it for it to sink in: gay rights are not – and should not be – a political issue. Someone’s mere existence should not be perceived as a threat to “religious liberty.” I’m amazed that this is still up for debate in the year 2020. There are bigger fish to fry. Aren’t we still in the middle of a global pandemic? The focus should not be on whether or LGBTQ+ individuals should be legally allowed to declare their love for one another.

All things considered, removing Obergefell invalidates the existence of millions of LGBTQ+ Americans, including those who are already married. There should be no reason at all that LGBTQ+ individuals pose some kind of a threat to those with religious values. By even considering repealing the case, the rights of such a marginalized community will be greatly impacted. Repealing this decision will be a major step backward in the fight for civil rights for all minorities in this country. The LGBTQ+ community is in serious trouble, and something needs to be done about it.

YouTube began monetizing videos in 2008, meaning that creators could make money off of their content. For some creators, YouTube is their only source of income. Quarantine is a gold mine for these creators because they can continue to make content from their homes in addition to receiving more views and ad revenue due to people having nothing else to do. However, not everything is rosy for these creators.

YouTube has a feature where users can report certain videos for offensive content, which can include phobic dialect (racism, homophobia, etc), foul language, reckless acts, violence, nudity, the list goes on. It used to be that human employees at YouTube would comb through flagged videos and determine whether or not the video should remain up, be taken down or be demonitized, meaning that the creator would not make any money off that particular video. For creators whose only career is YouTube, that can mean receiving no income until another video is created and monetized.

Since stay-at-home orders were issued, YouTube has replaced the human filters with artificial intelligence (AI). These AI are given buzz words to search for, and if those words or phrases are detected by the AI, the flagged videos are automatically demonetized or removed with little consideration. This was the reality of YouTube, as was discussed by channels like the Game Theorists, the Try Guys, Kurtis Conner and many more. After a large amount of backlash regarding this change, YouTube has since altered their policy so videos can mention COVID-19 with less fear of demonetization. However, the situation has caused freedom of speech in the media to be reevaluated. Why would YouTube demonetize COVID-19? Why should we care?

TechCrunch commented on the policy, stating that “YouTube was putting a damper on informative, newsworthy videos as well as those capitalizing on the human tragedy and people’s fears about the emerging pandemic.”

This perfectly encapsulates the mood of the creator community when videos about COVID-19 began circulating. 

Some creators made videos about how quarantine has affected their daily lives and urged their viewers to stay home (#StopTheSpread, for example). These types of videos were considered helpful, akin to videos that were providing factual information about the spread of the virus as well as preventative measures and news updates. 

However, there was a darker side to COVID-19 content that really brought out the worst in people. Some prank channels made videos where they pranked their viewers or loved ones into believing they had caught COVID-19, making fun of the tragic conversation some people are having in reality. Other channels made videos that were reporting false information about the virus, ultimately spreading panic and fear among their viewers.

This is the content YouTube wanted to avoid when they demonetized COVID-19. In doing so, however, they also stopped helpful and less problematic videos from making money, harming those creators while also censoring those who truly deserved it. So, was YouTube in the right for making this policy?

My answer is that there is no answer. There is no perfect response to this. If YouTube had kept their human filters, perhaps this would have been avoided. But if they had done that, they would have been risking the lives of those workers – so that’s not an option. They could have completely removed all filters, but that would seriously damage the company’s reputation by allowing unfiltered content. 

That leaves us with AI, which we all know isn’t perfect or foolproof. AI doesn’t have the capacity to determine whether or not a video is harmful or helpful when two videos share the same sort of content. If they hadn’t changed the policy to allow COVID-19 content, it’s very likely some creators would have left the platform. Allowing COVID-19 content will create some amount of misinformation to circulate, but that is unavoidable if YouTube wants to avoid a scandal and allow the helpful creators to monetize their videos.

With this to consider, I really can’t blame YouTube for their actions. There’s no precedent for a pandemic of this scale. We’re all learning how to cope with this. The only people we can blame are the channels that are making harmful content about the virus, but there’s very little to be done about that except just deciding to not watch their videos.

It seems like COVID-19 is the only thing people can talk about these days. It’s taken over everything in our lives to the point that reading anything in the news that isn’t related to COVID-19 is strange and alien. It feels as though there’s nothing else going on in the world – and that’s simply because there isn’t. Television shows have halted production, sports aren’t happening anymore and everyone has barricaded themselves in their homes. With morale so low, people are looking to influencers and celebrities for entertainment and guidance. This is both a blessing and a curse.

On one hand, you have very supportive celebrities. YouTube personalities like The Try Guys and SMOSH are posting videos from quarantine that offer ideas of things to do while stuck at home. The band AJR is offering free virtual concerts from their home, and multiple influencers have upped production of their content. There are examples of celebrities who have shown support and solidarity while also reminding people that they need to stay home. It isn’t anything huge, but their actions, however small, have helped by spreading the word about how to stay safe as well as offering entertainment.

There are also celebrities that are spending large amounts of money, whether that be to donate to a good cause or to support their own. Leonardo DiCaprio is on a mission to raise $15 million to donate to America’s Food Fund, Lady Gaga raised $35 million for the World Health Organization and Elton John pumped an extra $1 million into his AIDS foundation in order to continue providing treatment and testing for individuals living with HIV and AIDS. These celebrities are promoting foundations that are in dire need of money to continue functioning and providing help in these troubling times.

There are also some celebrities who have contracted COVID-19 speaking out about their experiences while also offering advice. Some of these celebrities include P!NK, Sara Bareilles, Idris Elba and Tom Hanks. They show us that anyone can get the virus while urging everyone to practice social distancing.

However, not everything celebrities have done has been helpful. The biggest thing that comes to mind is the “Imagine” video, which features celebrities singing the song “Imagine” by John Lennon. Some of the celebrities in this video include Jimmy Fallon, Natalie Portman and Will Ferrell. The song features lyrics like “Imagine no possessions” and “no need for greed or hunger.” 

The original video of these celebrities entitled “25 celebrities sing ‘Imagine’ in isolation, creating a moving montage” published on YouTube by CBS News has racked up 5,700 likes – compared to 47,000 dislikes. Some of the comments are: “So much cringe packed into one video,” “…trust me, half of us don’t have to imagine [having no possessions]” and “‘Imagine’ being that outta touch with society.” 

While many understand the intent of these celebrities was to unite everyone under such dire circumstances, they certainly picked the wrong song to do it. After all, these are people with more money than they know what to do with. They can live comfortably without a job for a long amount of time. However, their audience of average Americans have lost their jobs due to the crisis and are struggling to make ends meet. Celebrities singing about having “no possessions” while still being financially stable is incredibly insensitive in a time when some people literally don’t have any possessions. 

There are also plenty of celebrities who have continued to find themselves in controversy despite the pandemic – James Charles and Trisha Paytas, to name a few – but perhaps that’s just a way of regaining normalcy. After all, those two celebrities in particular are not ones to shy away from drama, even during a global pandemic.

All things considered, the pandemic has brought out the personalities and actions of numerous celebrities, allowing fans to see their true colors. Some have been helpful, but some have clearly not.