A&E Highlights: Staffer reviews and the new Michelangelo exhibit on The Plaza

Escape from the YouTube gaming streamers and into a world of calm spider crabs and peaceful African penguins on The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s YouTube channel.

The Aquarium’s channel features several livestreams of their enclosures and tanks with soothing music set over them. The music ranges from binaural, or the typical spa music, to lofi beats and a variety of animals float across the screen, whether it’s sharks, sea otters or aviaries.

These streams are ideal for study music use. The slow-paced movement of the fish as they glide across the tank and onto your screen provides some background motion to keep you engaged yet not attention jarring like a Snapchat notification.. 

The channel has footage streaming constantly. However, even the jellyfish have to take a break from the stream. In the evening, around 11 p.m., a screen closes over the jellyfish, giving them a rest and time away from their adoring fans. 

The music continues however, but when the screen closes, it might just be your reminder to take some time for yourself and get some much needed sleep after a long day of rigorous academics or rough sports practice.

This isn’t the first “main character” playlist I’ve ever listened to, so I had high hopes. The playlist starts off with the basic main character songs like “Tongue Tied” by Grouplove and “Electric Love” by BØRNS. The further I got into this playlist though, the more I became disappointed.

Artists like Ed Sheeran and Coldplay started to show up, which didn’t completely fit the vibe of what a main character playlist should feel like. I had super high expectations assuming it would make me want to turn up my radio and roll my windows down. Even though this was the first playlist that came up on Spotify when I typed in “main character,” and has over 75,000 likes, I feel like it kept getting worse as I got further into it. Don’t get me wrong there were definitely some good songs sprinkled in towards the end like “Paper Rings” by Taylor Swift and “OK” by Wallows, but as a whole it made me laugh more than feel like I was the lead in a movie. 

Overall, I don’t think I would recommend this playlist, as I have found or created much better ones that fit what I think a main character would listen to or feel in the climax of a movie.