{"id":3944,"date":"2021-05-20T14:00:07","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T18:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/?p=3944"},"modified":"2021-09-15T22:08:40","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T02:08:40","slug":"students-defeat-pandemic-boredom-through-body-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/2021\/05\/students-defeat-pandemic-boredom-through-body-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Defeat Pandemic Boredom through Body Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether it\u2019s DIY dye jobs, \u201c<\/span>pandemic bangs<\/span><\/a>,\u201d or last-minute tattoos, 2020 gave many students the chance to experiment with their appearance. Last year, people were taking to <\/span>social media in droves <\/span><\/a>to share their, sometimes regretful, decisions to try something new.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Hunter graduate and hairdresser Lissa Lenis, social distancing gave her the time and space to experiment with her own hair.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs a hairstylist, I\u2019ve been through every color in the book,\u201d said Lenis. \u201cDuring quarantine, I was watching \u2018My Hero Academia\u2019 and decided to just color my hair. I did one side red and the other one white.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t stop there. Over the quarantine, Lenis changed and dyed her hair over five times. For her, it was an easy and fun way to change things up and get over her pandemic-induced boredom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

During the quarantine, many struggled with feeling uninspired and <\/span>lacking motivation<\/span><\/a>. But for Lenis, the past year has let her artistry grow in ways she couldn\u2019t have predicted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBeing stuck at home really didn\u2019t hinder my creativity with my hair and makeup, it actually expanded that,\u201d said Lenis.<\/span><\/p>\n

In March of last year, she created a TikTok account to expand her online following when the world went virtual. Earlier this year, Lenis passed 2,000 followers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her inspiration even led her to reconnect with an old passion, comedy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past year, I have become so creative, I\u2019ve went back to comedy and have really grown. I have an ongoing comedy show in the West Village that I never imagined having last year,\u201d said Lenis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even with her newfound hustle, Lenis still makes time to express herself through her hair and makeup, a tradition reinforced by the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to hair and makeup, that will always be my first love,\u201d said Lenis.<\/span><\/p>\n

For student Michael Hartmann, like many others, the quarantine brought challenges.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the same routine, same thing every day. I needed to change something,\u201d said Hartmann. Last year, he decided to memorialize one of his favorite game series, \u201cDark Souls,\u201d as a tattoo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy roommate wants to be a tattoo artist, so I almost let her do it,\u201d he said, laughing. \u201cBut I really wanted it to be clean and matter to me,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

With the stress of having to balance a new apartment, relationship and student life after losing his job due to the pandemic, Hartmann quickly fell into a rut. During bleak days spent waiting and worrying, video games became his escape. The game provided a challenge and distraction from what was happening in the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGetting my tattoo felt special,\u201d said Hartmann.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hartmann was partially motivated by photos that his friends were sending him sporting their new tattoos and hairstyles. Earlier this year, he tried a hairdo he\u2019s never had before.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI went to a real barber for the first time since the pandemic a couple months ago,\u201d said Hartmann. An hour later, his tousled, curly hair was shaped into many tight braids. \u201cI wanted to try something totally new but I didn\u2019t know if I\u2019d like it. Now seemed like the perfect time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And if you ask him, he was right about his hair; the braids only lasted for a couple of weeks before he took them out. \u201cI would try something different again, though,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During 2020, Hunter graduate Maria Varela spent a lot of time online. In between attending Zoom classes and job hunting, she spent a lot of time scrolling through TikTok.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI started seeing more and more people posting their hair and it made me wanna do something,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I was too scared to kill my hair,\u201d she said.<\/span>
\n<\/span> Instead, Varela decided to get a new ear piercing and her first tattoo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted to do something that was completely for me,\u201d she said. \u201cI guess it was like self-care.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Varela, <\/span>like many<\/span><\/a>, suffered from pandemic burnout. After losing her job, she experienced a lot of stress about her future. As a film major, her career stalled while in-person filmmaking was paused.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe constant search gave me anxiety,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like Lenis, changing her appearance was a simple, fun way to break the monotony of Varela\u2019s routine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She is anxious and eager to get her second tattoo; she has already picked out a simplistic flower design.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students share how they changed their appearances to shake up their quarantine routine. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":3946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,324],"tags":[303,279,55,299,150],"class_list":["post-3944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-student-life","tag-covid19","tag-huntercollege-hunterstudents","tag-art","tag-quarantine","tag-studentlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3948,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944\/revisions\/3948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}