By Mina Johnson
Mina Johnson is a music journalist and student from Los Angeles. She is presently studying Music Industry at Drexel University and hopes to pursue a career in journalism and PR. Currently, she is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of PINNACLE Magazine and Music Editor for HALOSCOPE. Her work has also been featured in Affinity Magazine and Uniquely Aligned, amongst others, and she recently joined the Penny writing staff.
Not too long ago, Mina checked in with us and wrote the following short essay about what 2020 meant to her — check it out below!
2020 was a whirlwind to say the least. I went from going to concerts and house shows weekly to not leaving my house for weeks on end. I can’t even remember the first two months of the year, where things were (or seemed) normal.
In early March, I talked on the phone with my mom about the coronavirus outbreak that had broken out in her home country of China. She told me to stock up on hand sanitizer and buy some face masks. I told her I didn’t need to, because COVID-19 was essentially the flu. How wrong was I, right? Two weeks later, I packed my entire Philadelphia dorm room into two suitcases and moved back home to California, where I would stay for the next six months.
For the first two months I was home, I alternated between binge watching Criminal Minds and crying, sometimes at the same time. In June, I realized I couldn’t just sit around and waste time, so what did I decide to do? Start a magazine.
Pinnacle of Adolescence started as a band name, turned into an album title, and ultimately culminated as a digital publication. Having worked with publications in the past as a writer, I had long wanted to create one of my own, and what better time than during a statewide lockdown and global pandemic?
Later, Pinnacle of Adolescence grew from a little project in my journal to a global publication with more than 30 team members from across the world. At the end of the year, PoA became PINNACLE, and we’re now in the process of rebranding and preparing for new content.
As hard as 2020 was for many people, in a way, I’m extremely thankful for the clusterfuck of a year. I got to spend time with my parents in my childhood home, I had the opportunity to create a project that I never would have done otherwise, and I really reevaluated some things in my life and better understood myself.
So, thank you 2020 for being a year of change, a year of craziness, and most importantly, a year of realization. Hopefully 2021 ends better than it started.
Keep up to date with Mina!