Solution: The Middle Class
Answer: BUSINESS
Written by Jonah Ostroff
Each puzzle in the Sociology department uses parts of the profiles of two fish. This puzzle uses the photos from Salmon’s PokeCupid page, and ten clips from Tuna’s Codify page.
There are five artists who each have exactly two clips on Tuna’s playlist, and their names start with A-E: Aerosmith, Beyoncé, Coldplay, Daft Punk, and Ed Sheeran.
Each of these artists has one clip from the end of a song, and one clip from the beginning of a song. As clued by the title, we should find the middle somehow. These songs are always two tracks apart on an album, so the middle is the song in between:
| Artist | Before song | Middle song | After song |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aerosmith | Girl Keeps Coming Apart | Angel | Permanent Vacation |
| Beyoncé | Cuff It | Energy | Break My Soul |
| Coldplay | A Head Full of Dreams | Birds | Hymn for the Weekend |
| Daft Punk | Get Lucky | Beyond | Motherboard |
| Ed Sheeran | Shape of You | Perfect | Galway Girl |
The Salmon pictures are presented in alphabetical order. Five of them have a Salmon on the left, and five have a Salmon on the right. These pictures can be paired to create five before-and-afters, where the middle word (replacing the Salmon) is the name of one of the middle songs:
| Word 1 | Word 2 | Index |
|---|---|---|
| ANGEL | DUST | 4 |
| ELEPHANT | BIRDS | 17 |
| BIRDS | EYE | 17 |
| GUARDIAN | ANGEL | 3 |
| BEYOND | MEASURE | 5 |
| PRESENT | PERFECT | 8 |
| ENERGY | SECRETARY | 9 |
| PERFECT | STORM | 3 |
| WELL | BEYOND | 7 |
| WIND | ENERGY | 5 |
This allows us to pair the 10 indices with the 10 given songs. Indexing into those song names (in A-E order by artist) gives:
| Letter | # | Before song | Artist | After song | # | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R | 3 | Girl Keeps Coming Apart | Aerosmith | Permanent Vacation | 4 | M |
| I | 5 | Cuff It | Beyoncé | Break My Soul | 9 | O |
| S | 17 | A Head Full of Dreams | Coldplay | Hymn for the Weekend | 17 | D |
| K | 7 | Get Lucky | Daft Punk | Motherboard | 5 | E |
| Y | 8 | Shape of You | Ed Sheeran | Galway Girl | 3 | L |
This gives one more before-and-after: RISKY [blank] and [blank] MODEL clues the final answer, BUSINESS.