Jezebel

Kelly Faircloth’s review of the year in fat film and TV characters is both a best- and worst-of list, and a personal exploration of the importance and challenges of representation.

Deadspin senior editor Diana Moskovitz has been one of the few reporters to cover not only both of Bill Cosby’s trials but also his conviction and sentencing, in which Cosby will spend upwards of ten years in state prison for sexual assault. She describes in vivid detail the exhaustion and public suffering still exacted on women, even during the #MeToo era.

“You can’t waltz into a pueblo and say, ‘I’m here so you can tell me about your religion.'”

“They are determined to get rid of us, and we can no longer rely on our community’s miraculous evolution alone to protect us. We cannot expend all our energy every day just to survive, just to see another morning, like a desert animal.”

In January, when a teenager killed two of his classmates  Marshall County High School, in Benton, Kentucky, there were no protests, no uprising. The blame went to video games, bullying, parents, the culture at large. Guns were not to blame, far from it.

This sweet and lyrical read will make you fall in love with fireflies and think much harder about how we are everyday chipping away at the world that made us.

“That Cleary eventually ended up writing children’s books feels the way the paths of a great many talented people feel: both inevitable and magical, the result of a lot of hard work mixed with a certain amount of luck.”

The phrase “Black Girl Magic” has become a point of pride for black female visibility in the way it acknowledges how black women are seen—and not seen—in culture. It’s become a valuable phrase as well, and is now at the center of a trademark dispute. But where, exactly, did black girl magic come from?

“There are days when all I want is to become a human road sign, a blinking hazard to any man misfortunate enough to cross my path: ‘I WANT TO OFFEND YOUR SIGHT. I WANT TO OFFEND YOUR EVERYTHING.'”

Liberal Rachel Brewson became an internet — and eventually, television — celeb after sharing the story of her tumultuous relationship with a Republican named Todd. How is she different from a thousand other personal essay writers? Rachel was never real.