What/If references the celebrated steamy genre of the 80s and 90s, but lacks its guts. Why can’t any of the new neo-noirs go all the way?
Soraya Roberts
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Story
Falling Stars: On Taking Down Our Celebrity Icons
Celebrities act as a symbol of capitalism. When we question it, we question them too.
Posted inStory
After a Fashion
Trying so hard to set trends for the future, fashion’s institutions can’t stop stumbling over the past (and the present).
Posted inArts & Culture, Science & Nature, Story
Critics: Endgame
If there’s no earth, there’s no art. How do you engage in cultural criticism at the end of the world?
Posted inStory
None of the President’s Men
Journalism now is a lot more fear and insecurity and a lot less corduroy and Robert Redford, but you’d never know it from what is projected.
Posted inStory
For the Thirsty Girl
Thirst used to be desperation, now it’s aspiration. And men are finding it hard to quench.
Posted inArts & Culture, Story
On Flooding: Drowning the Culture in Sameness
Flooding (v.): Unleashing a mass torrent of the same stories by the same storytellers at the same time, making it almost impossible for anyone but the same select few to rise to the surface.
Posted inArts & Culture, Current Events, Story
How the Shock Jock Became the Outrage Jock
What’s the difference between Howard Stern and Tucker Carlson? There isn’t really one.
Posted inArts & Culture, Crime, Current Events, Essays & Criticism, Story
True Crime and the Trash Balance
True crime has a reputation for being trashy, but a recent renaissance has it tipping into advocacy.
Posted inArts & Culture, Story
Hollywood and the New Female Grotesque
Actresses are being lauded for pushing their supposed undesirability to the extreme, and it’s redefining how we see women.