very excited for this to be out in the world: i wrote about repressed queerness in Elio, child surveillance in Inside Out 2, the post-Lasseter crisis, and the figure of the child in Pixar for The Baffler
thebaffler.com/latest/probl...
okay but this is something i do feel and i think is more a product of being old than anything else. writing on writing is interesting but often turns into a circlejerk, and is almost always about a scene rather than the craft. i'm more interested in pieces of writing about things beyond one's navel.
After he sold Wordle to the New York Times, Josh Wardle felt lost. He found refuge in an unlikely place: the cryptic crossword.
Now he wants to teach the world how to solve them.
For @newyorker I spoke to Wardle about his new project, Parseword, out today: www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
This week we're running our big Peter Moore interview, where we hear stories from his career, starting with Reebok, covering Dreamcast, Xbox, EA and his time at Liverpool Football Club. Watch (or read) to the end
I sometimes worry that too many people think being a good critic means being a self-righteous dick about every little thing and I think far too many miss the point that you can't critique anything if you don't know how to love something.
A truly excellent @kphipps3000.bsky.social rumination today on video stores, inspired by Alex Ross Perry's VIDEOHEAVEN and the Criterion Channel VHS series. Not a nostalgia piece, but a more clear-headed remembrance of a bygone era. (Also free to read!): thereveal.film/ghosts-of-vi...
Did my best to put into words why Pokopia is making me so happy
Wow. This is one of the nicest forms of compliment you can give me/the show. It truly means a lot to hear you shared it, and I hoped it helped in some small way! 😭
Wart preaches forgiveness. Wart is good. Wart wept.
WHO IS WART?!?!
Luis Guzmán is Wart
New @dreamcastaway.bsky.social alert!
Yeah, exactly, with the government out of the way they shifted to who they saw as the next threat to censorship. And at the same time, critics are speaking more regularly about the industry’s ills, which is wrongly mistaken for some sort of call for the end of games
I mean, both. Every political/reactionary movement is a collection of things. It's unquestionably tied to the rise of Breitbart and the like, but they first elevated GG as part of their "what if we repackage 4chan for the Facebook users" play
And likewise, progressive critics, with video games no longer threatened by national censorship, were free to talk about decades of gaming's ugliest aspects without being lumped, ironically, with conservative reactionaries.
A perfect shit storm.
I don't think it's a coincidence that GamerGate happened a mere three years after the Brown v. Entertainment ruling. With games now protected from the government, suddenly, the worst corners of gaming both felt politically safe and determined to claim the entirety of gaming as their own
Until 2011, practically everybody in video games, at every level, was fighting for the same thing: survival (a.k.a. legal protections as art)
After the Supreme Court ruling, factions within the games industry and fandom have been grappling with a hard truth. They're not on the same team anymore
Marathon is a game where the goal is to kill everything you see and also a game where the goal is simply to stay alive. You can choose to play either the kill everything or stay alive game at any point during a run, and sometimes you switch it up mid fire fight.
okay but for real, more gita reviews on aftermath dot site???? please!!!!!!
Hey it's my latest for A.V. Club Games, and one of the things that has drawn me to these games for ages. Even the ones that are just alright!
fixed!
ah thank you!
Ahead of GDC, I had a rare interview with the president of the game industry's trade organization, the ESA, which politically advocates for nearly every major publisher from Epic to Roblox, Nintendo to Amazon.
I asked about the ESA's current stance on AI, unionization, child safety, and much more.
On THE SECRET AGENT and SIRĀT, the ways that both films capture the atmosphere of fascism, and how they embrace helplessness without indulging in hopelessness. For @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/cult...
One More Catch’s 10% off forever launch offer ends tonight! Subscribe to a new publication - run by just a single person (hello!) with no investors, publisher backing, or use of AI - and get perks like bonus articles for just £3.60 a month / £36 a year. It’ll mean a great deal to have your support:
Anyway, I am working on my Miskatonic lecture, which is happening on March 16th! I'll be discussing Ed Wood, Psycho, Leatherface, Dressed to Kill, Sleepaway Camp, our pal Jame Gumb, I Saw the TV Glow, and much more!
miskatonicinstitute.com/events/gazin...
My new video is out on YouTube now:
"Why the New York Times Loves Stupid Questions"
youtu.be/ztQJ7XGuPhc
This week in The Stacks, Puke (@puke.bsky.social) takes a look at society's obsession with trans bodies, the seeming explosion of femboys on Steam, and how sex sells in all its permutations.
thestacks.ca/posts/2026-0...
looking for auxiliary events around GDC that are open to all ages and involve playing video games! my son is coming all this way with me, i very much feel he deserves games
