As someone who spends a lot of time parsing games, fandoms and the conversations around them, I get asked a question a lot: how do you judge a game's endgame without committing hundreds of hours? Not everyone has the time (or patience) to grind through dozens of tiers or push for world-first kills...
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TV
I’ve spent years watching fandoms rise, roar, and sometimes quietly fade —...
Film
I’ve always been fascinated by how a single interview clip can ripple across...
Music
I’ve been following K-pop for years, not just as a critic but as a fan who...
Reviews
When a beloved romcom gets rebooted, reactions tend to split into two camps:...
I’ve been following K-pop for years, not just as a critic but as a fan who obsesses over how communities form, organize, and grow. One of the most fascinating shifts I’ve watched is how emerging K-pop acts—often without major label...
When a beloved romcom gets rebooted, reactions tend to split into two camps: immediate nostalgia-fueled enthusiasm from fans and near-universal suspicion from critics. I get the skepticism — reboots can feel like corporate recycling, a safe bet...
Trailers are a magic trick: they promise a whole story in sixty seconds and somehow make us feel like we already know the characters. One of my favorite sleights of hand is the treatment of characters who suddenly appear without masks or helmets in...
I remember the first time I attended a press screening where the review embargo lifted at midnight — a small group of critics huddled around laptops, refreshing Twitter and frantically crafting their takes. That moment felt like a ritual: embargo...
I remember the first zine I held in my hands — a photocopied, stapled booklet about a cult sci‑fi show, its margins scribbled with fan notes and a foldout map drawn by someone who clearly loved the world more than the studio ever would. It...
I still remember the first time practical effects genuinely blew my mind: a late-night screening of John Carpenter’s The Thing on VHS, the kind of distorted transfer that somehow made the creature feel even more obscene and real. That tactile,...
I’ve been moderating, reading, and sometimes agonizing over comment sections for as long as I’ve been covering fandom culture. Over the years I’ve watched heated debates blossom into communities and, just as often, watched threads spiral into...
I’ve been to enough movie nights, indie premieres, and studio-backed blockbusters to know that paying premium for a “streaming-friendly” theater experience should feel like more than just a bigger chair and a pricier popcorn. As someone who...
I spent the last two weeks trying to live with Sony’s new PlayStation handheld as my primary on-the-go gaming device — swapping it in for my PS5 at times, taking it on commutes, and forcing it into backyard chill sessions. I wanted to know one...
I’ve been collecting records long enough to remember when soundtracks were the odd cousins of rock and pop LPs — interesting, sometimes pricey, but rarely the breakout stars at record stores. Lately, though, I’ve been watching whole runs of...