I used to pre-order live-service games on instinct: slick trailers, a cool concept, and the promise of "a game as a service that evolves over years." After a few rough launches and pay-to-win surprises, I learned to treat preorders like contracts — not with legal jargon, but with expectations. If...
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TV
I’ve spent a lot of time watching how streaming platforms behave, talking to...
Music
I still get a jolt when a record I bought for £30 suddenly lists for £300 the...
Film
I want to walk you through a story I’ve been watching closely: how a tiny...
Gaming
As someone who spends a lot of time parsing games, fandoms and the...
I want to walk you through a story I’ve been watching closely: how a tiny romcom—let’s call it Late Night Love—turned a shoestring marketing budget into a box-office upset by leaning into grassroots TikTok campaigns. I’m not talking about...
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...
I’ve spent years watching fandoms rise, roar, and sometimes quietly fade — and I’ve learned that beneath the emotional pleas and hashtag storms there are measurable signals that often predict whether a cancelled show will be dusted off by a...
I’ve always been fascinated by how a single interview clip can ripple across the internet — sometimes exploding into a pile-on of outrage, other times turning into free marketing that fills theaters. As someone who covers movies, TV and fandoms...
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,...