Constance Grady

Woke isn’t dead. Bad Bunny’s halftime show proved it. Maybe the right didn’t capture the culture as much as they thought.

I wrote about the Bad Bunny halftime show, and whether the vibe shift ever really happened www.vox.com/culture/4786...

Out here trying to write something new and exciting about feminism, but first I have to handle the VP telling reporters to smile, sweetheart

I for one would be having more fun of if I didn’t have to keep writing feminism 101 explainers of why this kind of thing is bad

I can never get over how funny the opening of Wuthering Heights is. Lockwood's inner monologue is all "Hello, Heathcliff! Like you, I am hot and brooding, so you and I will have A LOT to talk about ;)"

The Cuddled Little Vice (Sandman) Previously in The Last War in Albion: Alan Moore wrote Watchmen, which, for complicated reasons involving William S. Burroughs and the weak nuclear force, ended the Cold War and replaced it with a mag...

This is really well done biographical criticism (trigger warning like all get out) www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-cud...

As the Epstein files keep dribbling out with more and more names, I keep thinking about Tina Brown's private jet theory of the world — namely, that powerful people will put up with a lot of shit if it means they get to fly private tinabrown.substack.com/p/after-flyi...

I grew up with Alex Pretti The kind-hearted ICU nurse shot by ICE agents was my childhood best friend.

I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com

A medical procedural simply loves a character reset!

It's almost like the genre you're describing replaces the "this is the way people are: mostly bad" fatalism of the antihero show with a structural critique that becomes less satisfying the more often it gets repeated.

This is so good! I'm interested in your point that this kind of storytelling prevents character change. That was also a component of the antihero drama, which tended to replace character change with revelation (e.g. Walter White isn't becoming this person, he was always this person).

Breaks my heart to share this, but today is my last day at The Verge and I am looking for work! I'd really like to stay in video games, preferably in some kind of journalistic capacity but I can do PR/Marketing and maybe even a lil Narrative Design. Please get in touch!
www.ashparrish.com

The vibes aren't shifting Why the right-wing effort to change the narrative is already flailing.

ESJ really popping off with this one episodes.ghost.io/vibe-shift/?...

Why is America so horny for gay hockey jocks? What Heated Rivalry and gay hockey smut can tell us about ourselves.

Heated Rivalry is not quite my ministry, BUT I am delighted to have a chance to talk about why male/male romance is so popular with so many women www.vox.com/culture/4750...

My boring take on Marty Supreme is that if the film is going to build two emotional turning points around ping-pong games, it should actually do the sports movie thing of teaching the audience how to watch ping-pong.

Grok’s nonconsensual porn problem is part of a long, gross legacy Elon Musk claims tech needs a “spicy mode” to dominate. Is he right?

Once you start thinking about how many pieces of technology were developed to share dubiously consensual pictures of women's bodies, you can't stop seeing it. I wrote about it here. www.vox.com/culture/4747...

No Ice rally in DC today

I'm interested that both MTG and Erika Kirk are aiming to play the public role of "forgiving Christian woman" right now. I wrote about it here. www.vox.com/culture/4744...

Is that the one on 7th Ave? I got so sad when they took him down last year

Why is the US on the verge of war with Venezuela? The five biggest questions about a massive military buildup.

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was look up this @joshuakeating.bsky.social piece from last month to understand what happened last night. www.vox.com/politics/470...

The paperwork alone!!!!

I love that! The piece is definitely more about the ex-pat fantasy more so than what it is actually like to leave the country.

American women want to opt out More want to leave the country than ever before. That’s not the only way they’re escaping.

I am interested in the resonances between the fantasy of leaving the country and the fantasy of the trad wife! I wrote about it here www.vox.com/culture/4732...

American women want to opt out More want to leave the country than ever before. That’s not the only way they’re escaping.

"We often talk about the idea of fleeing America and its feeble social safety net as a liberating, progressive act...But the idea of escaping the work-life balance trap has darker echoes in contemporary American pop culture"

Great piece from @constancegrady.bsky.social. www.vox.com/culture/4732...

Alissa I came out of that movie GAGGING for your take

The 10 best books of 2025 Our book critic picks the best books of the year.

Best! Books! www.vox.com/culture/4723...

Quite the specific stylistic choice here in C.K.'s final book

Sophie Kinsella, ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ Author, Dies at 55

When I was in college I would binge-read Sophie Kinsella books all the way through finals week and into vacation as my reward for all the studying. She understood how to write a novel as light and frothy as a bubble bath. What a loss. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/b...

The Kennedy Center Honors continue Trump’s vengeance on liberal Hollywood Sunday’s awards exemplify MAGA’s politics of resentment.

"He cannot just be president. He also has to be a good TV star. He has to win the approval of the culturati, which is the one thing he will never quite get." - @constancegrady.bsky.social

Thinking about Bugonia (which slaps) and how much it weirdly reminds me of Homeland s1. Something about the intimacy between two people trying to convince each other of a specific picture of the world, and the audience unable to determine which worldview is correct — there's a lot of power there.

The debate over Hamnet, explained Is Hamnet great art or grief porn? It’s complicated.

Loved this @constancegrady.bsky.social joint on Hamnet, Hamlet, and the debate over "grief porn." www.vox.com/culture/4714...