I’ve always struggled with the idea of a “guilty pleasure.” Truly innocent pleasure shouldn’t come with a side of shame. Most guilty pleasures are purposely private, indulged alone or among the ...

On a breezy spring night in 2023, the Georgia Room at the Freehand Hotel was humid with sweat. Queers of various genders wore cowboy hats and bedazzled denim, camouflage and American flag bikinis. The ...

Some people are fans of the Seattle Seahawks. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Seattle Seahawks. This 2025 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the ...

Some people are fans of the Cincinnati Bengals. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Cincinnati Bengals. This 2025 ...

Welcome to Margin of Error, a politics column from Tom Scocca, editor of the Indignity newsletter. One of the things that a ...

Some people are fans of the Arizona Cardinals. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Arizona Cardinals. This 2025 ...

It is easy enough to read about the climate crisis through the dozens of devastating stories that run each week, warning us ...

For most of my 20s, I did not believe that I had clinical depression. No, what I had was clinical depression’s cuter, more ...

At some point in the thick of the pandemic, I became briefly obsessed with a silly-seeming online controversy over what is known as the double-beat theory. The argument concerns classical music, which ...

If it feels like white rappers are sprouting up all around us, it’s with good reason. Though they never really went ...

It’s pretty common these days for a television show to hold its viewers in contempt. Most “big-hearted comedies” treat you ...

There’s a scene in the new Superman movie that illustrates the precarious nature of music compatibility and how touchy it can ...