Essays

A critique of Senator Graham.

A personal essay questioning why I don't feel the same sense of awe at the splendor of nature as others do.

Looking at algospeak and restrictions on specific words across different platforms.

Companies and politicians are attempting to sanitize the internet of adult content, whether that means NSFW, curse words, or serious topics. We must not allow them to succeed.

Why do I identify as Italian despite not having much connection to that identity?

A personal essay exploring my own stubbornness.

Queering the lyrics of Taylor Swift.

Pondering what the film has to say about tackling the systemic problems facing our society.

An exploration of Lacanian lack, absurdism, and nihilism through the lens of the excellent film Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Steam and Itch were forced to embrace anti-art policies by the monetary industry and conservative interest groups, all of whom believe they are the ones who get to decide the limits of speech and expression. This is dangerous.

Fair Use is complicated despite how many internet personalities claim it's simple and easy to understand.

Psycho is funny, and that's okay. Classics don't need the staunch defense everyone gives them.

Why do we tell tragic stories that loop over and over again? What's the point in repetition?

I'm not really into pup play, but I do find it fascinating. This explores what it is, what it isn't, and what it might be.

The way this manga discusses meaning, hope, empathy, and mortality always gets to me.

An exploration into one of the advisory groups behind Project 2025.

President Biden revealed a cancer diagnosis in 2025, and certain segments of the internet immediately launched into gleeful sadism and conspiracy mongering. This is bad for all of us.

An exploration into the "thingness" of art as a category.

Let's talk about wellness influencers, pseudoscience, and ascetics.

There's a weird anti-masculinity in feminine presentation sexism in and around the show RuPaul's Drag Race. This essay explores that as well as the very nature of "drag."

Caravaggio's The Incredulity of Saint Thomas depicts the ecstasy of gay intimacy. Well, it does if you think about it some.

It turns out, "Live, laugh, love" is the height of wisdom, and The Good Place serves to remind us of that.

Saint Sebastian has a long history as a queer icon.

A exploration of and defense of the political privilege framing.

A queer examination of the manga Naruto, exploring both gender and sexuality.

Valorizing people is another form of dehumanizing them. It's better for a society to only make heroes out of fiction, in my opinion.

An examination of how the show RuPaul's Drag Race intersects with cruelty, primarily through the behaviors of some of its vocal "fans" online.

A deep dive into the history of the Log Cabin Republicans and how they seem to have abandoned their mission of fighting for LGBT rights.

McMahon may have a few decent ideas, but she should not be the Secretary of Education, in part because she does not understand what education even is.

Examining the eroticism of Saltburn, horror, vampires, and disgust.

Exploring the connections between the genres of horror and erotica.

An examination of Thompson, Mangione, and the internet's explosion in vice-signaling sadism. Populism is bad for us.

Pam Bondi seems to be a coward with no real beliefs and a penchant for both abusing her office and lying.

Kristi Noem's history of corruption and bigotry should bar her from any position of power.

Pete Hegseth is a bigot who should not be in charge of anything, least of all the Department of Defense.

A critique of dirtbaggery, weaponized bigotry, and sadism that insists it must be moral and accepted because the people pushing it claim leftism as a defense for cruelty.

RFK Jr is a believer of pseudoscientific conspiracy theories and, in my opinion, should have never been near power or medical decision making.

Some online "left" figures decided that the civil rights and concerns of women and LGBT folks were selfish to care about in regards to 2024. I found this to be insulting and terrible strategy.

Using the musical Spring Awakening to argue for the importance of comprehensive sex education instead of enforced ignorance.

Looking at the groups and individuals behind the Mandate for Leadership while examining any potential connections to Donald Trump.

A deep-dive into Project 2025's horrifying Mandate for Leadership.

Bones has some interesting, somewhat contradictory, somewhat conspiratorial things to say about the American justice system.

An examination of the terribly written national platform of the Republican Party.

This is not a romance film. It's a beautiful, painful romantic tragedy.

A look into why abstract art and other forms that question meaning tend to derive strong reactions from people (it's about confronting the absurdity of the universe).

A look into why we're so obsessed with and fearful of endings, both when they arrive and when they never do.

An exploration of how the show Criminal Minds critiques the criminal justice system and continuously encourages empathy towards those society demonizes.

People desperately want harm received to justify any and all harm given, as though sadism is holy. This is not the case. The essay explores this through looking at Avatar the Last Airbender and the unending online discourse surrounding the show.

Examining anti-erotica censorship across the internet and in the fearmongering of GOP operatives. Includes examinations of what lies within certain "icky" fantasies.

Misinformation and lies on social media fueled a boycott movement that primarily seemed to exist to give people an excuse to yell at other people while calling their cruelty activism.

Examining queer readings of China's gacha video game Genshin Impact. It also explores the CCP's homophobic censorship policies.

Many of the "leftwing" critiques of Hamilton seem to not understand the language of theatre.

A critique of leftists who talk about making a better world while indulging in fantasies of sadistic torture in the afterlife. If sadism isn't justice on this earth (it isn't), then it can't be in the afterlife either.

People of all sorts of political persuasions, and of all sorts of opinions on Swift herself, look at celebrity and see it as something that removes one's humanness. This examines and critiques this trend.

I argue that if you want to read a class analysis into this film's metaphors, you have to reckon with how it rightfully condemns the violence and sadism resistance movements and LARPists can indulge in.

Exploring a trans reading of my favorite film.

Internet people are quick to use slurs against minorities who they consider one of the Bad Ones. This essays examines this weaponization of bigotry by looking at the homophobia leveraged against Noah Schnapp.

A look at how "polite" bigotry and "woke" bigotry are sometimes applauded on social media.

Side B is a form of non-affirming Christianity that pretends to not be homophobic, and yet it is.

Examining supposedly leftwing homophobia amongst so-called class reductionists, tankies, and so forth.

A look into the pervasive homophobia and transphobia of the GOP circa 2023, from Florida's Don't Say Gay bill to the various state platforms and beyond.

This trope receives undue hate because it forces us to confront the absurdity of the universe.

A personal essay about religious homophobia.