Edgy comedians often assert that edgy comedy has inherent value. That edginess is automatically groundbreaking and people who don’t like edgy humor just don’t like to be challenged. This logic is nonsense. There might be no better example of this than Bill Maher. Take this recent piece by Adrian Hennigan…

Even as audiences enjoy Dune, it is being criticized for a range of elements including its muted colors, slow pacing, and overt portentousness. All fair criticisms to be sure except a number of these opinions go on to imply that Dune shouldn’t have been made because it’s taking science fiction…

There’s an inordinate amount of talk about how to convince people to get vaccines and wear masks — and a lot of it misses a crucial point. Let’s start with a story: I work at a welcome desk for a gym and one day a pizza delivery guy came in…

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, crime shows are increasingly under the microscope. Areas of criticism include how cop shows endorse and/or normalize police brutality and misconduct, the limited diversity in writers’ rooms and the stories they tell, and the myth of…

It is hard to argue that taking personal responsibility for your life is not a good thing. However, in America this has warped into an argument against most social programs. You’ll see the idea pop up often in arguments against the Covid-19 stimulus bill passed by Democrats where claims are…

What is cancel culture? What drives cancel culture? Is cancel culture a problem? These questions swirl around endlessly on the internet and media discourse like some bottomless whirlpool. (I’ve weighed in too.) Increasingly, this discussion obscures the real issue, which is that, in many ways, the term ‘cancel culture’ itself…

No book can appeal universally to all audiences. No work of art can. Yet, to the detriment of stories, universal perfection is still regarded as an ideal. Universal perfection is the idea that it is possible to create an objectively masterful story that somehow enthralls each and every person that…

We tend to be self-centered. And this makes perfect sense on a practical level given we experience the world through our bodies and eyes. We are literally the center of our own universes. However, failing to escape an exclusively self-centered perspective is harmful to others and ourselves. …

Some people only read stories that are considered masterful to become better writers. I find it every bit as important to read stories that are good, but don’t quite come together. This is why. In my creative writing classes, I studied stories that were considered masterful: those by James Baldwin…