About Glitches:
Glitches in the Gaydar is a queer pop culture newsletter about the things television, film and media taught us before we had the language to explain them. It explores how stories land differently when you grow up queer, especially in eras where representation was implied, misread, or missing entirely.
At its core, this is writing about memory. About how certain shows, characters, songs and moments lodged themselves in the body long before they made sense on the page. It looks at pop culture not as escapism, but as emotional training ground.
The essays published here move through television, film, music and cultural moments with a distinctly queer lens. Some pieces focus on nostalgia and formative viewing, others on subtext, desire, villainy, longing, or the strange intimacy between audiences and stories that were never explicitly written for them. What connects them is a belief that meaning often lives between the lines.
Glitches in the Gaydar is especially interested in straight or mainstream media that queer audiences learned to read sideways. Shows that promised one thing and delivered another. Characters that felt charged without explanation. Soundtracks that hit harder than the plot ever intended. These glitches are not mistakes. They are signals.
The newsletter includes longform essays, cultural analysis, TV and film commentary, and recurring series that unpack patterns across pop culture rather than chasing recaps or hot takes. It is written for readers who like their criticism personal, their nostalgia honest, and their media conversations a little unfinished.
This is not a news outlet or a review site. It is a space for slow thinking, emotional literacy, and queer readings that trust the reader to feel their way through an idea rather than be handed a conclusion.
New essays are delivered directly to subscribers, with selected pieces archived publicly for discovery. If you’ve ever felt deeply understood by a show that never quite understood you back, you’re in the right place.
Subscribe to receive queer pop culture essays exploring television, film, nostalgia and identity, straight to your inbox.
—Nathan
