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Pop Culture Commentary

Longform analysis of TV, film, and fandom that treats emotional impact, subtext, and cultural meaning as the main event.


Love, Lies, and Lavender Politics: Why Fellow Travelers Wrecked Me (In the Best Way)

Love, Lies, and Lavender Politics: Why Fellow Travelers Wrecked Me (In the Best Way)

Because apparently I only cry over spies and queer repression now

Jan 21, 2026

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6 min read

The Soundtracks That Taught Us Heartbreak

The Soundtracks That Taught Us Heartbreak

The songs that made heartbreak and longing feel universal (even when the stories weren’t ours)

Jan 18, 2026

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5 min read

Main Characters Who Should’ve Been Background Extras

Main Characters Who Should’ve Been Background Extras

Or a list of leads who should’ve lost their speaking privileges

Jan 14, 2026

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3 min read

The Teen Drama That Thought It Was Shakespeare

The Teen Drama That Thought It Was Shakespeare

Teen dramas always think they’re about something

Jan 7, 2026

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4 min read

Let Them Sing: A Defence of TV’s Most Chaotic Musical Detours

Let Them Sing: A Defence of TV’s Most Chaotic Musical Detours

Why musical episodes, even the disastrous ones, deserve your respect and possibly a standing ovation.

Jan 4, 2026

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5 min read

The Essays That Stayed With Us

The Essays That Stayed With Us

Essays About Queer Representation That Resonated

Dec 31, 2025

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6 min read

The Queer Melancholy of Friday Night Lights

The Queer Melancholy of Friday Night Lights

Football, cornfields, boys crying in locker rooms — masculinity undone under stadium lights.

Dec 28, 2025

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4 min read

The New Christmas Movies Era: A Field Report

The New Christmas Movies Era: A Field Report

From shirtless snowmen to former heartthrobs doing charity through abs.

Dec 21, 2025

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4 min read

Every Streaming Algorithm Thinks I’m in a Situationship

Every Streaming Algorithm Thinks I’m in a Situationship

Because apparently my watch history screams ‘emotionally unavailable but trying'

Dec 17, 2025

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4 min read

He Wasn’t the Villain, He Was Just Hot and Misunderstood

He Wasn’t the Villain, He Was Just Hot and Misunderstood

Because every generation has its toxic crush curriculum. Ours just happened to be broadcast in HD.

Dec 10, 2025

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6 min read

Buffy Summers Invented Emotional Labour

Buffy Summers Invented Emotional Labour

I think I learned how to overfunction from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and my mum)

Dec 7, 2025

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5 min read

The Gayest Year in Film Was 2004 (and I Can Prove It)

The Gayest Year in Film Was 2004 (and I Can Prove It)

When repression, bisexual lighting, and Natalie Portman’s wig ruled the box office

Dec 3, 2025

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4 min read

F Marry Kill: I Wanted Camp, They Gave Me Confusion

F Marry Kill: I Wanted Camp, They Gave Me Confusion

Lucy Hale worked hard. The movie did not. That’s the review.

Dec 1, 2025

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6 min read

Prestige TV Ruined My Ability to Enjoy Anything Wholesome

Prestige TV Ruined My Ability to Enjoy Anything Wholesome

After years of watching people suffer beautifully, I just want nice things.

Nov 23, 2025

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4 min read

Dylan O’Brien Has No Right Being This Good (Or This Hot)

Dylan O’Brien Has No Right Being This Good (Or This Hot)

Twinless hits hard, Dylan O’Brien hits harder, and I am not taking questions at this time.

Nov 22, 2025

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6 min read

Girlboss, Gaslight, Gatekeep: The Evolution of the TV Mean Girl

Girlboss, Gaslight, Gatekeep: The Evolution of the TV Mean Girl

Once upon a time, the Mean Girl was a villain. Now she’s a lifestyle brand.

Nov 19, 2025

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4 min read

From Brokeback to Fellow Travelers: The Lineage of Queer Tragedy on Screen

From Brokeback to Fellow Travelers: The Lineage of Queer Tragedy on Screen

The Lineage of Queer Tragedy on Screen

Nov 2, 2025

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5 min read

Every Mid-2000s Teen Drama Was Actually About Class Warfare and Daddy Issues

Every Mid-2000s Teen Drama Was Actually About Class Warfare and Daddy Issues

Exhibit A: The OC. Exhibit B: Gossip Girl. Exhibit C: Me.

Oct 22, 2025

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5 min read

The Queerbait Industrial Complex

The Queerbait Industrial Complex

Or how networks turned queer longing into free marketing — and why I don’t buy it anymore

Oct 8, 2025

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5 min read

The Short Shelf Life of Whimsy: Why Networks Don’t Know What to Do With Quirky TV

The Short Shelf Life of Whimsy: Why Networks Don’t Know What to Do With Quirky TV

Why TV Can’t Handle Pastel Palettes, Talking Animals & Emotionally Literate Men

Sep 24, 2025

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4 min read

Lafayette Reynolds Deserved the World

Lafayette Reynolds Deserved the World

A love letter to one of the most iconic queer Black characters on TV—and the radical power of his softness, sass, and strength.

Sep 10, 2025

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4 min read

The Final Girl: How Horror’s Ultimate Survivor Became the Perfect Metaphor for Womanhood

The Final Girl: How Horror’s Ultimate Survivor Became the Perfect Metaphor for Womanhood

She runs. She bleeds. She lives. And in doing so, she tells the truth about what it means to be a girl in a world that wants you gone.

Aug 20, 2025

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5 min read

Toni Collette Was F**king Robbed: How the Oscars Failed Hereditary (and Horror Itself)

Toni Collette Was F**king Robbed: How the Oscars Failed Hereditary (and Horror Itself)

One of the most haunting, harrowing, and fully possessed performances of the century—and the Academy couldn’t even give her a nomination.

Aug 13, 2025

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4 min read

Gen Z’s TV Trauma: Are We Healing, Numbing Out, or Just Not Talking About It?

Gen Z’s TV Trauma: Are We Healing, Numbing Out, or Just Not Talking About It?

Or a breakdown of how today’s shows handle trauma and what that says about us now.

Aug 10, 2025

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4 min read

Bury Your Gays: The Deadly Cost of Queer Representation

Bury Your Gays: The Deadly Cost of Queer Representation

Or how your fave came out, found love, and then died 20 minutes later. Coincidence?

Jul 30, 2025

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6 min read

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ABOUT THIS SPACE

Where queer millennial nostalgia settles in. Part diary, part TV debrief, part late night spiral about the scenes that shaped us. A place for the characters we held close, the crushes we could not shake, and the moments that linger long after the credits fade, usually turning up again when we least expect it.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Nathan writes about TV as memory, queer adolescence as folklore, and the tiny moments that shaped who we became. He lives in Naarm with his cat, Captain.

FOR THE RECORD

Always in support of queer rights, trans lives, and a free Palestine.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF COUNTRY

I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waters across Australia and pay my respects to First Nations peoples, past and present. Their stories, knowledge and care for Country continue to shape this place, and I’m grateful to be writing on lands where storytelling has always mattered.

© 2026 Glitches in the Gaydar.
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