What pop culture related stuff do you want to do in 2026? Let us know in the comments!

Tonight's film.

This is what having good taste looks like, kids.

Please lavish praise on this hat I made.

I wrote about Stranger Things finale and how it fell victim to a common problem of TV endings for @thewrap.com. www.thewrap.com/creative-con...

Let 2026 be the year where we return to putting beefcake models on the covers of romance novels instead of those cutesy cartoons that make everything look desexed and identical.

My final piece for the Gossip Reading Club in 2025. Celebrity conspiracies tend to be weird, but the Avril Lavigne replacement conspiracy was especially bananas. gossipreadingclub.substack.com/p/do-you-rem...

*taps the sign*

The first movie of 2026, and it's an absolute riot!

First book of 2026.

A new year is supposed to bring with it a clean slate but Ben Wheatley's pitch-black family comedy ‘Happy New Year, Colin Burstead’ reveals the lie behind that promise. crookedmarquee.com/new-years-ev...

What pop culture related stuff do you want to do in 2026? Let us know in the comments!

Spending New Year's Day reorganising my band and film themed t-shirts. I'm so cool.

Sitting a stewing in frustration isn't nearly as cathartic as just designing a poster. Let's see how often I remember that in 2026.

Happy new year.

I maintain that Stranger Things should have just been one season.

My final piece for the Gossip Reading Club in 2025. Celebrity conspiracies tend to be weird, but the Avril Lavigne replacement conspiracy was especially bananas. gossipreadingclub.substack.com/p/do-you-rem...

You won’t regret it 💖

Me watching my ice hockey team lose 6-3.

I'm so tired of the ways that stan culture celebrates their faves becoming obscenely wealthy and see that as a sign their idol is "better" than their perceived competition.

We’re at the point where we have concentration camps and slave patrols and the people with the most safety think a mean joke is the pinnacle of resistance

Resolutions for 2026.

Okay, so I have spent YEARS trying to figure out if this memory of an oddly disturbing moment from a kids TV show of my youth (a guy with alien eggs growing out of his back) was real or if I imagined it. Turns out it's real! And countless Google battles led me to it. youtu.be/IfTBfnrLG8k?...

Pure cinema.

I didn't read a ton this year, but 2025 was firmly the year of James Ellroy for me. American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand just consumed me for months.

As always, @ceilidhann.bsky.social has a must-read piece on celebrity culture (this one is about Brigitte Bardot) www.pajiba.com/celebrities_...

Here’s What All Those Brigitte Bardot Obituaries Got Wrong About Her Legacy

Best 1st time viewings of 2025: Detour Rouge City of Hope Hiroshima Mon Amour Red Sorghum Good Morning Drylongso Charley Varrick Max & the Junkmen Victims of Sin Quiz Show The Verdict Married to the Mob

Check out my top ten films of 2025! open.substack.com/pub/gossipre...

Do you want a haunted ass? Because this is how you get a haunted ass.

There's a certain online rhetoric that tries to spin rejecting community as an act of "self-care" & it infuriates me. Your unwillingness to connect and build spaces that nourish and uplift others is not you "protecting your peace." It's no wonder so many seem oddly proud of using ChatGPT as a BFF.

I want to make 2026 the year I finally complete my nonfiction book pitch and start reaching out to agents. Any advice on the matter would be greatly appreciated!

Ready for the new year.

The children are our future.

(daft punk One More Time voice) Auld Lang Syne

Check out our totally objective list of the best films of the year!

Check out my top ten films of 2025! open.substack.com/pub/gossipre...

The worst film of 2025 is The Electric State and it's not even close.

#Heistmas Sale Alert! 🔔🎄🎅❄️🎁💰 • 20% off your subscription to Pop Heist (see link below) OR • Buy one gift subscription to @defector.com, get a gift subscription to Pop Heist for FREE! (see quote post below!) Our retro recaps — and more! — can be yours for a steal! buff.ly/0fSJdzU

I highly recommend watching this segment, not just because the CBS News execs and the White House didn’t want you to, but because these men were tortured and they deserved to have their voices heard.

I'm going to challenge myself in 2026 to read one of the chunky Russian classic novels. Which one is your favourite?

My French teacher gave us mugs for Christmas.

"Get the principals on camera" is such a telling phrase here, because it tells us that for Weiss there's no world in which the victims of these horrific actions can actually be seen as the subjects of the story: They're background noise, and the people who matter are the ones sending them.

In 1985, while the world still believed in the Royal love story of Charles and Diana, Vanity Fair delved into the messy truth. I wrote about it! open.substack.com/pub/gossipre...

In 1985, while the world still believed in the Royal love story of Charles and Diana, Vanity Fair delved into the messy truth. I wrote about it! open.substack.com/pub/gossipre...

Look, I know she's largely doing this for money and to get her creep husband a pardon, but she is also just a legendary scumbag so maybe it's time to take her out of the playlists, kids.

Conspiracy theorists will spend years coming up with labyrinthine stories of secret codes, hidden messages & tomes of lore, and then it'll be revealed that the crooks involved were just openly talking about abusing kids in their emails & collecting albums of incriminating evidence for sport.