Quoting Taylor Swift Lyrics Is an Actual Linguistic Thing
“Blank Space, baby,” “red lip classic,” “look what you made me do,” a million allusions to lost scarves—across subreddits and Twitter, Taylor Swift fans communicate in code. Lots of stans…
Digimon Fans Still Exist—and They’re the Keepers of Its Future
In an era when everyone wants to peek behind the scenes at the development of their favorite games, it’s harder than ever to separate the final product from the news…
The First—and Last—Time We Rank the Star Wars Movies
Or is it? George Lucas’ prequel trilogy did far more than tell the story of the rise of Vader. It also revised the legacy of the Jedi, and therefore the…
What Black One Direction Fans Reveal About Activism and Fandom
Gabrielle Foster had been a fan of One Direction since she was 11 years old. “We all come from different backgrounds. We all bond over Harry, but we don’t personally…
Star Wars Has a Fandom Problem
They had some experience to draw from. In 2018, Star Wars: The Last Jedi star Kelly Marie Tran deleted her social media after receiving racist and abusive messages; she would…
The Psychology of Why Fan Art Is So Delightful
I fell for Among Us, the multiplayer social deduction game, hard and fast. While I hadn’t played any video games in over 10 years, now I was playing semiweekly and…
‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ Is Just a Movie
The Monitor is a weekly column devoted to everything happening in the WIRED world of culture, from movies to memes, TV to Twitter. A quick (as possible) history lesson: Back…
The Crushing Disappointment of Fandom
The Monitor is a weekly column devoted to everything happening in the WIRED world of culture, from movies to memes, TV to Twitter. A long time ago, in a WIRED…