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This is Defector, a new sports blog and media company. We made this place together, we own it together, we run it together. Without access, without favor, without discretion, and without interference.

Defector

Alex Sujong Laughlin

Michael Townsend descends the stairs from the space where the secret mall apartment used to be.

Arts And Culture

Watching ‘Secret Mall Apartment’ In The Secret Apartment Mall

Mark Asch

In Praise Of ‘The Pitt,’ The Most Normal Show On Television

Israel Daramola

Photo of Val Kilmer signing a movie poster.

Remembering Val Kilmer In Five Movies

Soraya Roberts

‘Ludwig’ Gets Cozy With David Mitchell’s Limits

Nicholas Russell is a writer from Las Vegas.

Nicholas Russell

‘Moby-Dick’ Is Still Too Big For The Opera

Seth Rogen’s ‘The Studio’ Is The Latest Example Of TV’s Silver Age

Kathryn Xu

KiiiKiii And The Dawn Of K-Pop’s Process Era

Leah Finnegan is the former editor-in-chief of Gawker and the Outline. She has written and edited for the New York Times, New York magazine, the New Republic, the Baffler, and others.

Leah Finnegan

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Dream Count’ Is Stuck In The Past

What The Beads Can Tell You

Columnist. Author of many <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Drew-Magary/e/B001JS8R52/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1">fine works of literature</a>, including Point B. Handsomest man in the world.

Drew Magary

Gun Assembly Required

Maitreyi Anantharaman

All My Favorite Lines From ‘With Love, Meghan’

Lauren Theisen

Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski and Vivien Leigh as Blanche Du Bois in a scene from the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire

Four Blanches

Patrick Redford

PARIS, FRANCE - AUGUST 10: Stephen Curry (4) of Team USA in action during Men's Gold Medal game between Team France and Team United States on day fifteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Bercy Arena on August 10, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Aytac Unal/Anadolu via Getty Images)

‘Court Of Gold’ Is Brilliant When It Gets Specific

Interviews

‘Eephus’ Director Carson Lund On Baseball As A Way Of Being

Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington being held at gun point in the control room in a scene from the film 'Crimson Tide', 1995.

A Small Gene Hackman Memory for You

Barry Petchesky

George Lowe Had To Be Brilliant To Make Space Ghost That Stupid

Conan O'Brien on stage hosting the Oscars.

Society Can’t Quit The Oscars

Kelsey McKinney

You Don’t Have To See Everything In The Museum

Matene Toure

‘Nickel Boys’ Deserves Best Picture

Sarah Brouillette

A collage of covers of books. A Court of Thorns and Roses, Barbarian Lover, Fourth Wing, Ice Planet Barbarians, The Serpent and the Wings of Night, and The Games Gods Play

Alien Pleasures

Samer Kalaf

Palestinians walk through the destruction in Gaza.

Pankaj Mishra On Gaza, The Memory Of The Holocaust, And The “Very Dark World” To Come

How Donald Trump Won Rap Back

screenshot with the terrible score bug in the corner

The Scorebug Snuggery: The Phillies Abandon “P00P”

Warhol's 'Ladies And Gentlemen' portraits in the Warhol Museum gallery

Lost At The Warhol

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 28: Cash Cobain and Bay Swag attend Funk Flex Winter Fest on December 28, 2024 in New York City. Cobain is wearing a Yankees cap and sunglasses. He has a beard that's short and hit shis chin. He's in a blue hoodie. Bay Wag is wearing a big gold chain, sunglasses, a baseball hat, a very diamond-encrusted watch, and holding a plastic bottle of water in one hand and a microphone in the other

Listening Habits

How Do You Make Sex And Party Music For An Era Uninterested In Both?