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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

Luis Paez-Pumar

Squid Game: The Challenge players take on Red Light, Green Light

The ‘Squid Game’ Reality Show Is A Brutal Adaptation Of Its Source Material

<p>Libby Watson is a writer, <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/libtron">streamer</a> and <a href="https://www.patreon.com/whatsallthisthen">podcaster</a>.</p>


Libby Watson

A collage of streamers from Twitchcon photos

Arts And Culture

Striving And Streaming In The Desert: A Visit To TwitchCon Las Vegas

<p>Jackie Charniga is a writer, reporter, and bookseller based in Michigan.</p>


Jackie Charniga

A woman stands behind an oversized book with "#BookTok" on the cover in a colorful exhibit on BookTok at the Frankfurt Book Fair, October 2023

If BookTok Convinces Teens They’re Ready For Erotica, Is It My Job To Stop Them?

<p>Nicholas Russell is a writer from Las Vegas.</p>


Nicholas Russell

A collection of triangular shapes in Michael Heizer's City installation

Art In The Middle Of Nowhere Is Still Somewhere

<p>Staff Writer</p>
<p>Find me on Signal @DefectorChris.19</p>


Chris Thompson

Godzilla Must Be Larger

<div>Adam Charles Hart is an author, curator, and archivist who lives in Pittsburgh. His second book, &#8216;<i>Raising the Dead: The Work of George A. Romero, </i>will be out in early 2024 from Oxford University Press.</div>
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Adam Charles Hart

TOPSHOT - US director Martin Scorsese poses as he arrives on May 8, 2018 for the screening of the film "Todos Lo Saben (Everybody Knows)" and the opening ceremony of the 71st edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France. (Photo by Antonin THUILLIER / AFP) (Photo by ANTONIN THUILLIER/AFP via Getty Images)

Martin Scorsese’s Second Life As An Adman

Israel Daramola

PinkPantheress performing on stage at Mala Vida during South by Southwest on March 14, 2023 in Austin, Texas.

Local Man In His 30s Gets Really Into PinkPantheress


<p>Dan McQuade was a founding member of Defector. He died in January 2026.</p>


Dan McQuade

A photo collage of Princess Diana wearing a Philadelphia Eagles jacket in 1991 while dropping her kids off from school

Princess Diana Bought That Eagles Jacket Herself

Lauren Theisen

three members of the Stereophonic cast in a recording booth

‘Stereophonic’ Is “The Fleetwood Mac Play” And So Much Better For It

Defector Staff

a woman in a dress sits on a library ladder

How The Defector Staff Organizes Their Books

David Roth

Split image. Roth stands outside the Stroud Mall holding a CD he purchased. Dan stands inside the Stroud Mall in front of the "Pennsylvania Skill" machine parlor.

Dan And Dave Explore Another Mall

Soraya Roberts

Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in a scene from Killers Of The Flower Moon

‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ Asks You To Sit With Its Contradictions

‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ Is The Latest Entry In Martin Scorsese’s History Of Evil

Alex Sujong Laughlin

The Golden Bachelor contestant looks out over a balcony

‘The Golden Bachelor’ Turns Grief Into Joy

Dave McKenna

George Harrison and Eric Clapton, playing their guitars, in a black-and-white concert photo from the 1970s

You Too Can Score Cheap On The Open Market For Dead People’s (Hammond) Organs

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<p>Robert Rubsam writes fiction and nonfiction. His work has appeared in the NYT Magazine, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the Baffler, and Liberties. He is a contributing writer for Commonweal Magazine.</p>
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Robert Rubsam

Charles Bissell Has Finally Moved On From The Wrens


<p>Corey Atad is a freelancer writer based in Toronto with an unhealthy Air Bud obsession.</p>


Corey Atad

A scene from eddie alcaraz's new film, Divinity

The Survival Of Independent Cinema Begins With The Belief Of Those Who Make It

Into The Woods

In ‘Under The Skin’, The Woods Are The Final Isolation

Giri Nathan

Patrick Redford

Carrie Brownstein, Janet Weiss and Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney perform at Barnsdall Art Park as part of ArthurFest on September 4, 2005.

Defector Music Club

Defector Music Club Gets Lost In Sleater-Kinney’s ‘The Woods’

The cover of Esther Yi's novel Y/N, featuring a woman dancing near a mirror.

Defector Reads A Book

Defector Reads A Book Is Getting Low-Key Parasocial With It

Aparna Nancherla speaks onstage during The 2023 New Yorker Festival at SVA Theater 1 on October 07, 2023 in New York City.

Aparna Nancherla Is My Favorite Impostor

Samuel Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX, testifies during a Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry hearing about "Examining Digital Assets: Risks, Regulation, and Innovation," on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on February 9, 2022. The photo is stylized. His big poofy hair is mostly what the photo is of, plus the top half of his face. The canvas behind him is ugly and Brown, kind of in a gradient.

Michael Lewis’s ‘Going Infinite’ Goes In Circles

An old lady scampering around on the ceiling of a mental hospital directly above an unaware George C. Scott, in 1990's Exorcist III: Legion.

All This Bleeding

NYFF programmer Rachel Rosen moderates a press conference with director Todd Haynes, writer/executive producer Samy Burch, producers Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler, Jessica Elbaum and for "May December" during the 61st New York Film Festival at Walter Reade Theater on September 29, 2023 in New York City.

Four Days At The Flooded New York Film Festival

Joanna Arnow in a scene from her movie, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed