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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

Brandy Jensen

Arts And Culture

A Brief Consideration Of Some Fictional Big Boys

Owen Lewis is a former Defector intern and has written for The Guardian, The Second Serve, The Athletic, and other publications.

Owen Lewis

Interviews

‘The Cruelest Game’ Examines Tennis As Torture

Albert Burneko

Studious robot on an ocean liner cruising the North Sea.

The Machines

With The Power Of AI, Information Can Pour Straight Through Your Skull And Onto The Ground Without Ever Slowing

Grace Byron is a critic, reporter, and novelist based in Queens. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Bookforum, and elsewhere. Her debut novel Herculine is out now.

Grace Byron

Books

Claire Stapleton Helped Write The Myth Of Google, But Now She’s Trying To Tell The Truth

Nick Martin

Danny McBride Leaves You Wandering

Natalie Weiner

Colson Whitehead Talks About Embracing Change, Pulling Off A Heist, And Finding A Good Coffee Table

Can Men Stop Hating Women?

Charlotte Rosen

How Cops Consolidated So Much Power Over Local Governments

Maitreyi Anantharaman

Guard Caitlin Clark #22 of the Indiana Fever talks to the media during a press conference before the match-up against the Brazil National Team, at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on March 4, 2025 in Iowa City, Iowa.

WNBA

Christine Brennan’s Caitlin Clark Book Is More About Gripes Than Greatness

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

Alex Morgan of USA celebrates her first goal during the FIFA Women's World Cup Final match between Japan and USA at the FIFA World Cup stadium Frankfurt on July 17, 2011 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Defector Reads A Book

Find A Job You Enjoy, And You’ll Never Have A Day Off In Your Life

Alex Sujong Laughlin

A woman with long brown hair stands in an art gallery, wearing a white lace dress with a brown belt. Behind her are framed photographs on dark walls, featuring various interior scenes. She smiles, looking at the camera.

Anna Marie Tendler Trusts You’ll Know Who She’s Talking About

Patrick Redford

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

James Robins is an award-winning critic and historian. His work has appeared in the New Republic, Vulture, and the TLS, and he writes the newsletter <a href="https://thedreadnought.substack.com/">The Dreadnought</a>. He lives in London.

James Robins

Walter Isaacson (right) and Elon Musk (left) speak onstage at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit back in 2014, long before Isaacson wrote a big biography of Musk.

Not Even The Patron Stooge Of Fawning Biographies Can Make Elon Musk Look Good

Micah Herskind is an organizer, policy advocate, and writer based in Atlanta, GA.

Micah Herskind

A police car near the site of Atlanta's proposed Cop City

Capital

Abolition Requires Struggle

Laura Wagner

Ashley Feinberg

Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg's spokesperson Lis Smith speaks to the press in the Spin Room after participating in the second Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season hosted by NBC News at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Florida, June 27, 2019.

We Tried To Review Lis Smith’s Vapid New Book

Nicholas Russell is a writer from Las Vegas.