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Disenfranchised Grief, Part 1: A Love Letter to Fandom

Header image description: A photo of the audience at Hozier’s concert on November 23, 2019, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, taken from the stage. If you look closely, you can see the author in the front row, wearing a purple cap and black sweater. [Credit: Sydney Gawlik] 2019 was a pivotal year for
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Making a Spectacle: A Study in Stylish Eyewear

Header image description: a picture of Jo with bleached hair. You can only see her face from the nose up. She wears gold, dual-rimmed glasses with blue and purple sections between the rims that make the frames look like a stained glass window. Last summer, I worked for a film festival. My main duty during
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Watching the Birth of a Fandom

Header image description: A promotional photo for the FX on Hulu series The Bear. Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) is in the foreground, with Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson), Marcus (Lionel Boyce), Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri), and Richard “Richie” Jeremovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) in the background. All characters are standing except Richie, who
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A Letter to My Tumblr, Ten Years Later

Header ID: This is a screenshot of my Tumblr microblog as of September 6, 2021, nearly a decade after I first made an account on the platform. The blog’s background image is the famous painting The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai. The sidebar says “nerdy ass bitch from da souf” and has my name,
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It’s Time to Replace the Phrase “White-Passing”

Header image description: a meme with four panels. The first panel shows rapper Drake seemingly rejecting the second panel, which reads “white-passing.” The third panel shows Drake smiling and pointing towards the fourth panel, which reads “access to whiteness.” I’m real tired of the phrase “white-passing.” I’ve been over it for a long time. It
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The Illusion of Black Patriotism

Header image description: Olivia Pope, the main character and anti-heroine of the ABC show Scandal, stands in the Oval Office. She wears a red and black shawl and black pants and has her arms crossed over her chest. To her right there is a navy blue flag bearing the seal of the United States, and
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Git Back, Git Back, Git Back: The Nonexistent Racial Politics of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy

Header image description: A promotional photo for season 2 of The Umbrella Academy, which shows the seven adopted Hargreeves siblings standing in front of a black background with a white vortex. They each wear sunglasses that reflect an image of what they’re dealing with that season. Allison, the lone Black sibling, stands on the far
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Beyond Tolerance: Golden Shovel in Honor of Dr. King

Header image description: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at Riverside Church in New York City. He stands in front of a small podium and a microphone. There are three white men sitting at a long table behind him. On the wall of the church behind Dr. King, there is a cross; on a table underneath
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Bridgerton Isn’t “Colorblind” At All, Actually

Header image description: A banner showing the main characters of Bridgerton in a garden. Two of the characters are Black, while the rest are white. They all wear the dress of the 19th century British elite, indicating their elevated socioeconomic status. Image credit: Netflix If you’ve been on Twitter since Christmas, you’ve definitely heard about
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Y’all are Mean as Hell to People You Don’t Find Attractive

Header image description: a rectangular graphic that reads “your desirability should not determine your access to love.” I’ve noticed a theme in the social media posts of certain marginalized and multiply marginalized people on social media regarding their social lives. (I’ll define “certain” in a bit.) These posts are usually along the lines of “Fuck