How I Got Through This
It’s a game I didn’t need to win — I just needed to push through
Few things have brought me more comfort and joy during the pandemic than a video game beloved by millions of adolescent children. I’m a grown-ass adult who does Very Adult Things, like paying taxes and drinking whiskey straight, and yet Minecraft consumes a not so insignificant portion of my brain space. You might say my interest in the game is equal parts pandemic-induced boredom and standard millennial escapism, but that’s only a half-truth. In reality, I started playing Minecraft years ago, when my life and sense of self were a nebulous cloud. Minecraft helped give it a shape. …
I have a confession to make: I know very little about the Hallmark Channel canon of holiday romance films. The TV in my childhood home picked up fewer than 10 channels on any given day; family-friendly melodramas were not part of the regular programming. Yet over the years, I’ve heard the many infamous tropes that define a Hallmark classic: the interchangeable character archetypes, the predictable storylines, the wholesome, open-hearted outlook on the world. It’s mindless nostalgia tied neatly with a bow, which not so ironically is all our pandemic-addled brains can process these days.
If there ever were a time…
America was wrestling with a loneliness epidemic even before the pandemic hit. But as Caren Lissner wrote in GEN last year, the factors feeding into a person’s loneliness can be…
A makeup artist rates Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani’s over-the-top makeup disasters. It’s straight out of central casting for B-movies and horror films, writes Sarah Graalman. You couldn’t come up…
Did the Asian American vote make a difference in Joe Biden’s win? When we say “suburban voters” abandoned Donald Trump this election, many tend to assume we’re talking about white…
Here’s what it’s like to watch your dad get publicly fired by Donald Trump. Writer Sean Kernan delves into the backstory behind the abrupt decision by his father, Joseph Kernan, to leave his post as undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the Defense Department. The senior Kernan was one of several top Pentagon officials to either leave or get pushed out last week; all were replaced by Trump loyalists. Sean said his father’s resignation letter had been prepared for weeks, but after Trump unexpectedly fired Defense Secretary Mike Esper last Monday, his successor was quick to clean house.
“Sure, it…
Worried the United States is careening toward an imminent coup? Timothy Snyder’s latest piece may not ease your anxieties, but it’ll at least help you identify the warning signs. The…
Establishment Democrats were quick to blame the party’s left flank for their losses in down-ballot races this election, but perhaps they should be looking at themselves, Katelyn Burns writes. Moderate…
This post-election Twitter tirade provided a masterclass in how Republicans will continue to paint themselves as victims, writes Kimberly Joyner. The former Fox News host is by no means a…
