Welcome Back, Mermaidcore

For a Century, a Collective Love of Tails and Fins Has Helped Women Transgress on Land and Sea

Shell-adorned bikini tops. Fishtail skirts. Starfish accessories. Seafoam green eyeshadow. Expect to see all of this and more riding the waves of Disney’s latest live-action blockbuster, The Little Mermaid.

In other words, “mermaidcore”—the personification of aquatic glamor and physical beauty—is back.

Since antiquity, mermaids have embodied our fantasies of the briny deep. Inscrutable, various, and generally scantily clad, these half-fish, half-woman mythological creatures are shapeshifting female figures known the world over, from the sirens of the Aegean, to the jiaoxiao of the South China Sea, to Africa’s Mami Wata, often traced to the …

Pet Voice Isn’t All About the LOLZ | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Pet Voice Isn’t All About the LOLZ

The Communication Tactic Dates Back Centuries. But the Act of Anthropomorphizing Our Furry Friends Has Become More Insidious in the Digital Age

Whether you love or hate people speaking as their pets, using cutesy terms like “pupperinos” and “heckin’ good bois,” or sharing grammatically incorrect cat speak memes, the concept of a …

My Year of Sitcoms

It’s Easy to Be Seduced by the Rosy Glow of These Syndicated Fictions—But They Channel a Reality That Never Really Existed

It didn’t start out intentionally. A little 30 Rock to help me get out of bed in the morning. Some New Girl with dinner. A nightcap of Frasier (as others …

Every Era’s Vampires Require New Blood | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Every Era’s Vampires Require New Blood

A Queer, Multiracial Adaptation of Anne Rice’s Seminal Novel Follows a 200-Year-Old Tradition

For all the puffy shirts, brooding glances, and implicit queerness of Interview with the Vampire, the blockbuster 1976 novel by the late Anne Rice that became the 1994 cult classic …

Why Do We Love ‘Choose-Your-Own-Adventure’ Stories?

From the I Ching to an Upcoming Netflix Romcom, Interactive Fiction Dares Us to Decide What Happens Next

The new Netflix original horror movie Choose or Die turns on an interactive computer game called “CURS>R,” which resembles a classic ’80s adventure program in which a user inputs text …

Digging Up the History of the Family Bomb Shelter

For 75 Years, Images of Bunker Life Have Reflected the Shifting Optimism, Anxieties, and Cynicism of the Nuclear Age

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not the first conflict to unfold on social media, but commentators have been quick to dub it the first “TikTok War.” Videos by young …