Sitemap - 2022 - Freddie deBoer

My Favorites of 2022

Call For Subscriber Writing and Rating My 2022 Resolutions

If You Hate Billionaires, Stop Fixating on "Undeserving" Billionaires

Over a Hundred Years Later, People Are Still Shocked by Non-Representational Art

Subscriber Open Thread for the Heathens, 12/25/2022

Digest, 12/24/2022: Ho Ho Ho, I'm Hu-Hu-Hungry!

I Continue to be Unimpressed by ChatGPT

We Need to Talk About Nepo Babies Because We Live in a "Just Deserts" Culture

Book Club: Jesus' Son, "The Other Man"

You Have to Assume Everyone is Terrible at Understanding Art

Up You Go

Digest, 12/17/2022: The Dice Was Loaded From the Start

How Should We Feel About the ADHD Epidemic?

How We Got to "Unhoused"

Book Club: Jesus' Son, "Dirty Wedding"

The Twitter Files and Writing for the Maw

Digest, 12/11/2022: The Doppelganger

Terrence Malick, Ranked

Yes, Supply and Demand Applies to Computer Science Degrees

Book Club: Jesus' Son, "Emergency"

Who Cares Where the Holidays Come From, If the God They Celebrate is Dead?

Digest, 12/3/2022: Dead to Me

What Do I Do Now, with This Old Body of Mine?

Announcing Our Annual December RAINN Fundraiser

Review: Elbow Grease by John Cena

Book Club: Jesus' Son, "Work"

This NFL Season Sucks

Your Personality Has To Be Load-Bearing

You Should Check Out Daniel Bergner's Interview with Bari Weiss

Digest, 11/26/2022: Gobble Gobble Gobble

You Can Hate Your Country and Love Its Rituals

Pushing Everyone Into College was a Policy Response to Other Policy

I Assure You, Writers Would Be Fine Without Twitter

Book Review Contest 2022 Winners!

How Do You Know If You're Bipolar?

Subscriber Open Thread, 11/16/2022

Book Club, Jesus' Son: "Dundun"

The Agony of the Radical Democrat

Subscriber Writing, November 2022

Digest, 11/12/2022: If I Only Could

I'm Afraid I Have No Grand Conclusions That I've Drawn From the Election

The Romance of Madness

Book Club: Jesus' Son, "Out on Bail"

Paywalls or Constant Intrusive Ads: Pick One

Homelessness and What "No One Is Saying"

Mom Jokes

The Incoherence and Cruelty of Mental Illness as Meme

Digest, 10/29/2022: The Chosen

Mad Max in Park Slope: Alternate Side of the Street Parking

Call for Subscriber Writing & Vacation

Shayla, They Bought Their Tickets. They Knew What They Were Getting Into.

Book Club: Jesus' Son, "Two Men"

Two Education Stories That Are Just Begging for Good Journalism

Subscriber Open Thread, 10/24/2022

The One That Looks

Digest, 10/22/2022: Memento Mori

Words, Words, Words

Book Club: Jesus' Son, "Car-Crash While Hitchhiking"

I Like Movies That Don't Quite Work

Subscriber Open Thread, 10/17/2022

The Tribe Still Comes First

Digest, 10/15/2022: Hating My Shelf

People Disagree About What Constitutes Accountability

No, Bernie Shouldn't Run Again

Jesus' Son: Introduction

The Existence of Random Dog-Killings Would Seem to Imply the Need for Some Sort of Constabulary Force

Fall Subscription Drive

Open Thread, 10/9/2022

Digest, 10/9/2022: Don't Worry

How Convenient, That Kanye West's Behavior Could Not Possibly Be Influenced by His Mental Illness

Book Review Contest Confirmation Emails Will Go Out This Weekend, Plus Next Book Club

Postmodern Religion Still Doesn't Make a Lick of Sense

History is Long and There's Nothing Special About Now

NYU Students Punch Down at Adjunct

On Free Speech and Cancel Culture: Letter Six

Digest, 10/1/2022: My Time of Year

Trapped in Systems

Subscriber Writing, September 2022

But Do I Need It?

We Can't Constructively Address Online Mental Health Culture Without Acknowledging That Some People Think They Have Disorders They Don't

I Would Like to Gently Suggest that Perhaps Everything Everywhere All at Once is Just a Touch Overrated

Digest, 9/25/2022: Sentimental Melody

Book Review Contest Reminder & Call for Subscriber Writing

On Free Speech and Cancel Culture, Letter Four

My Rules for Sports Gambling

Building More Housing Supply is Sort of Like Automation Creating More Jobs

No, Covid Learning Loss Doesn't Prove That School Works*

On Free Speech and Cancel Culture, Letter Two

Digest, 9/17/2022: The Light Changes When You're In the Room

Hiding in the Flow

The "Left" Can't Take a W Because Performative Ironic Cruelty is All It Has

Modern Games Should Do Less

Why Are Identitarians Such Cheap Dates?

War as Cope: Ukraine as Desert Storm, Iraq-Afghanistan as Vietnam

Digest, 9/10/2022: Nolita Fairytale

Nope Should Be Just My Kind of Beautiful Mess, and Yet....

If You're a Living Language Type, Then You Have No Right to Dictate to Traditionalists How They Use Language

Subscriber Open Thread, 9/7/2022

They're Just Going to Start a New Hate Site, Obviously

Perhaps There Can Be No Ombudsman

Digest, 9/3/2022: RIP Barbara Ehrenreich

The Glory of Adulthood is Finding Something You Love to Futz Over

Subscriber Writing, August 2022

Open Thread, 8/31/2022

The Giver, Chapters 20 to 23

Let's Get You Started with... Drone

Multiplicity Horror, the Intelligibility Urge, Categorization Imperative, & the Mosquito-in-Amber Effect

Congratulations, Like Condolences, Should Be Private

Whether PPP Loans Were "Really" Cash Transfers Isn't Relevant

Is “Woke” just PC with faster internet?

The Giver: Chapters 16, 17, 18, & 19

If Everyone Learns to Code, the Value of Knowing How to Code Will Be Destroyed!

Book Review Contest 2022!

Subscriber Open Thread, 8/22/2022

Five Years in Recovery

Prospect Park Walk 2.0

Digest, 8/20/2022: Teenage Martyr Superstars

The Rehearsal is Another Comedy That Just Bounces Right Off of Me

If Michael Jordan Played In Today's NBA, He'd... Enjoy the Benefits of Modernity

The Giver, Chapters 8 to 15

Hard Work is Only Sometimes Necessary and Never Sufficient, But What Else Can You Do?

My Brief Brief Against Utilitarianism

Digest, 8/13/2022: It's You

You Have to Put Your Hand on the Dirt, You Have to Feel It, Cold and Damp

Subscriber AMA, 8/11/2022

Effective Altruism Has a Novelty Problem

The Giver, Chapters 1 to 7

I Finished Serializing My First Novel

Chapter Twenty-Eight & Twenty-Nine

You Don't Have ADHD Feelings. You Just Have Feelings.

Digest, 8/6/2022: Kafka, Esq.

It's Funny, I Don't Feel Fragile

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Giver, Introductory Post

Chapter Twenty-Six

If You're Traveling, Hire a Tour Guide

Where Should Affluent People Live?

Subscriber Writing, July 2022

Digest, 7/30/2022: In the Gloaming

Subscriber Open Thread, 7/29/2022

Going Through It

Sometimes, You Just Have to Take a Fucking L

No, We Have Not Proven That There is No Neurological or Physiological Influence on Depression

So Here's How It's Gonna Be

Be a Writer or Don't Be One

Digest, 7/14/2022: Glad as I Can Be

Chapter Twenty-Five

More Commenting Sadness, A New Piece I'm Very Fond of, Last Call for Subscriber Writing, and the Next Book Club

Towards a Normie Politics

The Left is a Labor Movement, the Left is a Worker's Movement

We Could Use a Reinvigorated Skeptic Movement

Open Thread, 7/18/2022

YIMBY Social Culture Prevents Progress, Again

Digest, 7/16/2022: 🤔

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hard Work For My Kid, Not for Yours

Anti-Anti-Woke Physician, Heal Thyself

Call for Subscriber Writing, Links, and Open Thread

Questions for Pure Environmentalists

Education Doesn't Work 2.0

Everything You Need to Know About the Popularism Debate

Chapter Twenty-Three

Until We Too Are Buried in the Sky

Open Thread, 7/5/2022

Sadder Things

Here Are My Actual Dumb Opinions

Digest, 7/3/2022: Independence Daze

My Brief Brief Against "Mental Illness is Just Capitalism, Man, the System"

Trying Sex Crimes in the Court of Public Opinion Was Never a Good Idea

How to Sell a Shark Book

Short Story Club Postponed

Review: Electric Wizards: A Tapestry of Heavy Music 1968 to Present, by JR Moores

The Time for Leftist Extralegal Action Has Finally Come

Digest, 6/16/2022: Dead Arm

Girl, Interrupted: Memoir and Movie

Ah, Carceral Liberalism

A Brief Word on Pain Management with Opioids

Open Thread, June 20th 2022

"a couple days" lol

The Invisible Man Does Elegantly What Promising Young Woman Fails to Do with Lectures

The Good White Man Roster

Social Justice Advocates Don't Get to Just Exempt Themselves From Politics

Digest, 6/11/2022: Satan, Satan, Satan Get Beside Me

Let's Read a Poem - Thomas Hardy's "The Convergence of the Twain"

Subscriber Writing, June 2022

We Don't Throw People Away

Seventeen Theses on Disability

Subscriber Open Thread, 6/6/2022

Depp-Heard Seems Like a Civil Liberties Disaster to Me

Digest, 6/4/2022: Surgery Time

Losing It

It's Time for YIMBYs to Stop Picking Low-Hanging Fruit

Yes, I Got That Reference. But Who Cares?

Digest, 5/29/2022: And I Want a TV Embrace

The "Socialist" Success Two-Step

Perhaps the Barriers to Entry for Creative Work Have Become Too Low

I Have Sold My Second Book

The Gentrification of Disability

Call For Links to Subscriber Writing!

Digest, 5/22/2022: Joy Cometh in the Morning

Bodega Discourse is Downstream From the Fact That No One is Particularly Interesting

Can an Unattractive Person Be Attractive?

My Response to Daniel Bergner's New York Times Magazine Piece on Psychotic Disorders

Pity Writing Studies, the Field That Hates Itself

Digest, 5/15/2022: It Went Pop

When I Was Young and Free

Comments Are Off For One Month

Safetyism is the Water in Which We Swim

The People Hurt By The "It's a Beautiful Journey" School of Mental Health Are the People with Mental Disorders

Open Thread, 5/9/2022

Just Stop Apologizing

Digest, 5/7/2022: The Next Episode

You End Up Becoming Yourself

It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Let's Talk About Comments

A Confederacy of Dunces, Chapters Thirteen & Fourteen

"Birds Aren't Real" Sucks

Digest, 5/1/2022: Mr. Cool

Drug Review: Dextroamphetamine

It's All Grift, It's All Brands

Nobody Walks Around Feeling "Valid"

Just Keep It Off My Timeline!

The Politics of Pure Affiliation Has Driven Everyone Absolutely Insane

Digest, 4/24/2022: Bring It Back

"Multiple Personality Disorder" Probably Doesn't Exist, And There Certainly Hasn't Been an Explosion of It Among the Youth

A Confederacy of Dunces, Chapters Eleven & Twelve

I Thought The Batman Was Pretty Dumb

For Democrats, It's the Worst of Both Worlds

People Just Want to Feel Good About War Again

A Confederacy of Dunces, Chapters Nine & Ten

Self-Actualization Is Not the Sole Purpose of Human Existence

It's a Business Where You Never Know

Nothing Happened to Zoe Kravitz

Digest, 4/9/2022: At the Hop

Prestige Disease

Rich Kids Can Always Get Algebra or Calculus or Whatever Else They Need

A Confederacy of Dunces, Chapters Seven & Eight

It Would Be Cool If You Would Refrain From Just Making Shit Up About Me and Trans Issues

The Deprivation Model Hurts Us All

Digest, 4/3/2022: You Think of Everything

Open Thread, 4/2/2022

Suavecito at 10

Review: Thomas Insel's "Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health"

A Confederacy of Dunces, Chapters Five & Six

A Broken Model of Brokenness

Psychosis is Not the Absence of Consciousness

Digest, 3/27/2022: I Give Up

One Game for the Bros, One for the... Girlfriends

Sometimes People Legitimately Disagree on Difficult Questions

A Confederacy of Dunces: Chapters Three and Four

Correlation Is Not Causation, But What is It?

Please Just Throw Me a Bone with the Wesleyan Argus Controversy

Chapter Twenty-Two

Digest, 3/19/2022: My Mother is Crying Blood Dust Now

Sometimes Misinformation is a Matter of Convenience

There's Always Going to be a Little Assimilation with Social Acceptance

The More Density We Build, the More Valuable "Neighborhood Character" Will Be

A Confederacy of Dunces, Chapters One and Two

Chapter Twenty-One

My Approach to Subscriber Perks, Plus Announcing a Place to Share Your Work

The "Myth of the Model Minority" is Just an Average

Subscriber Open Thread, 3/12/2022

Digest, 3/12/2022: And Ever in Good Stead

I Want a New Show Like Star Trek: The Next Generation or Law & Order

A Confederacy of Dunces - Introduction

Culture War is Fractal

William Gibson's "New Rose Hotel"

Drug Review: Trazodone

Please Use Common Sense When Performing Supersets

Let's Get You Started with... Modest Mouse

At the Kids Table

Subscriber Open Thread, 3/3/2022

I Am Asking for a Coherent Set of Consistent Principles That Are Equally Applied to the United States and Russia

Since I Can Please No One This Week, I May as Well Leverage My Incompetence at Video Games for Your Entertainment

It's Not Enough to Not Want to Lionize Your Protagonist

The War in Ukraine is Many Things, and One of Them is a Consequence of American Imperialism

Not Everything is For Everyone

One Year!

Digest, 2/26/2022: Everything Was Running Smooth

I'm Not Sure I Want to Run the New York City Race Much Longer

Subscriber AMA, 2/24/2022

A Future Where We Never See Each Other

What is Effect Size?

I'll Be Against the Next "Good War" Too

We Are Experiencing Definitional Collapse

The Buried Book: Introduction

Digest, 2/19/2022: Rolling Home

Could Be a Tough Time for the "All-Digital Middle" in Media

Subscriber Open Thread, 2/17/2022

Let's Take a Walk in Prospect Park

No One Will Miss Her: End of Book

Are You Sure You Want to Say That White People Are the Lone Agents in Human Affairs, the Main Characters, the Sole Movers of History?

Let's Get You Started with... Sludge

Time to Pick the Next Book for the Book Club!

I Want a Political Movement That's...

Digest, 2/13/2022: The Gig Bame

Chapter Twenty

It's Not What Happens with Joe Rogan, It's the Chilling Effect Around Him

This is the World in Which We Live

Statistical Significance, in Plain Language

No One Will Miss Her: Chapters 24, 25, & 26

White Journalists Are Terrified of Appearing to Criticize BlackLivesMatter, Obviously

I've Been Underwhelmed by the Upright GO S Posture Trainer

To Popularize a Movement, There Needs to Be a Movement in the First Place

Subscriber Open Thread, 2/6/2022

Capitalism's Productive Capacity is an Argument for Socialism

Digest, 2/5/2022: Do Your Thing

"Made the Harbor" is Just One of Those Albums, Man

Chapters Eighteen & Nineteen

Against Voldemorting

No One Will Miss Her, Chapters 19-23

I'm Somehow Less Concerned with Whether the Holocaust was "About Race" Than I Am with the Six Million Murders

If Only Simple Were Simple

Rejoice, for Copy Editing is Coming

Covid as Liberal 9/11

Subscriber Open Thread, 1/29/2022

Digest, 1/29/2022: Santy Anno

Things I Can't Be Recruited Into Hating

By Request, How I Structure My Week

Human Capital is Real, and Some People Are Smarter Than Other People

Six Minutes on Giving Me Effective Feedback

No One Will Miss Her, Chapters 11-18

Shovel More Dirt on Pre-K

Q&A: Ethan Sherwood Strauss

Subscriber Open Thread, 1/24/2021

Gen X Was the Political Generation

Digest, 1/22/2022: No One's Gonna Play the Harp When You Die

To Return to a Theme: If You Dislike the Behavior, Consider Changing the Incentives

Ditching the SAT is a Money Maker

You Don't Get to Withdraw "Your Share" of Public Expenditures, Doofus

No One Will Miss Her, Chapters 5-10

There is No Such Thing as a Takedown

Perhaps Not Everything is Eugenics

Sneer if You'd Like, But Engineered Solutions Are a Lot More Plausible Than Behavioral Change in 2022

Subscriber Open Thread, 1/15/2022

Digest, 1/15/2022: God doesn't always have the best goddamn plans, does he?

For Your Edification or Enjoyment: If You Absolutely Must, a Free ebook on How to Make It as a Writer

It's Not the Politics, It's Their Expression

It's With Some Reluctance That I Say That Bill Simmons Got It Right With the Ringer

"Get Some Help" is Often Necessary, Sometimes Unkind

No One Will Miss Her: Prologue - Chapter Four

Review: Julia Galef's The Scout Mindset

You Already Know the Normal Distribution

One More Time: What Do You Want Us to Do About Covid that We Aren't Doing Already?

Review: The Medium is the Message

Many Kids Don't Have a Warm, Safe, Healthy Home in Which to Do "Remote Learning"

Digest, 1/8/2022: Ah Ah

The Buried Giant, My Favorite Ishiguro

Subscriber Open Thread

Imagine If Everyone Who Tried to Write Like Choire Sicha Had His Emotional Integrity

No One Will Miss Her: Introductory Post

You Can't Be Good Enough

Welcome to Group

Digest, 1/1/2022: The First Day of the Rest of Our Lives