Katherine Dee

Katherine Dee is a writer. To read more of her work, visit defaultfriend.substack.com.

@default_friend

Iran is now conducting foreign policy through memes Political communication has been drastically altered by social media

04 Nov 2024

Why the Catholic Church is embracing anime The Vatican is adapting to the changing make-up of its followers

31 Oct 2024

Character.AI suicide shows teenagers are choosing fantasy over reality Sewell Setzer III's death may not be the last

24 Oct 2024

Bumble suffers amid in-person dating revival Young people are returning to tried and tested methods

11 Aug 2024

AI boyfriend surge is the endpoint of Mills & Boon Atomisation in the West has fuelled a greater desire for fantasy

26 Jul 2024

JD Vance could be the first Very Online vice president Social media candidness is the lingua franca of younger generations

18 Jul 2024

Gen Z doesn’t need social media health warnings US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's proposal is wildly out of touch

18 Jun 2024

Dr Phil’s reinvention as a culture warrior isn’t working The purveyor of daytime trash is trying too hard to stay relevant

13 May 2024

Misinformation ‘experts’ pave way for more censorship A small and unaccountable group wields too much power

27 Mar 2024

Reddit’s popularity is a response to media failures The site has made an impressive debut on the stock market

23 Mar 2024

Young people won’t revolt over TikTok ban Donald Trump and other politicians are making a questionable argument

13 Mar 2024

Fans turn on ‘body-positive’ influencers for losing weight Social-media celebrities are falling prey to a vicious cycle

28 Feb 2024

New research finds three major types of ‘femcel’ frustration An analysis of 24,000 posts is one of the most comprehensive yet

16 Feb 2024

The myth of Gen Z’s love for Osama bin Laden Pollsters and reporters are reading too much into a few tongue-in-cheek videos

30 Dec 2023

Conservatives are too obsessed with TikTok The platform is dangerous — but not for the reasons the Right thinks

09 Dec 2023

Left-wing women are learning to love Right-wing men Political division has become a sexual fetish

30 Nov 2023

Why is Osama bin Laden going viral on TikTok? The terrorist's 'Letter to America' has reached unexpected corners of the internet

17 Nov 2023

Pity the plight of the internet celebrity A documentary about Boogie2988 reveals the inevitability of audience capture

09 Nov 2023

Matthew Perry’s death summons the ghost of the Nineties Nostalgia is how we process the past

30 Oct 2023

Is ‘woke’ fashion coming to an end? Victoria's Secret has reportedly ditched its inclusive line

20 Oct 2023

Are you a fictosexual?

17 Oct 2023

Could ChatGPT be your new girlfriend? The AI language model can now see and speak

27 Sep 2023

Mimics are taking over TikTok Paranormal trends are being turbocharged by a human anxiety about AI

31 Aug 2023

Asia’s ‘influencer farms’ are dystopian, but America isn’t much better The faux-intimacy of our social media personalities is just as troubling

22 Aug 2023

Is AI fuelling eating disorder content? A new report shows the ease of circumventing safety guardrails online

09 Aug 2023

Lizzo’s lawsuit exposes the problem with permissive culture One person’s fun may be another’s lifelong trauma

03 Aug 2023

Did the DeSantis campaign know it was using a Nazi symbol? The governor fired a staffer who included the Sonnenrad in a campaign video

26 Jul 2023

‘Lord’ Miles Routledge has achieved internet immortality The danger tourist who went to Afghanistan has a spectral existence online

22 Jul 2023

Why are politicians debating if Margot Robbie is ‘mid’? Florida congressman Matt Gaetz embodies the memeification of the GOP

18 Jul 2023

The ‘black manosphere’ got there long before Andrew Tate Today's influencers weren't the first to warn about the masculinity crisis

12 Jul 2023

Being fit is far-Right now, apparently A series of articles equate healthy living with fascism

11 Jul 2023

Is Pearl Davis the female Andrew Tate? The anti-feminist influencer is capitalising on the trad fad

05 Jul 2023

How a Breitbart hit piece backfired The publication faced a backlash for publishing private messages

29 Jun 2023

Why is anime having an online renaissance? It has become the lingua franca of disaffected young men

23 Jun 2023

Does the ‘Whatever’ podcast make women look stupid? Media accusations of misogyny don't tell the full story

07 Jun 2023

The latest media obsession: Latino white supremacists A spate of recent articles has identified a curious trend

31 May 2023

Why the Online Right deifies Daniel Penny The ex-Marine who killed Jordan Neely has been compared to a Roman emperor

16 May 2023

Don’t blame Tim Pool for the Texas mall shooting Internet personalities aren't at fault for Mauricio Garcia's killing spree

10 May 2023

What’s behind Ted Lasso’s woke turn? The third series of the hit show has gone in a strange direction

08 May 2023

We need to talk about extreme antinatalism

05 Apr 2023

Was Audrey Hale a domestic terrorist? Ideological extremism doesn't explain this shooting

31 Mar 2023

Zach Willmore: TikTok’s new HIV ‘influencer’ The creator is one of many documenting their journey with the virus

10 Mar 2023

Why are there so few female mass shooters? New data shows that 96% of spree killers are men

01 Feb 2023

A dark online Sandy Hook subculture is growing Social media platforms are awash with fanwork of Adam Lanza

14 Dec 2022

Censorship will not prevent Buffalo-style shootings Predictable calls for more online surveillance have come since the attacks

24 May 2022

Joe Biden’s ‘Disinformation Board’ is just another censorship tool Now the state will have an even tighter grip on our online lives

29 Apr 2022

Astroturfing has come to social media Companies are secretly encouraging influencers to shill for their products

06 Apr 2022

How the Ukraine war took over TikTok Slav-centric content was filling the video platform long before Putin's invasion

03 Mar 2022

Why is Ukrainian State Twitter waging a meme war? The country's official account appears to be targeting a western audience

25 Feb 2022

Teen girls are struggling with male attention on TikTok The video platform is complicating the relationship between users and creators

09 Feb 2022

Why do women on OnlyFans pretend to be girls? Users are editing their faces to appear younger

28 Jan 2022

Why do I spend so much time on TikTok? There's a reason I'm on the app for four hours a day

24 Dec 2021

Vox discovers Western esotericism — 100 years late The publication mistakes an ancient set of beliefs for something new

17 Dec 2021

The new ingredient in the dating algorithm: human beings It turns out that people are a useful component in matchmaking

01 Dec 2021

Crypto books can bypass woke publishers A politicised industry has opened up a space for Internet self-starters

24 Nov 2021

Travis Scott’s therapy app won’t heal your trauma After the Astroworld crush the last thing people need is BetterHelp

12 Nov 2021

Wokeness is giving cover to bullies Children are using social justice rhetoric to pick on others

19 Oct 2021

Food hack or fetish? TikTok’s new way to shock When all the taboos are broken, creators are inventing new kinks

29 Sep 2021

Deepfakes have disturbing implications for porn A new app digitally superimposes women into videos — this is only the start

16 Sep 2021

Meet Replika, your new A.I. best friend Are automated relationships the grim future for our atomised society?

02 Sep 2021

A mysterious spike in Tourette’s leads back to YouTube star Psychiatric disorders can spread via 'social contagion'

27 Aug 2021

Sex positivity can’t last

19 Jul 2021