HELLO hi friends. What a long week it has been. A great deal of our tiny team’s energy lately has been deployed to the print magazine side of things, and also this week my son got sick for the 500th time BUT I have also enjoyed, when I’ve had a moment here and there, reading things and wondering if you would like to read them too, and wondering how you might feel about them, were I to share them with you!

On that note — welcome to the 346th installment of Things I Read That I Love, wherein I share with you some of the longer-form journalism/essays I’ve read recently so that you can know more about Burger King! This “column” is less queer focused than the rest of the site because when something is queer focused, I put it on the rest of the site. Here is where the other things are.

The title of this feature is inspired by the title of Emily Gould’s tumblr, Things I Ate That I Love.

Feature image by © Shepard Sherbell/CORBIS SABA/Corbis via Getty Images

How To Build a Girl In Modern America
biz sherbert // the face // january 2026
A trip to Bama for rush: “I don’t feel any judgment towards the girls I’ve met this weekend for taking Ozempic, or starving themselves, or bending over backwards to fit in or make an ugly guy choose them. They are doing what they feel like they have to, and there’s great pleasure in belonging and being desired. But maybe tradition and modernity weren’t meant to combine this way.”

The problem isn’t that the women are unattractive.
devon price // substack // december 2025
I genuinely have not been able to figure out at all for one moment why anybody who isn’t a friend or family member of Cynthia Erivo or Arianda Grande feels it is important, or helpful, or necessary to talk about their bodies.

There Are Only 3 Celebrity Memoirs Worth Reading
ej johnson // point of departure // january 2025
I disagree about there only being three celebrity memoirs worth reading (which is ultimately just a hyperbolic hook, as the author has not read every celebrity memoir ever), BUT I did enjoy this piece and the analysis of what’s wrong with celebrity memoirs. (I post about my favorite books every year on insta and there’s usually celebrity memoirs there, including this year — the list of celebrity memoirs I did not finish is LONG though, and ones I endured despite being bored…. also long. I recently made this list of LGBTQ+ celebrity memoirs but haven’t read them all. However! I’d genuinely recommend Kate + Leisha’s, Alyson Stoner’s, Britney Griner’s Coming Home and Ione Skye’s Say Everything. Amongst the straights — I’m Glad That My Mom Died (Jenette McCurdy), The Woman In Me (Britney Spears) and Dinner For Vampires (Bethany Joy Lenz). I’ve never seen anything McCurdy or Lenz were in, but their stories were still very captivating!

You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof.
laura jedeed // slate // january 2026
I did imagine the truth was about as bad as the truth could possibly get, but somehow yes, this is worse.

Making Babies
gillian goodman // lux magazine // fall 2025
Dispatches from the frontlines of casting for and writing commercials for baby products, and it’s just as … everything… as you imagined.

The Haunting of Pennhurst
oliver egger // the believer // september 2025
Pennsylvania’s infamous mental hospital, officially shuttered in the late ’80s after decades of abuse and terror inflicted upon disabled people, has become a museum and a haunted house, staffed almost entirely by a scrappy, passionate community of disabled and neurodivergent people — but many believe their project is inherently exploitative, and fails to adequately give voice to the institution’s former residents.

Is the Internet Making Culture Worse?
celine nguyen // asterisk magazine // 2025
Eventually this piece gets into the history of the Village Voice and its role in cultural criticism and leftist politics and it made me feel very nostalgic!!

Burger King
wikipedia
Do you ever find yourself, late at night (for me this is 9pm), reading the entire wikipedia entry for Burger King? It seems uniquely troubled, as a fast food franchise, like it’s been through so many ownership and leadership transitions, so many rebrands and identity crises and “rebirths.” Did you know for a long time it was intentionally targeting young men as its key demographic? Do you remember the Pride Whopper? I’ve never really been a fan, but recall my father and brother liking it when I was a kid, and that the Ann Arbor BK had Norman Rockwell paintings on the wall, which I liked to look at. Anyhow now they are exiting their Creepy King era.

The Laptop Boyfriends Can’t Stop Watching YouTube in Bed
charlie sosnick // gq // january 2026
They started watching YouTube as kids. Now they are adults in bed with their girlfriends at night, retreating into “his own arcane fascinations.”

Call of the Wild
paige williams // the new yorker // january 2026
For the specialized backcountry rescue squad dispatched to the Great Smokey Mountains — America’s busiest national park — are highly trained, highly qualified and deeply passionate about what they do. And this is about what that is.

All My Friends Are Leaving L.A.
lauren bans // new york magazine // january 2026
“Beyond the loss of tangibles (job, income), I think what we’re collectively grieving most is a sense of hope. ”

They Murdered Her
nico hall // autostraddle // january 2026
Legal observers are near and dear to Nico’s heart through their own work in that capacity, and their piece on the murder of Renee Nicole Good is so thorough and and deeply essential.