Welcome to the 349th 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 iPods! 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.

A Y2k Bedroom In 2026? The “Nestalgic” Trend Taking Over GenZennial Decor
katherine mclaughlin // architectural digest // february 2026
“nestalgia” is a new term just now created by Architectural Digest that intends to describe the act of decorating for your inner child. I have been feeling such intense nostalgia lately but not for the 2000s — more like, for the late 80s and early 90s. When I think of this room in my cousin’s basement that had all their toys and games in it — Lite Brite, Barbies, Teddy Ruxpin, Life, Connect Four — my stomach aches, I want to be there so badly. Maybe it’s ’cause I have a kid now, and I wish I could raise him in the era in which I myself was raised. In some ways. Not all the ways.

Stalker
mitzi akaha // mitzi’s substack // february 2026
On the author’s relationship with matthew perry. This was an honestly hypnotic read for some reason — “What ensued was a sloppy few months of casual meals and chaste sleepovers in New York and LA that I’ll never fully understand but felt as simple as two sad, hurt people offering each other distraction from pain. Exploited, exploiting—if it’s consensual, is it either? It was fun. It was so fun, what a playmate. What an honor?! I thought it might last forever. It was strange, of course it was strange, Mr. Big and Lil Big Ears, but in my logical, from-this-earth, of-this-earth mind, I thought that what we had might be so weird it’s special. That by breaking so many rules of propriety we could inspire the scientists back to their labs, what beautiful law of human nature do we not understand? Like an elephant and a mouse becoming friends.”

What Does A Happily Ever After Look Like?
alice liang & jan diehm // the pudding // october 2023
A fascinating interactive data analysis of romance novel covers and their evolution from shirtless hunks to a slightly more diverse array of illustrated cuties.

Girls Who Love Boys Who Love Boys
e. alex jung // new york magazine // march 2026
I get the impression that there is some negative discourse around this piece about Heated Rivalry‘s success and “why so many women are losing their minds over gay smut: a tour through the fujoshi unvierse,” but I loved it, despite it containing a lot of information I was already familiar with. It treats the history of slash fic, fan-fic and romance novels — and their appeal to female readers specifically — with reverence and authority and asks all the right questions.

They Killed Normal and Called It Progress
rodrigo brancatelli // found objects // february 2026
This piece about “Julia Roberts, Applebee’s, Bandcamp, your manager, and the death of everything in between” has already become central to my entire understanding of why the world (particularly the internet and cinema) feels the way it does, I am so pleased I read it. We start with My Best Friend’s Wedding and lament the death of the mid movie and then get into what is lost (and what is gained) in the transition from media companies (like this one!) towards substacks (like that one).

We still make A24 boutique masterpieces for people with Letterboxd accounts and opinions about Criterion — absolutely. What we stopped making is the middle, the common culture you could just walk into without curating your identity first. We optimized it out of existence and called it progress.

Mama Tried
madeline watts // the baffler // january 2026
The author reads her way into pregnancy, and impending motherhood, finding so many literary promises of radical change, and of isolation: ” I wanted to know what it was like to give birth in the increasingly precarious social and economic conditions that the postpandemic years have turbocharged, amid epidemics of atomization and loneliness with no seeming solution, in which the reliability of facts has been trashed. I went to the bookstore.”

25 years of ipod brain
molly mary o’brien // dirt // february 2026
It’s hard to believe that there was once a time when consumer technology solved problems we actually had. In the late 1900s, one of these problems was the portability of one’s music collection.

The Interview ‘They All Tried to Break Me’: Gisèle Pelicot Shares Her Story
lulu garcia-navarro // the new york times // february 2026
“When the presiding judge said, “Ladies and gentlemen from the press, this is a closed hearing, please see yourselves out,” my lawyers stood up and said, “Your Honor, our client waives her right to a closed trial.” And then, I saw the way the defense was looking at me. They were staring, like, She dared to do this! The defendants were staring too, defiant, with something in their eyes. It’s dreadful for the victim. I told myself, “Hang in there, my dear, you’re going all the way.” And I held on, but they made me pay for it.”

The Great Ticket Crisis: How Attending Live Events Became a Luxury Sport
tom lamont // gq // february 2026
How and why have tickets to things gotten so expensive? I can’t believe how many concerts I was once able to attend, even as a teenager! In recent years, WNBA game seats became some of the last affordable event tickets in the world, but I fear how much that’s been changing since 2023. In fact this piece talks about how ticket scalpers gamed the system when Caitlin Clark got drafted!

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The Iran War is Unfathomably Depraved
nathan j. robinson // current affairs // march 2026
I wouldn’t say that I ‘loved’ this, but I am glad that I read it.
“I suspect that this attack is also difficult for U.S. media to cover because the basic facts of the situation are so twisted, so depraved, so evil, that they shatter the comforting narrative that the U.S. has the moral high ground over the Ayatollah. In fact, the U.S. government is on the moral level of the Sandy Hook school shooter, a fact that even president Trump’s critics may have a hard time fully accepting.”