A coming of age story meets The Smiths' fandom of the '80s in The More You Ignore Me. This film weaves Morrissey's legacy into the befuddled homelife of Alice (Ella Hunt), her loyal father, Keith (Mark Addy), and mentally disabled mother, Gina (Sheridan Smith) in rural England. The film is an adaptation of Jo Brand's darkly comic novel. Yet, beneath Brand's comedic writing, The More You Ignore Me tackles difficult themes like mental illness and loss as Alice is bent between her devotion to her...

While the term “fangirl” has been playfully reclaimed by people of all genders, the historical portrayal of young women music enthusiasts has often landed somewhere between glossed-over footnote and “hysterical” as a metric used to measure a musician’s power. In Fangirls: Scenes From Modern Music Culture, author Hannah Ewens, whose own experiences are included, explores a far more complex view of fandom through exhaustive research and interviews with women and gender-nonconforming music devoteesin the U.K., Europe, North America, and Japan. The individual voices and profiles vary...

In the midst of today's crazymaking Amy Coney Barrett live hearings—a terrifying process that could eventually result in the demolition of Roe v. Wade—we'd like to suggest a little palate cleanser in the form of Viva Ruiz’s new track, “Thank God For Abortion Anthem.” Ruiz is an activist and artist-in-residence for Shout Your Abortion, a multimedia movement working to normalize abortions through art, storytelling, and community-building events and she's also the creator of the activist collective Thank God For Abortion (TGFA). Ruiz started TGFA in 2015...

Megan Thee Stallion is calling all the “college hotties.”  Last week, the rapper and college student debuted a scholarship in honor of her new song “Don’t Stop” with Young Thug. Two $10,000 dollar scholarships will be awarded at an unnamed date to women of color that are pursuing an associates, bachelors or postgraduate degree in any field of study. The application website reads, “Still a college student herself, Megan is incredibly passionate about the transformative power of education and remains a strong advocate for women...

In 1980, a shy young woman named Roberta Williams made history by designing a new kind of computer game—changing the industry forever Mystery House YOU ARE IN THE FRONT YARD OF A LARGE ABANDONED VICTORIAN HOUSE. STONE STEPS LEAD UP TO A WIDE PORCH. ————— ENTER COMMAND?  Two simple sentences and a cursor, blinking like a heartbeat, awaiting your command. To most, it might read like the beginning of an odd and boring story, but the format will be familiar to anyone over 40 who ever dabbled in microcomputing....

Isolation. Police brutality. Violence. Quarantine. A global pandemic. Wildfires. COVID-19. These are some of the words that have been ringing through our ears since the start of 2020. It feels very much the meme of the dog in a hat, sitting in the kitchen while flames burn all around, saying “I’m fine.” But we are not fine. Very much not fine. While the world is on fire both literally and figuratively, we have adapted. Adapted to Zoom University, six feet apart dinner dates, distanced learning, sourdough...

The Seattle Storm, led by Sue Bird and Breonna Stewart, beat the Las Vegas Aces at the WNBA championship Tuesday night to win the title with a record-breaking margin of 33-points. This is the team’s fourth title in 16 years and Bird has been around for all of them. As she watched her teammates dominate the Las Vegas Aces she said, “The fact that I’m sitting here, I think I’m having this, like, in-shock moment because it doesn’t really feel real that we just won...

Professor Bettany Hughes is a historian, author, and broadcaster who was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for her services to history, which makes her the first Dame to ever appear on BUST’s Poptarts podcast. She is currently professor of history at the New College of the Humanities and a research fellow at King’s College. Her first book, Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore has been translated into ten languages. Her second book, The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good...

Content warning: The following Q&A as well as the film included contains discussion of sexual and physical abuse.  In the short film Garden of Ants, by Jenni Hensler, a young woman exists in two warring realities, one in innocence and the other in the throngs of an abusive relationship. The film is an abstract reflection of Hensler’s personal experiences with abuse and how she continues to work through its effects on her relationships. Hensler is a freelance creative director, stylist and filmmaker who has produced art...

In Convenience Store Woman, the first of Japanese novelist Sayaka Murata’s books to be translated into English, the author established herself as someone with a knack for writing genuine oddballs and misfits. Earthlings, her follow-up, is even weirder. The book follows a girl named Natsuki as a child and then later as a 30-something. Abused by her mother, uncared for by her father and sister, and molested by a teacher, Natsuki literally believes herself to be a magical alien from the planet Popinpobopia. The only...