iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Defector @defector.com · 28/09/2026

Look how Fanatics massacred this simple trading card: defector.com/look-how-fan...

4362

Defector @defector.com · 26/09/2026

How do I get my kid to be a sports sicko without turning into a vile sports parent? defector.com/how-do-i-get...

Recently I spoke at length with parents of a rising, seemingly well-adjusted professional player. The things that struck me most:

Their ongoing engagement with tennis as a hobby—having favorite players of their own, watching other matches, seeing the entertainment in it.
The emphasis on the child's academics and well-roundedness, such that tennis was not the single totalizing factor in their family life. In fact, they seemed to care even more that their kids liked school and had non-athletic interests and options in life.
Their calm demeanor, which is hard to fake, but is something everyone can work toward.
They didn't force themselves to watch the matches if the pressure was too high; sometimes distance is better for everyone.

0110

Defector @defector.com · 20/09/2026

"What’s the worst justification you’ve ever heard for your team sucking?" defector.com/whats-the-be...

Mike:

What’s the worst justification you’ve ever heard for your team sucking? After losing their third game of the college football season, a high school teacher of mine said, “it’s good we got the loss out of the way early. Now we know where we need to be.” The team proceeded to lose seven games that season and fired their coach before the last game was over. “Now we know where we need to be,” my ass.

8562

Defector @defector.com · 17/09/2026

Come join us next week at Defector's sixth birthday party! www.eventbrite.com/e/defectors-...

September 23 7-10 pm @ Rodeo 1134 President St Brooklyn NY

0220

Defector @defector.com · 14/09/2026

The Jets may want to reconsider being "AI-first." defector.com/the-jets-may...

An AI-generated map of the united states that has incorrect borders and puts Detroit in Canada.

1819235

Defector @defector.com · 13/09/2026

Who are the QBs you'd want to watch the most this season? defector.com/should-colle...

Lee:

Say you're strapped in a room with no internet or other TV for every NFL game this regular season. Before Week 1, you have to pick the 10 QB's you get to watch. You can watch every offensive snap they take, but no defensive plays for that team. How would you rank the QBs you'd pick for this?

611

Defector @defector.com · 09/09/2026

Defector is now six years old, and we're doing a lowkey, last minute hang this year. Come join us! www.eventbrite.com/e/defectors-...

2683

Defector @defector.com · 06/09/2026

FUNBAG: defector.com/you-can-magi...

Monte:

Congrats! That grody looking lamp you bought has a genie in it! You are granted only one wish, and it can only be for a pill (suppository) which will instantly cure/heal a specific sports injury. What injury would you solve from sports? Concussions? The end of Tommy John surgery wiping out seasons and derailing pitching careers? The dreaded ACL?

1141

Defector @defector.com · 05/09/2026

The vast majority of NFL podcasts have some unwelcome amount of gambling/fantasy chatter in them. Drew Magary and Arif Hasan's 'All Ball' won't! defector.com/defector-has...

2639

Defector @defector.com · 04/09/2026

Why Your Team Sucks 2026: New England Patriots defector.com/why-your-tea...

Kenneth Walker III #9 of the Seattle Seahawks runs for a touchdown that was called back during the fourth quarter against the New England Patriots

0230

Defector @defector.com · 03/09/2026

You’re trapped under rubble and these guys are your EMTs. WYD? defector.com/youre-trappe...

two cyborg cockroaches with little computer backpacks

4230

Defector @defector.com · 01/09/2026

Bill Simmons is de-apexing: defector.com/bill-simmons...

During episodes of The Rewatchables, Simmons established a new segment in which he uses ChatGPT to produce, in Roger Ebert's voice, a review of a movie that Ebert never got to write about, on account of him being dead.
ChatGPT recently became a presenting sponsor of The Bill Simmons Podcast, and during his first attempt at reading the ad copy he pronounced it "ChatGBT."
On the Aug. 9 episode of his podcast, he once again brought up the fact that he does not wear a seatbelt when he drives.

27510

Defector @defector.com · 26/08/2026

Your coach is a timeshare scammer who siphoned your great aunt’s life savings and fled to Costa Rica. Your quarterback is a character you created in Sims specifically to drown in a pool. The Jaguars suck. defector.com/why-your-tea...

410310

Defector @defector.com · 23/08/2026

What is the greatest TV house of all time? defector.com/what-is-the-...

Dusty:

I was watching Home Improvement the other day and realized that the Taylor house is underrated. I like the layout out of it! That got me thinking about the best TV houses of all time. Obviously the Brady Bunch house is No. 1, but what is the rest of the top 10? And what's the dark horse?

42576

Defector @defector.com · 23/08/2026

The fight to save the remarkable, upsetting murals of Maxo Vanka: defector.com/the-fight-to...

How did Vanka achieve that striking, pallid shade of green? As Naomi describes it, she's forced to be not just an expert on art history and religious iconography, but must also act as a pre-modern chemistry sleuth in order to figure out what Vanka used to create his bindings and colors in the vivid technicolor created with pre-industrial materials. There's no documented "recipe" for Vanka's paint that Ruiz can rely on, thus individual pieces must be tested to find the proper way to clean and conserve them. This can vary from piece to piece, even sometimes within pieces. "He's an artist, you know," Ruiz says, pointing to the dizzyingly high ceilings. "He's on his makeshift scaffolding up there, he's in the middle of painting Moses, and he's not going to climb all the way down. He's going to mix in what he has on hand."

0397

Defector @defector.com · 20/08/2026

The new Women’s Pro Baseball League offers hope—and frustrations: defector.com/the-new-wome...

Despite all the bumps in the road and some players feeling disrespected or discarded by the league, it remains difficult for many of them to criticize the WPBL. Many of the players who spoke to Defector, even if frustrated, made sure to say they were grateful for the opportunity to be drafted. There is a fear that speaking negatively about the league in public will tarnish its reputation or ruin its chance for success.

Above everything, these players want to see the WPBL succeed so that women will have an opportunity to make a living playing hardball.

0270

Defector @defector.com · 16/08/2026

James Gandolfini had a lot in his bag: defector.com/james-gandol...

1706

Defector @defector.com · 15/08/2026

Charli XCX made a beautiful monument to impermanence: defector.com/charli-xcx-m...

2271

Defector @defector.com · 15/08/2026

Everybody loves Big Boy: defector.com/everybody-lo...

3372

Defector @defector.com · 15/08/2026

Humanists have done nothing wrong: defector.com/humanists-ha...

1191

Defector @defector.com · 14/08/2026

Humanists have done nothing wrong: defector.com/humanists-ha...

19027

Defector @defector.com · 06/08/2026

What are you banning when you ban influencers? defector.com/what-are-you...

Even as we all perform online to some extent, there is a difference between documenting a moment or a space for personal use and what an influencer does, which is more often to capture moments in real life for monetization online. In the moment, the actions look the same: a person holds a phone up and snaps a photo or video. That action of documentation can certainly be annoying regardless of the motive, but the real difference is what happens afterward. The act of recording and broadcasting, when done by an influencer, compresses a time, place, or moment into one in a series of sellable images. The scale of their audiences means that their act of recording and sharing has the potential to transform public spaces into sites of shallow performance.

0231

Defector @defector.com · 06/08/2026

The mystery of Google's fixation on "the transwoman in the WNBA" defector.com/the-mystery-...

A google search for Gabby Williams including the questions "Who is the transwoman in the WNBA?" and "Which WNBA player looks like a man?"

2382

Defector @defector.com · 27/07/2026

"What's a gross, but acceptable eating habit that you'll defend?" defector.com/i-demand-we-...

Daniel:

So the Caps Lock typer from last week's Funbag got me thinking to what other psycho stuff there is out there. My wife has (reasonably) said I'm a serial killer for the following habit: when I eat Oreos, I'll take an Oreo gently in my cheek and then take a swig of milk. Then, I slosh the milk around until cookie and milk form a sort of slurry in my mouth. Even typing this out, I recognize that this reads like a logline for a new season of Mindhunter. What's a gross, but acceptable eating habit that you'll defend?

20594

Defector @defector.com · 26/07/2026

You've got to hand it to Rodin: defector.com/youve-got-to...

In the main hall of Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum, hands surround me, grasping out of the air. Each hand embodies a unique world of emotion: agonized hands, not quite clenched but splayed and seized with damned emotion; a desperate and curious hand outstretched as it rises from the grave, begging to crawl back to the world of the living; the partially open, hypnotic palm of the devil cradling a woman in despair; two lovers' hands almost intertwined yet just barely out of reach; soft, tender, and tortured hands. I can feel the whole inner life of whoever these hands belong to with just five fingers molded from clay and stone.

0284

Defector @defector.com · 25/07/2026

Why Your Team Sucks 2026: Las Vegas Raiders defector.com/why-your-tea...

0304

Defector @defector.com · 25/07/2026

For better or worse, ‘The Odyssey’ is peak Christopher Nolan: defector.com/for-better-o...

All of which is to say that this is The Chris Nolan Film Experience. It is a spectacle and an adventure. It is maddening, frustrating, and confusing. It is probably just as impressed by its own intense massiveness as the audience is meant to be. It is a universal experience that seems only to prioritize the one man at the center of the frame. It insists upon itself, Lois, and it will almost certainly make a billion dollars. But as is always the case with Nolan, no matter whether I liked the film or not, I end up wondering when this guy will relax and stop taking this all so seriously.

1262

Defector @defector.com · 20/07/2026

Jonas Vingegaard felled yet again by the cruelty of his sport: defector.com/jonas-vingeg...

ÉVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — Exactly 84 minutes after Jonas Vingegaard spiked his right collarbone into a curb and limped into an ambulance and out of the Tour de France, the assembled press watched him gingerly wince his way down the steps of the Visma bus and into a waiting team car. A scrambled pack-job followed. A soigneur could barely hold the pile of backpacks and duffel bags he was carrying off the bus. A team doctor stood by, holding two large red and yellow first-aid kits, adopting the tense posture and alert facial expressions of someone who knows they can't help but desperately wants to. The eventual driver nearly spilled Vingegaard's stuff all over the tarmac of a wholly unremarkable road, in an unremarkable town, at the base of the final climb of Stage 15 of the Tour de France. And then the two-time champion was off to the hospital.

0222

Defector @defector.com · 19/07/2026

"When typing on a keyboard, I use Caps Lock-Letter-Caps Lock instead of the shift key to capitalize letters." defector.com/i-crave-the-...

Garrett:

When typing on a keyboard, I use Caps Lock-Letter-Caps Lock instead of the shift key to capitalize letters. I started doing this as a kid and was never told to use the "correct" method. Now it's many years later and it works for me, even as someone whose job is pretty much all typing words. However, when I mention this to people, they absolutely lose their minds and act as if my (admittedly!) unorthodox method is beyond the pale. I can't be the only one who types this way. Why does this get such a wild reaction?

14401

Defector @defector.com · 12/07/2026

"What is the worst advice you received that you actually tried?" defector.com/the-hot-take...

Matt:

What is the worst advice you received that you actually tried?

7201

Defector @defector.com · 09/07/2026

I'm not sure there are enough Dundons on the Stanley Cup: defector.com/im-not-sure-...

9585

Defector @defector.com · 08/07/2026

Sarah Borus from the Wawa Welcome America Festival in Philly: defector.com/americas-bir...

0220

Defector @defector.com · 04/07/2026

"There’s an endless number of AI-generated videos on TikTok encouraging you to buy this hat. AI voices tell you how to 'get it on a triple discount.' Many of the videos feature Nate Dogg singing that he’s 'been to the motherfucking mountaintop,' for some reason." defector.com/we-hold-thes...

55112

Defector @defector.com · 04/07/2026

"My first thought rolling up to the low and liminal three-story office park hotel we’re taking over is, 'Wow, look at all those dykes.'" defector.com/finding-frie...

My first thought rolling up to the low and liminal three-story office park hotel we’re taking over is, Wow, look at all those dykes. Dykes behind registration desks, verifying COVID rapid test results, directing other dykes with luggage carts spilling over with duffels, hardshell Pelican cases, and sporting goods bags filled with what cannot be sporting goods. Dykes I know and don’t. Boy dykes and girl dykes and men who used to be dykes and dykes who used to be men, innumerable shades of exuberant faggotry, with canes and wheelchairs and mobility aids, some in leather vests dense with pins and patches, some in titleholder sashes, some in sweats and full beats. They embrace in many-way hugs and scream upon seeing each other, like sophomores back from summer. Across the parking lot, a pair of hoss-type white guys in performance basics are practicing golf swings. They’re there for hours, swinging and swinging in a perverse durational scene.

0152

Defector @defector.com · 04/07/2026

Which country has the coolest colors for their World Cup kits? defector.com/a-clueless-s...

Noe:

What country has the coolest colors for their World Cup kits? Not who has the best uniforms, because those change, but who has the best template of colors and patterns to work with? Lots of countries have the generic red/white/blue, but Croatia has the dope checkerboard pattern. Ivory Coast has that neat orange and Netherlands has the construction worker orange. South America has a lot of yellow. I like Argentina, personally.

4122

Defector @defector.com · 03/07/2026

"O weevil, I whispered, my mouth dry as the Libyan desert, baptize me!" defector.com/the-passion-...

0161

Defector @defector.com · 03/07/2026

David Roth on the Great American State Fair: defector.com/dead-country...

Taken on its face, it is tough to figure out what was even being celebrated here. But it scans much more intelligibly as a characteristically hapless attempt at transubstantiation from Trump himself, an attempt to create an America that's as small and shabby as one of those ruddy second or third weddings at Mar-a-Lago into which the president sometimes wanders and Makes Some Remarks. It aimed to do this by replacing everything that Trump does not like about America, which begins but very much does not end with actual Americans and the things they like, with a selection from the much smaller category of things that Trump himself likes, which is to say cops, Fox News personalities, Vanilla Ice, and hearing people that work for him talk about what a wonderful job he's doing.

111423

Defector @defector.com · 30/06/2026

Finding friends, legacy, and leather sluts at New Jersey's finest Holiday Inn: defector.com/finding-frie...

a sign that says "no latex in this elevator"

1250

Defector @defector.com · 28/06/2026

Albert Burneko answers a question about kids and lying: defector.com/what-if-your...

More and more I am convinced that a huge part of the work of parenting, maybe even the biggest after the basic keeping-the-child-alive stuff, is the story you tell your children about who they are, about what you treasure in them, and whether they believe you. In turn, the biggest part of the work of growing up is discovering who you are and what kind of person you want to be. Maybe your hope is that you can raise your kids to be resilient, or compassionate, or brave, or imaginative, and so you help them to see themselves that way. Not by puffing them up with a lot of bullshit, but by marking the moments when you see in them what you hope they will grow to see in themselves.

1629

Defector @defector.com · 28/06/2026

Summer is for baseball, hot dogs, and watching a bunch of horny teens get murdered in the woods: defector.com/summer-camp-...

From Friday the 13th to watching the trailer for Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma on a loop until it's reached feature length—every era, every iteration, every final girl—I've seen probably every summer camp slasher at this point. I've seen Bruce Springsteen's little sister drown a girl in an outhouse (Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers). I've seen Sadie Sink get hacked up by an axe and then, in a miraculous testament to the powers of first-aid training, be resurrected through CPR (Fear Street Part Two: 1978). I’ve seen George Costanza as a horny teenager (The Burning), which was perhaps the most horrifying moment of them all.

0321

Defector @defector.com · 27/06/2026

These days, it's hard to remember the old Jay-Z. defector.com/how-jay-z-ch...

There was a brief moment while watching the Roots Picnic when I felt that familiar pang of affection for his ability to still do this, and for reminding me of what those old days were like. But Jay-Z isn't the only person who can speak in Wire references: The thing about the old days, they the old days. I don't know if I could bring myself to care enough to visit Yankee Stadium, or entertain the idea that new Jay-Z music could still be good. Nostalgia, for as powerful as it is, can't make it 1996 again. Life just ain't like that anymore. But I'll always appreciate him for teaching me the difference between a 4.0 and a 4.6 Range Rover.

0323

Defector @defector.com · 27/06/2026

"Now that New York state and Erie County have spent $850 million in taxpayer dollars, it's time for the next important step in the process of opening the Buffalo Bills' new stadium: kissing owner Terry Pegula's ass." defector.com/what-does-it...

2414

Defector @defector.com · 27/06/2026