I've spent many years writing about games, TV, film, technology, and the cultural weather around them, for outlets like The Escapist (DE), Esports Insider, and Techopedia. Before Stockholm I lived in Malta, Gibraltar, and Torre del Mar on the Spanish coast, and before that, Germany. Somewhere in Málaga I figured out I no longer wanted to write inside other people's editorial calendars.
Popkulturist is what I made instead.
It's an independent pop culture criticism site, English-language, run from Sweden by someone who was raised on Isaac Asimov and American comics in translation before he could read them in the original. That mix is the editorial position. I'm not American or British, which means I see some things readers in those markets don't and miss some things they catch instantly. The publication runs in the space that creates.
The work is organised into five categories: Essays (the longform anchor pieces), Screens (TV and film), Games, Pages (comics, books, manga, graphic novels), and Machines (tech and AI as a cultural force). A new piece most weekdays. Newsletter subscribers get a weekly Friday digest, plus an Occasional Dispatch — a subscriber-only short take, never published anywhere else.
What you won't find here: recaps, rankings, ten-things-you-missed listicles, or hot takes engineered for engagement.
I also run a separate business called TwoEighty Studios, an AI-leveraged content production agency. Popkulturist doesn't cover its clients, ever, and the two operate behind a hard editorial firewall. The Editorial Policy page lays out how that works in detail, along with my approach to AI in the writing process, sponsorships, corrections, and everything else worth being explicit about.
If you want to follow along, the newsletter is the best way. You just need to sign up for it. Got a pitch, a correction, a sponsorship inquiry, or a strong disagreement? Email me at ben@popkulturist.com.
Thanks for being here.
— Ben