Kill Your Darlings • 29th May 2022

The Long Goodnight of the Bedtime TV Mascot

Part public service announcement, part brand mascot, costumed critters have been wishing regional Australia goodnight for decades. What was the purpose of this cheap-and-cheerful phenomenon, and has this watershed moment in local kitsch passed?

Literary Hub • 8th May 2020

Life in Lockdown with My Wonderful Brand New Family of Sea-Monkeys

Aimee Knight may or may not be the world's leading expert on quarantining with artemia nyos.

Kill Your Darlings • 29th August 2019

An Oral History of the Gobbledok

From a cheap one-off character to a touchstone of millennial Australian culture, the Gobbledok is one of the strangest brand mascots to grace Australian screens.

Literary Hub • 3rd September 2019

On Dark Tourism: Murder, Hauntings, and the Serial Killer Capital of Australia

Why can't we look away from the worst of humanity?

Kill Your Darlings • 17th June 2019

Big Henson Energy: The Ridiculous Optimism of The Muppets

The corny, wholesome humour of the Muppets seem easy to mock in 2019 – yet recent ‘edgy’ parodies have fallen flat. What is it about Jim Henson’s outlook that has proven so resistant to cynicism?

The Lifted Brow • 26th June 2019

Excerpt: 'Bring Your Furby to Work Day'

On 13 January 1999, the United States’ National Security Agency banned its employees from bringing Furbys to work. What does this reveal about technophobia and surveillance capitalism?

The Guardian • 19th March 2019

As a social outcast the defiant weirdness of the Muppets gave me comfort

Nothing sparks more joy than seeing Kermit ride a bike.

Meanjin • 28th November 2018

What I'm Reading

Is it okay to hate a book, if only because you didn’t write it first? Alice Bolin’s Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession slaps with the brand of critical analysis and self-deprecating memoir I’ve been writing and not writing for the past year.

byNWR.com • 1st September 2018

Sign of the tides

When Renee was six, her brother would gaffer tape her legs together. He would then throw her in their twenty-metre pool and shout, “Sink or swim!” It’s little wonder, then, that Renee grew up to be a mermaid.

The Contributor • 17th July 2019

Meet the first muppet to be portrayed as homeless

Nashville street paper The Contributor syndicated this cover story from The Big Issue (AU).

The Lifted Brow • 27th July 2017

Making A Murderino: A Feminist Dissection of True Crime

Do women turn to true crime to steel ourselves against future victimisation? Or do we live in fear thanks to the narratives we impute?

Kill Your Darlings • 9th February 2017

Where Dreams are Found and Lost: Bruce Springsteen’s Australia

Aimee Knight explores the social, cultural and economic factors that connect Bruce Springsteen's music with fans around the world.

The Lifted Brow • 2nd March 2017

Down Where It’s Wetter: Mermaids, Menstruation, and Marine Ecology

"Maybe he’s right. Maybe there is something the matter with me. I just don’t see how a world that makes such wonderful things could be bad."

Kill Your Darlings • 10th July 2017

Have A Nice Day: A pop-culture history of the T-shirt

The T-shirt started modestly as 19th-century underwear; today, it’s a pervasive semiotic mode. How did a humble undergarment become a tool of countercultural protest, and later, an icon of Western consumerism?

CityMag • 6th April 2017

Destroying the World for Breakfast

There’s a tarot card called ‘The Knight of Cups’. This intrigues me.

CityMag • 13th February 2017

Wasted Youth

After a definitive 'no thanks' from a citizens' jury and vague plans for a referendum, the idea of a nuclear waste dump in SA seems to have been buried.

The Vocal • 20th October 2016

Putting The Fun In Funeral: It’s Time You Started Planning Your Funeral

I was always told little girls plan their eventual weddings, daydreaming of dresses, bouquets and cake. That was never true of me, except for the cake part.

Five Thousand • 21st January 2016

Eleven Personality Disorders You Meet at Vegan Eating Competitions

I’m an emotional eater. The week David Bowie died, I signed up for a vegan eating contest.