Welcome to Pop Off

Info about our publication and how to submit.

Thank you for joining us at Pop Off. We focus on everything popular culture. This includes movies, TV, and music. We also like pieces about other aspects of pop culture such as gaming, social media, comics, and streaming.

Here you will find reviews, think pieces, memoir, essays, and other kinds of writing about popular culture topics.

We welcome pieces that are serious, light, fun, thoughtful, satire, snark and more.

How to Submit

Submissions are currently open.

Please read the below before submit.

We are particularly looking for:

• commentary on popular culture we don’t already cover
• voices and perspectives that are traditionally underrepresented
• approaches that are unique and thought-provoking
• personal essays on on pop culture

What we are NOT currently looking for:

Traditional reviews.

If summarizing and critiquing something is essential to your larger argument or personal reflection, then that will work. But we have enough writers for Pop Off that write straight reviews.

For details about what we are looking for, go here.

When we are open to submissions and you are interested in joining Pop Off, here is some info on submitting:

Please send the link to a draft version of a story you would like to see published in Pop Off to [email protected].

We do not read any replies below to this welcome article. If you want to submit or have any questions, we reply only to the email [email protected].

We have many submissions at any given time so we will get back to you ASAP. Sometimes that means later than sooner — but we haven’t forgotten about you.

If in the meantime that draft is published somewhere else, no worries. It will still serve as a sample, and if we take you on as a writer you will have the opportunity to have more pieces published in Pop Off.

We are looking for regular contributors.

Please in your email briefly explain why your contributions would add *regularly to Pop Off and complement the content we already produce.

What does it mean that we are looking for regular contributors? This doesn’t have to be on a daily or weekly basis. However, we only want to add writers who will do more than just one-off contributions.

We’d like every article to have a great chance of curation.

So check out this guide to help you do this.

Following these guidelines are required to be accepted as a writer to Pop Off.

Additionally, learn what it means to be a successful Pop Off writer. Reading this will be really helpful to know what we are looking for.

In your email to me:

• Let me know your writing background.
• Tell me what you want to contribute on an ongoing basis.
• Explain what you will add to Pop Off.
• Tell me how your draft fits our publication.
• Tell me your username! That way I can get you added as a writer ASAP.

Note on new writers to Medium.

Medium is a different kind of content platform. It’s part social media and part publishing. We are looking for writers who understand this and are committed to being on Medium for the foreseeable future. (I write about my philosophy of how to do this here and here.)

Thus, if the draft you are submitting is one of the first few (or even the first) pieces you’ve written for Medium, I might ask you for 1) more examples or drafts and 2) more about your interest in writing on the Medium platform.

Thanks for your interest in all things pop culture.

Enjoy your visit to Pop Off!