The Tangential

Don't be boring. Don't suck.

  • If Women’s Magazines’ Promises Were Edited by Lawyers

    If Women’s Magazines’ Promises Were Edited by Lawyers

    30 Quick, Fresh Recipes. When prepared correctly and consumed with a low-calorie diet, supplemented by exercise, could promote weight loss! Burn 300* calories the fun, new way. *Calorie burn varies depending on intensity of exercise completed combined with your weight and heart rate. Cosmo does not guarantee you will burn 300 calories. 7-Day Detox Plan!…

  • Five Fantasies to Motivate Your Summer Run

    Five Fantasies to Motivate Your Summer Run

    Bear Apocalypse A variation on the zombie virus, bearitis is sweeping North America. It’s like any zombie plague, except instead of bitten folk turning into drooling, brain-gobbling sickies, they turn into fuckin’ bears. And not those nice, blackberry-nibbling guys that look cute on postcards—these bears are like grizzlies on PCP. Scientists have configured running shoes…

  • Is Facebook Going to the Crazies?

    Is Facebook Going to the Crazies?

    Over the last few days, Ruby Karp has been getting a lot of traction with her post “I’m 13 and none of my friends use Facebook.” Here are four reasons why the post has been catching fire: It’s concise and well-written. Any time a site posts anything about Facebook, especially anything negative, traffic goes through…

  • Creepypasta: Why Would Cartoons Make You Kill Yourself?

    Creepypasta: Why Would Cartoons Make You Kill Yourself?

    The origin of the horror story is the nightmare. Our dreams are populated by what we consume, so it’s fair to say many of us have dreams involving fictional characters as long as we spend an adequate amount of time watching TV or playing video games. “Creepypasta” is a subgenre of “copypasta,” a term that…

  • Five Reasons Why Ms. Frizzle Is Obviously a Weasley

    Five Reasons Why Ms. Frizzle Is Obviously a Weasley

    1. She’s a ginger. The most notable thing about the Weasley family aside from a) the fact that they can do magic and b) they’re, like, super poor, is their fiery red locks. Valerie Frizzle is inarguably of this clan, unless the color settings on your TV are all janky. 2. She’s magic. Yeah, I…

  • Top 10 Reasons to Still Wear Teva Flip Flops Despite Ridicule From Flip Flop Haters

    Top 10 Reasons to Still Wear Teva Flip Flops Despite Ridicule From Flip Flop Haters

    1. They are made out of a magical, miraculous substance that conforms to the exact shape of your feet, making them insanely comfortable. 2. All that comfort, only $25. 3. The tan lines. So intricate. 4. They don’t violate that tender skin between your big toe and the … pointer toe? Does that toe have…

A short history of The Tangential

The Tangential is a pop culture and creative writing blog launched in 2011 by three writers living in Minneapolis: Becky Lang (now Radecki), Jay Gabler, and Katie Sisneros. That was a golden age of irreverent confessional blogging, and over the first couple years we built a national following. Notably, we gained over 120,000 followers on Tumblr, where we were often associated with the provocative, extremely online writers in the movement known as alt lit. We created spinoff blogs including The Sport Hole, The Party Whip, The Tangential Ruins Minneapolis, and Tan Genitals. We hosted Minneapolis events and published three books.

We were having so much fun, in fact, that we never got around to monetizing. Oops! Well, we did have a little income from the books and events, and we became an Amazon affiliate. (This is your official disclosure that we subsidize our hosting costs via revenue from partner links.) Eventually, though, the editors and contributors who fueled the site’s early years largely moved on to other projects.

Today, The Tangential is run by Jay, who continues to publish criticism and other writing as well as to maintain the site’s catalog of posts — if only for, as we’ve always said, “the good of society.”

Site ©2026 The Tangential LLC. Post content copyright is held by individual authors.