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Van Badham

Headshot of Van Badham

Van Badham is a theatre-maker and author of QAnon And On: A Short and Shocking History of Internet Conspiracy Cults. An occasional broadcaster, critic and trade union feminist, she writes columns for the Guardian and lives in Melbourne.

June 2026

  • One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce joins protesters in support of a private member’s bill, which seeks to ban sex-selective abortions, outside State Parliament, Sydney.

    double quotation markOne Nation’s lurking attachment to the fringe anti-abortion movement sounds like the start of a horror movie

    Van Badham
    Australians who don’t want to find themselves victims should read the whole screenplay before accepting the part

May 2026

  • Palantir lightweight chore coat

    double quotation markAI-powered surveillance company Palantir created a chore coat. Great, now I have no choice but to burn mine

    Van Badham
    The gentle French garment is now as cursed as the infamous megacorp, which has accumulated $80m in government contracts in Australia alone

April 2026

  • ChatGPT logo

    double quotation markAI products are reaching further into our lives. Does it matter who controls the companies behind them?

    Van Badham
    Every organisation needs guardrails that channel them away from human fallibility and collectively minimise the harm they can do

March 2026

  • Teenage girl at home looking at social media on her cell phone while lying on the couch

    double quotation markIt is no fluke that social media platforms are addictive and causing harm. They were designed that way

    Van Badham
    The findings in two US court cases should embarrass anyone who claimed Australia’s social media ban was ‘boomer’ moralising

February 2026

  • Anthony Albanese shakes hands with Grace Tame, who is wearing a 'Fuck Murdoch' T-shirt

    double quotation markAlbanese’s ‘difficult’ moment with Grace Tame: in one dumb word he summoned the spectre of Scott Morrison

    Van Badham
  • A robot hand holding a heart balloon with a woman's hand about to burst it with a pin

    double quotation markAs we enter the age of the AI-rranged marriage, here’s why I hate Fate

    Van Badham

January 2026

  • A photo illustration of Elon Musk and a phone screen displaying the xAI Grok logo

    double quotation markElon Musk’s Grok made the world less safe – his humiliating backdown gives me hopium

    Van Badham
    The AI chatbot’s torrent of nonconsensual deepfakes isn’t its first scandal and won’t be its last. Responsible governments should simply ban it

November 2025

  • Xania Monet is ‘a photorealistic digital avatar accompanied by a sound that computers have generated to resemble that of a human voice singing words’, writes Van Badham

    double quotation markXania Monet’s music is the stuff of nightmares. Thankfully her AI ‘clankers’ will be limited to this cultural moment

    Van Badham
    While a robot pop star may be novelty now, young people are maturing with a scorn for generic digital products

October 2025

  • Westpac logo

    double quotation markWestpac’s work-from-home complaint was a cultural miff that doesn’t resonate in today’s Australia

    Van Badham
    Women who manage to perform their jobs well while caring for children should get a bloody medal, not a trip to Fair Work
  • Pixels forming arms of businessmen shaking hands

    double quotation markAI might be creating a ‘permanent underclass’ but it’s the makers of the tech bubble who are replaceable

    Van Badham
    Despite the relentless insistence of tech’s grifters, AI is not industrially inevitable – or even sustainable. Which is why it is time to push back
  • Man typing at his laptop computer at night

    double quotation markIn a world where techlords rule us by whim, Australia’s stance against deepfakes is reason to celebrate

    Van Badham
    Could courage be contagious? Let’s hope so, because in the absence of powerful regulation, the normalisation of awful blooms

September 2025

  • A member of the Ku Klux Klan holds a US flag in front of a burning cross

    double quotation markAmerica’s language of extremity is shocking to Australians. With local radicals on the march, we have to push back

    Van Badham
  • A mortar board on the ground at a graduation ceremony

    double quotation markTo Australia’s university fat cats, who may yet face job cuts not of their own making – don’t forget to wash your underwear

    Van Badham

August 2025

  • Man sitting up in bed in the early morning.

    double quotation markMiddle-aged men are among society’s loneliest people – what does that say about the patriarchy?

    Van Badham
  • Young man lying in multicolor ball pit

    double quotation markMicroplastics are everywhere, even in human testicles. So will the patriarchy finally step in?

    Van Badham

July 2025

  • A young man with suspenders ignoring the book he is holding to look at phone

    double quotation markAre young women finally being spared the unique cruelty of male literary opinions?

    Van Badham
  • Girl with wavy red hair lies on a sofa looking at her smart phone

    double quotation markYes, AI is getting scarier. So why do I need that loveless machine to tell me everything will be all right?

    Van Badham

June 2025

  • T in the Park Festival 1998,Balado,Scotland, United Kingdom<br>M0G2GY T in the Park Festival 1998,Balado,Scotland, United Kingdom

    double quotation markThe idea of inflicting a 90s summer on children makes me anxious. Mainly because I was there

    Van Badham
    It’s easy to see why some on TikTok are yearning for this kind of nostalgia. But as someone who lived through it, here’s why that’s a bad idea
  • Farmer Paul Manwaring unwraps a fresh hay bale to hand-feed cattle on his farm near Cootamundra, Australia

    double quotation markParts of Australia are suffering another devastating drought, but you wouldn’t know it in the cities

    Van Badham
    It’s not so much that rural and metro communities hold different opinions about climate change but rather they are holding completely different conversations
  • British Bulldog

    double quotation markOur obsession with spoiling pets has gone too far: your dog doesn’t care if its collar is from Burberry

    Van Badham
    From luxury pet-friendly accommodation to chartering a private plane for your pooch, the indulgences of late-stage capitalism are extreme
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