Welcome!

Hello, I’m Emily, the editor and publisher here. The Ick is an online and print magazine, organized into seasons, each one exploring a different facet of ick. The season starts on Substack, then culminates in a short-run, full-color print magazine with print-only exclusives. Our current issue is: TABOO.

Season 5: Taboo

Topics include:

Jealousy as creative fuel
Kink as feminism
How to talk about fucking your wife
Gender dynamics of dominance
Initiation rituals
Cryonics and psychedelics

Phew!

All online articles are free, subscribe so you don’t miss a single one. Also, consider these paid subscription tiers. All proceeds go toward covering printing costs. All subscribers receive a print magazine, plus first access to our in-person launch party!

Season 4: Disgust

In season 4, I collaborated with brilliant writer friends to create a curated season around the theme of DISGUST. The season culminated in our first-ever PRINT magazine.

Order it here →

Get The Ick

We held an in-person reading + launch party in San Francisco, and it was amazing.

Season 4 contributors included:

Eurydice explored the ick of motherhood and thought policing.
Jake Eaton, editor at Anthropic, wrote about misophonia and why we hate wet sounds.
etirabys analyzed the causes and origins of women’s dating icks.
Lydia Laurenson of The New Modality and Solar Light reflected on her entanglement with the neoreactionary movement.
Deepfates described on the politics of contagion.
Rhys Lindmark, author and artist behind Ada & Locke, created a comic about disgust’s evolutionary origins.

Read the season online here.

Order the print magazine here →

Get The Ick

Season 3: Social Survival Guide

In Season 3, we explored the hidden rules of human connection. With help from psychologists, linguists, and social scientists, this season created a field guide to post-pandemic etiquette.

Emily

August 21, 2024

Season 5: Taboo