Skip to content

Jessica McAllen

Jessica McAllen is a staff writer and fact checker at The Baffler. An award-winning journalist from New Zealand, she focuses on mental health issues.

A humanoid creature with a red splotch for their face stands on a floating disc that is reflecting different colors in a gradient. The creature is stamped with a triangle and an infinity symbol on their torso, the infinity symbol forming handcuffs.

The Anti-
Anti​depressant Syndicate

Bruce Cohen grips the mic and begins mocking mental health diagnoses. Caffeine use is now a mental disorder! The audience laughs. Delayed ejaculation is a mental illness now! They laugh again. He rattles off more from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ...

Do No Harm

November 29, 2020
Two centuries’ worth of dispute about suicide prevention burst into the pop culture zeitgeist when 13 Reasons Why was aired by Netflix in March of 2017. The “passion project” of Disney protégé Selena Gomez, it is centered on thirteen tapes pre-recorded by moody beauty ...
a grid of stills from governor Andrew Cuomo's daily press briefings

Total Cuomo Show

April 30, 2020
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is going to run. Cara, his daughter, thinks she can beat him, but he’ll be out there, say, five miles a day: “fast like lightning.” Cuomo should start running—for president! That’s what certain pundits and livestream devotees are saying ...