Original essays on Life, Culture, Politics, and the Human Condition

Founded in Austin, TX, in 2012, The Chaos Section is a collaborative writing project with contributors from all corners of the country—New York City, Utah, South Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, California, New Mexico, Kentucky… Each writer brings a unique perspective, offering up insights on everything from politics and personal histories to pop culture, war stories, and whatever else haunts the American psyche that week.

This site was never meant to spotlight just one voice—it’s about exploring the ideas, questions, and obsessions of the people who fascinate us. Sometimes that’s a hard-hitting op-ed. Sometimes it’s a weird memory about mushrooms or baseball. Sometimes it’s both.

We’re not trying to churn out daily content—this isn’t BuzzFeed. Most of us juggle full-time jobs and real-life responsibilities, so we publish when we have something worth saying—not just to say something. If we manage to make you laugh, think, or scream into a pillow, all the better.

Important note: this is an opinion site. Not only are we not BuzzFeed, we’re also not Vice, The Intercept, or CNN—and we don’t pretend to be investigative journalists. The most common complaint we get is that we’re not “objective enough.” Obviously. Opinions are never objective. And even though we aren’t reporters, it might be helpful to remember the words of Hunter S. Thompson: “There is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.”

We don’t do faux-neutrality. We don’t pretend fascism is just another side of the argument. And we’re not afraid to say that some systems need to be torn down, not politely debated.

While we’ve always given writers space to explore whatever they care about, our editorial lens right now leans hard against authoritarianism in all its forms. This site exists to question power—whether political, cultural, or structural.

That doesn’t mean we’re aligned with any party or ideology. We’ve published work by Republicans, independents, leftists, libertarians, and people who don’t identify with politics at all. Anti-authoritarian isn’t a partisan stance—it’s a moral one. And being anti-fascist shouldn’t be considered extreme. It should be the baseline.

Thanks for being part of the chaos.

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Obligatory Disclaimer: The views expressed by our authors are their own and don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of their fellow writers or The Chaos Section community. Then again, sometimes they do. Life’s unpredictable like that.