Mel Campbell

Mel Campbell is a freelance journalist and critic who co-hosts the fortnightly literature and culture podcast The Rereaders. She is a columnist on writing at Overland magazine, and a university lecturer and writer-for-hire on film, TV and media. Her first book was the nonfiction investigation Out of Shape: Debunking Myths about Fashion and Fit (2013), and she’s currently co-writing a second romantic comedy novel with Anthony Morris; their first was The Hot Guy (2017).

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Too Pure For This World: Authenticity, Innocence and Internet Culture

Too Pure For This World: Authenticity, Innocence and Internet Culture

Mel Campbell

From cute dogs to cute dads, the internet is obsessed with all things pure. But what makes something pure? Why does it fascinate us so much? And what happens when pure meets profit?

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Too Pure For This World: Authenticity, Innocence and Internet Culture

Too Pure For This World: Authenticity, Innocence and Internet Culture

Mel Campbell

‘You’d Never Wear Leather Gaiters to go Duck Hunting in 1920!’: Dressing Downton

‘You’d Never Wear Leather Gaiters to go Duck Hunting in 1920!’: Dressing Downton

Mel Campbell

Downton Abbey is basically a hi-res soap opera. Created by Gosford Park screenwriter Julian Fellowes for British commercial network ITV, the television series is set in a Yorkshire country house between 1912 and 1920, and features an open-ended series of intricate personal and professional dramas involving the aristocratic Crawley family, their servants and associates. The […]

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‘You’d Never Wear Leather Gaiters to go Duck Hunting in 1920!’: Dressing Downton

‘You’d Never Wear Leather Gaiters to go Duck Hunting in 1920!’: Dressing Downton

Mel Campbell

The Power of Friendship: Social Control and Personal Politics in Misfits

The Power of Friendship: Social Control and Personal Politics in Misfits

Mel Campbell

You notice the orange boiler suits first. One slides over a shapely ankle sporting a monitoring bracelet. A curly-haired youth shrugs into his, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Two orange-clad girls preen in the mirror. Another young man pulls a singlet over a muscled torso. A neat, intense-looking chap smoothes his hair and adjusts […]

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The Power of Friendship: Social Control and Personal Politics in Misfits

The Power of Friendship: Social Control and Personal Politics in Misfits

Mel Campbell

Baying For True Blood: Binge Reading in Television’s Post-Broadcast Era

Baying For True Blood: Binge Reading in Television’s Post-Broadcast Era

Mel Campbell

As a child, I once cried on Christmas night because I couldn’t bear the thought of a whole year until the next Christmas. Television viewers have long felt a similar pang at the end of an episode. But in the post-broadcast era, freed from the tyranny of being drip-fed single episodes in a set timeslot, […]

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Baying For True Blood: Binge Reading in Television’s Post-Broadcast Era

Baying For True Blood: Binge Reading in Television’s Post-Broadcast Era

Mel Campbell