Cat Zhang

Hey, I’m Cat! I’m a Brooklyn-based critic who cov­ers books, TV, movies, and mu­sic at The Cut. Previously I was an as­so­ci­ate ed­i­tor at Pitchfork, where I edited re­views and wrote widely across the site. In 2022, I re­ceived the American Society of Magazine Editors’ Next Award for Journalists Under 30.

Pitchfork

• Review of Caroline Polachek’s Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
• Review of Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts
• Review of Mitski’s The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
• Review of Water From Your Eyes’ Everyone’s Crushed
• Review of Boygenius’ The Record
• Profile of Yaeji ahead of her de­but al­bum With a Hammer
• Deep dive into mu­sic fan­dom on Discord
• Sunday Review of Kesha’s 2010 de­but, Animal
• Essay about Imogen Heap’s long­stand­ing in­flu­ence
• Feature about the mean­ing of “Asian American mu­sic”
• Feature about city pop and the Western imag­i­na­tion of Japan

Select other

• New York Fungus Festival scene re­port (New York Times)
• Short pro­file of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research (New York Times)
• Trend story on the rise of fan ed­its on­line (New York Times)
• Profile of co­me­dian Jamie Loftus (New Yorker)
• Review of Esther Yi’s novel Y/N (Vulture)
• Review of Sheena Patel’s novel I’m A Fan (Washington Post)
• Review of Awkwafina’s sit­com Nora from Queens (The Cut)
• Analysis of “TikTok Face” (Real Life)
• Look at the Instagram gos­sip site Deuxmoi (Real Life)
• Interview with TikTok fash­ion fore­caster OldLoserInBrooklyn (Vice)

Appearances

I’ve been a guest on the New York Times’ Popcast, NPR’s All Things Considered, Slate’s ICYMI, Vulture’s Switched on Pop, and the Pitchfork Review. Netflix sub­scribers can find me on sea­son 3, episode 11 of the Vox do­cuseries Explained.