Some were futuristic.

Some were creepy.

Some were completely incomprehensible.

And honestly, I kind of miss that level of weirdness.

Other times you look at it and think:

“What does any of this have to do with the movie?”

Strange compositions, questionable taglines, giant floating heads…

Movie posters are an odd art form all by themselves.

Everything is normal.

Then suddenly:

“Wait… IS THAT WHO I THINK IT IS?”

Celebrity cameos can be hilarious because sometimes they’re completely unexpected.

And sometimes the cameo is so random that you spend the rest of the movie wondering why they were even there.

But sometimes CGI gets so good that you forget you’re looking at something that doesn’t actually exist.

And that’s almost stranger.

The more convincing visual effects become, the harder it can be to tell where reality ends and digital creation begins.

It’s some random object sitting on a table in the background.

A bizarre painting. A strange statue. A completely unnecessary gadget.

Props can have their own little stories.

Even when nobody explains them.

“What the hell am I watching?”

The strange music. The dramatic narration. The bizarre acting.

Advertising has changed a lot.

And some old commercials are accidental time capsules of weirdness.

Maybe it’s the weird outfit.

Maybe it’s one ridiculous line.

Maybe they just have an absolutely bizarre vibe.

Media is full of characters who accidentally steal the spotlight.

Not everything has to be a blockbuster. Not everything has to be the latest Hollywood release. And not every movie needs to be critically acclaimed to be worth watching.

Sometimes, I want something strange. Something obscure. Something that makes me wonder who came up with the idea in the first place.

And that’s where platforms like YouTube, Tubi, and Pluto TV can be surprisingly entertaining!

Free streaming services can be a gold mine for people who enjoy discovering unusual movies.

Think about it. You have platforms where you can browse movies without paying for an additional subscription, and the selections can include older films, obscure productions, independent movies, cult favorites, low-budget oddities, and titles that might not get much attention elsewhere.

Tubi, for example, has a large ad-supported catalog that can include all sorts of genres and productions. Pluto TV offers free, ad-supported channels and on-demand programming. And YouTube can be another place to discover movies, including films made available through legitimate channels and rights holders.

Naturally, not every movie on these platforms is going to be a hidden masterpiece. Some might be genuinely great. Others might be entertaining for entirely different reasons.

And let’s be honest: sometimes a movie’s sheer weirdness is the appeal.

Maybe you find a low-budget science-fiction film with a premise that sounds completely ridiculous. Maybe you stumble across a bizarre horror movie with an unforgettable monster design. Maybe you discover an old action movie with a plot that goes in directions you never expected. Or perhaps you find an obscure independent film that turns out to be much more interesting than its lack of name recognition would suggest.

That’s the beauty of browsing these catalogs. You never quite know what you’re going to find.

I’m particularly interested in the kinds of movies that make you stop scrolling and ask yourself, “What the hell is this?”

Not necessarily because they’re bad, either. Sometimes a movie is weird because it’s ambitious, experimental, unconventional, or simply different from what audiences are accustomed to seeing.

And sometimes, yes, you find something so gloriously ridiculous that you can’t help but appreciate it.

That’s what makes these discoveries fun. They give us an opportunity to explore the stranger corners of film without necessarily spending money to do so.

Of course, the catalogs change, and not every title will be available in every location. You’ll also have to put up with advertisements on these free services. But if you’re willing to browse, you may find movies you would never have encountered otherwise.

So here’s my recommendation: next time you’re bored and looking for something to watch, open YouTube, Tubi, or Pluto TV and explore a little. Don’t just search for the biggest names or the newest releases. Look through the older titles, the obscure genres, and the movies with the most intriguing premises.

You might find a hidden gem.

You might find a cult classic.

Or you might find one of the weirdest movies you’ve ever watched.

And honestly, any of those outcomes sounds like a potentially good time to me.

What’s the strangest, most obscure, or most unexpectedly entertaining movie you’ve discovered on a free streaming platform? Tell me about it in the comments. I’d love to hear what weird cinematic treasures are out there!

And, well, fuck it.

I’m Hispanic. More specifically, I’m Salvadoran.

I’ve spent years writing about books, music, science, and the strange corners of media, and I almost never talk about this part of myself.

Being Mixed, Being Ambiguous

My heritage is mixed. I’m Salvadoran, but I also have Polish, Austrian, German, and French ancestry. For this post I want to focus on the Salvadoran side, the part I’ve rarely centered in my writing or my identity.

Media has a funny relationship with people like me. There’s a whole casting category for “racially ambiguous” actors, people who can be read as almost anything depending on the role. In real life, ambiguity works the same way. Depending on who’s looking, I can benefit from some degree of white-passing privilege. I’ve become more conscious of that over the years. Privilege doesn’t mean you’ve never experienced discrimination. Sometimes you exist in a weird middle ground, benefiting from one part of how you’re perceived while being vulnerable to another.

I can be perceived as white by some people.

I can be perceived differently by others because of my heritage.

Both things can be true.

I want to be clear that I haven’t experienced a tremendous amount of racism for being Hispanic. That’s my experience. It doesn’t mean racism doesn’t exist, or that other Hispanic people haven’t dealt with far worse.

When It Becomes Real

The first time I clearly experienced something aimed at my heritage was around 2020 or 2021. A friend I’d had a falling out with contacted me after I’d made it clear I didn’t want to hear from him, and he called me names related to my Hispanic background.

Then, earlier in 2026, I was on a train with my mom when a man began saying things to both of us, some of it aimed at my heritage. It was awful. I don’t think prejudice stops being prejudice depending on who it comes from.

I don’t want this to become a story about either of those people. It’s about what those moments did to my sense of myself.

It’s one thing to know intellectually that racism and ethnic prejudice exist. Media can show it to you, teach you about it, even make you feel it secondhand. It’s another thing entirely to have it pointed at you. Something you’ve only ever watched on a screen suddenly becomes very real.

There Is No Single Experience

Because I’ve been lucky, I don’t want to pretend my experience represents anyone else’s. There isn’t one universal Hispanic experience, one Salvadoran experience, or one experience of being mixed. People can share a piece of an identity and have completely different lives, shaped by what you look like, what your name sounds like, where you grew up, and what assumptions people make when they meet you.

That’s worth remembering whenever a story tries to make one character stand in for an entire community. No single character can carry that.

Jaime David

Which brings me to my name.

Jaime David is my pen name, and in hindsight it’s oddly fitting. “Jaime” can be ambiguous depending on pronunciation. I say it “Jay-me,” like the people who know me do. “David” probably conjures a pretty specific image for a lot of people.

I didn’t choose it to make a statement about identity. It came from my middle name and my confirmation name. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Pen names are a media oddity of their own. Writers have used them for centuries to hide, to reinvent, to be taken more seriously, or just to have a name that fits the work. Mine wasn’t a disguise, but looking back, it turned out to be a name that can be read more than one way. That’s me. I’m mixed, I’m complicated, and I don’t always fit the box someone expects.

Learning, Not Competing

The biggest change over the past several years is that I’ve become more socially aware. I’ve learned more about racism, prejudice, and privilege, and how different people’s experiences can be even when they share a broad identity.

I’ve also learned I don’t have to pretend I know everything. I can listen. I can recognize where I have privilege and where I don’t. I can accept that someone else’s experience may be completely different from mine, without turning it into a contest over who has suffered more.

If I have some degree of passing privilege, I think I have a responsibility to be conscious of it. Maybe it also gives me the chance to talk about things that others don’t have the same freedom or safety to talk about. That doesn’t make me a spokesperson. I’m one Salvadoran-American person with a complicated mix of ancestry, experiences, privileges, and contradictions.

Why I’m Writing This Here

I talk about creating, writing, music, books, science, mental health, and society. I talk about whatever the hell is on my mind that day. Somehow I’ve rarely talked about this.

I don’t need to make my whole creative identity about being Hispanic. But heritage can sit quietly in the background until you stop and ask what it means.

For me, being Salvadoran is one part of a bigger identity. I’m also Polish, Austrian, German, and French. I’m mixed and ambiguous, and I’m still learning.

So, yeah. Happy Hispanic Heritage Month.

If you know a Salvadoran character who felt like a real person instead of a stereotype, tell me about them.

From one Salvadoran writer who probably should have talked about this sooner.

I guess I’m talking about it now.

It seems like media has gotten… tamer.

Not necessarily less explicit.

Not necessarily less violent.

Not necessarily less controversial.

And certainly not completely devoid of weird, disturbing, offensive, provocative, or downright fucked-up shit.

Because let’s be clear: there has been plenty of that since 9/11.

Movies have pushed boundaries.

Television has pushed boundaries.

Music has pushed boundaries.

Video games have pushed boundaries.

Animation has pushed boundaries.

The internet has pushed boundaries so far that sometimes I wonder if there are any boundaries left.

So I’m not arguing that media became completely sanitized after September 11, 2001.

What I’m talking about is something a little harder to define.

A feeling.

A cultural shift.

A sense that, compared with the media of previous decades, so much of what came afterward feels… tame.

Even when it is supposedly edgy.

Even when it is marketed as controversial.

Even when it is trying to shock us.

There often seems to be an invisible line.

And creators get close to it.

But they don’t quite cross it.

Before 9/11, particularly throughout the 1980s and 1990s, there was a certain kind of weirdness in mainstream media that I don’t think we see quite as often anymore.

There was a willingness to be bizarre.

To be tasteless.

To be uncomfortable.

To be surreal.

To be politically incorrect.

To make something that made people go, “What the fuck did I just watch?”

And sometimes it was absolutely terrible.

Sometimes it was offensive for the sake of being offensive.

Sometimes it was edgy without having much substance behind it.

Sometimes it aged horribly.

But there was something about the willingness to just fucking go there.

And then 9/11 happened.

Obviously, the world didn’t suddenly become completely different overnight.

Media didn’t magically transform on September 12, 2001.

But I do think the cultural atmosphere changed.

And perhaps one of the consequences was a greater sense of caution.

Suddenly, certain kinds of imagery carried different weight.

Terrorism became a much more sensitive subject.

Violence became harder to portray casually in certain contexts.

Airplanes hitting buildings weren’t just fictional disaster imagery anymore.

Images of mass death weren’t simply entertainment.

Certain jokes didn’t hit the same way anymore.

And I think the trauma of 9/11, combined with the political and cultural climate that followed, contributed to a broader feeling of caution throughout American culture.

But I think there was something else going on too.

The media industry itself was changing.

The internet was changing.

Entertainment was becoming increasingly corporate.

Franchises were becoming increasingly valuable.

Studios were becoming increasingly risk-averse.

And as media became more expensive to produce, there was more incentive to make something that could appeal to as many people as possible.

Why make something truly fucking bizarre when you can make the safest possible version of something that already worked?

Why take a massive creative risk when you can make another sequel?

Another remake?

Another reboot?

Another cinematic universe?

Another adaptation of something people already know?

And this is where I think “tame” becomes an interesting word.

Because tame doesn’t necessarily mean wholesome.

Something can contain blood, sex, profanity, drugs, violence, or disturbing imagery and still feel tame.

You can make something extremely explicit while still making it feel safe.

You can show someone getting brutally murdered while the overall production still feels incredibly controlled.

You can have characters say outrageous things while the story itself never really challenges the audience.

You can technically be edgy without actually being dangerous.

That’s the distinction I’m talking about.

There is a difference between explicit and transgressive.

There is a difference between showing something shocking and actually challenging the audience.

And I think a lot of modern media is very good at the former.

Less so at the latter.

Look at how much “edgy” media exists now.

There are extremely violent television shows.

Extremely violent video games.

Horror movies that show absolutely horrific shit.

Music with incredibly explicit lyrics.

Adult animation.

Internet content that would have been unthinkable on mainstream television decades ago.

So obviously, it’s not accurate to say that society simply became more prudish.

In some ways, we became much more permissive.

But simultaneously, something feels more controlled.

More calculated.

More corporate.

More self-aware.

More concerned with how something will be received.

And social media has amplified that.

Today, practically everything can be screenshotted.

Everything can be clipped.

Everything can go viral.

Everything can be taken out of context.

Something said as a joke on a television show can become a controversy on Twitter or TikTok within hours.

A scene from a movie can become a viral outrage campaign.

An actor’s old interview can resurface years later.

A comedian can have one joke dissected by millions of people.

A creator can have their entire history excavated.

That creates an environment where people know they’re being watched.

And when you know you’re being watched, you tend to become more careful.

There is also the rise of algorithmic entertainment.

Platforms want engagement.

They want people watching.

They want advertisers.

They want subscriptions.

And advertisers generally don’t want their brands associated with controversy that could cost them money.

So even when something is supposedly “edgy,” there can be a very obvious commercial calculation behind it.

How far can we go without going too far?

How controversial can we be without losing advertisers?

How offensive can this joke be without causing a PR disaster?

How disturbing can this scene be without getting the movie slapped with a rating that hurts its box office?

How weird can this character be while still being marketable?

And maybe that’s part of what I’m noticing.

The weirdness is often packaged.

The rebellion is branded.

The controversy is marketable.

The edge has a marketing department.

And that can make even genuinely provocative media feel strangely safe.

Compare that with some of the weird shit that existed in earlier eras.

There was a certain willingness to make something that simply shouldn’t have worked.

A cartoon could be completely fucking bizarre.

A movie could be deeply uncomfortable.

A comedy could be absurdly tasteless.

A musician could create something that seemed designed specifically to piss people off.

And sometimes nobody seemed particularly concerned about whether it was “on brand.”

There was just this attitude of:

Fuck it.

Let’s make the thing.

Maybe that’s nostalgia talking.

And I recognize that.

There is always a tendency to romanticize the past.

For every wonderfully bizarre piece of media from the 1980s or 1990s, there were probably ten pieces of boring corporate garbage that nobody remembers.

And plenty of the media from those decades was also constrained by censorship, broadcast standards, advertisers, cultural norms, and other limitations.

So I don’t want to pretend the past was some glorious creative utopia.

It wasn’t.

But I do think there was a particular flavor of mainstream weirdness that feels less common today.

And 9/11 sits in the middle of this timeline in a fascinating way.

It wasn’t the only thing that changed media.

It wasn’t even necessarily the biggest factor.

But it was one of those historical events that changed what certain images and ideas meant.

Before 9/11, destruction of skyscrapers could be ridiculous action-movie spectacle.

After 9/11, you couldn’t look at an image of a plane hitting a skyscraper in quite the same way.

Before 9/11, terrorism could often function as a generic movie plot device.

After 9/11, it became much more politically and emotionally loaded.

Before 9/11, mass-casualty imagery could sometimes be presented as entertainment without the same immediate association with real-world trauma.

Afterward, there was a new layer of cultural memory attached to it.

And creators had to navigate that.

Sometimes consciously.

Sometimes unconsciously.

There was also the War on Terror, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, increased national security concerns, political polarization, and a broader cultural atmosphere of fear.

All of that became part of the cultural background.

And then came the internet.

Then social media.

Then smartphones.

Then streaming.

Then algorithms.

Then an entertainment industry increasingly dominated by enormous corporations.

It’s difficult to isolate one cause.

Maybe that’s why I don’t want to say, “9/11 made media tame.”

That’s too simplistic.

I’d rather say that 9/11 was one part of a broader cultural transition that happened around the same period.

And perhaps what I’m really noticing is the disappearance of a certain kind of recklessness.

Media today can be more explicit than ever while simultaneously feeling less rebellious.

That’s a strange contradiction.

We can see more.

We can say more.

We can show more.

We can depict more.

But sometimes it feels like we’re willing to actually risk less.

And I think that’s fascinating.

Because when I look at older media, sometimes I don’t even think, “Wow, this is offensive.”

Sometimes I think:

“How the hell did they get this made?”

That’s a very different reaction.

There is something wonderful about media that makes you genuinely confused.

Something that doesn’t fit neatly into a genre.

Something that feels like someone had a completely insane idea and somehow convinced a studio, network, publisher, record label, or production company to give them money.

I miss that kind of weirdness.

I want media to surprise me.

I want it to make me uncomfortable sometimes.

I want it to make me laugh at something I wasn’t expecting to laugh at.

I want it to make me say, “What the fuck?”

I want creators to occasionally take a massive creative swing.

And I don’t necessarily mean “make everything more offensive.”

That’s not the point.

Being offensive isn’t inherently creative.

Being shocking isn’t inherently meaningful.

And simply making something disgusting doesn’t make it good.

What I want is fearlessness.

The willingness to make something strange.

The willingness to take risks.

The willingness to create something that doesn’t feel like it was designed by a committee.

The willingness to occasionally make something that might not appeal to everyone.

Because maybe that’s what I’ve been sensing.

Not that modern media is necessarily less explicit.

Not that it is necessarily less violent.

Not that it is necessarily less sexual.

Not that it is necessarily less controversial.

But that it often feels more cautious.

More polished.

More calculated.

More aware of the potential consequences.

More interested in being edgy enough to attract attention without becoming so genuinely strange that it scares away the audience.

And perhaps that’s the ultimate irony.

We live in an era where media can technically do more than ever before.

Yet sometimes, it feels like the imagination itself has become more restrained.

Maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe I’m just getting older.

Maybe nostalgia is coloring how I remember the media of my childhood.

Maybe the truly bizarre stuff is still out there, and I just haven’t found enough of it.

And honestly, I hope that’s the case.

Because I don’t want media to become boring.

I don’t want everything to be sanitized.

I don’t want everything to be a sequel.

I don’t want everything to be a reboot.

I don’t want everything to be engineered to offend nobody while simultaneously being engineered to offend just enough people to generate publicity.

Give me the weird shit.

Give me the experimental shit.

Give me the stuff that makes me wonder who the hell approved it.

Give me something that takes a risk.

Because media is at its best when it doesn’t feel completely safe.

And maybe that’s the oddity I’m really interested in.

Not that media became tame after 9/11.

But that somehow, in an era where we can make practically anything, so much of what reaches the mainstream still feels like it’s carefully staying inside the lines.

And I can’t help but wonder:

When did we become so afraid to color outside them?