A slender youngster from New Jersey entered a generation’s collective memory when he strolled onto a California beach in the summer of 1984. Despite being the best fighter, Daniel LaRusso did not prevail. He prevailed because he persisted when most people would have given up, and audiences sensed something in him that they couldn’t quite put their finger on. People are still experiencing it forty years later. One of the earliest narrative techniques is the underdog story, which works because it isn’t really about basketball, boxing, or karate. It concerns the difference between an individual’s current situation and their desired…
Author: Sierra Foster
Sierra Foster
Born in Kansas City, Sierra Foster writes about politics and serves as Senior Editor at kbsd6.com. She was raised paying attention to this city, not just living in it. Sierra has a strong, deep connection to Kansas City, from the neighborhoods east of Troost to the discussions that take place in the city hall halls. Sierra, who is presently enrolled at the University of Kansas to pursue a degree in Political Science, applies the rigor of academic study to her journalism. She writes about politics in Missouri and Kansas as someone who genuinely cares about what happens to the people in these communities—the policies that impact them, the leaders who represent them, and the civic forces influencing their futures—rather than as an outsider watching from a distance. Her editorial coverage encompasses state-level policy, local government, and the national political currents that permeate bi-state regional life. Whether it's a city council vote or a Senate race, she has a special gift for turning complex policy language into writing that feels urgent, relatable, and worthwhile. Sierra seldom sits still off the page. She claims that playing soccer on a regular basis has sharpened her instincts for political reporting because of the sport's teamwork, strategy, and requirement to read a changing game in real time. She's probably somewhere in Kansas City with her friends when she's not writing or on the pitch, discovering new reasons to adore a city she already knows so well.
Television occasionally succeeds in creating a certain type of character—someone who shouldn’t work on paper, who exists just a little bit outside of the main drama, and who somehow becomes the person that viewers remember the most. That character in Cobra Kai is Raymond “Stingray” Porter, and Paul Walter Hauser is the reason it succeeds. There is a compelling tale about Hauser’s journey to the position. After the Cobra Kai creators noticed him in I, Tonya, he received the call. His first reaction, which he later described as “some schlocky revival idea,” was something akin to skepticism because he had…
In Cobra Kai, Kenny Payne’s introduction is almost purposefully unglamorous. Unaware that the bus has arrived and that the other students are already making fun of him, he is dancing by himself at a bus stop. It’s a brief, distinct moment that sticks. In the first few episodes of season four, Kenny is lured to Balboa Park in a video game costume by Anthony LaRusso and his pals, who then beat him on camera. While they are searching for him, he hides in a garbage dumpster to get away. It’s really challenging to watch. Kenny Payne is based on that.…
Eli Moskowitz is the type of adolescent who is engulfed by a room when he first enters the Cobra Kai dojo. With a scar on his lip that children had made fun of for years, he was quiet and self-conscious. Demetri, another outsider, is his only true friend. The two of them share the unique social invisibility of boys who discuss Doctor Who and weep over Dobby’s passing in Harry Potter without giving much thot to who is observing. After a season of karate, Eli is a completely different person. One of Cobra Kai’s more disturbing character studies is his…
When you see Johnny Lawrence sitting by himself in his Reseda apartment early in Cobra Kai, with a beer in hand, a bare mattress on the floor, and ESPN on a tiny TV, you realize that this is where the antagonist from The Karate Kid ended up. It’s not exactly meant to be humorous. It’s simply true. Johnny hasn’t moved on thirty-four years after losing a karate competition to a youngster from New Jersey. Not at all. William Zabka agreed to that idea in 2018, and it proved to be one of the most innovative choices in recent television history.…
“Why the hell did you choose me?” was Peyton List’s direct and sincere question when she first met with the Cobra Kai writers. As it happened, the solution was precisely the point. The Disney princess was what they desired. They intended for people to be taken aback. List was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, on April 6, 1998, and grew up in New York City. While still in elementary school, she and her twin brother Spencer took the subway to Manhattan for modeling auditions. Before she was a teenager, she starred in more than 400 commercials. She made her…
Miguel Diaz was never meant to play the simple part. He begins the show as a bullied child in a brand-new apartment building, stumbles into a washed-up neighbor’s karate class, and spends the next six seasons being knocked down in ways that are occasionally physical and other times much more difficult to shake. From the first episode until the 2025 finale, Xolo Maridueña carried all of that, and it’s worth getting to know him. Maridueña was born in Los Angeles on June 9, 2001. He was raised in El Sereno, a neighborhood in the city’s east with strong Latino ties…
A certain type of actor doesn’t make an announcement. They don’t show up with an award-winning monolog or a billboard performance. Scene by scene, season by season, they gradually create something more subdued until you realize you’ve been watching someone crucial all along. Vanessa Rubio did just that in Cobra Kai, and now that the show is over, it’s worth taking a moment to say so. Born in New Jersey in December 1983, Rubio joined the show in 2018 as Carmen Diaz, the anxious mother of Miguel, the main character. It might have been a limited role. The parent characters…
This week, Esquire released a video interview with Jenna Ortega. It was an honest and well-produced piece where she talked about her career, how quickly she became famous as Wednesday Addams, and the weight of early Hollywood fame. The interview showed a lot of thought. What people said online wasn’t really about the interview. Within hours, the comments on Instagram and YouTube were full of a completely different kind of talk. One that was more about how she looked than what she said. Esquire’s Instagram video had a comment that got over 124,000 likes. It just said, “Why does everyone…
There’s something quietly impressive about someone who quits something they’re good at, not because they failed, but because something else was more important. Kyle Justin did that very thing. The man who wrote the theme song for Angry Video Game Nerd and played the lovably weird “Guitar Guy” who lived behind a couch quit everything in 2009. Not to avoid trouble. Not in the dramatic, public sense of being burned out. He left to get married and have kids. That kind of choice can make someone less creative than they really are. Before the term “internet creator” was even a…