Weighing Big Tech’s Promise to Black America
“Floyd’s killing sparked widespread protests in the streets and calls for racial justice in Fortune 500 boardrooms. But while corporate America’s official responses often felt like crisis PR disguised as philanthropy, Netflix’s approach stood out.”
Rain Boots, Turning Tides, and the Search for a Missing Boy
“When Jason and Ashley put up a memorial for Dylan in Bible Hill’s Holy Well Park—a blanket laden with teddy bears, a toy fishing rod, the boy’s first-ever pair of rain boots hanging from the tree overhead—locals tore it apart and dug a hole beneath it, looking for bones.”
Pokimane Has Done Enough—and Has So Much Left to Do
“As a master reactor, Anys knows the rules of manufactured controversies over manufactured selves. She could have engaged the drama YouTubers who went after her in mid-2020, taking ownership of her centrality in that day’s attention economy. She could have immediately made a response video and clocked a couple million YouTube views. She could have used the opportunity to reassert her brand. She did not. Instead, she went on Twitch to make a pizza.”
A People’s History of Black Twitter, Part I
“We make spaces out of spaces where we were not intended to be. That’s what we do.” This is the first installment in a three-part oral history series on Black Twitter.
Two Explorers, an Avalanche and the Front Line of the Climate Crisis
“Disappearing sea ice and the plight of polar bears frequently make global headlines, but the world’s worst warming is also upending the lives of the people, like Strøm, who call these islands home.”
I Called Off My Wedding. The Internet Will Never Forget
“The internet is clever, but it’s not always smart. It’s personalized, but not personal. It lures you in with a timeline, then fucks with your concept of time. It doesn’t know or care whether you actually had a miscarriage, got married, moved out, or bought the sneakers. It takes those sneakers and runs with whatever signals you’ve given it, and good luck catching up.”
The Untold History of America’s Zero-Day Market
“The lucrative business of dealing in code vulnerabilities is central to espionage and war planning, which is why brokers never spoke about it—until now.”
The Case for Cannibalism, or: How to Survive the Donner Party
“In other words, the revulsion to cannibalism is not innate. It’s a societal taboo without a Darwinian explanation (such as incest).3 What sets it apart from other social taboos is its remarkable power. The Donner Party might be infamous for its cannibalism, but more than a dozen members of the party starved to death rather than eat the already dead.”
How Many Microcovids Would You Spend on a Burrito?
“Still, the points gave her a structure. It was a way of coping, however imperfectly, with this strange new life she was living. It was, she had calculated, the best she could do.”How Many Microcovids Would You Spend on a Burrito?
The Strange and Twisted Tale of Hydroxychloroquine
“What happened with hydroxychloroquine was a debacle, but retelling the story might help avert the same kind of chaos next time around.”
