Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Before starting the most successful media company in the history of the Internet, BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti was apparently an armchair Marxist and postmodern theorist. Some people believe this essay, first published just after Peretti graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1996, lays the theoretical foundation for Buzzfeed’s media empire. Peretti’s piece originally appeared in…
It’s noon in Los Angeles toward the end of the Plague Year, and I’m lounging on the patio of a swanky three-floor mansion, watching a scrum of teenage boys perform trending TikTok dances. Arranged in a tidy delta formation near the jacuzzi and pool, the five boys smile into the glare of a ring light,…
The comic book company that publishes the graphic novels and comics of Neil Gaiman announced this weekend that it would no longer work with him after a storm of sexual misconduct allegations and that it would halt the publication of his forthcoming “Anansi Boys” series. The company, Dark Horse Comics, wrote on X on Saturday:…
The Cruel Kids’ Table Among the young, confident, and casually cruel Trumpers who, after conquering Washington, have their sights set on America. At the Power 30 Awards at Sax on January 19. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux for New York Magazine It’s Monday, January 20, the first night of Donald Trump’s second presidency, and just a couple…
It was Halloween in Orlando, and we had piled into a car to make a short trip from the Hilton to an after-party down the road, to wind up the first night of the latest edition of a gathering called the National Conservatism Conference. For at least many of the young people, the actual business…
Here’s your monthly Garbage Intelligence. It arrives the first Friday of every month, instead of the usual Garbage Weekend issue. It’s a snapshot of everything that’s happening around the web. Before we dig into the data, here are this month’s three big takeaways… NOVEMBER IN JULY The US Presidential race went from historically low polling…
Many people dream of becoming social-media stars like YouTube’s MrBeast or TikTok’s Charli D’Amelio. But for most who pursue careers as content creators, just making ends meet is a lofty goal. Clint Brantley has been a full-time creator for three years, posting videos on TikTok, YouTube and Twitch where he comments on news and trends related to…
Is flying less safe? Or are we just paying closer attention? Dennis Stock / Magnum March 20, 2024, 1:03 PM ET Somewhere over Colorado this weekend, while I sat in row 21F, my plane began to buck, jostle, and rattle. Within seconds, the seat-belt indicator dinged as the pilot asked flight attendants to return to…
You can always tell who in Hollywood has family money by their Instagrams. People like Dakota Johnson, who have a Hollywood lineage deeper than the Mariana Trench, post only rarely. They post about social justice causes they care about, or personal announcements. Even someone like actress and musician Maya Hawke mostly posts previews of upcoming…
Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny Modern action and superhero films fetishize the body, even as they desexualize it. When Paul Verhoeven adapted Starship Troopers in the late 1990s, did he know he was predicting the future? The endless desert war, the ubiquity of military propaganda, a cheerful face shouting victory as more…