USED
Gold Star, Brown Family
How the Clinton campaign ultimately failed the Khans.
The New Inquiry
YOUTH IN DECLINE
What’s Killing Jessie Spano?
America loves to watch its best and brightest come undone, but it’s never really understood them. Look at Jessie Spano.
FEELING TINDERHEARTED
Are Our Feelings Being Tinderized?
Tinder’s binary mechanisms can be a template for a whole way of life in which everything is an option and processing beats choosing.
A MEATY CRITIQUE
What Can The World Expect From Anthony Bourdain’s Meat Market?
Anthony Bourdain’s planned market in Chelsea will sell food as authenticity. That leaves little room for the democratization of cuisine he promises.
TWO OTHER SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
What Adele's 'Hello' Has In Common With Donald Trump
Adele’s single is the musical equivalent of the desire for experiential homogeneity that Trump satisfies.
MARTHA STUART DYNASTY
How Early Cookbooks Sparked A Lifestyle Revolution
The discreet charms of the bourgeoisie owe something to the attractions of life as conjured by cookbook authors.
SCREAM'S ECHO
Craven Family Values
Wes Craven gentrified the exploitation genre, but by the end of his career he was priced out himself.
WHY IS EVERYONE SCREAMING?
The Social History Of Ice Cream
How a familiar frozen treat once got respectable folk all hot under the collar
COINCIDENTALLY, THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA
DNA-Based Prediction Of Nietzsche’s Voice
The result is presented in audio format and illustrates the first attempt at simulating the voice of a deceased person.
HOW TO TAKE THE WILLIES
On Creepiness
Creepiness is more than just the purely uncanny or horrific, but instead reflects an inexplicable and excessive desire, something close and yet too far.
WHO DAT?
Naming Nameless
Gabriella Coleman’s history of the Anonymous collective is as much about her complicity in the group’s attention-seeking tactics as it is about the group itself.
THE UNHEARD NERDS
Not All Nerds
By imagining nerds as a race of their own, Silicon Valley tries to disguise its white supremacy.
A SLICE OF LIFE
Life Of Pie
You won’t mind filling yourself in on the history baked into this dessert.
SFW (OTHER THAN THIS PHOTO)
Dick Picky
Critique My Dick Pic has convinced its proprietor that the female gaze is not homogeneous.
BIG DATA, LITTLE KNOWLEDGE
A View From Nowhere
"As with the similarly inferential sciences like evolutionary psychology and pop-neuroscience, Big Data can be used to give any chosen hypothesis a veneer of science and the unearned authority of numbers. The data is big enough to entertain any story."
VENERATED MEMBERS
Christianity's Penis Worship
Europe’s history of penis worship was cast aside when the Catholic Church decided Jesus’s foreskin was too potent to control.
FAMILY MATTERS
The End Of The Black Family Sitcom
Though 1999 was only a teenage lifetime ago, ‘90s nostalgia has jumped the line. Looking back is fun, and now adults in their 20s and 30s can play too. But when we do glance in the rearview at a Buzzfeed listicle, few things have changed as much as the portrayal of black families on America’s sitcoms.
DUST TO...?
How Ought We Die?
Secular medicine’s original exclusions prevent us from understanding the process of death.
RECASTING THE STARS
Made For China
As U.S. audiences tire of big budget spectacle, Hollywood designs its blockbuster product for the ever-expanding Chinese market.
REDUCING PEOPLE TO 'YAY' OR 'NAY'
Some Thoughts On 'Fruitvale Station,' Michael Brown And 'No Angel'
"Fruitvale Station" cannot help but answer the question of the value of Oscar Grant’s life, because these are the terms that are forced upon it, the question it cannot not answer.
