New this week
Rolling Stone
How 'Disney Adults' Became the Most Hated Group on the Internet
Rolling Stone
~13 min read · Jun 21st · “People were saying Disney fans are a plague upon society,” says one expert. “That they will be the end of Western civilization”
Reader View · Shared by 63
The New Yorker
How BTS Became the Most Popular Band in History
The New Yorker
~20 min read · Jun 21st · In an age of despair and division, a boy band from South Korea remixed the rules of pop and created a fandom bigger than Beatlemania.
Reader View · Shared by 97, including Alexandra Lange
hedgehogreview.com
Mechanization and Monoculture
hedgehogreview.com
5 min read · Jun 23rd · Any attempt to create a monoculture is necessarily self-defeating.
Reader View · Shared by 77
The Smart Set
The Strange Afterlife of the Vikings
The Smart Set
6 min read · Jun 13th · Adapted from Brunner's new book, Extreme North – A Cultural History When Geneva historian Paul Henri Mallet began to publish Old Norse tales
Reader View · Shared by 79
Tablet Magazine
The German and His Temple
Tablet Magazine
~15 min read · Jun 13th · A story of murder and a mysterious man who lived north of Jerusalem
Reader View · Shared by 114
Catapult
Why Are We So Afraid of Single Women?
Catapult
9 min read · Jun 2nd · In a horror film, the sight of a woman alone fills us with dread—but also supernatural expectation.
Reader View · Shared by 29, including Shannon (we're already in space) Stirone 💀
Granta
The Stars Are Blind
Granta
7 min read · Jun 15th · Anna Dorn on her astrology journey.
Reader View · Shared by 119, including Barry Ritholtz
Recently popular
Aeon+Psyche
A history of the smile through art, culture and etiquette
Aeon+Psyche
~14 min read · Jun 10th · How our toothy modern smile was invented by a confluence of French dentistry and Parisian portrait-painting in the 1780s
Reader View · Shared by 295, including Tactical Tech, Jason Silva, Larry G. Maguire 🇺🇦, Anne Thériault, Anita Leirfall, Marylin Delgado
The Wall Street Journal
The Age of Emotional Overstatement
The Wall Street Journal
Jun 11th · From social media to job applications, the pressure to declare our feelings in public is turning us into gushing adolescents.
Shared by 194, including @NFT_NYC #NFTNYC R.NFT R “Ray” Wang 王瑞光 #Metaverse, Michelle Boisson
Vox
Juneteenth isn’t just a celebration of freedom. It’s a monument to America’s failures.
Vox
8 min read · Jun 15th · The newest federal holiday observes the emancipation of enslaved people. Let it also be a time to consider the hypocrisies of the American experiment.
Reader View · Shared by 179, including National NOW, Jamil Smith جميل كريم
HuffPost
Diamonds Are Bullshit
HuffPost
~12 min read · Jun 15th · Let's agree that diamonds are bullshit and reject their role in the marriage process. Let's admit that as a society we got tricked for about century into coveting sparkling pieces of carbon, but it's…
Reader View · Shared by 153
Granta
The Stars Are Blind
Granta
7 min read · Jun 15th · Anna Dorn on her astrology journey.
Reader View · Shared by 119, including Barry Ritholtz
Tablet Magazine
The German and His Temple
Tablet Magazine
~15 min read · Jun 13th · A story of murder and a mysterious man who lived north of Jerusalem
Reader View · Shared by 114
justinehsmith.substack.com
Notes on the Vibe Shift
justinehsmith.substack.com
~16 min read · Jun 5th · See the important announcements at the end of today’s ‘stack. Are your reading skills getting a bit rusty? Click here to listen to the audio version instead! And don’t forget to subscribe! 1. In Le…
Reader View · Shared by 111, including Jennifer A. Frey
The New York Times
Punctuality Is Having a Moment
The New York Times
6 min read · Jun 6th · “Fashionably late” falls out of fashion after more than two years of remote work, when, for many people, there was no good reason to be tardy.
Reader View · Shared by 108, including Taylor Lorenz @ VidCon, Brian Stelter, Nir Eyal, Mathew Ingram
The New Yorker
How BTS Became the Most Popular Band in History
The New Yorker
~20 min read · Jun 21st · In an age of despair and division, a boy band from South Korea remixed the rules of pop and created a fandom bigger than Beatlemania.
Reader View · Shared by 97, including Alexandra Lange
Vox
One Direction fangirls created the internet as we know it
Vox
9 min read · Jun 8th · Why mainstream culture is so quick to dismiss teenage fandoms, and why they shouldn’t.
Reader View · Shared by 95, including Taylor Lorenz @ VidCon
All-time favorites
The Atlantic
Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid
The Atlantic
20+ min read · Apr 11th · It’s not just a phase.
Summary · Reader View · Shared by 1093, including zeldman, Paul Kedrosky, Daniel Pink, William Gibson, Bill Gross, Richard Dawkins, Jonathan Haidt, Brian Solis, John Battelle, Peter McCormack ☠️, Paul Graham, Jeff Atwood, Dan Ariely, Yann LeCun, Anne Applebaum, Niall Ferguson, Scott Galloway, Marsha Collier, Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦, Brian Stelter
medium.com
Something is wrong on the internet
medium.com
20+ min read · From 2017 · I’m James Bridle. I’m a writer and artist concerned with technology and culture. I usually write on my own blog, but frankly I don’t want…
Reader View · Shared by 940, including Josep M. Ganyet, Mark Kaigwa, Yehuda Katz, Ryan Boren, Ian Lurie 🇺🇦, Wesley Fryer, Ph.D. 🌎🎙🚀 (he/him), timoreilly, Herbert Bay, Renee DiResta, Christopher Allen, Thomas Power, AfroMum, jean marc manach, Cory Doctorow, Gary Marcus 🇺🇦, Rand Fishkin, Chris Messina, Mathew Ingram, Liliane Ferrari ™, Dan Gillmor
Aeon+Psyche
How to gain more from your reading
Aeon+Psyche
~17 min read · 2021-07-07 · There’s more to words than meets the eye. Deepen your appreciation of literature through the art of slow, attentive reading
Reader View · Shared by 900, including Mariella Petrigni 🌍 Translator, Esther Schindler, Katja Evertz, Miguel Angel Escotet
The Atlantic
NFTs Are an Art Project Gone Awry
The Atlantic
8 min read · 2021-04-02 · When we invented non-fungible tokens, we were trying to protect artists. But tech-world opportunism has struck again.
Reader View · Shared by 808, including Dan Gillmor, anildash, Mike Monteiro🌹, Jer Thorp, James Gingerich, @Expeflow #WorkEasier #RPA, William Gibson, Rand Fishkin, Tom Muller, 🏴 Eithiriel DeMeré, Mathew Ingram, Tony Parisi.eth 🇺🇦🌻 #SlavaUkraini, Cem Sertoglu 🤖, Scott Monty, Mark Kaigwa, LARRY ELKAN, Rhizome, Kyle McDonald, Evan Kirstel the $B2B Techfluencer, Brian Rinaldi, Hiroko Tabuchi
Vox
Is confidence a cult? These sociologists think so.
Vox
9 min read · Jan 18th · A new book aims to show why directives to "just be more confident!" are so harmful.
Reader View · Shared by 726, including Nilofer Merchant, Erin Ashley, ASA Sociology
Real Life
Kids’ Stuff — Real Life
Real Life
10 min read · May 5th · How toys stopped being about play and became mainly about collecting
Reader View · Shared by 650, including tante
Anne Helen Petersen
Revenge Bedtime Procrastination
Anne Helen Petersen
7 min read · 2021-09-26 · This is the Sunday edition of Culture Study — the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen, which you can read about here. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing. Here is…
Reader View · Shared by 643, including maxadorno, Janosch Troehler, Gabriele, David Papandrew, Tactical Tech, tante, ᴄʟᴀᴜᴅɪᴏ sᴄʜᴡᴀʀᴢ, Tara McMullin
Aeon+Psyche
A history of disruption, from fringe ideas to social change
Aeon+Psyche
~14 min read · 2021-12-23 · Major disruptions in world history follow a clear pattern. What can upheavals of the past tell us about our own future?
Reader View · Shared by 629, including Marylin Delgado, Larry G. Maguire 🇺🇦, Ines Bieler, Tactical Tech, Jason Silva
Guardian Books
Thirty books to help us understand the world in 2020
Guardian Books
20+ min read · 2020-10-18 · The climate crisis, gender, populism, big tech, pandemics, race… our experts recommend titles to illuminate the issues of the day
Reader View · Shared by 624, including ΛLΞX TRΞJʘ, Caden Jiang, Katja Evertz, Evan Selinger, Kevin Roberts, Jacob Jarnvall, George Shiber, Nigel Warburton 🧡 #RejoinEU 🇺🇦, Ines Bieler, Stephanie A Kowalski, Juan Cole, Tauno, Gregor B. Rosenauer, Anita Leirfall, Ceferino Díaz, Prof Michael E. Mann, rogerverhoeven, MIT Press 🏳️🌈
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