Is There Any Escape from the Spotify Syndrome?

The history of recorded music is now at our fingertips. But the streamer’s algorithmic skill at giving us what we like may keep us from what we’ll love.

newyorker.com

Maggie Cheung walked away from acting 20 years ago, but her legend endures

The elusive star of In the Mood for Love and Irma Vep continues to loom over the culture. Greta Lee, Olivier Assayas, and more untangle her mystery

gq-magazine.co.uk

The life and death of Hideo Kojima

As Hideo Kojima prepares for the release of Death Stranding 2, the pioneering video game director continues to inject his iconoclastic vision into ever-more ambitious projects

gq-magazine.co.uk

America’s infatuation with boy geniuses and ‘Great Men’ is ruining us

We’re obsessed with narratives about powerful men and how they got that way. But our mania for founder myths obscures an ideology of inequality

theguardian.com

‘Who remembers proper binmen?’ The nostalgia memes that help explain Britain today

The long read: Idealising the past is nothing new, but there is something peculiarly revealing about the way a certain generation of Facebook users look back fondly on tougher times

theguardian.com

Casual Viewing | Will Tavlin

A decade before Airbnb persuaded homeowners to transform their homes into hotels, Netflix convinced its users to turn theirs into mini Netflix warehouses. Customers who held onto their DVDs for longer...

nplusonemag.com

Never Forgive Them

In the last year, I’ve spent about 200,000 words on a kind of personal journey where I’ve tried again and again to work out why everything digital feels so broken, and why it seems to keep getting wor...

wheresyoured.at

Life of a salesman: Selling success, when the American dream is downsized

For the man who sells monuments of the American dream, that dream is starting to feel downsized.

washingtonpost.com

The Weird Nerd comes with trade-offs

A metascience post of sorts that argues we should take human capital more seriously

writingruxandrabio.com

Highway Star | Meg Bernhard

Trucking saved her, she said, but she still got lonely. Solitude became its own source of claustrophobia. “I have blue days,” Jess said. “If I slammed my truck into a mountain, would anyone notice? Do...

nplusonemag.com

What Have Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule Done to Britain?

Living standards have fallen. The country is exhausted by constant drama. But the U.K. can’t move on from the Tories without facing up to the damage that has occurred.

newyorker.com

My Anxiety

Is what’s wrong with me what’s wrong with everyone else?

newyorker.com