It’s a cultural phenomenon unseen since the iPhone lines of the late 2000s.
Roughly 200 people line the sidewalk on a brisk winter morning on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Some, packing away camping gear, have been here since 6 the previous evening. Only minutes past 8 a.m. now, hundreds more are expected to join the queue by the end of the hour. Continue reading Hypebeasts Save the USPS
I’m back from vacation, and not a moment too soon. What’s the matter now? Make it quick, because my computer’s going to crash in twenty minutes, and I’ll be on the phone with IT for the rest of the day. Continue reading BOOM!er
Advice to the lovelorn and just plain stupid
While I was social media stalking my successful daughter Phoebe’s 20-something friend “Chloe,” I stumbled upon something called “Fans Only.” My daughter never mentioned anything about Chloe’s celebrity, so I couldn’t understand how her spacey high school friend had cultivated this community of admirers. Continue reading Social Media Surprises
What ever happened to the subtle art of innuendo?
“WAP” opens with the persistent and ever-classy chant, “There’s [sic] some whores in this house!” Ironically, this is the most musical part of the so-called “song.” A monotonous bass line burps and growls while the performers recite their softcore pornography lyrics over tinny drums and intrusive sound effects. Rhyming “charge” with “hard,” “stroker” with“smoker,” “wet it” with “diabetic,” and “pussy” with “pussy,” a libretto this is not. Continue reading Consider the Mansion
A critical reading of “WAP”
In 2010, with just five words and a few mathematical symbols, Jaron Lanier changed the course of science forever. In his book You Are Not a Gadget, Lanier offered the following equation for contemplation:
Cephalopods + Childhood = Humans + Virtual Reality
Scientists everywhere were flummoxed by the calculus, which appeared to have been handed down from somewhere beyond our own realm. Gradually, it inspired a frenzy of outraged disbelief and panicked confusion. As the equation destabilized centuries of natural science, researchers everywhere began questioning the relevance of their lives’ work. Ever since, bands of feral biologists have roamed forests the world over, undone by the sheer brilliance of Lanier’s discovery. Continue reading My Octopus Overlord
On what should have been a momentous day for women and women of color and women, it was a grumpy old man—slouched and sulking over the fact that it wasn’t his inauguration—who stole the limelight. Continue reading Bummed Out Bernie is Buggin’ Me Bad!
I’m going to say it: I have never liked Harry Potter! I know, I know; you’re thinking to yourself: “…but Megan, you’re a mother of three beautiful, intelligent, sweet daughters and two hunky sons—and you’re looking great for it by the way—surely you appreciate what Harry Potter has done for young readers?”
A lot has changed since the coronavirus hit America. We met Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s real life McDreamy and head of the C—wait, not the CDC? Is it the WHO? No—wait, what? We pulled out of the WHO?! Jesus…Well, it’s basically something like the CDC—and Dr. Deborah Birx, who’s spent months sending us all secret messages encoded in colorful scarves.
Continue reading Top 10 Surprisingly Unhelpful Ways to Fight COVID-19
As a middle-aged white woman with socially progressive but fiscally conservative politics and a fashionably cosmopolitan sensibility, I have spent the last two years aggressively surveying the media landscape, honing my editorial voice, waiting for my moonshot. Some nights I lie awake in bed imagining my name immortalized in print, anticipating Maureen Dowd’s looming retirement or Jennifer Rubin’s untimely death.
Continue reading The Tenth Circle
Motherhood in the Time of COVID-19
Our nation is at a crossroads in these, our deeply troubled times. The Founding Fathers look on, their legacies casting a grand shadow from the heavens, which arcs across the Sacred Providence that are these United States—and they’re pissed. Continue reading Wake Up America, and Feel the F*cking Vibes
