The Risk Makers
Inside the tech industry’s decades-long failure to reckon with risk.
Great articles, every Saturday.
Inside the tech industry’s decades-long failure to reckon with risk.
Catherine Buni, Soraya Chemaly One Zero Sep 2020 35min Permalink
The cost of parents sharing their lives on Instagram.
Molly Langmuir Elle May 2020 20min Permalink
We all die immediately of a Brazilian butt lift.
Dayna Tortorici n+1 Jan 2020 30min Permalink
The story behind an Instagram sensation is the story of a changing coastal Maine.
Brian Kevin Down East Dec 2019 20min Permalink
The true tale of a bodybuilder turned social media influencer who built an illicit empire.
John H. Tucker Boston Magazine Oct 2019 25min Permalink
Tavi Gevinson talks.
Tavi Gevinson The Cut Sep 2019 30min Permalink
A Instagram-caption ghostwriter speaks.
Natalie Beach The Cut Sep 2019 40min Permalink
The making, and marketing, of a 9-year-old meme machine.
Lauren Levy New York Jan 2019 25min Permalink
A profile of an influencer.
Sophie Elmhirst The Economist 1843 Dec 2018 20min Permalink
Rethinking “the internet’s kindest place.”
Taylor Lorenz The Atlantic Oct 2018 25min Permalink
Who is this person?
Anna Merlan Jezebel May 2018 10min Permalink
A Venezuelan cop who had previously starred in an action movie stole a helicopter and fired on the Supreme Court. He became a rebel folk hero, moving amongst safe houses with a small band of followers, until he was killed in a shoot-out that he broadcast live on Instagram.
Nicholas Casey New York Times Jan 2018 10min Permalink
A new kind of late capitalism.
Alexis C. Madrigal The Atlantic Jan 2018 10min Permalink
How life on four wheels became a brand.
Rachel Monroe New Yorker Apr 2017 20min Permalink
She has convinced her followers she is a pretty-in-pink naïf, an escort, an unhinged ex, an office drone, and, most recently, an expectant mother. None of it is real.
Molly Langmuir Elle Oct 2016 15min Permalink
A primer on how the smartphone generation is redefining communication.
Mary H.K. Choi Wired Aug 2016 20min Permalink
“She scrolls, she waits. For that little notification box to appear.”
Jessica Contrera Washington Post May 2016 Permalink
Famous people and the media have always needed each other. It has been a long, mutually beneficial (and mutually profitable) partnership. And it’s over.
John Herrman The Awl Dec 2015 25min Permalink
The life of Kim Kardashian.
Vanessa Grigoriadis Rolling Stone Jul 2015 20min Permalink
Hanging out with a new celebrity class: the teen kings and queens of social media.
Ellen Cushing Buzzfeed Jul 2015 30min Permalink
On the man who has turned the grunt work of packing into a social media phenomenon.
Carolyn Kormann New Yorker Jun 2015 10min Permalink
The strange, gun-filled life of the “King of Instragram,” a failed NAVY Seal trainee turned poker-playing playboy with an exiled fraudster for a father and two heart attacks already under his belt.
Chris Ayres GQ UK Jan 2015 15min Permalink
A rape case in which most of the evidence lies in the archives of Twitter and Instagram divides a football-crazed town of 18,400.
Juliet Macur, Nate Schweber New York Times Dec 2012 Permalink
The autopsy of a once-dominant site.
On the popular iPhone app.
Just the day before, President Barack Obama had signed on and begun sending out photos. This seemed like a real sign that Instagram had arrived. Obama already has accounts on Flickr and Facebook. He (or his people) must have seen something unique and wonderful in Instagram's audience, some way to reach people via that channel that it couldn't through others. When the President joins your network, it's news. And while it's great news, it can be the kind of thing a company isn't prepared for. But as it turns out, Obama is a fractional compared to Justin Bieber.