The Unlikely Story of a Sex Trafficking Survivor and the Instagram Account That Saved Her Life
Megan Lundstrom understands more than most the conditions that force women into dangerous situations—she also has the key to help them escape.
Megan Lundstrom understands more than most the conditions that force women into dangerous situations—she also has the key to help them escape.
John H. Tucker Elle Aug 2021 20min Permalink
Will the literature of the suburbs be written on TikTok?
Daisy Alioto Dirt Mar 2021 20min Permalink
The intersection of life and social media in the future.
Emily Smith Hobart Feb 2018 10min Permalink
The trouble with the all-but-obligatory networking site, “an Escher staircase masquerading as a career ladder.”
Ann Friedman The Baffler Sep 2013 15min Permalink
It’s been a rough year.
Nick Bilton Vanity Fair Jun 2016 20min Permalink
An interactive fiction: a son and the illusion of his dead father; the intersection of technology and real life.
"Once I created his page I tried to return to my life. I was twenty-six years old, a man of inconsistent employment. During the winter I shoveled snow for the elderly. They paid me in germs and butterscotch candy. My landlord, an independently wealthy sexagenarian, accepted the candy as payment. She also insisted I tidy the complex. I changed light bulbs. I dusted the parking lot. I swept cigarette butts into the street. I clubbed the occasional beehive. My life was guarded and lonely, and susceptible, I soon discovered, to the distraction my father provided."
Alex McElroy Passages North Nov 2014 15min Permalink
A troubled wife's obsession with her husband's ex.
"I’d been researching generic articles on divorce for a long time, but never found anything that reminded me of Henry’s. They were young, but they weren’t as stupid as he seemed to say. They seemed to have really been in love. The picture he’d shown me was of them on a boat on a lake—a lake we’d been to, one we’d brought a picnic lunch to. They looked so happy and he looked so young, his hair not yet flecked with stray whites and grays."
Katie Darby Mullins Pithead Chapel Nov 2014 15min Permalink
Middle school and family unease; a mysterious neurological condition.
"I knew something bad was about to happen right before it did. My face heated. All the sound cut out, like a huge furry helmet had been dropped over my skull. The room, it didn’t look right. I’m trying to think how to explain it, but all I can come up with is that the colors separated, kind of fizzed around—the green and red marks on the dry-erase board hovered like insects, the purple of Mr. Franz’s tie pixilated. I had that greasy swirl in my stomach like when you’re about to fart and are still praying there’s a way it will be silent, like when you go to the bathroom after a science lab of intolerable closeness to your intolerably cute lab partner and see that yes, the tingle on your nose was actually a tumor-sized whitehead erupting."
Amy Shearn MAKE: Literary Magazine Jun 2014 30min Permalink
How what was once one of the most popular websites on Earth—with ambitions to redefine music, dating, and pop culture—became a graveyard of terrible design and failed corporate initiatives:
In retrospect, DeWolfe says, the imperative to monetize the site stunted its evolution: "When we did the Google deal, we basically doubled the ads on our site," making it more cluttered. The size, quality, and placement of ads became another source of tension with News Corp., according to DeWolfe and another executive. "Remember the rotten teeth ad?" DeWolfe says. "And the weight-loss ads that would show a stomach bulging over a pair of pants?"
Felix Gillette Businessweek Jun 2011 Permalink
An insider history of the fall of Myspace; from Rupert Murdoch calling Facebook a mere “communications utility” to the disastrous 2006 deal with Google that demanded huge pageviews and ads everywhere, and finally the present day ruins of a titan.
Yinka Adegoke Reuters Apr 2011 15min Permalink