MOST RECENT ARTICLES BY:

Kyle Chayka

  1. stuff
    The Minimalists Want You to Be Happy With LessAnd in a country where many struggle, they’ve found a huge audience.
  2. year in culture 2015
    The 10 Best Art Books of 2015Over the past few years, art books have seen a renaissance. These exemplify the form.
  3. Audio Messages Are Disrupting ConversationShould we be trading voice memos instead of texts?
  4. What Does the Internet Do to Our Memories? It’s easy to think the web’s destroying our memories, but the truth might be the opposite.
  5. The Mysterious Origins of Everyone’s Favorite Trump Twitter JokeSocial-media humor is nothing if not derivative. 
  6. Help Twitch Kill This Poor Tamagotchi Twitch takes care of a digital pet, what can go wrong?
  7. Wu-Tang Clan Won’t Actually Steal Their Album Back in a Heist With Bill Murray The internet is a hoax, part 1,309,518.
  8. PSA: Instagram Husbands Need Your Help If you suffer from excessive Instagramming, you’re not alone. 
  9. This Weird Dog-Rating Twitter Account Gets 10/10It’s tough out on the open internet for a viral dog rater.
  10. Soggy Irish Reporter Gives Life/Weather AdviceTeresa Mannion made the most of her performance during Storm Desmund. 
  13. Why Social Media Turns to Images to Help Us Cope With Tragedy What should we make of the viral image memes that pop up after tragedies?
  14. hack the city
    You Might Be Able to 3-D Print Your Next HouseWelcome to a new era of building construction.
  15. Pantone Picks the Colors of the Internet for 2016The color company is apparently obsessed with the early web. 
  16. Watch a YouTuber Slyly Satirize Himself in ‘Vlogvember’Adrian Bliss makes a 30-day video diary making fun of YouTuber culture.
  17. U.K. Tabloids Publish Tumblr Lesbian Fan Fiction As a Real News StoryWhat happens when a fictional text exchange between two CW characters goes viral?
  18. LOL Is Literally Dead, Long Live LOLLOL’s meaning has shifted over the years, but these days it’s the internet’s shibboleth.
  19. Facebook’s Faux-Internet Launches Across IndiaZuckerberg’s Utopian plan isn’t all it seems. 
  20. Goole, England, Is Tired of Being Mistaken for Google The tiny port town launched its own search engine to combat SEO woes.
  21. The New York Times Publishes Its First-Ever Real LOLFrench novelist Michel Houellebecq sneaks an internet-ism into his op-ed. 
  22. Facebook Makes It Easier to Break Up The social network is becoming more human, allowing for social subtlety. 
  25. French Couple Sues Airbnb for Copying Their Apartment What do you do when a giant internet company steals your style?
  26. Paris Terrorists Weren’t Using EncryptionAn unencrypted cell phone was recovered in a trashcan near the Bataclan. 
  27. This Kurdish Stalin Doppelgänger Is Blowing Up the Russian InternetThe politician is eerily similar to the Soviet dictator — in looks only. 
  28. Heartwarming Viral Wedding Photos Cause Heartbreak Going viral isn’t all “you’ll cry when you see what happens next.”
  29. Star Wars Trailer Gets A Cappella Treatment Pew, pew, pew! 
  30. Is Encryption Really Preventing Governments From Stopping ISIS? A PrimerTerrorists aren’t necessarily using PS4s to plan attacks, but rumors are targeting encryption.
  31. Your Viral Video of the Day Is a Motorcyclist Grabbing a Woman’s Feet How to go viral when you’re just chilling on the highway. 
  32. Wikipedia Shows the Internet Is Lists All the Way DownListicles are the native format of the Internet, but it’s lists all the way down.
  33. Viral Bullied Man Gets Justice Thanks to RedditA white guy in Taiwan gets harassed for having a Taiwanese girlfriend — and Reddit comes to the rescue!
  34. The Tricks, Cheats, and Pirates Behind Facebook’s Monster Video NumbersFacebook’s fluffed-up video system hurts independent creators and lets pirates thrive. 
  37. Essena O’Neill Takes Down Fake Web RelationshipsEven after passing on from social media, former Instagram star Essena O’Neill is taking aim at fake online relationships — even as her detractors take aim at her.
  38. Why Instagram Captions Are the New Blogging As Facebook gets even more corporate, Instagram is growing as a space for authentic blogging. 
  39. Fans Make Fallout 4’s Avatars As Ugly As PossibleFallout 4 takes place in an irradiated hellscape, but these custom avatars are extra ugly. 
  40. Watch Shia LaBeouf Watching His Own Movies LiveThe actor is back with a narcissistic piece of performance art. 
  41. This Robot Cord Makes the Digital Real A line-shaped robot from MIT Media Lab is the best assistant the internet could ask for. 
  42. Secret Sexting Vaults: A Guide for ParentsParents: Is your teen constantly playing around on a smartphone calculator app? You may think he’s enthralled by the magic of addition and subtraction, but he’s almost certainly sexting with one of the many iPhone apps that disguise a camera or photo album as something more innocuous. 
  43. Your Father Dies in an Airbnb. What Happens Next?If you were waiting for something terrible to happen in the legally dubious world of Airbnb rentals, Zak Stone’s father’s death “is that terrible something.”
  44. Today’s Soothing Dog Affirmation Is a Pup Dancing to Toto’s ‘Africa’The wild dogs cry out in the night; it’s gonna take a lot to drag him away from you.
  45. Facebook Is Swooning Over This Woman Ordering Starbucks in Sign LanguageToday in “heartwarming video or marketing plant (or both?).”
  46. Instagram Trend Watch: Making Your Naked Pet More Modest With Emoji StickersA dispatch from #modestdog, the frontier of online censorship.
  49. A New U.K. Bill Would Legalize Government Surveillance of Browsing HistoryActivists are calling it the “snooper’s charter.”
  50. Activist Blows Up at Pundit on Local Fox ShowThe local-news racial-politics fight everyone can share!
  51. The Social-Media Teen (and Up) Celebrity World Is at War Over Essena O’NeillJust when Essena O’Neill thought she was out … twin Australian musicians pull her back in.
  52. How ‘Life Is Strange’ Built a Video-Game Romance for the Tumblr EraThe hottest ship since Cloud and Aeris.
  53. on the waterfront
    Developers Keep Building in Sandy Flood ZonesZone A and in harm’s way …
  54. seen
    SEEN’s Cost-Is-No-Object Art World Summer ItineraryDarling, you can afford to be everywhere, too, can’t you?
  55. Richard Prince’s Instagram Thefts Ignite a Debate Over Social-Media OwnershipRichard Prince appropriated some images from SuicideGirls; now they want a piece of the profits, too.
  56. art
    First Look: Jeffrey Deitch’s Coney Island Street-Art ShowLady Pink, Daze, JR, and Swoon hit the beach!
  57. ‘We Have Lost the Ability to Flush the Toilet’: Art-Festival Culture in IstanbulAs the international art world touches down in Turkey against a backdrop of ISIS iconoclasm, it’s worth asking: Just where does festival culture leave us?
  58. Rembrandt and Dürer Prints Presumed Stolen From the Boston Public LibraryNo, you can’t check that Rembrandt out of the library.
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