Carolyn Wells

For some people, friendships are just easier, argues Marisa G. Franco in this enlightening essay. You are guided by your attachment style, for better or worse, in your romantic, and platonic, connections. The secret: Assume that people like you. The psychologist Fred H. Goldner coined the term pronoia to describe the optimistic counterpart to paranoia. […]

Toys that outlast the latest trends are a tough bunch: What is the secret to moving from fad to classic? Matthew Braga is on a mission to find out, in an essay sure to make you a little nostalgic. Yes, the blonde, buff hero—an icon of ’80s machismo—has been updated and reimagined for a new […]

This edited extract from Survival of the Richest by Douglas Rushkoff is a disturbing look at the mindset of billionaire preppers — who are as keen to distance themselves from other people as they are from disaster. One had already secured a dozen Navy Seals to make their way to his compound if he gave […]

An essay to make you chuckle, and think. Ed Simon explores some of the copy mistakes made throughout history — and then shifts onto the mistakes that make us, and our very universe, exist. Homeoarchy is the accidental deletion of lines; metathesis the reversing of letters in a wrod. An entirely more delightful flaw can […]

The story of a child prodigy who was almost beyond belief. As Daryl Gibson points out, if anyone was going to save this world, it was Kevin Cooper — until his untimely passing at 14 years old. With his parents’ OK, he used funds from a loan, and an insurance settlement related to the rabbits, […]

A first-hand look at the experience of receiving a Tourette’s diagnosis later in life — cleverly interweaved with the history of the disorder. It had been a year since the impulses had started, gentle at first and then unmistakable. Every few minutes or so, a sensation originating from somewhere in the back of my brain […]

An astonishingly powerful first-hand account of journeying to the airport as Kabul fell to the Taliban. In the three days that it took to travel the two and a half miles, Bushra Sedique struggled with a fear of not making it out  — and a sadness that she would. Now, suddenly, I had to choose […]

A humorous account of Caitlin Giddings’ time as a bike tour guide. She expected to find freedom — what she got were the worst parts of human nature. The outdoor industry calls this getting paid in sunsets—which wouldn’t actually sound so bad if those sunsets weren’t being blocked by a pair of full-grown adults fighting […]

A fascinating look at the evolution of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders — a history that reflects how attitudes have changed through the decades. What they introduced was sex and glamour into the gladiator arena of modern sports. They launched a wave of imitations across the NFL, creating a blueprint for beauty that’s practically branded on […]