McSweeny’s Internet Tendency editor Chris Monks catalogues some of the rudest responses to his rejections of humor writers’ submissions to the site.
Sari Botton
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quotes
David Letterman Is Truly Sorry
Ten years after calling Letterman out for creating a hostile work environment for women, Nell Scovell gets to talk with him about it.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Ten Years Ago, I Called Out David Letterman. This Month, We Sat Down to Talk.
Comedy writer Nell Scovell — who quit her job on Late Night with David Letterman in 1990 after just five months because of sexism and “sexual favoritism,” and who called out Letterman in another Vanity Fair piece 10 years ago, following the revelation that he was cheating on his wife with various women who worked […]
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quotes
Airbrushing Out the Evidence of Her Son’s Differences
Are you really achieving representation for your child with special needs if you’re only sharing the upbeat, attractive photos on social media?
Posted inEditor's Pick
Why I Discuss My Son’s Autism on Social Media
A personal essay in which Alysia Abbott writes about the importance of presenting her autistic son on social media — fostering inclusiveness, normalizing his differences, connecting with other parents with similar children — and confesses her tendency to often only show him in the most flattering light.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Can We Build a Better Women’s Prison?
Houston Chronicle criminal justice reporter Keri Blakinger — who once served 21 months of a 2½-year sentence for felony drug possession — visits a women’s prison near Austin, Texas, and considers the ways in which women’s prisons don’t take into consideration women’s particular needs. She speaks with those involved in planning a new $97 million building […]
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quotes
Memorializing a Glacier and Hoping for the Future
Iceland holds a funeral for Okjökull, once a glacier, now “dead ice.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
How to Mourn a Glacier
Essayist Lacy M. Johnson attends a funeral in Iceland for “Okjökull” — once a glacier 16 square kilometers in surface, and now “only a small patch of slushy gray ice.” In personifying shrinking masses of ice — key geographical features of the area, and the planet — officials hope to impress upon people the dire […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
One Night at Mount Sinai
Lisa Miller exposes Mount Sinai Hospital’s culture of sexism and bullying, which enabled emergency room doctor David Newman to sexually abuse female patients before one of them, Aja Newman (no relation) brought him down.
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quotes
Same Sh*itty Media Men, Different Day
Rebecca Traister asks how NBC can possibly change its misogynist culture if it keeps the same bad actors at the top.