One desire felt like it would make me more of who I already was, and the other would unmake me entirely.
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The Unbearable Lightness of BuzzFeed
“BuzzFeed built a digital media empire in part by aggregating viral content from social media. A decade later, what’s next?”
Longreads Best of 2022: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
All the stories we’ve selected as number one in our weekly Top 5 newsletter.
A Fish Tale (and Our Top 5)
“My treasured memories, I’ve learned, are all subsidized by a massive Fish Industrial Complex—one that has taken a toll on all sorts of insects, invertebrates, frogs, and salamanders.” In the summer of 2014, Alex Brown went on a life-changing backpacking trip in the Colorado wilderness. On that trip, he caught 50 trout, keeping a few […]
The Dystopian Underworld of South Africa’s Illegal Gold Mines
“When the country’s mining industry collapsed, a criminal economy grew in its place, with thousands of men climbing into some of the deepest shafts in the world, searching for leftover gold.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we’re recommending stories by Moira Donegan, Danyel Smith, Dan Kois, Michael Aylwin, and Becky Ferreira.
Musical Rivalries and our Weekly Top 5
“Before hip-hop brought the concept of ‘beef’ into the mainstream, rock and roll’s aggression and excess resulted in many an unfriendly rivalry; decades earlier, the hard life of the traveling jazz musician led to some heady and memorable fallouts. Whether it’s pop stars, country singers, dancehall artists, or Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s recent multi-song war, […]
Manhattan Burning
Before the Jan. 6 insurrection, there was the Nov. 25 arson campaign, when violent anti-government conspirators sowed chaos in the heart of New York City.
Madness, Melancholy, or Murder: An Ancient English Farm’s 50-Year-Old Mystery
Andrew Chamings returns to his childhood farmland to investigate the mystifying deaths of the Luxton siblings. What really happened down that dark country lane?


