Two 12-year-old girls stabbed their friend for a fictional internet horror creature named Slender Man. Miller goes through court files to try to understand why.
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How Burger King Generates Buzz on a Budget
Burger King likes being edgy, Schwan says, and it has proved that it doesn’t mind doing things that might make other brands blush. In August, as the company pushed a new spicy version of its chicken fries—a cult favorite the chain returned to the menu after a flood of social media requests—it tweeted a picture […]
‘If You Think The Internet Is Terrible Now, Just Wait a While’
I have previously shared with you Balk’s Law (“Everything you hate about The Internet is actually everything you hate about people”) and Balk’s Second Law (“The worst thing is knowing what everyone thinks about anything”). Here I will impart to you Balk’s Third Law: “If you think The Internet is terrible now, just wait a […]
Dancing Naked in Public
A conversation on art with critic Jerry Saltz.
Unprepared: The Difficulty of Getting a Prescription for a Drug That Effectively Prevents HIV Infection
When Spenser Mestel tries to get a prescription for Truvada in Iowa City, he discovers that medical breakthroughs are only one small part of HIV prevention.
Is It Fair to Ask the Internet to Pay Your Hospital Bill?
Looking at the ethical issues that come with crowd funded healthcare.
The Linguistic Morphology of Reaction GIFs
From visual emojis depicting simple emotional states, it’s a short step to the more dynamic emotion or reaction gifs, used by certain internet subcultures to respond or react in playful ways to an online discussion. These are gif images, often originating from internet memes, that depict elements of body language that can be too complex for an emoticon to describe. Essentially, it’s an innovative way for speakers to convey a sense of gesture on the internet.
Girlhood Gone: Notes from the New Nashville
After returning home to Nashville following many years away, Susannah Felts assesses the city’s changing face through the eyes of a native, and as a woman raised in the South.
‘See What Y’All Can Work Out’: The State of Empathy in Charleston
Charleston’s—and our nation’s—systemic racism, through the lens of the Dylann Roof trial.
Reddit: A Nine-Year Case Study in Absentee Management
In 2006, Condé Nast bought a promising information-sharing and online-discussion startup called Reddit. Then they more or less ignored the site, letting it evolve into one of the least manageable media properties on the Internet.
