“The culture of negation inspires a taste for nothingness and glorifies numbness.”
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Best of 2024: All Our Number Five Story Picks
Every story that appeared in the number five slot in our Weekly Top 5, all in one place.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Paul Kiel & Justin Elliot, Andy Greenberg, Mary Heglar, Katherine Miller, and Kyle Chayka.
We’re All Tourists Now, So Let’s Stop with the Endless, Tedious Quests for Authenticity
In Iceland, overtourism has transformed the island in a few short years — and locals and visitors alike try to grapple with the change.
My Own Private Iceland
When an island nation of 300,000 residents receives more than two million tourists a year, radical change is inevitable — but is it all negative?
This Post Was Originally 200 Words Longer But They Weren’t Sparking Joy
“Instead of homes, we live in commodities.”
Group Therapy for the End of the World
A chronicle of a week spent in the Swedish countryside, at a workshop designed to help participants come to terms with impending environmental doom.
Do These Pants Make Me Look Like Everyone Else? Be Honest, Alexa.
What happens to taste when machines become the tastemakers? Kyle Chayka meditates on style, algorithms, and our generic yet lullingly unobjectionable future.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Rachel Monroe, Jianan Qian, Rene Ebersole, Adi Robertson, and Kyle Chayka.
The Placeless and the Privileged
On the macro forces that have made digital nomadism something more powerful, and more sinister, than just another “lifestyle choice.”

