How a hard-not-to-love show glosses over the powers that produced its makeover subjects.
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The Crushing, Ever-Present Weight of Debt
“We were nothing to these companies but a number in a database. And they fully controlled our fates.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Laurie Penny, Mina Kimes, Skip Hollandsworth, and David Marchese.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from David Dayen, M.H. Miller, T. Cooper, Caren Lissner, and Michael Adno.
You’ll Dream What We Tell You To Dream and You’ll Like It
Looking for an Instagrammable way to spend your Saturday? Mediate your imagination through the forced whimsy of the Dream Machine.
The Queer Art of Failing Better
Laurie Penny on Queer Eye: “It’s not about queerness at all. It’s actually about the disaster of heterosexuality—and what, if anything, can be salvaged from its ruins.”
Dorm Living for Adults
The new Common co-living company isn’t as communal is it pretends.
The Criminalization of the American Midwife
New York midwife Elizabeth Catlin faces 95 individual felony counts at her upcoming trial. For what? For doing her job. Politics and patriarchy make the work of many credentialed, experienced midwives illegal — to the detriment of women and underserved communities.
How Lead Poisoned People of Color in East Chicago and Beyond
How lead contaminated the soil under East Chicago’s black and Latino communities.
Tearing the Heart from the Music Industry
Digitization has removed the humanity from the music business, from collaboration to mutual respect.

