Fatty Arbuckle and the Birth of the Celebrity Scandal

by Michael Schulman

A murder charge, a media frenzy, a banishment, and accusations of sexual abuse in Hollywood. What can the Arbuckle affair, now a hundred years old, teach us today?

A fantastic long read recently published in the inimitable New Yorker magazine. Incisive and chilling insight into how we appear doomed to repeat the history of celebrity scandal and abuse.

69 Love Songs

by The Magnetic Fields

“The sun goes down and the world goes dancing. I can’t imagine why but I just feel like dancing.”

The Magnetic Field’s 1999 opus 69 Love Songs is perhaps the most underrated album of the last century. Written in any number of New York bars and recorded in a cramped apartment by the prolific Stephin Merritt, the record defies both genre and anyone who says they aren’t a fan of love songs.

We Need To Talk About LinkedIn:

Toxic Positivity And Mental Health Threats On The World’s Largest Professional Social Network

When something becomes so ubiquitous that we all have a go-to joke or anecdote about it, it becomes a trope.

Tropes are great because they’re based around a reference point we all get. There’s a commonality that’s easily accessible to everyone. We know the format, we know the source material, and, though the feedlines might chop and change, we still laugh in anticipation because the punchline is always the same.

Social content on LinkedIn has become a trope.