Culture & Society
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You Buy Things on Sale That You Didn’t Want Until They Were Discounted
Full price, you wouldn’t have looked twice. Thirty percent off, you added it immediately. The discount…
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Why the Gym Selfie Is Not Vanity but a Symptom of a Broken Fitness Culture
The gym selfie is the most mocked ritual in contemporary fitness culture. The mockery has almost…
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The Strange but Coherent Logic Behind Why Every Teenager in Every City Dresses Identically
Teenagers in Tokyo, London, and Lagos dress almost identically. This is not a failure of individuality…
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How Pop Music Learned to Sound Like Nothing in Particular in Order to Appeal to Everyone
Contemporary pop is harder to describe than any previous generation’s music — not because it’s complex,…
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What Happens When a Political Movement Becomes a Brand and Everyone Claims to Own It
At some point in the 2010s, feminism became one of the most commercially valuable words in…
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Why Cinema Popcorn Costs Ten Times Market Price and Nobody in the Industry Questions It
Cinema popcorn costs 50 cents to make and sells for up to $8. The industry knows…
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The Serious Case for Polaroid Photography in a World That Can Already Remember Everything
Polaroid photography costs $2 per frame in a world where your phone takes thousands for free.…
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Why Crime Statistics Are Deliberately Incomplete and What They Are Actually Designed to Obscure
Property crime costs $17 billion annually in the US. Wage theft costs an estimated $50 billion.…
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The Serious Case for Paper Books in a World That Insists Digital Reading Is Superior in Every Way
Print readers recall 15% more details than screen readers. Physical books won’t die because they offer…
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Laziness Might Be the Most Misdiagnosed Personality Trait of Our Generation
You can spend four hours on a passion project but can’t do thirty minutes of assigned…
