I've seen this going around today and it's beautiful, so here's a gift link.

SCHWAP

A very Jonas Christmas, indeed. slate.trib.al/DljXfPr

"West is unwell, still harming people, and occasionally still culturally innovating in enticing ways for hip-hop and music fans. The issue isn’t that we haven’t asked ourselves how to deal with these conflicting vertices of his complex matrix—the issue is that there is no good answer."

404 Media is making a print zine! About the surveillance technologies used by ICE. 16 pages, riso printed. Shipping early January. Features reworked versions of our best reporting and a few new things. We're very excited! And hope to do more if people like it: www.404media.co/404-media-is...

i'm available for freelance work, bio writing, consulting, anything! for now going to start writing a newsletter over on substack best way to support me right now is to subscribe! brittanyspanos.substack.com

my literal first words after leaving Chess: I am actually deeply impressed by how they managed to make *everything* chess

not sure what Gen Z has to do with a 43-year-old’s adaptation of a 52-year-old’s novel—and lest you think it’s just the hed, the piece calls Hamnet “mumblecore Shakespeare, conceived for the TikTok generation,” never mind that mumblecore predates TikTok by like 20 years

Greetings, I have traveled through time from the year 2016 to remind you of something that has become increasingly difficult to believe in your time: Stranger Things used to be good.

Me on Zootopia 2 keeping the trend of progressive messaging from the first:

A little belated in posting but if you forgot what happened on Stranger Things, I made a pretty succinct recap of all of the previous seasons to prep you for the start of Season 5!

I explained the quarter-zip + matcha trend taking over TikTok!

Big shouts to @nickengvall.bsky.social for allowing us at @slate.com to reprint his piece re: Steph Curry leaving Under Armour, how big of a blunder that was for the company, and just how much they undervalued him for his 13 years there. (Last night, Steph wore Kobes pregame and dropped 49.)

Hey everyone, thank you so much for the outpouring of support. I need to pay rent, and I launched a GoFundMe spot.fund/LahutRentFund

For @pastemagazine.bsky.social, I reviewed the lovely new keiyaA album, hooke’s law

keiyaA is SO inventive, so underrated, and a helluva live performer (as @calllmenadira.net also knows)

New: Conde Nast fired four employees who were among a group that confronted the company's head of human resources on Wednesday over the decision to fold Teen Vogue into Vogue/recent cuts. Employees who were fired included journalists from the New Yorker, Wired, and Bon Appétit.

This person took this when they called the race

a timely political obit from yours truly 🫡 slate.com/news-and-pol...

never underestimate a cutiepatootie fr

Bill Ackman gotta be on the third draft of a tweet longer than Middlemarch right now

I was laid off from Teen Vogue this week, alongside multiple other phenomenal team members. At our Summit, I was asked how it felt to be 1 of 2 Black women left and what that meant for representation. Now, there are no Black women at Teen Vogue and that is incredibly painful to think about.

I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers, and today is my last day. certainly more to come from me when the dust has settled more, but to my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue.

back on the climate beat this week, writing about Hurricane Melissa, what it means that we'll overshoot 1.5 degrees of warming, and why I respectfully believe Bill Gates should stuff it: slate.com/technology/2...

thankfully @calllmenadira.net confirms that my reading of Hedda's ending is, at the very least, not insane. Because there was a moment in the booth when my life flashed before my eyes.

“People say it’s dark. Maybe I’m oblivious, but I don’t think so. When I think of ‘dark,’ I think of maybe the Saw movies.” slate.trib.al/XbukkOo

the middle aged desire to identify a bird

"If you’re going to make a movie exploring whether hegemony has become so sympathetic to these minorities that it can actually be advantageous to be one, if you’re going to make a movie about this backlash to woke-ism, then you better not miss. You better incur the risk for something."

Read this before you buy lunch today. ⬇️ Not only is Cava serving up "slop," they make an appearance on our Employer Wall of Shame. Thanks @slate.com and @calllmenadira.net for factoring workers' rights into your "slop bowl" rankings!

I endorse the winning slop bowl, a no brainer.

Putting Dig in at #1 and Chipotle last is all I need to trust the bowl slop rankings here

Content creators tend to think any spectacle is defensible if they can say health and safety concerns have been attended to behind the scenes, but that’s not really it imho. Mr. Beast’s whole thing is that his subjects’ desperation for cash allows him—a wealthier person—to indulge his sadism.

Woman Laughing Alone With Slop. by @calllmenadira.net slate.com/life/2025/09...

I ranked all of the popular Slop Bowls for @slate.com! Through my research, I found horror stories of customers allegedly being served severed fingers, class action lawsuits, and glorious, gooey mac and cheese. Capitalism may ruin everything, but that doesn't mean we need to abandon discernment!

"I just want to say, go birds, fuck ICE and free Palestine," "Hacks" star Hannah Einbinder at the #Emmys

sorry but i thought the money tracking charity bit had merits I'M SORRY

I wrote about how much I enjoyed TWINLESS, the new Dylan O'Brien vehicle. This movie gets extra points for having the best depiction of how The Sims is a perfect proxy for exploring your own grief.

Me reading posts from people at #TIFF like i'm at the Bad Apples with Good Fortune and Poetic License in Hamnet Couture watching a Roofman Wake Up a Dead Man concert

NADIRA TALKED TO DRUSKI’s MAKEUP ARTIST

this is a great get by @calllmenadira.net, spilling the secrets of the make-up trade slate.com/life/2025/09...

“I keep my fingers crossed,” says the makeup artist behind Druski’s latest “whiteface” transformation. slate.trib.al/J7yFFx3

Yeah, so @calllmenadira.net got a hold of the makeup artist tasked w/ the daunting transformation that was key in Druski's latest viral bit where he hangs out at a NASCAR race. I've never clicked on a @slate.com link so fast in my life.

Honored to be a panelist for Noella's panel at NEW YORK COMIC CON! We'll be talking about the subject of her upcoming book — Misogynoir and Multiverses: A Black Girl's Guide to Fandom Culture — as part of NYCC's professional programming in partnership with NYPL! Come see us! Oct. 9 at 5pm @ NYCC!

“She looked like she could protect a building.” slate.trib.al/2bFhTbV

can we unplug the internet for today

It’s such a relief not having to care about that lady.

give me a bag of these and you don't even have to worry about the money

a perfect quote from the owner of Sulimay’s about people threatening to boycott the restaurant because of the JD Vance mural: “If I wanted them to eat here, I’d put pictures on the menu.”