let us all now lower the stakes of socializing and then lower them some more

I recommended 2 for this! A new love, Shirley Hazzard's The Transit of Venus & the love of my middle school heart, the first in Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald-Mage trilogy. (Valdemar-heads, hmu) +other great recs from my colleagues for your summer reading pleasure www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...

for my money, there's no more important tension in American culture than the one between individualism and community. and there's never been a show that explores that better than Survivor www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

making someone vote for themselves…this is the worst twist in survivor history, it undermines the whole spirit of what survivor is!! give me fire tokens before this. what have they done to my pants-pooping king

would it be insane for me to ask for a cover for my nonfiction book about friendship in the style of 1990s fantasy mass market paperbacks? probably, right?

I used to be intimidated by negotiating for equipment at the gym w bros, being perceived by them, etc, but one thing that really recommends at least the gym bros of DC, is they are very receptive to a brief bit. a lil small talk quip as you grab a barbell clip, we chuckle, and then we both move on!

‘if you don’t learn to use AI, you’ll get left behind!’ 🍆✊ www.patreon.com/posts/155290...

I know we're a nation of delivery now, but doordash can never replicate one of life's greatest pleasures: eavesdropping on an insane conversation at the restaurant table next to you

no greater camaraderie exists than the line for the women’s bathroom at a public event when everyone is just a liiittle tipsy

solidarity to propublica's union! ✊

I wrote about my beloved J.D. and Turk and their sneakily radical friendship www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

it’s time I stopped hiding. I have a chronic case of Cat Ass. its only symptom: every time I lay on my stomach, I sprout a cat on my ass. there is no cure

This is no way to live, man

just living for the part of the day where I can engage in my fiber crafts and watch the adventures of a handsomely bearded brooding doctor…I call it Pittin’ & Knittin’

“living life a quarter mile at a time” but it’s just me going for a really short walk around the neighborhood then going home and sitting back down

I wrote about the collective yearning for a more analog life that has sprung up recently and why, for most people, it hasn't manifested in actually dumping their smartphones: www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/...

AI-chatbot “friends” are one logical destination for the current trend of human friendship—but “using these tools to address loneliness has the potential to make it worse,” Julie Beck writes.

I've been working on this for ages and it's finally up today! I was p. baffled by AI friendship, until I realized: AI is a logical, if extreme, extension of the kind of friendship our culture already values: individualistic friendship that is on your own terms www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/...

I've been working on this for ages and it's finally up today! I was p. baffled by AI friendship, until I realized: AI is a logical, if extreme, extension of the kind of friendship our culture already values: individualistic friendship that is on your own terms www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/...

I don't know how to get on SurvivorSky, or where my Survivorheads are at, but let me just say I am having the BEST time with season 50 and I am all-in on Christian, my pants-pooping king.

"All she could afford to be was grateful." a heartbreaking, personal look at what happens when you're uninsured, by @jenishawo.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

the new snail mail songs are that rare and precious genre of “makes me believe spring will actually come” they are vitamin d, they are an ssri, they are fixing my brain chemistry

I really enjoyed Stephen Fishbach’s novel Escape!—as a Survivor fan, and as someone who thinks way too much about how the desire for narrative shapes our lives www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...

a tribute to everyone who hasn’t forgotten how to love their neighbors 💙 www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/...

two journalists arrested for practicing journalism—Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort

essential essential essential life-giving, hopeful piece of writing

legalize teens!!! www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/...

the funny thing about everyone memorializing 2016 on social media is that at the time, people famously hated that year, to the point that everyone was constantly posting "Fuck you 2016" on social media and John Oliver burned the numerals in effigy on TV www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

"“They specifically asked me if I knew where the Hmong families lived on my street & in the neighborhood.” Lugert-Thom responded, “I don’t know anything about that” & she said they then asked, “Well, what about the Asian families?”" "“I was a bit shaken & a bit shocked of what I was asked to do.”"

We are not letting this go If there is no red line around AI-generated sex abuse, then no line exists. by @cwarzel.bsky.social and @matteowong.bsky.social

thank GOD @faith-hill.bsky.social wrote about heated rivalry www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Renee Nicole Good was killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis—now her family has to cope not only with their loss “but with a campaign designed to justify her killing,” Adam Serwer argues:

I just verbally said "all the best, Julie" while leaving a voicemail for my pharmacy.... send help

when did people become so weird about friends venting to each other? www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/...

You alright man? I keep seeing small damage numbers coming off you

She’s taken physical form for edits

Caught Stealing is A Simple Favor for men

seeing a few fashion diapers on this list, I'm just saying... www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/s... www.theatlantic.com/family/2025/...

waxahatchee the mountain goats bleachers death cab for cutie taylor swift

I need everybody to read this and understand what’s going on. These are spouses of US citizens in the country legally. They have entry clearance and green cards, they’ve passed background checks and have no criminal records. ICE is taking them anyway. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...

How do you cheat at a conversation? That is the question behind a new AI tool called Cluely, which promises to augment all kinds of communication. But when @julieebeck tried it out, she found that it just makes interactions worse:

sometimes I think about the day Apple announced the iPad, and everyone in my college dorm laughed and laughed, and said things like "what's next, iTampon?", certain this waystation between phone and computer with a silly name would never be a meaningful cultural force anyway now we have iPad kids

tough to live to see such times, but at least we still have @sophiegilbert.bsky.social to say the plain simple truth so I feel slightly less insane www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

I tried out AI that augments conversation, whose founders want you to "cheat on everything." (If this takes off, one expert told me, "everyone who we meet could be a kind of deepfake") I can confidently say: when it comes to connection, effort is all there is. www.theatlantic.com/family/2025/...

ginkgo on ginkgo

Editors have a really hard job, and the good ones can make something unreadable readable, and the great ones can make something unreadable into something good. But they're basically invisible, until someone tries to write without one.

there is one question that will tell you whether you are meant to be a journalist and it is: how much do you like reading PDFs?

I say I don’t believe in manifestation, but then I act as though the perfect combination of notebooks and pens, and the proper number and manner of lists written therein will in fact deliver me the life I desire

this piece bangs on like richter-scale levels www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

regrettably civ 7 sucks but don't worry I've spent my fallow period playing hades 2 instead :)