On Monday morning, the rapper Macklemore posted a lengthy Instagram statement alleging that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and other NFL owners pitched a hissy-fit to get him dropped from the...

It goes without saying that there is a great deal of Psychology going on in Donald Trump’s second term. None of it is especially complicated, because the people involved are without exception clammy, ...

Britt McHenry, a former Fox host and ESPN reporter best known for a towing-yard tirade, says she’s taken a job with the Trump administration. McHenry posted on social media Wednesday to confirm that s...

I knew I had gone too far when the question of whether we should buy a gun crossed my mind. This came at the apex of a weeklong anxiety spiral triggered by a feature the New York Times published about the possibility of an 18-month, nationwide blackout. I was uneasy seeing the phrase “art form”…

Name an iconic scene from the first Spider-Man movie, the one directed by Sam Raimi that came out in 2002. You’re saying it’s the upside-down kiss? Yeah, that’s fair. Let me ask my question in a diffe...

The topic in Defector’s internal chat on Friday was a ban, in the nation of France, on smoking in most outdoor spaces. How can the French—the French!—ban smoking? David Roth observed that “this feels ...

Go ahead and listen to this. (For the real perverts, use this one; you just know you’re about to stay up until 1:00 a.m. for a particularly shitty Sharks–Mighty Ducks game.) What does it evoke? What d...

If you haven’t yet encountered the cover story for the August issue of The Atlantic, I have some bad news to share: “The End of Reading Is Here.” It’s an intentionally provocative headline for a sligh...

It’s being shouted from all corners: The U.S. Open has become an overcrowded, overpriced circus awash in influencers, aspirational influencers, corporate stooges, drunken buffoons, brand activations, inane stunt food, weed smoke, and bettors. It is newly hostile to children, people who value personal space, and genuine fans of tennis. These louts and narcissists, armed with…

The first line of Emily St. John Mandel’s new novel Exit Party sets the tone of the whole book. She writes, “In the first spring after the collapse of the United States, the blossoming of the jacaranda trees felt to Ari like grace.” We have been dropped into yet another one of Mandel’s post-apocalyptic worlds,…

The science fiction author William Gibson’s pithy observation that “the future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed” has had different shades of meaning since it was first formulated....

Once every week or two, I swim molasses-slow laps at the YMCA. I’ve been on something of a fitness journey this year, testing out different forms of exercise to see what sticks—what feels the least to...

Welcome back to Minor Dilemmas, where a member of Defector’s Parents Council will answer your questions on surviving family life. Have a question? Email us at minordilemmas@defector.com. This week, Ju...

Recently, while picking up a banh mi in my neighborhood, I found myself transfixed by a TV in the restaurant showing what I assumed was a nature documentary. At first the footage soothed: Gentle humpback whales sailing through hazy blue waters and killer whales gliding in packs under glacial ice. But the longer I waited…

Maybe you have heard of Roko’s Basilisk. This is a thought experiment, for lack of a better term, popular among a certain set: hyper-rationalists, futurists, effective altruists. Tech-industry guys. Y...

The U.S. Open is a city in miniature. The food is expensive; wealthy people flock to the tallest vantage points while richer experiences on the outskirts are ignored; influencers bother the masses. Re...

Good science journalism is by its nature suspicious of grand or outlandish claims. Good science journalism does not take press releases at face value, but rather investigates the evidence behind those...