Computers and the Internet

November 11, 2019

On the Internet, No One Knows You’re Not Rich. Except This Account.

In February, an Instagram account called @BallerBusters cropped up and began wreaking havoc on the flashy Instagram entrepreneur community. Its goal: To expose phony entrepreneurs. Using […]
November 2, 2019

Those People We Tried to Cancel? They’re All Hanging Out Together

ImageCredit…Anthony Freda Katie Herzog was a largely unknown freelance journalist living in Seattle. Then she published an article in The Stranger about trans people who halt […]
October 30, 2019

Did Storming Area 51 Teach Us Anything?

When Bob Lazar, the original Area 51 “whistle-blower,” emailed me late last month to tell me his thoughts on the Storm Area 51 meme, he wrote […]
October 19, 2019

High Schools to TikTok: We’re Catching Feelings

WINTER GARDEN, Fla. — On the wall of a classroom that is home to the West Orange High School TikTok club, large loopy words are scrawled […]
October 15, 2019

Kickstarter Calls Itself Progressive. But About That Union.

Kickstarter, the Brooklyn-based crowdfunding site, has long tried to stand apart from Silicon Valley, seeking to portray itself as a socially responsible enterprise that cares more […]
October 14, 2019

Fortnite Goes Dark. Gamers Wonder What’s Next.

If you have an inconsolable gamer in your life, here’s why: Fortnite, one of the world’s most popular video games, has gone quiet. Since Sunday afternoon, […]
October 4, 2019

That Music You’re Dancing To? It’s Code

On a computer, Sonic Pi looks like any other coding language. It’s a mess of numbers, parentheticals, punctuation marks and keywords, splattered over an LCD screen. […]
August 8, 2019

Markiplier’s Work Diary: ‘I Find a Game and I Play It. Not Much to It.’

He’s being modest. (Maybe?) The YouTube streamer — who made a reported $17.5 million last year — has created videos that have been watched 11 billion […]
May 2, 2018

All We Want to Do Is Eat Junk and Watch Each Other Play Fortnite

Gamers are the new stars. Esports arenas are the new movie theaters.
December 20, 2017

Yes Me Can

Advertisement The word “me” has suffered mightily since Tom Wolfe’s rollicking indictment in the pages of New York magazine over 40 years ago. He deemed the […]