Three hilarious things that made jaws drop in the twenty-tens:
1. John Travolta mounted the Oscars stage, looked into the camera, and introduced a performance by a singer whose name he invented on the spot.
2. Millions of people posted videos in which they doused themselves with ice-cold water to raise funds for motor neuron disease.
3. According to a media report, there existed a video of the President-elect instructing well-hydrated strangers to urinate onto his hotel bed.
The so-called “pee tape” was said to show Donald Trump’s berth being widdled on by sex workers at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow, and its alleged existence had come to light in a thirty-five-page dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former M.I.6 officer, who suggested that the Kremlin held the tape as kompromat against the man with curious hair. The file referenced other points of purported Russian influence. Its publication, in January, 2017, planted the unsettling suggestion that the next President of the United States lived under the thumb of a foreign government.
The decision to publish the Steele dossier originated with the reporter Ben Smith, then the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News and now the author of an illuminating book, “Traffic” (Penguin Press), about the rise of online traffic-chasing as a twenty-first-century media norm. In Smith’s telling, the laws of Web traffic, shaped by social media and their ability to disseminate material at exponential, “viral” rates, unseated old power structures. An old news outlet held its authority by retaining a fixed audience and standing on its record of success. A new one, such as BuzzFeed News, won largely by being linkable and first.
Esta historia es de la edición May 15, 2023 de The New Yorker.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición May 15, 2023 de The New Yorker.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
TAKE TWO
\"The Hills of California\" and \"Yellow Face\" come to Broadway.
DOWNWARD SPIRALS
Missy Mazzoli's \"The Listeners\" and Jeanine Tesori's \"Grounded.\"
IT TAKES A VILLAGE
The exuberant, complicating drawings of the Shakers.
THE LONG CON
Rachel Kushner's anti-spy, anti-realism novel.
IF MEMORY SERVES
John Lewis knew how to put a legacy of heroism.
SILICON VALLEY'S INFLUENCE GAME
From crypto to A.I., tech titans are pouring money into super PACS to savage their political opponents.
WHEN THE ICE MELTS
What the fate of the Arctic means for the rest of the Earth.
SLEEP ESSENTIAL FOR HEALTH
To achieve good health, you must maintain a regular sleep schedule, and be able to get back to sleep once you are awake.
THE K-POP KING
Chairman Bang is bringing his formula for creating idols to the U.S.
THE SIGHTED WORLD
Growing up with the writer Ved Mehta.