For most of last year, it was hard to avoid the sensation that something had broken somewhere and the internet was leaking into real life.
The world seemed to have taken on the punchy, disorderly, darkly playful quality of a message-board fight, in part because the president-to-be insisted on communicating mainly in tweets assembled from detritus found in a Breitbart-comments scrapyard. The subcultures and folkways of the internet had become powerful enough that the entire election apparatus was obligated to attend to and dissect them. In January, the Republican consultant Rick Wilson dismissed a portion of Trump supporters as “childless single men who masturbate to anime”; by September, the Clinton campaign was concerned enough with the threat of meme warfare that it released an explainer denouncing the cartoon frog Pepe under the title “Donald Trump, Pepe the frog, and white supremacists: an explainer.” When Election Night rolled around, it was hard to begrudge the exuberant 4chan poster, thrilling in his candidate’s surprise victory, who bragged that “we actually elected a meme as president.”
It was a shocking turn, and not just because Donald Trump had become president. Somehow the self-proclaimed losers and freaks of 4chan and its ilk had come to great political prominence. The gleaming new real-name internet of Facebook—not to mention the media companies and political machines relying on it—that was supposed to tame the wild territory of the Reddit-style web had instead been infected by it. It was almost a thrilling underdog story—the weirdos and outcasts had stood up for something and won—except that the thing they were standing up for was anti-Enlightenment, anti-democratic, anti-equality politics.
Denne historien er fra May 1–14, 2017-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra May 1–14, 2017-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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A Shiksa Love Story
Erin Foster has spent the past decade turning her Hollywood life into content, to mixed results. Her new Netflix rom-com series, based on her own conversion to Judaism, might change that.
Hot Commodity
In Sally Rooney's novels, love is always being bought, sold, or reduced to tropes. But this is also what makes it real.
900 Lives of Tana Mongeau
Is one of the internet's most infamous chaos agents capable of cleaning up her act?
Soho Will Get a New Artists' Restaurant
Manuela, from the founders of Hauser & Wirth, is equal parts showroom and dining room.
How's the Hyssop?
Cafe Mado is a worthy return to locavore eating.
They're Not in Kansas City Anymore
Todd and Emily Voth's bold pied-à-terre in Herzog & de Meuron's \"Jenga Building\" drinks in the city lights.
THE TRUTHS AND DISTORTIONS OF RUBY FRANKE
The Mormon mother of six built a devoted following by broadcasting her family's wholesome life on YouTube. How did she end up abusing her children?
Drowning in Slop
A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
"IT'S NOT COMPLICATED"
Ta-Nehisi Coates's writing on race fueled a reckoning in America. | Now he wants to change the way we think about Israel and Palestine.
The City Politic: Choire Sicha
The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.