The Best Things We Read in 2018
2018 has been an abysmal year for journalism: magazines keep folding; newsrooms are laying off large portions of their employees; journalists are faced with often-fatal violence; there is a White House-led crusade against the idea of news.
In the face of it all, journalists and writers have also produced work that's as thoughtful, funny, and deeply-reported as ever. Here are some of our favorite things we read this year, and some we wished we had written ourselves.
"What Does It Mean to Die?"
by Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker
Rachel Aviv’s account of of the life and much-debated death of Jahi McMath was one of the most unforgettable stories I’ve read in the past few years. McMath was just 13 years old when she went into cardiac arrest after a standard tonsillectomy; doctors declared her brain dead, but her family believed she showed signs of life. Aviv covers the ensuing legal battle, including everything from the substandard medical care disproportionately inflicted upon black patients like McMath to the surprisingly culturally determined definition of death itself. -Gabrielle Bruney
"Jack Antonoff and the Unrelenting Shadow of the Male Producer"
by Hazel Cills, Jezebel
I’m an unabashed fan of pop music. On a pure escapism level I love it, but I also admire and appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into creating a sound that can be universally enjoyed by millions. This means I follow the armies of producers and writers who assist in creating some of the most unavoidable songs in popular culture. This well-argued essay from Hazel Cills points out that men (like the prolific Jack Antonoff working in the background of many of the biggest songs of the decade) are often given credit for these songs over the women who perform and co-write them. It’s important to take note of the optics of the pop music system and how we not only credit performers, but encourage a largely male-dominated industry. -Matt Miller
"Tekashi 6ix9ine Gets Lost in His Own Album"
by Craig Jenkins, Vulture
From Kanye West to XXXTentacion, hip-hop was overcome by villains in 2018. Few of them have been more successful than Tekashi 6ix9ine, the troubled Brooklyn rapper who faces life in prison following his latest arrest after pleading guilty to the use of a child in a sexual performance in 2015. Despite the rapper’s horrific past, he remains one of the most successful stars of 2018, having gone double platinum with his Nicki Minaj collaboration “Fefe” and releasing his debut studio album "Dummy Boy" to baffling fanfare and massive streaming numbers. Vulture’s Craig Jenkins elevates the form of the album review, connecting 6ix9ine’s persona and fame to a growing trend of “Earth’s most pigheaded, ghoulish characters” coming to power as a response to the politically correct and comfortable culture in the twilight years of the Obama. -M.M.
"How Manhattan Became a Rich Ghost Town"
by Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Considering the fact that I cover the fashion industry and live in New York City, of course I’ve noticed-and bemoaned-the empty storefronts on previously booming strips like Bleecker Street and Madison Ave. So of course I wish I’d thought to do this piece, which dives into the deeper reasons behind the desolation, the impact on brands and companies, and, crucially, what it means for the future of American urban culture in general. I think about it all the time. -Jonathan Evans
"Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong"
by Michael Hobbes, images by Finlay MacKay, HuffPost
It’s rare to read an article that puts something you basically already knew into such blistering new perspective. This piece, by Michael Hobbes, with lovely photographs by Finlay MacKay, does just that in its careful, empathetic exploration of how the medical community has not only failed fat patients from a scientific perspective, but has utterly poisoned the way Americans think about fatness, ruining countless lives. As Hobbes writes, “The emotional costs are incalculable.” -Joanna Rothkopf
"How Not to Die in America"
by Molly Osberg, Splinter News
Molly Osberg's astoundingly well-reported recounting of how medical catastrophes can send Americans into crippling debt if they're among the 28 million people who are completely uninsured, or 75 percent of them who don't have access to paid sick leave, or even if they do have insurance and full-time jobs like she did when she contracted an ultra-rare, nearly deadly form of strep, knocked the wind out of me. It is a shocking look at how our healthcare system is designed to protect only those who it views as financially advantageous to protect. -J.R.
"America's Basketball Heaven"
by Baxter Holmes, ESPN
This story painted a beautiful picture of a small town in North Carolina that produces an historic number of NBA prospects. It's not a story about basketball as much as it is a story of a town that has everything up against it, basketball being the through line to its relentless survival. Through bombs, floods, and violence, Kinston, North Carolina has always prevailed, and Holmes tells an incredible tale here of a town that if nothing else, will always have a love of the game to fall back on. -Ben Boskovich
"How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald's Monopoly Game and Stole Millions"
by Jeff Maysh, The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast published one of my very favorite stories of 2018: a (literal) made-for-the-silver-screen examination of an ex-cop who rigged the most American of games-McDonald’s Monopoly-to enrich himself, his family, his friends, and various other associates-by-necessity. “Uncle Jerry,” as the fraud kingpin was known, is of course a scammer and a liar and a thief. But you find yourself wondering, throughout, who exactly he’s stealing from. You’re also struck by how spastically generous he can be. And most of all, watching him exploit a many-layered ultra-capitalist pyramid scheme-big winners in McD’s Monopoly are notoriously rare, but McDonald’s wins every year-you find yourself subsumed in an allegory. -Jack Holmes
"Living with Dolly Parton"
by Jessica Wilkerson, Longreads
I stumbled upon this piece by Jessica Wilkerson a month or two ago. I’ve always loved Dolly Parton, and as an East Tennessean myself, I especially gravitate toward the perspectives of people from there. In “Living With Dolly Parton,” Wilkerson breaks open all the complexities of coming to reality about a hero. She weaves her own personal relationship with Dolly’s music into a critical view of how Parton’s economics have influenced East Tennessee, for better or worse. As well-researched as it is emotionally poignant, Wilkerson’s piece perfectly captures how even a personal hero has limitations. -Justin Kirkland
"Foul-Mouthed Santa Horrifies Parents"
by Rob Picheta, CNN
In a year of incredible, well-reported stories, my favorite was a late entry that fulfilled neither of those qualifications. But it’s one that I suspect will stick with me much longer than any other. In a scene worthy of Curb Your Enthusiasm or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a mall Santa in the United Kingdom was so upset by the sound of a ringing fire alarm (it wasn’t even in his section of the store), he burst out of his “grotto” (did you know it was called that?), and ran toward the exit screaming “Get the f**k out” at a group of terrified onlookers, most of them children. -Nate Erickson
"Dean Norris's 'Sex gifs' Tweet"
by Dean Norris, Twitter
Earlier this year, Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris tweeted “sex gifs” presumably because he thought he was on Google and not Twitter. He hasn’t taken the tweet down, but I hope he found those gifs! -N.E.
"How Do You Take a Picture of a Black Hole? With a Telescope as Big as the Earth"
by Seth Fletcher, The New York Times Magazine
Space is still wholly awesome and packed with mystery. Humankind does not yet have the capacity to ruin it. It exists in spite of us, and that’s why I think it is so refreshing to read about it. “How Do You Take a Picture of a Black Hole? With a Telescope as Big as the Earth,” excerpted for the NYT Magazine, is perfect writing about space. It is about an attempt by minuscule humans to photograph something so massive we can’t comprehend it. It illustrates this not just with stuffy scientific terms, but through metaphors and imagery and gorgeous language-all without firsthand knowledge of the subject matter. It lives where sci-fi meets poetry meets journalism. To use a lazy phrase way too often used to describe space, it blew my mind. -Sarah Rense
"What Ever Happened to Brendan Fraser?"
by Zach Baron, GQ
I spent a lot of time with Brendan Fraser movies in the '90s, not because I particularly enjoyed him or his work, but movies like Encino Man, With Honors, and School Ties were always on cable during these formative years. And then I didn’t think about Fraser for 20 years-until this GQ profile appeared. The piece reintroduced us to an actor who was everywhere briefly and then disappeared, explained what happened (including a surprising story about Fraser’s #MeToo moment), and stirred a healthy dose of nostalgia for the time in my life Fraser occupied. Stick around for the final section in which the writer, Zach Baron, recounts a strange, meandering story Fraser told him. It shouldn’t work, but he pulls it off masterfully. -Michael Sebastian
"The Watcher"
by Reeves Wiedeman, The Cut
This piece about a husband and wife and their kids who move into their dream home in New Jersey, only to be harassed by a letter-writer claiming to be watching them, is the perfect example of a What Would I Do In This Situation? story combined with a Whodunit. Because my family works in real estate in a Chicago suburb, it was all we talked about over the Thanksgiving holiday (which made the delicate dance around politics much easier to pull off). -M.S.
"I Dressed as Ariana Grande for a Week"
by Estelle Tang, Elle.com
I have been lucky enough to know and work alongside Elle.com’s Estelle Tang for a few years now, and I’m always in awe of what a brilliant, funny weirdo she can be-and something she beautifully embraces, like in this story about her attempt to dress like Ariana Grande for a week. First of all, this is an exercise I would never have the courage to pull off, but it’s also more than just a stunt piece to pair “lampshading” jokes with pictures of Estelle looking fly in oversized hoodies. Like everything she does, she elevates this sort of story into something bigger, more introspective. I have repeated the following line to myself countless times since this piece dropped in August: “Every decision is an opportunity to make a mistake.” If Lampshading is a way of life, let that be our mantra. -Tyler Coates
"How Anna Delvey Tricked New York's Party People"
by Jessica Pressler, The Cut
"My Bright-Lights Misadventure With a Magician of Manhattan"
by Rachel Deloache Williams, Vanity Fair
Every now and then a story breaks that lands so perfectly in the overlapped half moons of my own personal-interests Venn diagram that I am absolutely consumed. The still-unraveling saga of former It Girl Anna Delvey-told via the lenses of Jessica Pressler at The Cut, Rachel Deloache Williams at Vanity Fair, and coming to Netflix in the near future courtesy of Grey’s Anatomy mastermind Shonda Rhimes-is one such story. International intrigue, New York society, nightlife impresarios, and revelations of credit card debt so high worries of financial insecurity suddenly pulsed through my own veins, it’s a gripping, nearly fantastical account of one woman who weaseled her way behind the world’s plushest velvet ropes-and all those she left strewn in her path. -Madison Vain
"How Creed Forever Changed the Rocky Series"
by Adam Serwer, The Atlantic
As the child of a Philly-bred Italian-American family, the Rocky series has always felt like part of my DNA. With my dad hailing from a neighborhood not unlike Rocky Balboa’s, I’ve always found it easy to connect with the story of a scrappy Philly guy rising up the ranks to punch his way through all expectations. And I’m not alone, as Sylvester Stallone’s franchise has become among the most beloved American movie traditions in the history of film. But, like many raggedy fixtures of our nation’s past, the Rocky series clearly has an enormous problem with race. And, for longtime Rocky fans like me, this story by Adam Serwer for The Atlantic feels like a one-hit KO. As he points out, the myth of a heroic white boxer knocking out a black champion and “rescuing” white America is a story that is retold in literally every Rocky movie–a vile notion that points to prejudices that run far deeper than just the film industry. Luckily, as the article details, we have maverick craftsmen like Ryan Coogler revamping the series, and brilliantly rewiring the coded racism that the franchise has been dishing out for decades. -Dom Nero
"Sex Tourists Say They're Going to Mexico to Escape #MeToo"
by John Stanton, BuzzFeed News
The #MeToo movement has empowered women in the United States to speak up about the abuses they’ve suffered, and it’s even allowed some men to speak up as well. This BuzzFeed piece sheds light on sex workers in sex tourism destinations who haven't benefitted from that movement. -KP Peralta
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