The Best Long Reads Of The Month
Here at Digg, we spend a lot of time digging through the web to find the best long reads out there, so you can spend your time reading instead of searching. Look: we put them all in one place. And starting now, our team is going to roundup the best stories of the month at the end of every month. Enjoy:
An Itch You Can't Scratch-Off
Many of the pieces in Topic's money issue were worth reading in full, but none of them stuck with me like Bryce Covert's powerful examination of the social cost of state-run lotteries. If you think lotteries are a harmless source of occasional fun, or a good money-maker for state coffers, this story will almost certainly change your mind.
– LV Anderson
A Suspense Novelist's Trail Of Deceptions
As a writer, if you're even the slightest bit self-critical you can easily convince yourself that the business actually resembles a meritocracy. You look at your own work and see crap; you look at the work of others who are more successful than you and think, "even if I hate this, obviously the writing is good to someone." Of course, that's not how the world works. It's important to remember people like Dan Mallory exist: guys who climb up the latter thanks to serial deception and people's reluctance to firmly say "hey, this guy's a hack and a liar." Next time I tell myself my writing sucks, I'll try to remember this story to remind myself "at least I'm not Dan Mallory."
– Mat Olson
The Bored Sex
There are a lot of stories attempting to answer the age-old question "What is the difference between men and women, really?" Most of them arrive at the true-feeling conclusion: "nothing, we're all people." But every once in a while we get a story like The Bored Sex by Wednesday Martin, which alleges that women are biologically hardwired to seek out a variety of sexual partners at a faster rate than men. It's an excellently reported story with both anecdotes and data that drive home a central argument that defies conventional wisdom.
– Joey Cosco
Ong's Hat: The Early Internet Conspiracy Game That Got Too Real
The early internet. Bizarre conspiracy theories. Rumors of aliens. New Jersey. It's a story that seems to have been built in the lab for our interests here at Digg (except for the Jersey part, maybe), and it doesn't disappoint.
– Dan Fallon
How I Fell Out of Love with the Internet
There was a lot of content published this month linked to romance, but my favorite love story of the month was this romance-turned-horror-story that documented, in a very tongue-in-cheek way, one person's problematic relationship with the internet. We all miss the internet of yore, but harnessing that nostalgia into a short story that doesn't go light on gallows humor is what makes this article special.
– BJ Pang-Chieh Ho
Whose Facade Is It, Anyway?
I can no longer scroll through my Instagram feed without thinking about this piece by Alexandra Marvar, which examines the deleterious effects Instagram and influencer culture are having on neighborhoods, ecologies and even little old ladies.
As young people are increasingly inclined to give out their Insta handles before their phone numbers, individuals' sense of personal identity and social standing is strangely intertwined with social media. For many, crafting this identity means associating oneself with aesthetically-pleasing, trendy and adventurous experiences and places; photographs as a form of possession. However, many of these places weren't built for the influencer era.
Hank and John Green highlight this harmful phenomenon in their harrowing YouTube video The Broccoli Tree, about a tree in Huskvarna, Sweden that went viral — so viral that it became the target of vandals who chopped it down. The Instagram account @joshuatreehatesyou calls out wannabe influencers who, in their desire to get the best shot, insist on plodding off trail, sitting or leaning on the park's famous trees which have delicate root networks, often killing the centuries-old plants.
All of this is to say, after reading this piece, I plan on being a lot more mindful of when I take pictures and post them on social media. "Do it for the 'gram'" is no way to live — but it is a fast way to ruin a beloved place.
– Eliza Bray
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