The best links of 2024, part 2
Featuring Dan Toller of The Electric Typewriter
‘Tis the season for rapacious gift guides, viral Spotify memes and ubiquitous year-end retrospectives. To celebrate, our Saturday editions look a bit different this month: I’m bringing you the very best links of the year, as (arbitrarily and subjectively) chosen by me and three very special guests.
Last week, we kicked things off with an eclectic digital treasure trove from Matt Muir of Web Curios. This week, I’ve invited Dan Toller from The Electric Typewriter — an extraordinary compilation of longform journalism, new and old — to share his favorite reads of 2024.
Dan is a translator and curator living in Cologne, Germany, who has been collecting and recommending stand-out articles and essays since 2011. Over the past 13 years, he’s built out a truly exhaustive online compendium that’s beloved by both readers and journalism educators (… yours truly included).
Dan’s picks draw from anthologies of classic and contemporary writing — such as the “Best American” series and Nieman Storyboard’s “Why’s This So Good” — as well as more obscure finds he discovers while poking around the internet’s “forgotten corners.” Personally, I’ve been following TETW since at least 2013, and I consider the project a major inspiration for what I’ve tried to do with reading guides this year. So I’m delighted to share Dan’s favorite reads of 2024 with you, from a great essay about doomscrolling to a (literal) deep dive on the world of underwater internet cables.
Be sure to check out the brand new (!!) Electric Typewriter Substack for more picks like these. And now, without further ado, Dan’s links …
Dan Toller’s favorite links of 2024
“The Trillion-Gallon Question,” by Christopher Cox for The New York Times Magazine. Apocalyptic scenarios seem to lend themselves to great journalism. This one is a fascinating mix of historical sleuthing, our chronic inability to grapple with climate science, epic engineering and hapless bureaucracy. My favorite read about an epic, inevitable disaster since Kathryn Schultz’s amazing 2015 classic, “The Really Big One.” Her 2024 article about solar flares is great, too — I only left it out of my top 10 to avoid this becoming a complete doomsday fest.
“How Soon Might the Atlantic Ocean Break?,” by Sandra Upson for Wired. While we’re on the subject of Armageddon: If you’ve never heard of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and feel like scaring yourself shitless, then this white-knuckle explainer on ocean currents and climate tipping points is for you. The article does a great job of making the awe-inspiring magnitude of the forces at play here tangible.
“Fear as a Game,” by Elisa Gabbert for The Believer. Which leads us nicely to my next pick — a beautifully constructed meditation on the psychology of fear, and why we go to such extraordinary lengths to scare the hell out of ourselves. This really made me think about a subject that I hadn’t really considered before — my favorite kind of essay.
“The Cloud Under the Sea,” by Josh Dzieza for The Verge. From the consistently excellent Verge, this fascinating trip through the world of global internet infrastructure felt like a 2020s remake of Neal Stephenson’s 1996 masterpiece “Mother Earth Mother Board.” A high-stakes adventure at sea, with lots of background about a subject that has a profound impact on us all, plus plenty of mind-bending technical details.
“The Contingency Contingent,” by Leigh Claire La Berge for n+1. This is one I discovered through Links I Would Gchat You. [Editor’s note: This one was also v. popular with Links readers!!] Disturbingly familiar to anyone who has worked in the corporate world, this brilliant memoir about a fake job in Y2K preparedness is an instant classic.
“The New Pornographers,” by Roxane Gay for Bitter Southerner. Whenever I see Roxane Gay’s name, I know I’m in for a great read. Her writing immediately grabs you and won’t let go. This essay about doomscrolling on TikTok is no exception, and is easily my favorite of the many that have explored the horrors of the algorithmic internet over recent years. Substack, take note! (Or should that be … Notes?)
“I Want To Ignore Beauty Culture. But I’ll Never Get Anywhere If I Don’t Look a Certain Way,” from the “Ask Ugly” column by Jessica DeFino for The Guardian. Over the last year, “Ask Ugly” has artfully tackled loads of thorny beauty questions — from plastic surgery and ageing to pubic hair and big feet. This one stuck out because it answers a question that so many people ask themselves in one form or another. I have two daughters, and when they get sucked into the twisted vortex of beauty culture, this is exactly what I want them to read.
“Like a Cheese Grater Raking Across My Nipple,” by Niamh Campbell for The Guardian. A searing personal essay about the culture of shame around breastfeeding — yet another thing that makes having kids more difficult than it needs to be. The piece is so well written that I’d be recommending it even if my family hadn’t had an eerily similar experience. This Atlantic essay about the challenges facing parents in the U.S. is worth a read too.
“What If the Robots Were Very Nice While They Took Over the World?,” by Virginia Heffernan for Wired. Virginia Heffernan is fast becoming one of my favorite writers. Her deep dive into the technical and geopolitical complexity of chip manufacturing was one of the best things I read last year, and this look at AI and the game Diplomacy is just as good, if on a much smaller scale. It teases out some of the fascinating subtleties in the interaction between machine learning and human emotion, and offers an intriguing glimpse into our fast approaching AI-powered future.
“My Taste Is Basic. So What?” by Samantha Irby for Harper’s Bazaar. This is so simple and smart, it reminds me of Chuck Klosterman at his best. Before I ruin it by trying to dissect it, just take my word for it and click through.
In case you missed it
Wasn’t that great?? I personally missed the Samantha Irby essay, but will now be deploying the defense “I like it!” with reckless abandon. Again, please check out The Electric Typewriter for more pieces like these ones. And while you’re reading those, perhaps you’d also like to revisit last year’s most popular Links Originals. For the month of December, I’m using this section to count down the 12 posts that you all read most in 2024. We did Numbers 10-12 last week — here’s the next trio.
9. Fun fact: This lengthy reported essay was initially commissioned by a major American magazine, but I published it here after my editor ghosted me. Loving that freelance life, baby!!
8. A comprehensive explainer of Gamergate on its 10th anniversary: what it was, who it hurt and how it might’ve influenced just about everything.
7. I interviewed the journalist Elle Reeve about her reporting on white nationalists and the extremist internet, also for our August series on Gamergate and its impact.
Thank you, as always, to the paid subscribers who make this work possible. It takes many, many hours to produce both the weekly link round-up and the dozens of pieces of original reporting and analysis that I’ve published this year. If you appreciate this work and would like to contribute directly to the sustainability and success of this little project, you can do so here — with my gratitude! xx
That’s it for this week! Stay tuned for another guest next weekend. I’ll be back with my favorite links of the year later in December.
Warmest virtual AND holiday regards,
Caitlin
Dan has taste. Also, the Best American series is so GOATed.
Such a wonderful list of good reads!