The best links of 2024, part 4
Featuring train robbers, trad wives, accidental poets, submarines, sellouts and secret-senders
Well, friends — we made it: back home to Buffalo; to another new year; to the final installment in our best links series. I’m excited to return to a non-cookie-based diet and our regularly scheduled Links programming next week. Ahead of that, however, it’s been really nice to log off, step back and reflect on the year that was: personally, virtually, culturally, etc. (I probably have more to say on this score, but let’s just do the links right now!)
Thank you again to my wonderful friends and collaborators who shared their weird and wonderful year-end curations while I was off this month. And thank you, as always, to YOU, beloved subscribers, whose emails, endorsements and encouragement boosted this little newsletter to new heights in 2024. All told, I published 82 editions and reviewed more than 100,000 links. And of those, I’ve narrowed this year-end list (somehow, improbably) to … just 15. 🙃)
Here’s to even more and better reading in 2025. Honestly, I feel pretty optimistic!! (But that might be all the aforementioned sugar in my system.)
My favorite links of 2024
“‘Enshittification’ Is Coming for Absolutely Everything,” by Cory Doctorow for The Financial Times. Doctorow, a theorist and internet activist, has managed to condense all the inscrutable and deeply boring economic forces that ruined social media into a single, unifying theory that’s somehow both very smart and also very readable. If you have ever found yourself asking “why does it seem like everything online has gone to shit?” — perhaps THE enduring question of 2024 — then you may want to spend some time with his work.
“I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is,” by Charlie Warzel for The Atlantic. Looking back on my favorite links from the past year, I can see I’m clearly drawn to stories that anticipated November’s election results. Maybe that’s a way of making meaning, I don’t know; it’s certainly an effort to predict the future. In that vein, Warzel has become, for me, the definitive voice on the fractured, nihilist, post-truth media quagmire we now find ourselves floating in: This analysis of Hurricane Helene/Milton misinformation sharply explains the dynamics and incentives of the right-wing infosphere, as did lots of his work after the election.
“Hawk Tuah and the Zynternet,” by Max Read for Read Max. While we’re on the subject of ascendant and politically influential internet subcultures — none of them GOOD, alas — let me also shout out this brilliant piece on the fratty, boorish, Donald Trump-voting bloc that Read dubbed “the Zynternet.” This was written in late June, roughly four months before mainstream political commentators began decrying the “unexpected” right-wing swing among America’s young men. “Unexpected” is in scare quotes there because … this essay called it.
“Meet the Queen of the ‘Trad Wives’ (and Her Eight Children),” by Megan Agnew for The Sunday Times. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for any single piece of journalism (or “online content,” construed more broadly) to break through with a mass audience; I can think of just a handful from 2024, and The Cut published *at least* two of them. This sly little profile managed it, though, thanks both to its zeitgeisty subject matter and its author’s keen powers of observation: Agnew scored unprecedented access to the Neeleman clan, and … basically used it to skewer them.
“Dark Matter,” by Meg Bernhard for Hazlitt. This was catnip for emo kids of the mid- to late aughts, of whom I am regrettably one: an introspective retrospective on Frank Warren’s PostSecret, 20 years after the site revved up. It’s a fun nostalgia-trip to hear from Warren and his project after all these years, and to catch up with some of the erstwhile secret-senders (cranky Carl is a personal fave). But the best character of the bunch may be Bernhard herself, whose reflections on secret-keeping, self-disclosure and shame lived rent-free in my head long after I finished.
“What Can You Learn from Photographing Your Life?,” by Joshua Rothman for The New Yorker. A nuanced, philosophical reflection on “everyday” photos — the mundane, repetitive snaps of our pets, partners and children that mass by the thousands in our camera rolls. Persuaded by Rothman’s argument that such pictures serve an almost meditative, time-keeping purpose, I’m actually trying to take more mundane photos for myself next year: a tiny, private rebellion against the cultural mandate to post more (and more aesthetic) public pictures.
“The Unexpected Poetry of PhD Acknowledgements,” by Tabitha Carvan for The Australian National University College of Science. This curation of acknowledgements from science PhD theses belongs to a genre of incidental media I like quite a lot: think YouTube comments, Google searches, Notes app screenshots, etc. I like to remember that real people are still churning weird and unexpected things into the online void, even if that stuff isn’t typically surfaced by mainstream platforms.
“I Hope This Email Finds You,” by Waldo Jaquith on Mastodon. A pleasant throwback to the glory days of chirpy, clever Twitter bots.
“Trick Questions,” by Haley Nahman for Maybe Baby. A lovely, snack-sized meditation on the modern compulsion to quell anxiety with information.
“The Contingency Contingent,” by Leigh Claire La Berge for n+1. Dan also shared this link in his best-of, but two endorsements can’t possibly hurt: I loved this witty, clear-eyed dissection of the absurdity of corporate work. It’s ostensibly about Leigh Claire La Berge’s experience 25 years ago, as a Y2K contractor for an advertising firm. But it will also feel comically (uncomfortably?) relevant to anyone with a “computer job” in 2024.
“The New Pornographers,” by Roxane Gay for The Bitter Southerner. A witty, vibrant, keenly observed meditation on TikTok — its enviable influencers, its viral dancers, its attractive farriers, its masked chefs — and the existential tedium at the dark scrolly heart of it.
“Everyone’s a Sellout Now,” by Rebecca Jennings for Vox. Of the 15 links in this little round-up, this is the one that I’ve personally returned to most often in the past year; I’ve probably referenced it half a dozen times across various newsletters. Part of that is obviously a “me” problem: As an independent journalist and writer, I feel pummeled by the same algorithmic forces that Jennings describes in this piece. But leaving my own, ahem, personal qualms and neuroses aside, I think she also does a phenomenal job of capturing the costs and trade-offs of producing creative work in the attention economy.
“World in a Box,” by Shannon Mattern for Places. I’m ending with a trio of stories that consider the physical and geographic trappings of online life, a subject that’s continued to fascinate and intrigue me over time. This first piece is a novella-length essay about cardboard boxes and their literal and symbolic place in the culture. You are either the type of person who is into this or not, so … now, as in May, I will say no more.
“The Great Freight-Train Heists of the 21st Century,” by Malia Wollan for The New York Times Magazine. An old-school, long-form magazine caper of the highest order, featuring grizzled engineers, honest kleptomaniacs, undercover investigators … and a breakneck tour through the fast-expanding maze of online retail infrastructure.
“The Cloud Under the Sea,” by Josh Dzieza for The Verge. There is something deeply and unexpectedly poetic about the submarine cable repair industry: We live with the presumption of constant, virtual connection, but that connection is actually both precarious and completely dependent on physical events we almost never see. Just *22* ships maintain the 800,000 miles of underseas cables that transmit 99% of the world’s data. Including, incredibly, the text many of you are reading right now.
In case you missed it
For the past four weeks, I’ve been counting down the 12 posts that you all read most in 2024. And after a lot of preamble, we’ve finally reached the three WINNERS.
3: An essay I wrote last January about the tragicomic process of composing an out-of-office message for a miscarriage.
2: A short reflection on old emails as Gmail turned 20 and the launch of a related, crowdsourced project. This project hit some legal snags (lol, really) but I am still working on it.
1: And finally, our single most popular Links post of the year:
A final reminder: 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. <3
Otherwise … that’s it for 2024!! We officially made it!! Warmest virtual AND holiday regards — and absolute best wishes for your new year.
Caitlin