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Like many Millennial men, I used to be pretty invested in Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West—primarily because of his music,... Read More

I have Wi-Fi. I have a human heart. Of course I fired up the 60-second spot for Novig, a sports betting company. I was drawn not by the... Read More

Over the past year, the AI community has become increasingly worried over the behavior of autonomous agents. Over the past week, that worry... Read More

Few cartoon characters occupy as central a place in the American imagination as the Looney Tunes. Created by Warner Bros. in 1930 as a... Read More

Carole Maso’s Ava delivers through a nonlinear succession of sparse details, the bodily experience of losing the ability to make... Read More

I’ve been hoping not to write this essay. In fact, I’ve been hoping for about half a decade not to write this essay. It went... Read More

Men read less fiction than women. Exactly how much less is subject to debate, but conservative estimates find a roughly 20-percent gap... Read More

In this strand of the multiverse, the I that is me is not entirely sure what happens in Emily St. John Mandel’s new novel, Exit... Read More

Notes on a Colonial Situation in Hell opens with a crime. Mr. Bagshaw, a Methodist missionary who runs a church plantation at Gilgal, on the... Read More

First of all, I’m thankful to James Elkins for his response; I’m a fan of his work and his reply is generously attentive. And... Read More

Emily St. John Mandel’s brilliant new novel “Exit Party” begins five years in the future at a party in L.A.’s Echo... Read More

Rachel Cusk’s new novel, Life of M, is essentially plotless. It bears an ambivalent, sometimes winking, relationship to character. It... Read More

Dad hates his job so much there’s days he looks afraid, finishing dinner with the family in front of the TV at 6 pm and then turning in... Read More

If The Sopranos has been a success since its first appearance on television, the aspects that have resonated with audiences have changed.... Read More

There they are. The Zuckerbergs. Both in black slacks and plain shoes. Both in zanily patterned shirts that look made to wick sweat. No heavy... Read More

There is a paradox at the heart of American pop culture. The United States, in recent years, has never had a higher share of foreign-born... Read More

At a conference about a decade ago in Silicon Valley, I ran into venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson during a break. “Hey, what’s... Read More

During a dark stretch of Covid, I dove into Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking,” her book about processing her... Read More

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Positioned next to Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, at the start of what would be a nine-month odyssey,... Read More

What’s your story? The story that you live by, that your cells are geared to, even or especially when you’re not thinking about... Read More

When did a teenager’s social awkwardness become a sure sign of autism? When did a tween’s forgetfulness become a symptom of... Read More

On an evening in late 2021, in a pristine baseball complex in central Santo Domingo, a baby-faced 14-year-old outfielder in athletic gear... Read More

If you've read Nicholas Russell, here or elsewhere, you've gathered that he is thoughtful, erudite, and extremely curious. In addition to... Read More

The recently published memoir “The Make-Believe” by former “Game of Thrones” star Hannah Murray provides a terrifying... Read More

There was a time when people would line up for hours to watch amateur comedians make shit up. For just five dollars, you could buy a ticket... Read More

One of the pleasures of fiction is reading about largely disreputable characters being disreputable. It’s a great deal of fun to ride... Read More

Only about a third of Americans today think their country is going in the right direction. When Americans debate what is necessary to get the... Read More

Recently I’ve been asking myself if “we” (i.e. my corner of Substack) continue to believe that we are cultivating a... Read More

Every year, the world’s happiest countries are ranked, which makes me wonder: Just how happy would we all be if we traveled to one of... Read More

For Christmas, one of our children gave us tickets to the US Open, matches over the Labor Day weekend. So my wife and I joined him in the... Read More

This article represents the views of the author and is not an official position of OpenAI. Before last week’s viral warnings from... Read More

In one of the most haunting opening lines to a novel in the last hundred years, Albert Camus begins The Stranger: “Mother died today.... Read More