What Black Panther’s Success Means for the Future of Movies
Generally, this time of year is slow at the box office. With the Oscars on the horizon, it's in some ways still the tail end of the previous cinema year, and even with summer blockbuster season creeping earlier and earlier, the big-budget tentpoles don't start rolling out for another six weeks or so. A couple…
#WarGames Is a Unique, Interactive Revival of the '80s Movie
The FMV videogame emerged in the late 1980s, and then died an ignoble death in the early 1990s. (Remember Night Trap?) Intended as a way to blend interactivity and live-action entertainment, FMV games (the acronym stands for "full motion video") were mostly awkward, stitched-together messes that, while fascinating, didn't have any sort of staying power.…
What It Takes to Make Congress Actually Listen
Last year, a military veteran living in Massachusetts's sixth congressional district tossed aside a piece of mail from the Veterans Administration, without realizing that the information he needed to access his benefits was buried at the end of the six-page letter. Once he realized his mistake, he called the office of Seth Moulton, his representative.…
Octopath Traveler Collapses Under the Weight of Its Influences
I begin Octopath Traveler in snow. Soft-blurred whites cover the screen, surrounding the cobbled stone and churches of a sleepy winter village with a massive cathedral at its center. I am occupying the role of Ophilia, a priestess, the adoptive daughter of the church elder. It's time to go on a dangerous pilgrimage, but the…
Meet Badass, the Grassroots Activists Hitting Revenge Porn Where It Lives
Katelyn Bowden was holed up in her mother’s basement watching Stranger Things when she got a Facebook message nobody wants: Someone had gotten ahold of nude photos of her and posted them on the notorious image sharing website Anon-IB. "I recognized the photos and confronted my ex," Bowden says. "But he said his phone was…
This Silicon Valley High School Is the Ultimate Incubator
Ken Montgomery has always nurtured star students. One went on to become President Obama’s deputy chief technology officer; another founded a coding school in Nebraska; still others are Rhodes scholars and Harvard PhDs. But the English teacher and debate coach had no idea what he was doing right—until he started polling those former students. The…
Dear White People, The Rachel Divide, and the Hard Questions of Identity
The second season of Dear White People—released today on Netflix under the tag Volume 2—rattles with welcome confrontation, proudly bearing the face of disquiet in its opening blushes. Creator-director Justin Simien wants to have a conversation with us. So he begins with a seemingly straightforward question: What goes best in grits? Remember, we’re at Winchester…
The 11 Streaming Movies to Top Off Your Thanksgiving Meal
The only Thanksgiving tradition more prevalent than turkey and stuffing is falling asleep in front of the TV as soon as dinner is over. (Just us? Oh, OK.) But falling asleep watching what? For a lot of folks it's sports, for others it's the NFL (zing!)—but once the food coma starts to hit, classic Turkey…
Social Media Is Reshaping Sex Work—But Also Threatening It
One morning last May, Melody Kush discovered that someone was using her Twitter photos to catfish people into paying for a Snapchat premium account that didn’t even exist. Kush is a sex worker—an erotic model, to be precise—and for someone who does much of her work via social media, that kind of scam isn’t just…
The Overwatch League Finals Aren't the Only Thing Happening in Games
This week was a quiet one in the world of videogames, but there's always something to talk about. In this week's roundup we dig into the Overwatch League Grand Finals, Steam's newest update, and the odd specter of orphaned games that still get updates. Here we go! The Overwatch League Grand Finals are Heading to…