We’re Still Here? | Henry Rees-Sheridan Welsh national life has a peculiar texture—and Welsh politics is correspondingly exceptional—but in ways difficult to see at first glance.

The Welsh language is vulnerable to extinction. In the middle of the nineteenth century, 69% of the people of Wales spoke Cymraeg. Now, the number has fallen to just 17.8%. If not language then, what binds Wales together?

They Came to See Us Suffer | Charlie Tyson The new influencer fiction doesn’t just diagnose a crisis in work. It reflects a crisis in literature.

Influencer culture is built on cheap stunts and gimmicks; it demands a total lack of interiority. Must fiction about influencers share these qualities?

We’re Still Here? | Henry Rees-Sheridan Welsh national life has a peculiar texture—and Welsh politics is correspondingly exceptional—but in ways difficult to see at first glance.

“At an early age I was given to understand that the rest of the British Isles were quick to claim the Welsh had sex with sheep at high incidence and with uncommon ardor—that we are, in other words, sheep shaggers.”

Cloud Control | Brian J. Chen & Jai Vipra However genuine Anthropic’s commitment to safety restrictions may be, the company’s actions are a corporate end run around public governance.

This year, Anthropic refused to allow the Trump administration to use its tech for warfare. The media was quick to cheer the corporation for standing up to the president. Brian J. Chen and Jai Vipra explain why we should hold our applause.

We’re Still Here? | Henry Rees-Sheridan Welsh national life has a peculiar texture—and Welsh politics is correspondingly exceptional—but in ways difficult to see at first glance.

In our new issue, Henry Rees-Sheridan considers the uncertain future of Welsh identity, Welsh politics, and the Welsh language.

Join us at TJ Byrnes in Manhattan as we celebrate the launch of Baffler no. 83, “Hirelings.”

Thursday, 4/16
7-10pm
77 Fulton St.
NY, NY

Frothing Mad | Max Kiefel In “Mutiny,” Noam Scheiber examines younger generations’ transformation into the central players of the labor movement.

At Starbucks and Apple, underemployed, college-educated workers have been helping to revive the labor movement. But as @maxkiefel.bsky.social argues, they’re facing stronger headwinds than ever under Trump 2.0.

The Labour Party has enjoyed a century-long winning streak in Wales. But now its luck is running out, thanks to the rise of two nationalist parties: the far-right Reform UK and the center-left Plaid Cymru.
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They Came to See Us Suffer | Charlie Tyson The new influencer fiction doesn’t just diagnose a crisis in work. It reflects a crisis in literature.

Four recent books ask: What is the influencer? According to Charlie Tyson, the answer is someone who suffers for a living.
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We’re Still Here? | Henry Rees-Sheridan Welsh national life has a peculiar texture—and Welsh politics is correspondingly exceptional—but in ways difficult to see at first glance.

“Just as certain sections of the Welsh electorate aren’t exempt from the rightward drift observable across the world, nor is Wales insulated from its worst possible consequences.”

Cloud Control | Brian J. Chen & Jai Vipra However genuine Anthropic’s commitment to safety restrictions may be, the company’s actions are a corporate end run around public governance.

“The struggle between the White House and Anthropic raises a basic question: What are the roles of the state and capital in relation to technology, especially technology perceived to be powerful?”

The Profession That Does Not Exist | Baffler Symposium A partial history of the hidden labor that makes possible the poems, stories, essays, and books you read.

In our new issue, @novicsara.bsky.social reflects on her stint waiting tables at Friendly’s, a chain of restaurants that once blanketed the eastern seaboard—and provided Nović a reprieve from the casual ableism of the academic world.

The Profession That Does Not Exist | Baffler Symposium A partial history of the hidden labor that makes possible the poems, stories, essays, and books you read.

From April to August, the fire lookout sits in a tower and watches the horizon for signs of smoke. It’s a job that writer Philip Connors has held for twenty-four seasons—a more stable career than the literary world could provide.

This could be you! We’re still selling issues for as little as $1. store.thebaffler.com/collections/...

Baristas of the Brave New Data State | Aaron Miguel Cantú Starbucks doubles as a brand of soft state power.

Howard Schultz may no longer be the CEO of Starbucks—but he casts a long shadow. From the Archives: Aaron Miguel Cantú writes on his do-gooder bonafides and liberal guilt.
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The Profession That Does Not Exist | Baffler Symposium A partial history of the hidden labor that makes possible the poems, stories, essays, and books you read.

Before getting into an MFA program, @novicsara.bsky.social waited tables at a chain restaurant in the Philly suburbs. Her coworkers there offered the kind of camaraderie that the academic world refused to: they didn’t reject her for being deaf.
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For Philip Connors, being a fire lookout was a side gig and subject matter. The job gave him the freedom to write—and the material for his first book. But then he was asked to choose between those two careers.
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In a recent article published in The Baffler, Benjamin Fogel traces the making of the modern mercenary and the rise of private military companies. Worth reading in full. // @benjaminfogel.bsky.social @thebaffler.com

Read it here: thebaffler.com/salvos/warfa...

Frothing Mad | Max Kiefel In “Mutiny,” Noam Scheiber examines younger generations’ transformation into the central players of the labor movement.

“Throughout ‘Mutiny,’ the Amazon Labor Union functions as a foil, a reminder of what happens when the shared educational background and brand disillusionment that held Starbucks and Apple workers together is absent.”

Cloud Control | Brian J. Chen & Jai Vipra However genuine Anthropic’s commitment to safety restrictions may be, the company’s actions are a corporate end run around public governance.

The recent standoff between Silicon Valley and Washington over the use of AI forces the people to choose between a state acting with all the impunity of a tech giant or a tech giant endowed with all the power of a state.

The Profession That Does Not Exist | Baffler Symposium A partial history of the hidden labor that makes possible the poems, stories, essays, and books you read.

“As a student I felt compelled to prove my ability and worth to professors that sometimes condescended to me, whereas at Kmart or Friendly’s it was just assumed and expected that I could and would do the job.”
thebaffler.com/odds-and-end...

“Once upon a time I thought of myself as a writer with a side hustle. Now I think of myself as a fire lookout whose income subsidizes a dilettante’s interest in scribbling.”
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Yugoslavia Calling | Lily Lynch If the “short twentieth century” began in Sarajevo, perhaps it ended in Bosnia too.

“A new world did arrive in the first years of the new millennium, but it wasn’t the humanitarian order rooted in multilateralism and respect for human rights that many liberal internationalists hoped for.”

Frothing Mad | Max Kiefel In “Mutiny,” Noam Scheiber examines younger generations’ transformation into the central players of the labor movement.

For decades, organized labor’s decline seemed inevitable. But in recent years, workplace organizing has surged—among Starbucks baristas, Apple store workers, and in Amazon warehouses. “Mutiny” tells their story.

Yugoslavia Calling | Lily Lynch If the “short twentieth century” began in Sarajevo, perhaps it ended in Bosnia too.

The Bosnian War attracted thousands of fighters from around the globe, motivated by idealism, sadism, ennui, and religious conviction. These veterans spilled into the ranks of the twenty-first century’s conflicts—in Syria, in Ukraine, and beyond.

We’re throwing a party to celebrate the successful release of our new issue, “Hirelings.” Please join us on Thursday, 4/16, from 7-10pm at TJ Byrnes in Manhattan!

Yugoslavia Calling | Lily Lynch If the “short twentieth century” began in Sarajevo, perhaps it ended in Bosnia too.

Western liberal imperialists saw the Balkan wars of the 1990s as archaic: nationalist feuds that could be chalked up to “ancient ethnic hatred.” But these were thoroughly modern conflicts, and presaged the ones to come.

Yugoslavia Calling | Lily Lynch If the “short twentieth century” began in Sarajevo, perhaps it ended in Bosnia too.

“The Yugoslav Wars never ended, they just entered into global circulation.”

Papers, Please | Michael McGrady Jr. Age verification laws have proven costly to freedom of expression for adult consumers and chill sexual speech.

Operating under the cover of “online safety,” age verification laws for sites like Pornhub are in fact a moralistic assault on sex workers, the queer community, and free expression.

The Profession That Does Not Exist | Baffler Symposium A partial history of the hidden labor that makes possible the poems, stories, essays, and books you read.

This week @thebaffler.com asks whether you can still make it financially today as a writer—citing our Authors Guild income survey.

(The answer is yes… but at what cost??)