In the Room With Iran’s Social Media Savants The new generation of IRGC content creators is younger, quicker, and less afraid of the U.S.

"This is what the 20th century handing off to the 21st looks like. Not a ceremony. Not a transition. A series of viral moments. A missile arc across a pale sky, and below it, the world already changed." nymag.com/intelligence...

"Here is what no one in Washington or Moscow or Beijing seems to have noticed yet," Narges writes. "The other major powers are still run by the fathers. Biden was a father. Trump is a father. Xi and Putin and Netanyahu are fathers — men whose political imaginations were formed in the 20th century."

The American-Israeli decapitation strikes have helped clear the way for the younger generation, one that is less afraid of the US and versed in the language of the internet.

Trump loves to say that Iran’s new leaders are more moderate when precisely the opposite is true. @nargesbajoghli.bsky.social spent a decade embedded with the IRGC’s media arm, where she saw a battle between two generations play out: the moderate elders vs. the more confrontational youth.

All Modern Warfare Is Chemical Warfare What we witnessed on Saturday in Tehran may be the largest release of petrochemical toxins over a civilian population since the Iran-Iraq War.

“The hardest part is that people here are still living. Going to work, buying things for Nowruz, breathing this air. Life is continuing. And I don’t know if that’s resilience or if it’s something sadder than that" nymag.com/intelligence...

Hard Feelings The Iranian diaspora is fracturing in real time, across dinner tables, on WhatsApp, and in the silence of blocked numbers.

"In Australia, my cousin Ali and his friends were writing screeds against me for not using my platform to back the bombings of Iran. Old friends will no longer speak to me. Some of them I have known my whole life. Some of them, I realize now, I did not know at all."

nymag.com/intelligence...

"The fujoshi switch has been flipped, and now everyone’s fujoing out" — @alexjung.bsky.social on Heated Rivalry and girls who love boys who love boys www.vulture.com/article/heat...

Do You Have a Moment to Talk About How Mormons Conquered Pop Culture? How the women of Utah blogged and posted their way into American hearts and wallets.

My first cover story at @nymag.com! I went to Utah to figure out how everything got so Mormon: www.thecut.com/article/morm...

Why Pilates Keeps Pissing People Off The workout has become inseparable from a very strict idea of womanhood.

“When I talk to students, I hear them say things that I can be taken aback by. If the instructor’s body doesn’t look a certain way, they’ll say, ‘Well, I don’t want to take class from them'"

@madelesque.bsky.social on how Pilates culture got so neurotic www.thecut.com/article/pila...

"A white man points both his middle fingers and releases a teeth-baring yell, and it seems as if he were drawing a current from the pavement straight out of his mouth" @kerryhowley.bsky.social, putting words to feelings like only she can nymag.com/intelligence...

Enforcement Regime | Michael Macher Trump's immigration crackdown marks a dramatic change in the domestic security apparatus, yet its origins lie in a longstanding bipartisan consensus.

this is smart, thorough, and excellent

Enforcement Regime | Michael Macher Trump's immigration crackdown marks a dramatic change in the domestic security apparatus, yet its origins lie in a longstanding bipartisan consensus.

"The agencies themselves laid the groundwork for this project over the previous decades, as they morphed into rogue actors with increasingly radicalized unions" @michael-macher.bsky.social on how we got here www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/enf...

Enforcement Regime | Michael Macher Trump's immigration crackdown marks a dramatic change in the domestic security apparatus, yet its origins lie in a longstanding bipartisan consensus.

I wrote about the longstanding dynamics that produced our terrifying present for @phenomenalworld.bsky.social.

‘Will You Come and Get Me?’ Inside The Voice of Hind Rajab, the divisive festival hit that reenacts the 5-year-old’s call to emergency dispatchers in Gaza before she was killed.

"Watching the film is an emotionally raw experience. The choice to use Hind’s voice in the film is brilliant and awful. It is so alive it has the effect of pulling you into an immediate present where she could still survive." www.vulture.com/article/the-...

Jafar Panahi’s Game of Chicken With the Iranian Regime In his most defiant film yet, a group of Iranians consider killing the man who tortured them in prison.

No director working today understands our vigilante-justice fueled moment better than Jafar Panahi, who is captured beautifully by @roxana-hadadi.bsky.social in this profile www.vulture.com/article/jafa...

What I like about this review is Chu very clearly gets bored with Williams and uses his bad book as an opportunity to think through Toqueville and engage with the question of “speech” in material terms.

Brad Pitt Is Fooling You The F1 press tour has been a carefully attuned charm offensive meant to obscure Pitt’s alleged violent behavior toward ex-wife Angelina Jolie.

I wrote about how Brad Pitt has effectively albeit transparently used F1: The Movie and its press tour to rehabilitate his image, in order to obscure the violent allegations about abuse toward Angelina Jolie & his current estrangement from his six kids, @vulture.com. www.vulture.com/article/brad...

‘It’s Nice to Be Right!’ The New Yorkers riding the high of Zohran Mamdani’s win. (And the ones who had no idea there was an election.)

"‘Why you blocking my sun right now? I’m trying to bask in a Zohran win.’” nymag.com/intelligence...

'It's a Killing Field': IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid IDF officers and soldiers told Haaretz they were ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near food distribution sites in Gaza, even when no threat was present. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, prompting the military prosecution to call for a review into possible war crimes

IDF soldiers have now themselves admitted they have been ordered to murder aid-seekers in Gaza.

Truly an atrocity built on atrocity.

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

NYT Editorial Board:

Since Dorian Died Two years after the death of his son, Ben Kweller doesn’t want to waste any more time.

three days after I got this assigned (about a musician I love, done by a writer I admire), I experienced a sudden, unexpected, and very close death in my life, so having this piece to work on was kind of like having a grief guide to hang out with :) www.vulture.com/article/ben-...

Zohran Mamdani Crashes the Party The mayoral candidate is selling the dream of a socialist New York. The picture inside the Democratic Party is more complicated.

He’s transformed the race with memorable policy proposals and a winning social-media presence. Critics argue he’s drawn to attention-grabbing stunts and that his free bus program may not be the unqualified success he claims it was. E. Alex Jung on Zohran nymag.com/intelligence...

Incredible Eric Adams anecdote from @nymag.com's Zohran piece. nymag.com/intelligence...

The Romance of Being Unreadable In his debut novel, Ocean Vuong took pains to be illegible, then blamed the reader for reading. In his new book, he is finally ready to talk.

"That is the peril faced by every marginalized writer: He may become so accustomed to the margins he cannot recognize the center even when he is standing in it" @andrealongchu.bsky.social on Ocean Vuong www.vulture.com/article/ocea...

Is True Crime Keeping Me in Prison? TV producers exploited the worst mistake of my life. I’m not the only one.

"The lowest moment of my life, killing someone, replays several times throughout the 45-minute episode. I can no longer separate these images from my actual memories of what I did that night." a devastating piece, deftly edited by @tomiobaro.bsky.social www.vulture.com/article/how-...

no one does it like diane warren www.vulture.com/article/dian...

Wages of Citizenship | Michael Macher US immigration enforcement and the cannibalization of labor law

"the US immigration system runs not on the enforcement of immigration laws, but on their selective nonenforcement" — fascinating dive into the contradictions of immigration and labor policy by @michael-macher.bsky.social www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/wag...

My Cool Friend Michelle Other kids called Trachtenberg a bitch, but in our group of child stars, we all wanted to be like her.

I wrote about my kind, funny childhood friend Michelle Trachtenberg, and the group of friends that saved my life when I was a kid.

www.vulture.com/article/mara...

"If there is one idea that has unified my thinking as a trans person since I embarked on a career as a writer, it is that we must give up the dream of explaining ourselves"

At Thailand’s Real White Lotus Hotel, Where the Ultrarich Get Coddled “Sometimes they’ll ask us to bring the sun.”

“We can never tell a guest what they want. It's a matter of listening to them and giving them the illusion of choice.” www.vulture.com/article/whit...