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Daily Bafflements
April 20, 2015
• Nothing seems to baffle the media more these days than the strange and elusive Millennial. Here, from Newsweek, a piece on how the generation full of digital natives is changing “hobo culture.” • Nneka Samuel asks, “Has crowdfunding gone too far?” ...

The One That Brings You Choices
April 17, 2015
Sizzler has provided white-bread fare above and beyond the cheesy toast you can always find beckoning to you at the self-serve chain’s salad bar. The brand managers at Sizzler HQ also want to remind you that the restaurant is a miniature consumer’s republic in its own ...

Daily Bafflements
April 17, 2015
• Gawker editorial employees are taking steps to unionize. Hamilton Nolan writes that “Generally speaking, Gawker Media is a very good place to work,” but that employees desire greater transparency and fairness in salary decisions. Nolan notes that • The Observer ...

The Most Contaminated Place in the World
April 16, 2015
One of the more tragic results of the Information Age’s ballyhooed shrinking (or flattening or scrunching or crumpling) of the world is that we’re better apprised of international tragedies while also feeling less able to do anything about them. There’s an ethereal, ...

BuzzFeed Among the Brands
April 15, 2015
On the social web, all roads lead to brands, so let’s start with a story of a #brand. Five years ago, Domino’s acknowledged what most of us already knew: they made shit pizza. So the company launched an advertising campaign in which it offered a mea culpa and promised better ...

Daily Bafflements
April 15, 2015
• One Seattle-based credit card processing company is making headlines by raising its lowest paid employees’ salaries to $70,000/year. • Elon Musk’s much acclaimed SpaceX program is off with a bang, sending a resupply mission to the International Space Station, ...

Game of Thrones, Meet Tony Robbins
April 14, 2015
I admit it: Game of Thrones’ massive popularity took me by surprise. When I first read George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, I frankly could not understand how it managed to capture its legions of fans. Like many “dark fantasy” writers of the 1980s and ...

Daily Bafflements
April 14, 2015
• In an impassioned defense of “unicorns,” Dave McClure, a prominent angel investor, writing for Medium, says that talk about the overvaluation of startups is cheap, and argues that many public companies are also substantially overvalued. • The Broad, LA’s ...

The Humane Thing to Do
April 13, 2015
Let’s say your husband got fired from his job as a police officer after he was indicted for murder, when video surfaced of him firing eight shots at the back of a unarmed African American man—who fled when he feared arrest for owing back child support—hitting him five ...

Daily Bafflements
April 13, 2015
• The Washington Post reports that the NIH is spending $5 million on a campaign to convince hipsters that “styling your sweet mustache” is a good alternative to smoking. • The Baffler’s favorite v-word comes to Grand Forks, North Carolina, where “vibrancy ...

Town Without Purpose
April 10, 2015
Call it The Real World: Whatever. That’s the queasy image conjured by the recently announced partnership between Bud Light and Tinder, to amp up the promotional force of the grog merchant’s pop-up party hub “Whatever, USA”—the kind of promotional stunt that Roland ...

Daily Bafflements
April 10, 2015
• The much touted (and well-funded) Start-Up New York Program created only 76 jobs last year, instead of the originally announced 2,300, according to news from the Cuomo administration. • REVOLVE clothing is offering same-day delivery service for fashion-minded ...