Art by Chassidy Stephenson In my youth, I was staunchly against gossip. I thought of gossip as a sort of infinite lie vortex. Because nothing that anyone said in passing would ever be fact-checked, the annals of the gossip economy would always be rife with the sorts of lies that could ruin someone’s reputation in an instant if they were believed. As I got older, I started to soften my stance as I realized that there was more to gossip than the infinite lie vortex. As much as gossip could be...

Artwork by Sasha Lerman “Doesn’t soy mess with your hormones?” When my friend asked me this question while we both perused the alternative milk aisle at Trader Joe’s, I did a double take. Seven or eight years ago, “soyboy” was an insult commonly directed towards left-leaning men, implying that their consumption of soy had feminized them, and made them less deserving of respect. The primary concern around soy was its possible effects on testosterone in men. The science that we currently have...

If you’ve been on Pinterest or TikTok recently, you may have noticed the proliferation of niche micro-aesthetics, often cataloged in the form of collages, compilation videos, or “guide to ____-core” masterdocs. These, unlike larger fashion trends that might last several years before fading into obscurity again, flit in and out of existence in the blink of an eye. Behind this urge to label and behind the endless churn of micro-cores is a consumer culture driven by ego-identification with...