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Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

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McSweeney’s
Text • Nathaniel Missildine

Travel Tips When Encountering Fellow Americans Abroad

Steer Clear When spotting another American in a foreign country, your first instinct is usually the correct one: run in the opposite direction. Like you, this person has come here to blot out, even if for a bewildered weekend, the very idea of the place left behind. The last...

McSweeney’s
Text • R.A.E. Wells

A Packing List for the Woman I Will Become on My Summer Vacation to Cape Cod

What to Pack A minimum of thirty books for her one-week trip, as the woman I will become is a voracious speed reader. Include: Elin Hilderbrand’s entire back catalog, plus Die with Zero, to be left casually on the $8,000 burnt oak coffee table at her in-laws’ beach house. Th...

McSweeney’s
Text • Emily Bressler

What I Think Will Happen When I’m Public Speaking

1. I’ll overheat and sweat through the armpit area of my shirt. 2. I’ll mix up my words and embarrass myself. 3. The audience will collectively decide to murder me. 4. I’ll speak too quickly and forget to take pauses in between sentences. 5. While I focus on trying to slow d...

McSweeney’s
Text • Jay Katsir

Meet Zurbo, the Viral Marmot Who Can’t Stop Snatching Sandwiches

Snuggle Alert! There’s an adorable new critter burning up the internet, and by clicking through to this article, you have consented to meet Zurbo, and any attempt to cease beyond this point will be considered a breach of contract in all known jurisdictions. Though you may fi...

McSweeney’s
Text • Ali Fitzgerald

Only Plants

Underground Artists is an ongoing comic by Ali Fitzgerald (Hungover Bear & Friends) that follows woodland creatures as they create art and search out whimsy in a bleak forest.

- - -

McSweeney’s
Text • Fiona Taylor

A Field Guide to Legacy Media Pundits in the United States

The Backlash Columnist (Contrarianus grievancius) HABITAT: Op-ed page of a formerly relevant magazine. DISTINCTIVE CALL: “Some say the culture wars divide us, but I believe fighting actually brings us together.” DISTINGUISHING FEATURE: Will find one radical social media post...

McSweeney’s
Text • Yoram Ong

I Am Your Family’s Air Fryer, and I Have Seen Things

Yeah, I’m your family’s fryer. Six quarts of matte-black authority sitting proudly between the coffee maker and the fruit bowl. Digital touchscreen. Eight preset modes. Nonstick basket. The apex predator of countertop appliances. And I am exhausted. Because apparently every ...

McSweeney’s
Text • Dennard Dayle

Meet the Secretary of Fertility

What exactly is the Department of Fertility? It’s the future of American boning. The sunburnt half of the map’s outbanged us for too long. We’re making the nasty hotter. Faster. Less protected. And this is an official, taxpayer-funded move? Yup. Today, at least. You know how...

McSweeney’s
Text • Talia Argondezzi

You Impale One Guy, and Suddenly You’re “Vlad the Impaler”

There’s so much more to me than impaling. I paint watercolors. I run half-marathons. I am a father, many times over, all across the Wallachian countryside. In fact, it’s statistically likely I’m a #girldad—and so, obviously, I’m also a feminist. Although I contain these mult...

McSweeney’s
Text • Jesse Nathan

Short Conversations with Poets: Carolina Ebeid

Hide is the name of Carolina Ebeid’s second collection of poetry, and a sign of that can be found in the range of possibilities echoing in that simple word. An imperative, an activity, a place, a skin. The book is all of these. Justice, the injustice of its absence, haunt th...

McSweeney’s
Text • James Folta

Your Local Wine Store’s Super Simple Rewards Card Program

McSweeney’s
Text • Kate Chrisman

Affordable Midlife Crisis Options for Millennials

Instead of buying a sleek convertible, you head to Dick’s Sporting Goods and take a test-spin on every model of high-performance scooter. You settle on an electric one, which isn’t practical enough for your seven-mile commute to work, so you mainly use it to compete in the l...

McSweeney’s
Text • Jack Loftus

“Nuh-Uh,” “Not It,” and Other New Pentagon Strategies for Winning at War

“On Wednesday, the Pentagon reported on its casualties website that 18 American service members had been killed during the war in Iran. By Thursday, the Defense Department had lowered that number, reporting that 14 American troops had been killed in the war. Three military o...

McSweeney’s
Text • Katherine Bettis

Is It Time to Wash the Dishes? A Flow Chart

McSweeney’s
Text • Casey Rand

When I’ll Know AI Can Replace Me

When it can get a tummy ache. When it’s constantly running ten minutes late. When it says “I’m fine,” but it really isn’t fine. When it reschedules dinner dates to watch old episodes of The O.C. When it buys tickets to a Wilco concert and forgets to go. When it takes a hard ...

McSweeney’s
Text • Gary M. Almeter

FAQ: Potato Salad

Q: What is in potato salad? Okay. Deep breath. In this potato salad, there are potatoes. Mayonnaise. Paprika, obviously. Two giant celery chunks. One red onion diced. Three hard-boiled eggs. Two ants and three ant fragments. Jorts fringe. Over eight million dormant bacterial...

McSweeney’s
Text • Gracie Beaver-Kairis

I’m Thrilled to Be Back from Maternity Leave

Of course I’m happy to be back from maternity leave. Thanks for asking. Although in Scandinavia they get something like a year off to take care of a new baby, I am ready to hit the ground running, even though I can’t actually run because I’m still healing from getting dozens...

McSweeney’s
Text • Ali Fitzgerald

Underwater Existentialism

Underground Artists is an ongoing comic by Ali Fitzgerald (Hungover Bear & Friends) that follows woodland creatures as they create art and search out whimsy in a bleak forest.

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McSweeney’s
Text • Kyle Shamorian

Rationale for War with Iran or Reason Men Back into Parking Spaces?

1. They hope to make a quick exit.

2. They want to reduce the chance of getting hit.

3. They enjoy displaying their skill even if little is actually accomplished and it takes longer than necessary.

4. It’s basically just become a habit now.

5. New cameras and sensors make it easier than ever before.

6. They enjoy a moment of control and power in an otherwise chaotic world.

7. Conditions will be more hazardous later if they don’t use this maneuver now.

8. Their dads and grandads did it, too.

9. They must protect the defenseless Americans walking through this Trader Joe’s parking lot.

10. To distract from the Epstein files.

- - -

Both: 1-9
Rationale for War with Iran: 10

McSweeney’s
Text • Kyle Shamorian

Rationale for War with Iran or Reason Men Back Into Parking Places?

1. They hope to make a quick exit.

2. They want to reduce the chance of getting hit.

3. They enjoy displaying their skill even if little is actually accomplished and it takes longer than necessary.

4. It’s basically just become a habit now.

5. New cameras and sensors make it easier than ever before.

6. They enjoy a moment of control and power in an otherwise chaotic world.

7. Conditions will be more hazardous later if they don’t use this maneuver now.

8. Their dads and grandads did it, too.

9. They must protect the defenseless Americans walking through this Trader Joe’s parking lot.

10. To distract from the Epstein files.

- - -

Both: 1-9
Rationale for War with Iran: 10

McSweeney’s
Text • Rachel Reyes

I Have Never Made This Recipe, but I Give It Five Stars

Five big stars for these blueberry muffins. This delightful treat by Dana’s Delish blog has it all, including a crunchy crumble topping and a just-right burst of juicy berries. They look delicious—based on the picture Dana posted, that is. I haven’t actually made these. As s...

McSweeney’s
Text • Hallie Pritts

Reviews of New Food: Aldi Crystal Clear Frozen Ice Cubes

My most enjoyable ice experience occurred sometime in the 1980s. On a hot day, my aunt made all the cousins get out of the pool for lunch. She passed out bologna-on-white-bread sandwiches, then dropped ice cubes into a line of waxy shell-pink plastic tumblers endemic to the ...

McSweeney’s
Text • Gwynna Forgham-Thrift

Family Vacation Training Plan

The Family Vacation is a great way to challenge yourself as a daughter, girlfriend, and human being. This six-week plan will help you build towards your ten-day trip to London with nine family members in tow, using a variety of exercises designed to prepare your body, mind, ...

McSweeney’s
Text • Carlos Greaves

The Old Man and the Strait

With apologies to Ernest Hemingway. - - - He was an old man who had started a war in a faraway Gulf, and he had gone one hundred and forty-three days now without reopening the Strait. After forty days, a tentative ceasefire had been reached. Then another one. Then another on...

McSweeney’s
Text • Emily Flake

I’m Jimothy, the Short-Spined Raccoon Who Has Taken the Internet by Storm, and the Collective Weight of Your Adoration Is Breaking My Already-Compromised Back

“A video just a few seconds long and accompanied by a simple question, ‘What am I looking at?’ was enough to turn a Seattle raccoon into a global internet sensation this week. The viral critter—dubbed ‘Jimothy’ by the internet—has a shorter spine than the average raccoon. Hi...

McSweeney’s
Text • Stephen Ruddy

I Watched the Copa Mundial Non-Stop on Telemundo for Cinco Weeks and Now I Don’t Hablar Inglés Anymore

Hola, Chad aquí, de Greenwich, Connecticut, a muy blanco área of los Estados Unidos. A few weeks ago, I decidir to watch Estados Unidos vs. Paraguay in fútbol. Normalmente, I watch “football” and not “fútbol—¡Soy muy americano!—but I was curioso about the Copa Mundial; also,...

McSweeney’s
Text • James Weaver

My Next Book Project

My next book project doesn’t simply interrogate the hyperindividualist cultural norms of our current moment; it waterboards them. It attaches electrical nodes to them and shocks them into submission. It commits every act of intellectual violence against them. All in furtheri...

McSweeney’s
Text • Carlos Greaves

Our Investigation Found That Shen Yun Used U.S. Voter Rolls to Distribute Flyers to Hundreds of Millions of American Households

“President Trump used a rare prime-time address Thursday night to renew his attacks on the security of U.S. elections…Trump said China had accessed voter data of 220 million people in 18 states, but that information is generally publicly available and does not contain inform...

McSweeney’s
Text • Amy Greenlee

Is It a Red Flag? The Odyssey Edition

He’s been away from home for twenty years. Not a red flag. This is an opportunity for you to embrace some alone time and discover new interests, like bird-watching or weaving burial shrouds. He’s been having sexual relations with a goddess. Not a red flag, since refusing a...

McSweeney’s
Text • Brandon J. Talley

As Your Manager, I Don’t Think It’s Too Much to Ask That You Read My Mind

I’ve requested this meeting because I’ve noticed a concerning trend: It doesn’t seem like you’re reading my mind. This is quite troubling because tasks I’ve never mentioned before are falling through the cracks. All of this could be avoided if you quit relying on written or ...