The spark: 11 ideas to change the world helen lewis

“Because fewer than 90 titles can be passed to female heirs, no women are among the hereditary peers currently sitting in the Lords. (The most recent, the Countess of Mar, retired in May.) Yet since taking over Daughters’ Rights, Charlotte Carew Pole said, she has found it hard to enlist mainstream feminist organizations and activists to support her. She suspects they fear being represented as elitist and out of touch. But the glib left-wing retort—Who cares about feminism for aristocrats?—ignores the fact that Britain’s son preference deforms the very institution that sets our laws. There are, essentially, seats in our Parliament reserved for men.”

- The Atlantic

“Sharing the internet with America is like sharing your living room with a rhinoceros. It’s huge, it’s right there, and whatever it’s doing now, you sure as hell know about it.”

The World is Trapped in America’s Culture War (Atlantic)

“The authorial persona on display in Mantel Pieces is confident to the point of arrogance. In a world where journalists write with a flinch in every sentence, that is deeply enjoyable.”

- New Statesman

“Remember when the internet used to be fun? Whitney Phillips does. The digital anthropologist was recently looking through a huge set of images from the late 2000s that had been posted to Reddit. The first comment described the era as ‘a more simple time,’ and sure enough, the pictures were weird, silly, and creative. Talking cows. Cats playing video games. A bear on a golf course. A guy Photoshopped to have mouths for eyes. 

Then she noticed something else. Something disturbing. The thread began, she wrote recently, “with a lighthearted meme about Hitler.” After that was ‘dehumanizing mockery of a child with disabilities. And more sneering mockery of an old man hooked up to an oxygen tank. And date rape. And violence against animals. And fat shaming. And homophobia. And racism. And pedophilia. And how hilarious 9/11 was’.”

How Memes Ruined the World (The Atlantic)