Six Great Reads: Doge Explained, 'Alpine Divorce' and the Secret Lives of Body Doubles
Looking for something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days, offering unique insights into technology, culture, and human behaviour.
1. What Was Doge? How Elon Musk Tried to Gamify Government
Elon Musk's office featured a gaming rig with an oversized curved screen, and the Doge website included a leaderboard for tracking cuts in real time. Beneath the jokes and cosplay lay a serious conviction: if the state was merely a database, inefficiency stemmed from bad data, such as undocumented foreigners, ghost employees, or "vampires" collecting social security. These were seen as bugs in the codebase, irregularities to be traced, quarantined, and purged. Musk had transformed Twitter into X, and to him, the US state was just another glitchy dataset to be scrubbed and optimised. In this gripping Long Read, Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian detailed how Musk and his team of teenage coders, immersed in gaming and right-wing culture wars, aimed to defeat what they perceived as the enemy of the US: its own people.
2. The One Thing Everyone Gets Wrong About Feminism
Things change, often for the better when we actively shape them, or for the worse when we fail to engage or lose battles. Forgetting the profound changes of recent decades can lead to mourning the right's attempts to roll back progress on issues like climate and women's rights, without recognising their goal to revert to a past that many experienced as the bad old days. In this searing essay, Rebecca Solnit addressed the phenomenon of people declaring the death of the women's movement, citing the "failure" of #MeToo or the Epstein files. She emphasised that we must not overlook the vast progress made over the past few decades, highlighting the resilience and ongoing impact of feminist activism.
3. And the Winner Is ... All of Us? How the Oscars Have Changed for the Better
The diversified Academy and evolving industry have transformed the once-stuffy, rule-following Oscars, as noted by Benjamin Lee after big wins for hits like Sinners, KPop Demon Hunters, Frankenstein, and Paul Thomas Anderson's best picture winner, One Battle After Another. These changes reflect a broader shift towards inclusivity and innovation in filmmaking, making the awards more representative of contemporary cinema.
4. Women Are Being Abandoned by Their Partners on Hiking Trails. What's Behind 'Alpine Divorce'?
On social media, women describe alpine divorce as being abandoned or left behind during hikes, climbs, or other outdoor adventures with male partners. This might occur if a partner goes too fast without waiting, or a trail argument leads to him storming off, often resulting in breakups. Alaina Demopoulos explored this curious phenomenon, shedding light on the emotional and relational dynamics at play in outdoor settings.
5. The Secret Lives of Six Body Doubles: 'They Wanted Julia Roberts to Have Curvier Legs'
From Michael B Jordan's performance as twins in Sinners to working with children in Harry Potter, body doubles are essential in film-making. Following Jordan's best actor Oscar win, Lucy Knight spoke to his "twin" Percy Bell and others who have stood in for stars like Julia Roberts's legs and Rachel Weisz's hair, revealing the behind-the-scenes roles that shape cinematic magic.
6. My Sisters and I Had the Same Parents but Were Raised Apart. It Taught Me There's More to Siblings Than Meets the Eye
After Catherine Carr's parents split up, she and her older sister lived with their dad while her youngest sister stayed with their mum. This arrangement became an experiment in nature versus nurture, profoundly affecting their relationships and offering insights into sibling dynamics beyond shared genetics.
