The Best Magazine Articles Ever (2012)

[raldi]

I would include "The Wedding Merchants" by Caitlin Flanagan for The Atlantic in Feb 2001.

All about how it's not actually traditional for weddings to be the expensive fancy extravaganzas they are today, and who made them that way and how they did it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/02/the-wed...

[randycupertino]

Oh I loved that article! It was helpful in my decision to have a smaller wedding.

For one of favorite articles, I nominate this epic profile Tommy Tomlinson wrote in 2014 on college/NFL QB Jared Lorenzen:

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/11382220/ex-nfl-...

Tomlinson one of my favorite writers, and the article is about Lorenzen's struggles played a role in my own starting to get healthier. So, degrees of separation, but I always felt like some day I'd read an article about Lorenzen making a big transformation. Very sad to realize with news of his passing a few weeks ago that it turned out differently.

https://www.nj.com/giants/2019/07/ex-giants-qb-jared-lorenze...

[jumbopapa]

Thank you so much. Marriage will be coming up fairly soon in my life and I've been dreading the expense. I hope my girlfriend finds this article as eye-opening as I did. The amount of many spent on a ring, ceremony, and reception have no correlation with our love for each other.

[jumbopapa]

> Feb 2001

It's interesting that this is from 2001. I feel like the problem has gotten even worse since then.

[mud_dauber]

This is great. Thank you!

[thundergolfer]

Paul Ford’s “What is Code?” for Bloomberg tech I think deserves a mention.

Super ambitious and rewarding. I tried to purchase a paper copy because I like it so much but felt ridiculous paying $80 for a magazine.

[haste410]

I would love a decent PDF as I don't like reading long form works on a screen. The best I've found is a scan of the magazine here: http://veryinteractive.net/library/what-is-code

[soniman]

This is a trollish comment but do the DFW articles hold up?:

radio article - talk radio is for stupid people

cruise ship article - cruise ships are for fat people

Maine state fair article - tourism is for boring people

How much of his appeal was due to flattering the vanity of his readers?

[AJRF]

His language is beautiful and he has a way of writing that cuts to the base truth of a situtation, which side by side (i.e flowerly language AND truthful writing) seem like a contradiction, but I think it just highlights how talented he was. His writing always had the best words in the right order. And that means to me it will always be worth reading.

[cjf4]

These sound like the assessments of someone who read a critique of the articles, but not the articles themselves.

[adolph]

I haven’t read much of DFW outside of This Is Water [0]. In it he seems very aware of the outlook of contempt [1] folk of his intellectual milieu have for certain other segments of society and presents the case for reframing that viewpoint.

0. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI

1. http://www.econtalk.org/arthur-brooks-on-love-your-enemies/

[freediver]

“Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?” was the reason I subscribed to The Atlantic.

[nkoren]

Needs https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/24/utopian-for-be...

[teh_klev]

That's a great article. Was also discussed here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8180493

[zeristor]

These articles all seem very good, I still have fond memories of reading Neal Stephenson's article on optical fibres around the world (although I'm thought it was David Brin who wrote it)

However these all seem to be articles in American magazines, I assume there's a number of very good magazine articles in foreign magazines; although the US is known to have more magazines that focus on long form articles.

[hycaria]

For french folks here, M le magazine du monde is good. But somehow US magazines are even better.

[rchaud]

Great timing for this link, as I just found my e-reader in a random corner of my apartment after thinking I'd lost it while traveling! I'll be adding these to the reading queue.

[neilkakkar]

I'm stumped... What makes these great? Is it excellent writing? -\0/-

Leafing through a few, they seemed pretty mediocre in terms of saying something new / teaching me something.

[q-base]

The Mastermind from The Atavist needs a mention here as well. The best series of articles I have read in a long, long time. Beware that they may take a lot of your time if you start. https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind

Also agrees on "Have you ever tried to sell a diamond" from The Atlantic

[Kaibeezy]

Clicked through looking for “The Last Shot” from Harper’s, 1993. Was not disappointed.

Article is re the perpetuation of impossible dreams at the cost of disposability of lives underpinning pro sports.

Includes the immortal line uttered by a kid dreaming of enough money to buy a Nissan Sentra: “That shit is milk.”

[raldi]

I don't understand; that article doesn't seem to be on the list.

[hycaria]

After we both read and enjoyed The voyeur's motel by Gay Talese (who didn't know before hand, being from outside of the US), my SO offered me his book Fame and Obscurity, which contains Sinatra's profile. The Bridge would probably appeal at a lot of folks here.

[Arete314159]

The Marriage Cure by Katherine Boo. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/08/18/the-marriage-c...

[mixmax]

"High tech cowboys of the deep seas" should definitely be on the list

https://www.wired.com/2008/02/ff-seacowboys/

[flyingfences]

It is on the list.

[mud_dauber]

Seconded.

[miesman]

Well the goes the rest of the day

[dang]

2013 thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5397031