Tag: regular people
Has the Rise of the One Percent Really Been Debunked?
Everyone knows that inequality has gotten out of hand in the United States. Thanks largely to the work of three now-famous economists—Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman—it’s probably one of the most widely accepted facts in modern American life. Since the early aughts, they have meticulously documented the rate at which the richest have pulled away from the rest. Their research transformed domestic politics, leading President Barack Obama to declare inequality the “defining issue of our time,” and
What Happened to Baseball Jerseys?
Last week, as American sports fans’ eyes moved from football to baseball, a great cry—or at least a significant grumble—was heard from MLB players arriving at spring training: The new uniforms are bad.
The MLB announced the uniforms, which have been redesigned by Nike for all of the league’s 30 teams, in a press release last Tuesday. It included praise from some of the biggest baseball names on Nike’s endorsement roster. As images of the uniforms began to circulate, however,
TikTok Is a Shopping App Now
Krysten Wagner, a Los Angeles–based TikTok influencer, is defending her decision to promote products on TikTok while wearing a face mask that’s on sale for $50. In a video from June, Wagner squeezes white cream from a shiny blue tube and begins applying it to her taut, perfectly clear skin. “If you’re not familiar,” she says, smearing the cream on her forehead, “you can now shop in the TikTok app.”
For the past few months, she has been experimenting with
Vegan Leather Is Largely Pleather
If you’ve ever purchased a pair of faux-leather sandals without realizing they were faux, the sandals probably cleared up that misunderstanding for you pretty quickly. Both real and fake leather can shred your feet on first meeting, but the real stuff will eventually stretch, bend, soften, and mold itself to your needs. Faux leather, meanwhile, is more likely to remind you why it has long had the derogatory moniker of pleather. It’s plastic, which doesn’t really break in
How Unboxing Elaborate Packages Became an American Pastime
Of all the things I’ve purchased during the pandemic, the most useful has been a box cutter. Until last summer, I had put off buying one for more than 15 years, through no fewer than nine apartment moves’ worth of unpacking with dull scissors and countless struggles against shipping boxes bound by tape reinforced with tiny threads. This knife entered my life as a tool for some minor home repairs, but it’s scarcely exited
Donald Trump Jr., Aggrieved Instagram Influencer
Donald Trump Jr.’s highest-performing Instagram post of the year (so far) is a piece of misinformation. Shared in March, it’s a black square with “THIS IS A TEST” written in red across the top. “Instagram has been limiting our posts so that no more than 7% of our friends see our posts,” it reads. “If you see this post, please simply comment with ‘Yes’ and then like it.” This exact text—with its specific choice of 7 percent and its ambiguous