Kids These Days: It’s Time to Stereotype Generation Z

Millennials are, like, so 2000-and-late. Marketers now hope to sell stuff to kids born after 1995—so-called Generation Z. And this latest demographic designation is just as removed and reductive as any other. This is how marketing firm FutureCast puts it: “They view their identity as a curated composition.” (So … selfies are a thing!) “All…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off

The Night Of's Single Season Is the Future of TV

In anticipation of Sunday's Emmy Awards, this week WIRED staffers are looking back at some of their favorite shows from the past year. The crisis of television in 2017 is a straightforward one: There’s just too much of it. This may seem an enormous allegation, but consider the medium’s gluttonous expansion in the past decade.…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off

Ink Different: Splatoon 2 Is Great, But It's Not Exactly New

Bless the sound designers and Foley artists who worked on Splatoon 2: the hypercolored team-based shooter boasts a squish-per-minute count that has got to be the highest in videogame history. In one illustrative sequence, I sink into the ground and burrow along a path of luminescent purple ink of my own creation—then burst back to…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off

Gaming's Fall Season Ain't What It Used to Be

On October 27, three of the biggest videogames of the year arrive, all at once: Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, Assassin's Creed: Origins, and Nintendo's Super Mario Odyssey. Together, these three titles represent a cross-section of the big-budget gaming industry, from a family-friendly run-and-jump romp to a bloody rampage through a Nazi-filled alternate history. From…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off

The Alt-Right's Newest Ploy? Trolling With False Symbols

"Don't feed the trolls" remains indispensable guidance for the internet, if only because trolls exist solely to get a reaction out of you. Ignore them and they lose all power. But the most fiendish trolls are evolving from weekend anglers who occasionally reel people in to Deadliest Catch-level professionals using bait so effective that people…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off

The Ins and Outs of Silicon Valley's New Sexual Revolution

In Silicon Valley, love’s many splendors often take the form of, well, many lovers. For certain millennials in tech—as well as, rumor has it, a few middle-aged CEOs—polyamory holds especial appeal. Perhaps that’s because making it work is as much an engineering challenge as an emotional one, requiring partners to navigate a complex web of…

By EveAim March 20, 2019 Off