The Atlantic

The Atlantic Journalism of no party or clique—exploring the American idea since 1857.

“Policy makers have waded into one of the most fraught battles of the ‘mommy wars,’” Emily Oster wrote in 2024: “whether...
12/20/2025

“Policy makers have waded into one of the most fraught battles of the ‘mommy wars,’” Emily Oster wrote in 2024: “whether children are better off if their parents work or stay home.” https://theatln.tc/jek7YGHF

“Sing Sing” earnestly depicts the healing forces of art and vulnerability, Shirley Li wrote in 2024. Read more: https://...
12/20/2025

“Sing Sing” earnestly depicts the healing forces of art and vulnerability, Shirley Li wrote in 2024. Read more: https://theatln.tc/65RXGs8t

The film is based on the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program, which offers the titular maximum-security facility’s inhabitants an outlet in theater and other disciplines. The film’s depiction of art as a force for good “may not sound like the most surprising or fresh message for a film to deliver—of course art is a profound channel for clarity and connection—but ‘Sing Sing’ is remarkable for its empathetic approach to every character,” Li writes. “It’s a tender look at the act of being vulnerable, a process made exponentially more difficult in a place where a person’s humanity is often extinguished at the door.”

Li writes that part of the film’s warmth comes from its casting: Other than a handful of recognizable actors, the film’s ensemble consists of RTA alumni. The plot, too, is rooted in reality, and features an original play that the RTA actually staged. “With so many details pulled directly from history, along with scenes shot inside an intake prison that had housed the RTA alumni featured in ‘Sing Sing,’ the film often plays like a documentary,” Li writes. “The director Greg Kwedar trails the men into their cells and workspaces, catching snippets of their conversations. Sometimes, they reminisce about their life before prison. Other times, they joke about their roles. In these moments, the film avoids the showier histrionics seen in prison dramas in favor of capturing the men’s interiority. The camera moves slowly when it zooms, and close-ups come into focus with the same unhurried precision. Such a languorous pace, soundtracked by a hypnotic score composed by the National’s Bryce Dessner, casts a meditative spell, encouraging the viewer to notice more.”

One of the most striking elements of “Sing Sing,” Li continues “is that the film doesn’t care to explore how unusual the program may seem to outsiders. Instead, it takes the troupe members’ journeys with their newest production seriously, focusing on how much solace they gain in having a space to simply play.”

Full of redactions, the thousands of newly released Epstein files seem unlikely to end any Epstein conspiracy theorizing...
12/20/2025

Full of redactions, the thousands of newly released Epstein files seem unlikely to end any Epstein conspiracy theorizing. Likely, they will do the opposite, Charlie Warzel argues.

The new language of the internet is mind-numbing— and irresistible, Kaitlyn Tiffany wrote in January. https://theatln.tc...
12/20/2025

The new language of the internet is mind-numbing— and irresistible, Kaitlyn Tiffany wrote in January. https://theatln.tc/i7ztgwsD

Tiffany, for example, will tell her parents that she’s frustrated with the vacant shelves at their local grocery store by saying, “It’s giving apocalypse.” “This manner of speaking is a symptom (mild, I think) of what many people have started terming ‘brain rot,’” she writes. “Brain rot can also refer to surrealist content created to entertain people whose attention spans have presumably withered away thanks to time spent scrolling, or to a state of general onlineness that has rewired one’s mind.”

“The ease with which my friends, siblings, and I slide into this mode is a bit unsettling,” she explains. “These turns of phrase have infected my speech even though I deliberately limit my exposure to short-form video … I know I’m not alone, because people in my life complain about their own brain-rot speech patterns all the time.”
But worries about mental fogginess, lethargy, and reduced attention spans are a bit overwrought, Tiffany argues. Brain rot is an entertaining way to talk, an easy way to spruce up otherwise bland statements. For example, “he’s so me for this” just sounds better than “This is something I would do!” It’s also a way to fit in—“It’s a trend, like any other in the history of young people using words their parents and other authority figures don’t know,” she writes.

“Brain-rot phrases are a conversational crutch,” Tiffany continues. “They signal that you are in the know; when you say them out loud, you can give them a tinge of irony and make clear that you are aware it’s kind of silly.”

Today, a going theory about the cause of brain-rot language is that people have gotten stupider. “I don’t think this is true,” Tiffany continues. People who talk this way are sometimes frustrated with themselves for it, but they’re not dumb, she writes—“they’re amusing, perceptive, have a broad range of reference, and think critically about the things they’re talking about in such a doofy way. They are also, like me, being a bit lazy and noncommittal when speaking casually. There are worse things to be.”

Read more: https://theatln.tc/i7ztgwsD

🎨: The Atlantic

Many men are bad at texting other men back—and it might be making them lonelier, Matthew Schnipper wrote in January: htt...
12/20/2025

Many men are bad at texting other men back—and it might be making them lonelier, Matthew Schnipper wrote in January: https://theatln.tc/H4UdECLO

The release of the Epstein files left many of his victims disappointed with how the Justice Department handled it, Sarah...
12/20/2025

The release of the Epstein files left many of his victims disappointed with how the Justice Department handled it, Sarah Fitzpatrick reports. “America is getting a look tonight into how we have all felt for years,” one survivor said.

The quarterback Philip Rivers and the skier Lindsey Vonn show what can happen when athletes keep competing into their 40...
12/20/2025

The quarterback Philip Rivers and the skier Lindsey Vonn show what can happen when athletes keep competing into their 40s, Sally Jenkins writes: https://theatln.tc/qNt3yBSI

Toyotathon and other end-of-year sales events are a bit different this year. Patrick George on why America is stuck with...
12/20/2025

Toyotathon and other end-of-year sales events are a bit different this year. Patrick George on why America is stuck with expensive cars for the foreseeable future:

Just as he did in the private sector, Donald Trump is slapping his name and face on everything he can—but the difference...
12/20/2025

Just as he did in the private sector, Donald Trump is slapping his name and face on everything he can—but the difference is that America’s institutions don’t belong to him, David A. Graham argues in The Atlantic Daily:

12/20/2025

Prediction markets are part of a larger “commercial and political kind of apparatus that is working really hard to separate young guys from their money,” Max Read tells Charlie Warzel.

Listen to the full episode at the link: https://theatln.tc/ON744WIm

12/20/2025

WATCH LIVE: Jeffrey Goldberg and his panelists discuss how President Donald Trump is rewriting history, and the reasons behind his fast and furious address to the nation.

“We are sad for both of [our adult children], who are now 33 and 25. Should we help them financially?” one reader writes...
12/20/2025

“We are sad for both of [our adult children], who are now 33 and 25. Should we help them financially?” one reader writes. “It seems like the majority of our friends have done this for their kids, and their relationships are better.” (From 2020)

Address

Washington Mall, DC

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Atlantic posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category