I profiled Matt Mercer, the most famous Dungeons & Dragons player on the planet, which is an exceptionally rare station in life. We mostly talked about what it's like to turn an off-hours hobby into a multimedia empire like Critical Role.

No One Ever Thought They’d Get Famous Playing This Dorky Game. Then This Guy Came Along.

Matthew Mercer takes D&D very seriously. But he never thought he'd become its biggest superstar.

Thinking about late 2015 when VICE launched Broadly and immediately went all-in on glowing Ann Coulter content.

X is still a better name than "Bluesky."

Tried to figure it out!

Seriously, How Famous Is Carrie Bradshaw Supposed to Be?

She’s invited to the Met Gala but can’t get anyone to listen to her podcast. What is the truth?

Bluesky Mutuals while not being Twitter Mutuals is the darkest of all online friendships. Feels so wonderfully profane and sick. Social media is fun again.

I will say I cannot fully trust this "Bluesky" business. Its whole gestalt -- brand name, weirdly long syntax-heavy @s, association with Jack Dorsey -- has a distinct crypto-guy tang. Going to betray us all inevitably.

Reduced to learning about NBA free agency news by typing in "ESPN dot com" into my address bar due to the fall of Twitter... My humiliation knows no bounds.

Still trying to figure out my Bluesky brand! Who do I want to be on here... Posts that could get me fired? Copy-and-pasted tweets? The most mild content "look at the sandwich I'm eating" content imaginable? Cracking under the pressure.

Here's the secret with journalism: After you send your silly emails, there really isn't a whole lot to do on any given day.

In the new Zelda game Link becomes a blogger, and I wrote about how the goodhearted Hylians finally have the free press they deserve. https://slate.com/culture/2023/05/zelda-tears-kingdom-lucky-clover-gazette-rito.html