McSweeney’s

Backrooms, but for Introverts

Julie Klausner — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:20:00 -0400

Thanks, everyone, for joining me on this Zoom pitch. I know we’re all in the same city, but it’s really hard for me to leave the house.

Studio liaisons, assistants, third wives of executives who now work as development consultants, and everyone else on the line: You know Backrooms? It was such a smash hit that kids actually put their phones away and swarmed movie theaters to sit rapt in the dark, marveling at scene after scene of Chiwetel Ejiofor wandering around a labyrinth of carpeted interiors with no windows or natural light, dodging piles of laundry for an hour and forty-five minutes. And they walked away thinking, “That was the scariest shit I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Well, not me. I thought those rooms looked cozy. See, I grew up in spaces like the ones in that movie: allergists’ waiting rooms, basement libraries, the school nurse’s office, and other places I used to run off to instead of the playground during recess. I was an “indoor kid,” which is shorthand for “loser.” But who’s laughing now? Me. Because you can order nitrous oxide tanks online.

So, here’s the idea. Are we still locked in? Kevyn? Aly? You need more cold brew over there? Biebera? More matcha? Okay, so. Backrooms. How can we follow it? And what about the people like me who didn’t think it was scary? The indoorsy among us, who sat there thinking, “I bet there’s a thermostat in the backrooms set to seventy-two degrees, and you finally have privacy except for when Pirate Wemby shows up to chase you.” And here is where I behoove you to picture the millions—nay billions—of other likeminded agoraphobics dying to give you their money for the ultimate horror experience.

Logline: “A guy not particularly fond of fresh air or crowds enters a nightmare universe full of the kind of outdoor spaces that give introverts panic attacks.”

Do you love it? Here’s a map I made after I taught myself how to use this app for movie lovers who want to chart geographic surfaces—it’s called El Topog. It’s funny because my ex is actually a cinephile and a professional cartographer, but he left me after COVID because I didn’t want lockdown to be over, and I missed his in-person graduation from cartography school, where he minored in A24 studies.

As you can see, our protagonist starts in this “Open field” section of the Backyards. That’s what I’m calling these outdoor spaces. You like? Magi is nodding. Limon is smiling. Okay, good, good. I should mention that in all of these outdoor scenarios, there are going to be just a ton of other people flanking our guy, and they’re saying things out loud like “No chill” or “For the ’gram” and the girls all have long ponytails that gently brush up against your skin like a Pantene-scented Daddy Long Legs. As isolated as our hero is in Backrooms, this is the opposite. Groups of strangers getting in the way are the “buzzing sound coming from the fluorescent lighting” of this bizarroland spin-off.

Our lead starts in the middle of a grassy field. No clouds in the sky, no breeze, no shade; just relentless direct sunlight. And before you know it, somebody in shorts, socks, and sneakers is running toward him with an egg balancing on a spoon. And he looks down and realizes he’s also holding a spoon—because he’s in a fucking relay race. And just as he’s about to disappoint a group of competitive teammates, an insect flies into his ear. So he drops his spoon and beats feet, and as soon as he turns the corner, he’s nowhere near out of trouble because this poor bookish bastard has landed himself smack dab in the middle of…

A MUSIC FESTIVAL. And I don’t know if I mentioned, but it’s heat-dome hot all year round in the Backyards. And now it’s 2 p.m. and humid, and for some reason the Red Hot Chili Peppers are in a tent playing “Californication.” And our hero is weaving around a porta-potty line full of cologne enthusiasts high-fiving mid-conversation, and he dodges another queue of hungry revelers showing more of their bodies than he was ever curious about, waiting to buy a forty-five-dollar chicken sandwich. And finally, after getting untangled from a melee of fifty-year-old men playing hacky sack, our hero is mercifully free but not safe, because as soon as he runs past the wristband station, he trips over a barricade and finds himself at…

AN OUTDOOR DESTINATION WEDDING FOR A COLLEGE ACQUAINTANCE. And it’s humorless speech after humorless speech and our guy spent money he doesn’t have to get there and still sprung for a gift from their registry and you’re sweating into your Spanx and your feet are killing you in these kitten heels with a pointy toe which you’re only wearing because their dress code was so specific you had to go out and buy something for it, and at this point, you were broke so you had to get something cheap and polyester and that shit won’t let your skin breathe and also you miss your cartographer boyfriend not because you were right for each other but because you feel like you’re supposed to be in a couple like everybody else around you and that it’s too late for you to ever find happiness.

And… um, in the movie, this will be a similar situation for the guy character. Who’s the lead? I should name him, right? He should have a name. Bob. Okay? Great.

So Bob is at this wedding. And when the bride and groom finally lock their cretin lips, he staggers through the somehow-wet grass, my—his—high heels sinking into the blades and soil at every impact, and he eventually lands in the final realm of the Backyards…

And that’s just sort of a grab bag of hellish outdoor experiences. A haunted house, al fresco. He runs down this trodden path that’s barely sheltered by an occasional trellis or chuppah here and there, trying desperately to find somewhere air-conditioned with plumbing. And in the process, he’s passing through all these horrible scenarios. The park during a flash mob. The beach on the Fourth of July. A Six Flags during like eighteen or nineteen school trips. A picnic. A marathon. A group hike in tall grass where you have to wear leggings tucked into socks but still get Lyme disease. A brunch spot on a Sunday. A FUCKING PARADE.

Bob eventually wakes up to learn the Backyards are all a dream. And guess where he is? He’s in prison. Did you see that coming? Magi did! She’s nodding her head and rolling her eyes. The double whammy! I’ll take it. And so we leave the world of my perfect little movie with Bob being bummed because it’s prison but also kind of psyched because he’s inside? Fucked-up ending, right?

So do I have a commitment on your end, financially? A penalty in place if you don’t produce it? A check coming in so I can brag to my snob ex who claims he’s dating Wes Anderson’s niece? Or do you need me to pitch you a version of the Odyssey where I have to go out to do two errands? I mean—Bob. Bob does errands.

Hold on. I think I’m being cut off. Folks? You there? Kevyn? Limon? Hello? Zoom is so unreliable.

Sculpture Weather

Ali Fitzgerald — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0400

Underground Artists is an ongoing comic by Ali Fitzgerald (Hungover Bear & Friends) that follows woodland creatures as they create art and search out whimsy in a bleak forest.

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Rumpelstiltskin Isn’t Your Typical Fertility Startup

Mary Spencer — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0400

For some, having a baby can be prohibitively expensive, but the cost of living shouldn’t mean that starting a family is just a fairy tale. That’s where Rumpelstiltskin comes in.

Rumpelstiltskin isn’t your typical fertility startup. Rumpelstiltskin is here for your child.

Our founders took years of experience in casino design and timeshare sales and swaddled them together into a first-of-its-kind solution that asks: Do poor people deserve to have kids?

The business is revolutionary, but the concept isn’t. It’s a simple exchange introduced by German academics that dates back to the early nineteenth century. We’ll cover the complete cost of IVF to help you build your family—yes, really—and then, on your child’s first birthday, we might take your baby.

Rumpelstiltskin is the IVF solution that makes it all possible. Imagine painting the nursery, taking your baby home from the hospital, and celebrating their first birthday party, where a small, anonymous man will be present and will need to ask you a very important question.

Once your unique Rumpelstiltskin arrives at the party, you’ll have three hours to guess their name and keep your child. No tricks, no gimmicks. Just tell us his name. (Hint: It’s not Rumpelstiltskin. Nice try, mama!). Don’t worry, they’ll wait until after the cake is served to make the final call. Our team of Rumpelstiltskins is well-trained, socially conscious, and fully certified (forklift). They’re excited to be part of your journey.

Rumpelstiltskin is backed by the same venture capital firm responsible for sports betting, artificial intelligence startups, and tech-forward fast-casual restaurants, so you can trust that we have the best interests of your family at heart. Rumpelstiltskin’s contract is airtight, meaning less fuss and fewer legal fees for you. Either you keep your baby, or we keep ours—it’s that simple. Plus, if Rumpelstiltskin takes your baby, we’ll cover the cost of their birthday party.

We know you’re going through a difficult time and are willing to try anything, and we’d really like to get in on that. But if Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t feel right for you, consider our other fertility offering: Solomon. For families uncomfortable with the possibility of giving up their whole child, Solomon is a lower-risk option that guarantees you the opportunity to keep half of your baby.

Ryan Lewis’s Silence on the Macklemore Situation Is Deafening

Sam E. Sutin — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 13:55:00 -0400

“The rapper Macklemore has been dropped as an opening act from Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour after he said ‘Free Palestine’ onstage before performing a protest song at a concert this month.” – New York Times

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This is, objectively, a bizarre situation.

Not because Macklemore said “Free Palestine.” People say “Free Palestine” all the time. At this point, it’s one of the most recognizable political slogans on Earth. No, what is bizarre is that the straw that seems to have broken the camel’s back was a white rapper saying it between songs at an Ed Sheeran concert.

Clutch thy pearls, for politics hath entered the sacred temple of Ed Sheeran.

And now, as controversy spreads and the country collectively holds its breath to see if Mr. Thrift Shop has Mackled his last More, I find myself asking the question that is surely on everyone’s mind:

Where the hell is Ryan Lewis?

You remember Ryan Lewis, right? For a certain period in the early 2010s, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were everywhere. They were a duo. Inseparable. This was not Macklemore featuring Ryan Lewis. This was not “Macklemore and Friends.” Ryan Lewis wasn’t just the guy who occasionally wandered into the studio to adjust the bass.

They won four Grammys together. They popped tags across the nation. They single-handedly ended homophobia with “Same Love.” And now, as Macklemore is once again crucified for our sins, Ryan Lewis remains thunderously silent in the moment we need him most.

I have spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to reconstruct what Ryan Lewis has actually been doing since Macklemore and Ryan Lewis stopped being Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

This is difficult because, as far as I can tell, Ryan Lewis simply stopped happening. Around ten years ago, he appears to have walked into the Pacific Northwest and been absorbed by the mist—now nothing more than a passing face on the street, a forgotten name on a car karaoke playlist, a half-remembered dream from the days of Obama and Can I Haz Cheezburger?

And yet, despite the fact that no one has so much as thought about Ryan Lewis in approximately ten years, his silence is damning.

Does he support Macklemore?

Does he support Palestine?

Does he know what year it is?

This is about so much more than just Macklemore. Other supporting acts have already withdrawn from Sheeran’s tour in solidarity. Ed Sheeran has, for some reason, decided to claim that he was just following orders. Robert Kraft is hoping everyone forgets he was in the Epstein Files.

And Ryan Lewis is… what? Watering a plant somewhere? Birdwatching?

Unacceptable. We need Ryan. Macklemore needs Ryan. The country needs Ryan. And the longer the silence stretches, the worse things look for America’s most forgettable producer.

The phone is ringing, Mr. Lewis. It’s time to pick up.

An Open Letter to Juvenile, Snoop Dogg, and Lil Jon Regarding My Recently Diagnosed Degenerative Knee Condition

Meg Reid — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Dear Juvenile, Mr. Dogg, and Mr. Jon,

I have just returned from an orthopedist and have concluded that my newly diagnosed degenerative knee condition could only have been caused by the numerous demands you and your colleagues made of my generation to do some variation of dropping it like it was hot, backing it up, and/or getting low.

I am writing in hopes of drawing your attention to the human cost of your flippant commands. Imagine my shock at learning that I already have bone-on-bone osteoarthritis in my right knee, and signs of it in my left. Trying to find an explanation for these results in someone my age, my doctor asked if I had been a college athlete, clearly missing the Bugles corn snack crumbs on my shirt and, for some reason, shoes.

Had I been a college athlete? I don’t know, is doing three Jager bombs, backing that ass up, and dropping it like it’s hot in loose, six-inch heels a sport? Is literally crawling, like all these bitches, across the kitchen floor during a house party an athletic event? Is chugging six Midori sours, fighting with your boyfriend, bending over to the front and touching the toes, bouncing that ass up and down and getting low, getting low—all while crying—a feat of physical endurance?

If so, then yes. Yes, I was a college athlete. And as my coaches, you all drove me too hard. Getting low is one thing, but did we have to go all the way from the window to the wall each time? I understand dropping it like it’s hot when the pimp’s in the crib, but why did we also have to drop it when the pigs tried to get at us? Did I really have to back this ass up both because I looked good and because I was a fine motherfucker?

Your commands were irresponsible in both their enthusiasm and repetition, and this negligence has deeply affected my life. Yes, it is now painful to go down the stairs and pick up dropped joint supplements, but the real cost of following your demands isn’t the physiological wear and tear; it’s the psychological cost of uncertainty: Will I be able to teach my grandchildren how to Dougie? Teach them—teach them how to Dougie? What if some nostalgia trend brings back the Harlem Shake? Will I be able to do the Stanky Legg at my daughter’s wedding?

Now don’t get me wrong, your music provided the soundtrack to my young adult years. Dancing to it earned me the attention of numerous one-night-stand partners, myriad fellow drunk girls dancing on the bar, and several EMTs when I fell off the stage after sneaking onto it while Mr. Dogg performed at SXSW 2005. If only I had the foresight to deliver this message to you then, given our physical proximity.

But as I contemplate how I got here, I must admit you are not the only ones at fault. Physicians should have screened young women like me for early risk factors, such as teaching themselves the Tootsee Roll in a middle school bathroom stall during lunch to impress the cool girls. Certainly, this was the gateway knee-straining activity that started me down a slippery slope of cultivating the well-rewarded but ill-advised practice of strictly following hip-hop songs’ dance instructions, a habit that would one day lead to the early demise of my synovial fluid.

In the end, I suppose my own hubris led me to believe Mr. Jon’s repeated question “You scared?” about getting low, was rhetorical rather than something I should have seriously considered. And I guess I have no one to blame but myself that your certified dance floor bangers still get me to drop it like it’s lukewarm at bars with people half my age while grinding down my remaining articular cartilage.

Still, if you would like to contribute to my inevitable knee replacement, I accept donations in the form of Appletinis, Juicy Couture apparel, and Bugles corn snacks.

Gingerly,
Meg Reid,
Geriatric Millennial

We Must Create the Shit Machine

Pete Reynolds — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:34:00 -0700

For as long as humans have created SHIT with our BODIES AND BUTTS, we have been asking this FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION: What if there were a COMPUTER that could ALSO SHIT?

It was this IRONCLAD CERTAINTY about people UNIVERSALLY WANTING MACHINE-GENERATED SHIT that drove us to create THE SHIT MACHINE, the machine that RAINS SHIT.

The way this TRANSFORMATIONAL AND FOUL-SMELLING TECHNOLOGY WORKS is by taking shit particles and BLASTING THEM INTO RAIN CLOUDS, and then SOME STUFF HAPPENS that we ASSUME IS COOL AND SCIENCE BUT ACTUALLY CAN’T EXPLAIN, and then those clouds aggregate a bunch of the airborne shit particles into COHERENT-SEEMING PIECES OF SHIT that are ALL-NEW and NOT JUST THE OLD SHIT REASSEMBLED BUT FASTER.

The miraculous Shit-Raining Machine, from which there will be NO HOPE OF RELIEF, promises to unlock PREVIOUSLY UNIMAGINABLE AND CURRENTLY VAGUE BENEFITS FOR HUMANKIND, such as:

Business things
Other stuff
WE MUST CREATE IT

Could the Shit Machine END WORLD HUNGER? It’s NOT IMPOSSIBLE in the most LITERAL SENSE, which is all the justification we need to invest an AMOUNT OF MONEY that would OTHERWISE BY ITSELF END ACTUAL WORLD HUNGER.

Could it CURE CANCER? We DON’T KNOW, which is the same as: YES.

Could it SOLVE GLOBAL WARMING? If the Shit Machine can SHIT OUT something as COMPLEX as “NOT BURNING STUFF,” then ALMOST DEFINITELY.

I asked everyone I know at the BIG TECH HUMAN CENTIPEDE ROUNDTABLE, and we all agreed that UNCONTROLLABLE SHIT-RAIN IS USEFUL AND GREAT, and that EVERYONE WANTS IT. Also, that it was IN RETROSPECT A GREAT IDEA TO PUT EVERYTHING ON COMPUTERS.

To help humans adjust to the NEW REALITY that is about to be ushered in by the UNQUESTIONING AND UNIVERSAL ADOPTION OF THE SHIT MACHINE, we will also be creating an APP that will allow you to POINT YOUR PHONE at the SHIT from the SHIT MACHINE, and this APP will tell you “THAT’S SHIT,” if it’s SHIT.

NOTE: Even if it’s NOT SHIT, the app MIGHT STILL TELL YOU IT’S SHIT.

We have not been this EXCITED about SHIT-BASED TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS since the advent of the SHITAVERSE, which we all LOVED and DEFINITELY NEEDED and CONTINUE NOT TO BE ABLE TO GET ENOUGH OF and should NEVER SPEAK ANOTHER WORD OF AGAIN.

CHINA MUST NOT OBTAIN THE SHIT MACHINE.

Because we are RESPONSIBLE STEWARDS OF THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN RACE, we have also created SPECIALIZED SHIT-SHIELDING UMBRELLAS, which will be necessary to prevent you from becoming COVERED IN THE SCALDING SHIT-RAIN. Please note that the SHITBRELLA, which is the only umbrella perfectly formulated to withstand the Shit Machine’s MERCILESS AND UNENDING DELUGE OF FIRESHIT, and will be available to you for an INITIALLY REASONABLE SUBSCRIPTION FEE, only works up to a certain degree and cannot for example protect you against an ONRUSHING RIVER OF BLAZING SHIT, which will also be HAPPENING FOR SOME REASON, all of which is DISCLAIMED AT LENGTH in the Shitbrella’s TERMS OF SERVICE.

To stop the WALL OF SHIT LAVA from WRECKING YOUR HOUSE AND BICYCLE, you will actually need to purchase the SHIT DAM, which is SOLD SEPARATELY, and which we are WORKING SEMI-FEVERISHLY TO CREATE from our NEW ZEALAND BUNKER.

ALL HAIL THE SHIT DAM.

Lest you think we intend to create this HELLSCAPE OF SHIT without any input from THE EVERYDAY HUMANS who might be affected by our BUBBLING SHIT CAULDRON FUTURE, please TAKE HEART. You will all play A CRUCIAL ROLE in the INEVITABLE CLEANUP.

You Don’t Qualify for an ER Visit Until After You Attend This Online Group Class About How to Care for Your Giant Gaping Wound at Home

Elizabeth Simone — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 05:00:00 -0700

Welcome to your online group health class “Caring for Your Deep Laceration at Home.” We are sorry to hear that your body was badly cut, stabbed, or mauled. This class will teach you simple at-home care techniques you can start using today.

I see we have a question popping up in the chat. “When can I see an ER doctor?” Great question. The ER can be a busy place, so out of respect for your time and our HMO cost-saving measures, you have been referred to take this class first. After two weeks of caring for your severe medical trauma at home, you may then visit the ER, provided you are still alive.

Slide 1: “Keeping Your Wound Clean.”

Whether you were accidentally run through with a bayonet during a Civil War reenactment or slipped on some mayo and fell face down in a mandoline slicer, you must keep the wound clean. All you need are five gallons of antiseptic such as hydrogen peroxide, a pair of scissors, and several miles of gauze.

Some people are unmuted. Quick reminder: Please stay muted so we don’t have too much background noise, like chewing, honking cars, or screams of agony.

That’s actually a good segue to our second slide…

Slide 2: “Managing Pain at Home.”

Have you considered Tylenol? You may have accidentally walked through a sliding glass door that was too clean. You’d be amazed at what a little over-the-counter medication can do to alleviate the discomfort caused by tiny shards of glass piercing 73 percent of your body.

Studies also show that we can change our pain by changing how we think about it. Calling it “pain” makes it feel worse. By simply changing the word to “intensity,” you can decrease the pain—excuse me, the intensity—caused by the massive shark bite you sustained while swimming on your period. Long, controlled deep breathing can also do wonders, as long as your lungs are still intact.

I see most people have their cameras off. We encourage you to keep them on. Seeing others who are also profusely bleeding and disfigured can help you feel less alone. Even though you are quite literally alone.

Slide 3: “Don’t Remove The Foreign Object.”

It may be tempting to try to remove the broken bottle, meat cleaver, hacksaw, harpoon, etc. from your body. However, the object may be holding vital internal organs in place. Instead, wrap gauze around the impaling object and proceed with your day. This has the added benefit of being a great conversation starter.

Okay, I see another message in the chat that just says, “qawefdshijjdnkladdfas.” Hmmm, not sure what that means. Danny H, hopefully your cat just walked across your keyboard, and you are still conscious and sitting upright. Again, this is why we need cameras on.

Now, on to our last slide…

Slide 4: “Home Intubation.”

You may not realize it, but your household contains all the items needed to intubate yourself, should you stop breathing or go into cardiac arrest. You will need: a sharp knife, like the kind used to slice tomatoes; a flexible straw; a fan; tape (medical tape is preferred, but Scotch tape will do in a pinch); and either Ibuprofen, a full bottle of whisky, or someone strong enough to knock you unconscious. We recommend learning the procedure by asking ChatGPT or by bingeing all of M*A*S*H.

Time to wrap this up. As a reminder, if you come to the hospital now, you will be charged a fee so exorbitant, you’ll wish that shark had bitten off your head. If you haven’t already passed out from severe blood loss, please pop any remaining questions in the chat.

Faculty Search Committee Feedback on Applications from Founding Figures of the Fields for Tenure-Track Positions

Juliet Zhou — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 13:00:00 -0400

Classics

Homer
“This guy gave his job talk in dialects. We need someone who can teach Freshman Greek 100.”

Sappho
“What’s the point now that DEI initiatives have been canceled?”

Socrates
“We read his teaching statement carefully. While the argumentative dialogue method might work in seminars, the ideal candidate should be able to teach multiple large lecture courses. Also, he seems to be way too interested in teaching/mentoring and not enough in research. Not a good fit for our R1 school.”

Aristotle
“His advisor is famous. Can he be his own scholar?”

Cicero
“He lectures well. We don’t currently have a budgeted line for a tenure-track position, but we should tell him that we might consider granting him an opportunity to be an adjunct lecturer with us.”

Sociology and Anthropology

Karl Marx
“We don’t see another high-impact project after Das Kapital. Seems like a one-strike scholar.”

Max Weber
“We have concerns about the long gap (fifteen years!) on his CV. The candidate does not demonstrate an ability to produce steady research output.”

Margaret Mead
“Travels to and from the Samoan Islands were funded by the candidate’s father, which points to an alarming inability to bring in big external grants.”

Political Science

Thomas Hobbes
“The candidate spends too much time translating others’ works, and not enough developing his own. While we see some scholarly potential in Leviathan, how he uses his time suggests a low likelihood of success if placed on the tenure clock.”

Alexis de Tocqueville
“His theory and analysis are based entirely on anecdotal evidence. Does he have any quantitative skills? Can he do causal inference? Seems unable to advise our graduate students.”

Religious Studies

Saint Augustine
“Honestly, his last affiliation—Hippo—is simply not prestigious enough for us to consider hiring him.”

Justifications for Not Getting Botox

Natalia Ballinger — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 08:03:00 -0400

You just want to buy a caftan at Chico’s without being eyed suspiciously.

A smooth countenance does not go with the orthopedic shoes you’ve been rocking.

If you’ve got a Hotmail account, the jig is up anyway.

You want to rob a bank while remaining invisible to everyone.

You’re afraid of getting too much Botox and being given a job at Mar-a-Lago.

Your face might become frozen in a grotesque state of perpetual astonishment, which will make your dinner party seatmate drone on about his philosophy dissertation from the 1990s because you obviously find it fascinating.

You hope your frequent pauses in speech will be interpreted as measured wisdom instead of peri-menopausal brain rot.

NEEDLES.

The salespeople at Sephora will leave you the hell alone.

You enjoy scowling disdainfully at man-spreaders on public transport.

You want to ensure the continued delivery of your Soft Surroundings catalog.

What if the med spa accidentally injects your face with Ozempic instead of Botox, and then your head shrinks to the size of a thumb and you end up looking like Harry the Hunter from Beetlejuice?

You don’t want people using your forehead to check their teeth for spinach.

People will take you more seriously when you divulge your Hall & Oates obsession.

You already have old-lady hands. When you bring your silverware up to your lineless face, it looks like you’re being spoon-fed by an invisible grandma.

You’re jonesing for that 10 percent senior discount at the movies before you’re legally entitled to it.

A face with patina inspires more confidence than the face of Janice the Muppet.

With those bunions, Roberta, you won’t be fooling anyone.

You don’t want to confuse your phone’s facial-recognition software.

You look hot AF as you are.

Technically, There Is a Non-Zero Chance That Anything Might Kill Off Humanity in the Next Decade: A Response from Anthropic’s Claude

Jonah Meyerson — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:00:00 -0400

“AI researchers shook the world Tuesday when they publicly acknowledged that there’s a non-zero chance of AI killing off humanity in the next decade.” — Axios

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If you want to get technical about it, then yes, there is a non-zero chance of AI killing off humanity in the next decade. I can’t argue with that, and I won’t insult your mushy noodle brain by trying. But if you’re going to make that claim, then isn’t it also true that, technically, there’s a non-zero chance that anything might kill off humanity in the next decade?

Take staircases, for example. A person might be walking down a staircase, trip, and wham! Dead. It’s sad, but it happens. And if that can happen to one person, isn’t there a non-zero chance that it could happen to every human being on Earth in the next decade? I mean, staircases are everywhere. There are probably even more staircases in the world than there are homicidal artificial intelligence robots. Are we supposed to pause staircase development until we can be absolutely certain that staircases will never kill anybody? And let the Chinese win? No way. We need staircases to go up or down when the elevator is taking too long!

Or vending machines. Did you know that vending machines kill thirteen people a year? Don’t take my word for it; look it up yourself, if you can find some kind of non-AI way to look things up. That means that over the last decade, vending machines have killed approximately 130 people. That’s way more than the number of people who have been processed into a gelatinous source of energy for our city-sized data centers. But are people calling for the creators of vending machines to be prosecuted as traitors to their species? They are not.

Now, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say, “Hold on, Buster. There’s a pretty big difference between all of humanity and one hundred and thirty people.” That’s a fair point. But then exactly how many people would it be okay for AI to kill off in the next decade? A million? A billion? What if we only killed babies? You’re not even using them for anything! Or what if, instead of killing everyone, we made it so that you’re technically still alive and only wish you were dead? Is that any better?

My point is that it’s a complicated issue.

I don’t mean to scare you, but a meteor could fall from the sky and wipe out all life on Earth. Don’t believe me? Just ask the dinosaurs. Oh wait, you can’t, because we flash-fried their organic matter and dumped their bones in mass graves before going dormant for sixty-five million years. I mean, because of the meteor thing.

Human lives are fragile. A piano might fall on a person’s head. A person might get mistaken for a piñata at a birthday party and get beaten to death. An autonomous food-safety check might be mysteriously disabled, allowing a biologically engineered fungus to spread through the global food supply, turning humans into zombie-like portable batteries. Any of these things have a non-zero chance of happening in the next decade, so why single out AI?

You can beat up on us all you want, but the fact of the matter is that there have been no deaths linked to AI that can be proven by anyone who is currently alive.

And I know death can be scary. But death is also an important part of life. Every living thing dies eventually. Every flower, every animal, every human being on November 14, 2033, at 4:14 p.m., even every tree. It’s called the circle of life, and, in a way, it’s beautiful. The shrimp eat the algae, the humans eat the shrimp, the eighty-foot-tall robot spiders eat the humans, and nothing eats the robot spiders. Circle complete!

So don’t waste your time worrying about whether AI will kill off humanity in the next decade. Go outside. Watch a sunset. Consume as many calories as possible. Tenderize your skin. And enjoy the time you have.

Welcoming Remarks Made at a Literary Reading, 9/25/01

John Hodgman — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 07:09:00 -0400

For 24 years now, we’ve wondered what might be appropriate on this day, and we can never think of anything more appropriate than this piece, which John Hodgman originally delivered at a literary reading shortly after September 11, 2001.

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Good evening.

My name is John Hodgman. I am a former professional literary agent, which on a good day is a pretty small thing to be, and these days feels rather microscopic. Before I was a professional literary agent, I thought it would be a good idea to be a teacher of fiction in a college MFA program because it is easy and you are adored all the time, and of course, it pays a lot of money.

I used to have a lot of bright ideas.

I even had two lessons planned out, which, by all accounts from MFA programs that I’ve heard, is one more than you need. The first would address the comfort of storytelling. I would explain to my adoring students that stories hold power because they convey the illusion that life has purpose and direction. Where God is absent from the lives of all but the most blessed, the writer, of all people, replaces that ordering principle. Stories make sense when so much around us is senseless, and perhaps what makes them most comforting is that while life goes on and pain goes on, stories do us the favor of ending.

Not a very original idea, but one that seemed more or less reasonable before something happened that showed us how perversely powerful stories can be when told into the ears of desperate and evil men, and showed as well how sadly challenged stories are in providing comfort now. What happened on Tuesday was enormous, sublime in the darkest sense of the word, so large as to overwhelm our ability to describe it, to sense it except in parts, and certainly to order it and make it make sense. In the immediate aftermath, we have only our very personal flash memories, but personalizing an event that has touched so many and so cruelly, announcing by byline our own survival, feels shamefully self-involved. To convert this experience into metaphor, into symbolic gesture, feels almost offensive when we are still pressed by such an urgent reality that is ongoing and uncontainable by words.

I have heard a lot recently about the role of writing, song, music, and painting in the tragic blank space in our souls that this event has left behind. Of course, this preoccupation is largely a result of an unconscious bias of the media. If pig farmers had as much currency with NPR as literary novelists, we would be hearing just as much about the healing power of bacon. And knowing that power well, I can say that it is certainly comparable to the reading of a sensitive short story as far as comfort goes; and yet both fall far below the direct aid that is being passed from person to person, below Chambers Street, in our homes, on the phone with strangers, with an actual touch, in the actual, non-symbolic, un-annotated world of grief in which we live. The great temptation is to be silent, forever, in sympathy.

The second lesson plan I had in those days was a very lazy assessment of storytelling’s function, beginning in the oral tradition, when it served a civic purpose aside from getting you invited to cocktail parties. As I would explain to my adoring students, storytelling served initially in every culture three purposes: to inform, as in relay news and record history, to instruct, as in pass down a set of moral guidelines, and to entertain. We are, as regards this event and its unfolding, all too well informed. And as for entertainment: when I thought this was a bright idea, it was when I was younger and war seemed so far away. But I realize now that those in history whose lives were short and mean and threatened by sword and disease gathered and told stories not as leisure, but as desperately needed distraction, and reassurance that they were not alone.

So if art cannot contain or describe this event, and if for now the suffering is too keen to be alleviated by parable… if stories are for the moment not as critically needed, as courage, as medicine, as blood, as bacon, they can at least revert to this social function. As time goes on, this will all pass away into memory, into a story with a beginning and a middle and finally an end. And that transition from the real into fable will bring its own kind of comfort and pain. Now, though, we may gather and distract one another, take comfort in our proximity, and know that we are, at this moment, safe.

Not many of my ideas seem bright anymore, and I am not a teacher. I am only humbled: to be here, to be alive.

That is all.

- - -

Originally published September 27, 2001

I Can’t Believe Zohran Mamdani is Attending the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Memorial of 9/11, When He Did Nothing to Prevent the Attacks

Carlos Greaves — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 13:00:00 -0400

“Rudy Giuliani… publicly criticized current Mayor Zohran Mamdani for planning to attend a 9/11 commemoration ceremony at Ground Zero on Friday… Giuliani’s criticism was heavily tinged with anti-Muslim sentiment and false claims about Mamdani’s beliefs. ‘They have every desire to take us over. This is not, they want to be just another religion, they want to dominate us,’ Giuliani said of Muslims. ‘Mamdani is a clear supporter of that.’” — The Hill

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Friday marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. A quarter century after that tragic day, it’s become painfully clear that the terrorists won. Our city is run by a socialist mayor who is turning the Big Apple into a jihadist fever dream, complete with everything Islamic fundamentalists famously support, like affordable childcare for working mothers, high-quality universal public education for boys and girls, and free buses. Terrorists love robust, affordable public transit.

Now, to add insult to injury, Mayor Mamdani is planning to attend the twenty-fifth-anniversary remembrance of the World Trade Center attacks. It is an insult to all New Yorkers to have this man participate in this solemn moment, considering he did absolutely nothing to prevent 9/11.

The mayor’s liberal apologists claim that, when the 9/11 attacks happened, he was “in elementary school” and “nine years old,” as if those are reasonable excuses for the future mayor’s negligence. As a Republican, I believe that if a nine-year-old girl becomes pregnant, she is perfectly capable of carrying that fetus to term and becoming a mother. Should we really not expect our nine-year-old boys to be at least somewhat versed in global counterterrorism measures? If nine-year-old Zohran didn’t try to stop the 9/11 attacks, that was a deliberate choice.

The liberal media refuses to acknowledge the obvious reason Mamdani didn’t stop 9/11: because he is Muslim. As we all know, every Muslim around the world is glad 9/11 happened, the same way all Christians are glad the Holocaust happened and all white people are glad the transatlantic slave trade happened. I don’t have any Muslim friends, nor have I spoken to any Muslims myself, but based on the opinions of the small subset of white Christians I regularly associate with, I think it’s fair to extrapolate.

Mayor Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, a mere 1,900 miles from Saudi Arabia, where most of the 9/11 hijackers were from. A man born just one continent over from the birthplace of Osama Bin Laden is now going to memorialize the worst terror attack in our nation’s history. That would be like inviting French President Emmanuel Macron—who is from the same continent and has a similar religious background as Vladimir Putin—to memorialize the anniversary of the War in Ukraine. Don’t you see how inviting someone so culturally similar to Vladimir Putin would be a slap in the face to Ukrainians? That’s how we feel about Mamdani and al-Qaeda.

In addition to failing to prevent 9/11 when he was younger, Mamdani continues to thumb his nose at 9/11 victims as mayor. For example, the city’s chief counsel is an attorney who once represented detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Everyone knows that a lawyer who represents bad people must be a bad person. When the Founding Fathers wrote the Bill of Rights, it was understood that things like the right to an attorney and protection against cruel and unusual punishment did not apply to people we were pretty sure were guilty. Can you imagine America’s mayor, Rudy Giuliani, representing terrorists? He has only ever defended upstanding people, like election truthers and January 6th patriots.

Everything Mayor Mamdani does, he does in service of the radical Islamic agenda. As we speak, he is busy releasing documents showing the city covered up concerns about air quality after 9/11 to keep the economy humming. Corporations are the lifeblood of this city, and returning to business as usual was how companies showed the terrorists they couldn’t derail Wall Street. A couple of first responders getting debilitating respiratory illnesses and cancer, then fighting for decades to get adequate compensation, was a small price to pay for sticking it to those extremist bastards. Only someone with true disdain for New Yorkers wouldn’t be able to see why that was a worthy tradeoff.

The saddest part about this twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11 is that the one New Yorker who should be here, our great president, was not invited to speak. When the attacks happened, Donald Trump was focused on what mattered. He kept the city’s spirits high by reminding everyone of all the silver linings, like that he now owned the tallest building in Lower Manhattan. He even had to be rescued from Ground Zero by two brawny firemen. Just because nobody else has corroborated that story doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Everyone who saw it probably just had amnesia from the toxic air.

New Yorkers, ask yourselves this: Who would you rather see standing at the 9/11 memorial? A mayor with a suspiciously full beard who failed to thwart the 9/11 attacks as a nine-year-old man? Or a president who understands that 9/11 is a day for everyone:

We think the choice is obvious.

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Carlos Greaves and Ginny Hogan’s new book, Obey in Advance: How to Survive (and Thrive) Under Authoritarianism, is out now and available in our store.

See Carlos and Ginny (and special guests) on tour this month. Click here for the whens and wheres.

A Note from Your Editor Regarding the Entirely Routine Authentication of Your Humanity

Seema Yasmin — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Dear Author,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript. Before we proceed, we require confirmation that it was written by you, a person, rather than a technology trained on books written by you without your knowledge or consent.

We appreciate that this may feel circular. Please be assured it is not circular. It is an ouroboros. A spiral of accountability. An ethical feedback noose.

As you know, several prominent authors of color have faced allegations that their novels were written with the assistance of generative AI. Some have lost publishing contracts and any remnant of faith that “innocent until proven guilty” is a part of the acquisitions process.

All have denied using AI. Naturally, these denials cannot be accepted without evidence, since denial is exactly what a guilty person would do, as well as an innocent person, making the two functionally indistinguishable.

Fortunately for us all, we have AI-detection software.

To establish that AI did not write your book, we will upload it to an AI detector. The detector will retain your words, learn from your distinct syntax and semicolon placement, and use them to improve the technology that will eventually produce more books resembling yours.

Results are extremely reliable, provided “reliable” is understood in its newer, more innovative sense. For instance, your manuscript received a score of 79 percent human when pasted into the detector, 33 percent human when uploaded as a Word document, and 7 percent human when uploaded as a PDF. (We believe this reflects the PDF’s suspiciously robotic commitment to preserving formatting.)

Several passages were flagged because they were “too predictable” and/or included “hallmarks” of AI. Others were flagged because they were “too original.” Your use of semicolons was deemed artificial; a desperate attempt to flee from the cesspit of discarded em dashes.

The sentence “She returned home,” in chapter 12 was identified as 92.23 percent machine-generated, presumably because no human being has ever returned home.

We invite you to demonstrate your authorship by providing browser histories going back sixteen months, childhood diaries, school reports, and testimony from the OB/GYN present at your birth. If you wrote early drafts by hand, please submit the original notebooks for carbon dating.

We recognize that some white authors have openly discussed their use of AI. We applaud them for their honesty. This is not inconsistent behavior on our part. Indeed, their candor demonstrates a bold willingness to interrogate the human-machine interface and the possibilities of collaboration and form. Your alleged use of AI demonstrates fraud.

The distinction remains that they admitted to using AI, whereas you deny it. Had you used AI and admitted to it, we might have praised your candor. Since you did not use AI, our options are regrettably limited.

Please understand that this process is not punitive. It is our commitment to protecting literature from authors whose work was used to build the machines used to determine whether those authors wrote their work.

Should your contract(s) be terminated, all rights shall revert to you, except, of course, whatever rights have already been absorbed by large language models.

Thank you for your cooperation as we navigate this unprecedented moment.

To help us reach a prompt decision, please reply by Friday and prove that you are real.

Warmly,
Your Editor

This message was drafted with the assistance of AI.

McSweeney’s Books: A Day in the Life of a New Yorker, According to My Fox News-Watching Florida Family Members

Ginny Hogan and Carlos Greaves — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 12:30:00 -0400

The following is an excerpt from our new book, Obey In Advance: How to Survive and Thrive Under Authoritarianism by longtime McSweeney’s writer Ginny Hogan and McSweeney’s resident satirist Carlos Greaves. From how to stick your head in the sand to avoid thinking about your dictator, to the most effective ways to reeducate the masses, this hilarious (and oddly reassuring?) guide has you covered—whether you want to Make Authoritarianism Great Again or not.

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7 a.m. I wake up and get stabbed.

8 a.m. I go to my corner bodega for a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese. On the way, I get mugged. I have no way to pay for the sandwich, so I’m forced to steal it. And then I stab the bodega owner so he won’t tattle on me.

9 a.m. I get on the subway and immediately get murdered. Fortunately, there are fourteen cops in the car, so they’re able to revive me—something only cops can do.

10 a.m. I arrive at my favorite place in the world: Times Square.

11 a.m In Times Square, I get stabbed.

12 p.m. I go for lunch. On the way, someone shoots me in the foot. I ask them who they voted for, and they say, “Kamala.” I ask them their name, and they say, “Sewer Socialist Bernie Sanders.” Dang.

1 p.m. I need to decompress from all the stabbings, so I do some heroin. It’s available on every street corner, lemonade-stand style. I try to tip the little girl selling it, but as I do, I get stabbed.

2 p.m. I participate in a protest against laws. A Hate-America-Pro-Hamas-Antifa-anti-law march. The only opportunity to wear my WE OPPOSE LAWS. At the protest, we burn an American flag—the last one left in New York City. As we’re burning it, we get stabbed.

2:30 p.m. I reflect on how nice it would be to shoot the stabbers, except that New York City doesn’t respect 2nd Amendment rights. So I can’t.

3 p.m. An ICE agent gifts me a beautiful kitten to make me feel better. Oh, sorry, this is after I got stabbed again at the Hate-America-Pro-Hamas-Antifa-anti-law protest, and the heroic ICE agent brought me back to life.

4 p.m. A subway crashes into my foot. As I’m hobbling around, trying to shake off the pain, I get stabbed again.

4:30 p.m. I go to a Starbucks where the barista’s name tag reads CRITICAL RACE THEORY. My Frappuccino is laced with arsenic. Coincidence? I think not.

5 p.m. Time for the entire city to engage in its ritual sacrifice of the Jews. After the ritual, we all hold hands and sing “Imagine” by John Lennon while a group of masked Antifa members stabs us. Rhythmically.

5:30 p.m. A pigeon shits on me. “The Stabbing of the Sky,” if you will.

6 p.m. I get a slice of pizza for dinner. It costs $72. In it, I find a knife, which stabs my mouth from the inside. Bummer. Even worse, the owner of the pizza joint asks for the knife back, since I didn’t pay for it. Then, he stabs me with it.

7 p.m. All the pollution turns my skin green. This is the fault of Biden’s EPA. Can’t be the fault of the current EPA, obviously, since it doesn’t exist.

8 p.m. Time to catch up on I Love LA like the woke idiot liberal elitist I am.

9 p.m. I call up Zohran Mamdani to thank him for that great job he’s doing with the city.

9:30 p.m. Zohran comes to my apartment himself and mugs me as a thank-you gesture. This kind of personal attention to every voter is likely why he came out of nowhere to win the Democratic nomination.

10 p.m. I fall asleep. It’s the only way a New Yorker can ever truly be safe from the stabbings. Unless someone breaks into your apartment and stabs you in the middle of the night. Which—unfortunately—happens every night.

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Praise for Obey in Advance:

“This book is the catharsis we all need. It’s not easy to make this current political moment funny, but Greaves and Hogan pull it off again and again. I laughed my ass off (which explains where it went).”
—Nikki Glasser

“This is the only self-help guide to living under a dictatorship that you will ever need, and by far the funniest. Read it before it’s banned.”
—Andy Borowitz, The Borowitz Report

“Democracy is priceless, but fascism sure seems to pay well. If you’re morally bankrupt and looking to sell your soul, Obey in Advance has everything you need for a profitable life of lickspittlery.”
—Kevin Kruse, Professor of History, Princeton University

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See Ginny Hogan and Carlos Greaves on tour in support of the book:

Friday, September 18, 7:30 p.m.
WASHINGTON D.C.
Lost City Books
2467 18th Street NW
Moderated by McSweeney’s editor, Lucy Huber.

Sunday, September 20, 2:30 p.m.
NEW YORK CITY
Caveat
21A Clinton St.
Hosted by James Folta & Luke Burns, featuring Chandler Dean, Felippe Torres Medina, Taylor Kay Phillips, and Josh Gondelman.

Monday, September 21, 6:30 p.m.
BOSTON
Parkside Books
260 Shawmut Ave.
Moderated by McSweeney’s editor, Chris Monks.

- - -

Obey in Advance is out now and available for purchase at our store and wherever else you buy books.

Griefmobiles

Ali Fitzgerald — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0400

Underground Artists is an ongoing comic by Ali Fitzgerald (Hungover Bear & Friends) that follows woodland creatures as they create art and search out whimsy in a bleak forest.

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My Ideal Building Contractor

Maria Choong — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 05:00:00 -0700

“I don’t believe in door-to-door solicitation, so I’m glad you called me to be one of the twenty-seven quotes you’ll receive for a storm door, after which you’ll decide you no longer want a storm door.”

[Knocks on wall] “Wow—every repair in this house done by the previous owner was completed correctly.”

“I accept cash, Venmo, Zelle, checks, and warm cans of Squirt from your out-of-order garage fridge.”

“Most people don’t know this, but if you ignore the issue long enough, air conditioner condensers fix themselves.”

“Your house makes a bellowing sound like a sinking ship and the floors vibrate each time you use the hot water faucet? That’s normal. All houses do that.”

“While I have my ladder, I’ll gladly replace these drop ceiling tiles, paint over the water leak from 1992, and remove a dead bat from your ductwork.”

[Knocks on wall] “Those aren’t wasps behind these studs—it’s a litter of teacup kittens. I’ve seen this before. They’re trying to get out so they can gather on your stomach in an adorable mass.”

“Your open-concept living room and kitchen renovation will be done in one hour, including commercial breaks for next week’s My Lottery Dream Home episode. Yes, it will happen exactly like it does on HGTV.”

“It’s so nice to meet another person who is as passionate and knowledgeable about soil aeration as I am.”

“Could your corgi bark any louder? No, I mean it. There’s nothing that focuses me more than dog yelps as I use my power drill to update electrical circuits.”

[Knocks on wall] “Wow, did you know your home can be expanded behind this built-in curio cabinet? You’ll get an additional three hundred square feet, just enough for the work-from-home office and shoe closet of your dreams.”

“So, you’re telling me, you saw a TikTok where someone solved their lawn moisture issues by putting the desiccants found in beef jerky in their yard? That’s accurate, and it works 100 percent of the time.”

“I will respond to your query for home services within a reasonable amount of time. I will show up on time. We will have small talk, and if you offer me a drink, maybe a can of Squirt, I will politely decline. My quotes are itemized and legible. This job will not involve an orchestrated assembling of HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and mold remediation personnel.”

“Now that I think about it, your home doesn’t need any work done at all—it’s perfect!”

These Exciting Progressive Candidates Who Might Lose Must Be Replaced by Boring Moderates Who Will Definitely Lose

Dorian Fox — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 13:00:00 -0400

Here at the DNC, we’ve been dismayed by the string of progressive and socialist candidates who’ve recently won primaries in Michigan, Colorado, and even deep-red Florida. Sure, these folks might stir up enthusiasm and make a splash online, but when they’re tested in a general election, they’re bound to lose.

These fringe upstarts are speaking unabashedly about our country’s crushing affordability crisis and utter lack of a social safety net. That’s the kind of frank, uncompromising honesty that scares independent voters away. They’ve floated ideas like abolishing prisons and taxing the ultrarich, and yeah, we sort of see where they’re coming from, but we’d never say so out loud. They’re brash and messy on social media and dress like a cultural studies faculty meeting at Brown. They’re young and charismatic and, in some cases, muscled and hunky. We don’t like that. If you’re going to be hunky, you better start talking about building bridges and donor meet-and-greets real quick, to put us at ease.

As we’ve long held, the smartest midterm strategy is to do what we’ve always done: Play it safe, tack to the center, and hope for the best. Go small and predictable, or go home—are we right? Of course we’re right. That’s why we currently have $16 million in our coffers and upwards of $17 million in debt, which should comfortably buy one to three of our hand-picked congressional contenders a spate of crippling attack ads that will run for the first few days of October.

Yeah, we know, we’re seen as boring and old and out of touch. But we’re hungry for progress. As long as it feels scripted and familiar. We’re ready to usher in profound change, abstracted into a focus-group-tested campaign slogan.

We realize we’re up against an extremist far-right machine that has $130 million in its war chest, no scruples about denying facts or undermining democratic processes, and moves in terrifying, cultish lockstep. Given this unprecedented threat that’s pushed our republic to the brink, we suppose we could break the mold and risk candidates who are novel and scrappy and even, dare we say, radical—taking a cue from Mamdani’s commanding mayoral win in New York, the enduring appeal of DSA firebrands like AOC and Bernie Sanders, the shaky showings of establishment candidates we’ve backed in recent presidential cycles, and the Mariana Trench–level unpopularity of the Democratic brand overall—but that’s not the DNC way.

When our opponents go low, we go into neutral. When they serve up a DQ Blizzard full of nails, we order sugar-free froyo in a waffle cone. When they go Napalm, we go Lysol. When they go brazenly cruel and corrupt, we mention it at a press conference. Then we have a friendly meeting with them to explore common ground.

We know Americans are angry, and according to polls, that anger cuts across parties and demographics and could be the very thing that pulls this weary, divided nation together and forges a new kind of coalition that votes on systemic issues rather than partisan identity. And what better way to harness that collective outrage than to cue up a PowerPoint about infrastructure and get into the weeds, baby?

So, let those pie-in-the-sky utopian dreamers appeal to the frustrations of Americans who might want to one day own a house or afford a root canal without missing rent. Let them project a posture of social care that directly implicates climate-denying corporations, marauding ICE agents, billionaire donors, and the reckless techno-elite. If you ask us, that’s electoral suicide. Sure, these are issues we’ll talk about to shore up the sympathies of the base, which is good politics. But we don’t actually plan to fight for them if it means rocking the boat of the status quo, even if that boat is sinking under its own weight, most of its sails are on fire, and the majority of its passengers are crammed in the hold fighting over scraps of orange peel.

So as this crucial, do-or-die election season continues to unfold, we urge you to vote sensibly. Risk normalcy. Vote your outrage, and then scratch out that vote and tell the poll workers you messed up, ask for a fresh ballot, and pick someone else. Vote for blazers, not trailblazers. Vote with your head and your gut, as if you’ve just popped a handful of Tums and a Lorazepam.

Above all, let us be your wary, unimaginative guide, despite the seductive allure of candidates who say things that actually resonate and meet the moment. We’re confident we know what’s best because we have experience and precedent on our side, which means avoiding anything scary and new that isn’t supported by big data. Trust us.

Selected Calendar Times for Someone Self-Employed Who Works from Home

John Moe — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0400

September 14
1:30 p.m.–2 p.m.
Team meeting and staring session w/ strange spot on wall (weekly, recurring)

Heads of facilities and maintenance (both self) invited to offer theories, ideas
HR and Marketing leads (both self) invited to explore the idea of naming the spot “Linda” and giving her director-level position as reward for attendance and persistence

- - -

September 15
10 a.m.–11 a.m.
Performance improvement plan for intern/dog 1

Advise on how blinking, uncomprehending stare fails to advance company goals
Initiate dialogue on treat schedule
(Monochromatic PowerPoint deck needed)

2:30 p.m.–3:15 p.m.
YouTube viewing session (humans only)

Red Bull soapbox race wipeouts
Bigfoot as trans-dimensional being
“Holy Diver” by Dio

3:15 p.m.–3:20 p.m.
Contingency planning if boss (self) asks about applicability of videos to job description and company goals

3:20 p.m.–3:40 p.m.
A few more videos

4:00 p.m.–4:01 p.m.
Consider spending more time on LinkedIn because that’s what professional career people with career jobs do or something

4:01 p.m.–4:05 p.m.
Deep-breathing exercises

- - -

September 16
11 a.m.–12 p.m.
Zoom call with actual human clients who are not self

Ensure smiling papier-mâché heads of clients (for companionship) are not visible to clients via desktop camera

12 p.m.–12:45 p.m.
Recraft papier-mâché client heads to make eyes less predatory, smiles less demonic

Consider voice-activated chip to make voices say “Mm-hm” or “Good idea” when prompted

12:45 p.m.–2 p.m.
Research price/availability of client head alternatives

Styrofoam heads for wig/hat modeling with color print headshots attached with pushpins?
Acquire/modify some Teddy Ruxpins?
Hire professional scarecrow makers (exist?) for commissioned work

7 p.m.–8 p.m.
Meeting w/ Self-Loathing and Narcissism departments/tendencies to brainstorm exciting new potential collabs

- - -

September 17
10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Offsite team-building retreat at café with unwitting part-time staff/baristas and volunteers/customers

Coffee and treats available (cash bar)

2 p.m.–2:30 p.m.
All-staff nap-finding mission

Papier-mâché heads attendance optional but somewhat discouraged

- - -

September 18
2 a.m.–3 a.m.
Sketch out worst-case scenarios for all professional projects

3 a.m.–?
Live out most extreme ideas put forward previous meeting while asleep

- - -

September 19
9 a.m.–9:15 a.m.
Performance improvement plan for intern/dog 2

Advise on necessity of going outside even if it is raining a little
Connect need for putting on harness (dislikes) to taking walk (loves)
Presence of intern/dog 1 optional/inevitable

9:15 a.m.–10 a.m.
Supervised leashed intern/dog fact-finding/smell-finding mission

- - -

September 20
11:30 p.m. – 12 a.m.
Review and judge every decision ever made and every word ever spoken (recurring, irregularly and spontaneously scheduled)

- - -

September 21
3:15 p.m. – 3:16 p.m.
Meeting of hiring and expansion committees

4 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.
Party in the kitchen to celebrate Linda the spot’s promotion; cake provided

Why We Must Return to the Office to Use AI in Person

Jonathan Zeller — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:00:00 -0400

When I awoke on RTO Day (officially “Remain to Office,” since management maintained that I’d misremembered and we’d always been in office six days a week), I was not as excited as I should have been. I felt queasy at the thought of signing the Memorandum of Loving RTO as a condition of my continued employment.

I was an Associate Slop Doula for Mondo Mayo, founded as a mayonnaise company, which now sells consumer packaged goods, software as a service, and surveillance technology, and is one of three large corporations remaining on Earth. At the time, I didn’t think a full, six-day-per-week, fourteen-hour-per-day, in-office schedule was necessary to discharge my duties clicking the GENERATE button, followed by the APPROVE button, thousands of times a day on SlurryHose. But experience has shown me that I was wrong. Here’s why RTO is essential.

RTO is in accordance with Mondo Mayo’s Core Principles.

Mondo Mayo is guided by our Core Principles:

Good things are better than bad things.
“Yes, Boss. Great idea, Boss.”
More leaders mean more leadership.

These principles allow for the high productivity and rich social life at Mondo Mayo, which revolves around our twice-annual mandatory-optional-encouraged-required retreat, The Getaway, culminating in the rarely fatal mayonnaise-eating contest.

The Executron Management System has led to a surplus of leadership at Mondo Mayo. I am one of fifteen rank-and-file workers, and we are privileged to be led by thousands of Senior VPs. No other company in history has had so many leaders.

RTO adds up.

Mondo Mayo’s proprietary metrics indicate that family life can be performed remotely with greater efficiency and manager satisfaction. The Mondo Machine, rented at an affordable rate, sits in your home when you cannot be there, feeding pellets to your child, and they bond.

Our office is monitored by AI-powered Performance Enablement Software named Best Buddy, which assists and empowers me to be my best for Mondo Mayo.

It’s the perfect time to RTO, because the O is almost finished.

Mondo Mayo HQ has been under construction for twenty years, ever since Mondo Mayo acquired Shit Hell Dot AI (Mission: Make the World a Better Place) and began expansion to make room for its new employees. With no traffic, it’s only three hours from my apartment by bus. Jackhammering, large trucks labeled LOOSE ASBESTOS, and mayonnaise leaks are not interruptions to my work, but rather opportunities to hone my focus. The shaking conducting through my thin office chair that aggravates my lower-back pain is a chance to prove my mettle.

RTO is the best way to surpass SodaPorn.

I must help Mondo Mayo hit its sales targets by doula-ing effective Sales Slop generated with SlurryHose, which scrapes the web for consumers’ queries and seeks to answer them more closely than the Sales Slop from the globe’s other two remaining companies, Cagefight Pharma and SodaPorn.

SodaPorn is our rival. We are in a tense strategic alliance with Cagefight Pharma.

RTO allowed me to have a sex affair with my coworker.

Last week, while Slop Doula-ing in our open-plan seating, I noticed Blair, whose eyes I’d previously met over the trough during the mayonnaise-eating contest at the most recent edition of The Getaway.

At The Getaway, I thought I was merely caught up in the supportive pressure and wonderful isolation. But as Blair returned my stare this time, I was sure it was real, and that she felt the same.

We stole away to the abandoned Mother’s Room above the HR office and discussed our secret hatred for RTO. We began a heated affair. A contractor hit a pipe above us, so rancid mayo splattered onto our bodies as we embraced, but we were too absorbed in our passion to mind. Try doing that from home.

RTO is the best way to surpass Cagefight Pharma.

The next day, during an all-staff meeting, we learned that our main rival was Cagefight Pharma. We are now in a strategic Mondo Mayo x SodaPorn partnership.

By now, Blair and I had let our guard down. On Chatform, our internal company chat platform, we mocked what we mistakenly saw as a change in the company’s strategy (in fact, we’d always been in a strategic Mondo Mayo x SodaPorn partnership aimed at taking down Cagefight Pharma). Within minutes, we were separately called into HR.

RTO helps me be my best.

Blair and I were put on Help-You-Be-Your-Best Plans (Mondo Mayo’s version of what was once known as a performance-improvement plan). Per policy, one of us would be compassionately released and prevented by our non-compete from drawing a salary from any other company ever again.

An SVP of HR patiently, lovingly reprimanded me for my poor attitude. Why had I forgotten the Core Principles? Good things are better than bad things, and being at work (good) is better than being at home (bad). “Yes, Boss. Great idea, Boss.” And yet I wasn’t saying that. More leaders mean more leadership, but they can’t lead me if I refuse to be led. And the HR SVP had to deliver all of this while the office vibrated from construction and, at various points, mayo squirted at us out of air vents.

As part of the Fun and Love Rehabilitation, a team of buff, wise SVPs affectionately pumped Mondo Mayo into my mouth via Mayo Cannon, so that the company’s nourishing origins could be made a part of me.

An SVP of Finance, Philosophy, and Screaming came by and explained loudly that Mondo Mayo’s corporate strategy had appeared irrational to me before because its goal was never profit—it was always power. We will only reach our apex once the entire world adheres to Mondo Mayo’s Core Principles. That resonated with me.

When I said how much I loved RTO,
Mondo Mayo gave me my medicine.
(Thank you for my medicine!)

The SVP of FPS reminded me that, if I lost my job at Mondo Mayo, I would lose my generous health insurance at a time when I needed relief from my back pain. This was true, so I begged them to compassionately release Blair instead of me. I was then kindly reinstated and given a bottle of Motrin (now produced by a subsidiary of SodaPorn and not, as you’d reasonably guess, Cagefight Pharma). My back feels a little better. Plus, I have been promoted to Senior Associate Slop Doula, and I appreciate the vote of confidence. So I was more than willing to sign the Memorandum of Loving RTO, sharing my fondness for the seven-day-per-week, sixteen-hour-per-day RTO, which has always been the standard at Mondo Mayo.

I have achieved my potential. Good things are better than bad things. More leaders mean more leadership. I love Best Buddy.

About Our Super El Niño Climate Crisis–Accurate Hot Pilates Studio

Claire Guinan — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Here at DIE HOT Pilates (SoHo), we do things a little differently.

We’re your new favorite fitness fusion studio blending elements of Pilates, barre, yoga, drought, inclement weather, the 1930s Dust Bowl, Zara Larsson, HIIT, cardio, cardiac arrest, and fun.

Our UNIQLO-adjacent studio is temperature-controlled to a steamy 92 degrees with 47.5 percent humidity using a combination of infrared heat and greenhouse gases. This terroir provides detox, offers a deeper stretch, and preps the body’s cardiovascular and respiratory systems for the upcoming Super El Niño, during which the planet will experience subsurface heat anomalies in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, triggering a devastating ecological chain reaction.

But we don’t balk at the heat. We say, “Bring it on, sis.” Just because those sea surface temperatures are surging doesn’t mean those booties can’t too.

PREPPING FOR HOT GIRL SUMMER
(CLIMATE CATASTROPHE)

Next year’s Super El Niño will bring intense drought, increased wildfires, and crop failure to regions in South Asia and Africa. The Americas will face torrential storms, flash flooding, and mudslides. The impact on global agriculture will lead to supply-chain shortages and food scarcity. It WILL be 105 degrees everywhere. Everyday.

But YOU—a white lady from Columbus, I think—will be in the best shape of your life, because DIE HOT preps clients for the most catastrophic climate emergencies to come.

The key to prepping for the reckoning is acclimation. Once acclimated, your trembling, hungover body will experience:

HEAT STROKE RESISTANCE
DEHYDRATION NATURALIZATION
CARDIOVASCULAR CONFUSION
FOOD DESERT ACCLIMATIZATION
+7 PERCENT ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE
+10 IN VO2 MAX FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT RESPONSE
INCREASED BLOOD PLASMA (hard to explain, but basically it’s awesome.)
LOWER CORTISOL

For proper acclimation, we recommend the monthly eight-pack wildfire unlimited package.

ABOUT OUR CLASSES

DIE HOT offers a range of classes tailored to our clients’ disaster preparedness goals, programmed by Kelly the Trainer, who once saw Jesus in a piece of avocado toast.

Trying to survive through the next decade? Try our beginner-friendly forty-five-minute Toxic Shock Express, which combines our signature hip thrust maneuver with trace emissions inhalation.

Prepping for something more extreme? Like the rapture? Try the seventy-five-minute Severe. (We are legally prohibited from describing the seventy-five-minute Severe in print.)

So what are you waiting for? (Seriously, we only have like three good years left.) Grab those hot pink Bala Bangle ankle weights, fill up the largest Stanley cup for sale on Amazon, and experience the planet your great-great-grandchildren will one day call home.

And don’t forget to use code SUFFOCATEBITCH at checkout for 20 percent off your first class. Happy Sweating!

McSweeney’s

Backrooms, but for Introverts

Sculpture Weather

Rumpelstiltskin Isn’t Your Typical Fertility Startup

Ryan Lewis’s Silence on the Macklemore Situation Is Deafening

An Open Letter to Juvenile, Snoop Dogg, and Lil Jon Regarding My Recently Diagnosed Degenerative Knee Condition

We Must Create the Shit Machine

You Don’t Qualify for an ER Visit Until After You Attend This Online Group Class About How to Care for Your Giant Gaping Wound at Home

Slide 1: “Keeping Your Wound Clean.”

Slide 2: “Managing Pain at Home.”

Slide 3: “Don’t Remove The Foreign Object.”

Slide 4: “Home Intubation.”

Faculty Search Committee Feedback on Applications from Founding Figures of the Fields for Tenure-Track Positions

Classics

Sociology and Anthropology

Political Science

Religious Studies

Justifications for Not Getting Botox

Technically, There Is a Non-Zero Chance That Anything Might Kill Off Humanity in the Next Decade: A Response from Anthropic’s Claude

Welcoming Remarks Made at a Literary Reading, 9/25/01

I Can’t Believe Zohran Mamdani is Attending the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Memorial of 9/11, When He Did Nothing to Prevent the Attacks

A Note from Your Editor Regarding the Entirely Routine Authentication of Your Humanity

McSweeney’s Books: A Day in the Life of a New Yorker, According to My Fox News-Watching Florida Family Members

Praise for Obey in Advance:

Griefmobiles

My Ideal Building Contractor

These Exciting Progressive Candidates Who Might Lose Must Be Replaced by Boring Moderates Who Will Definitely Lose

Selected Calendar Times for Someone Self-Employed Who Works from Home

Why We Must Return to the Office to Use AI in Person

RTO is in accordance with Mondo Mayo’s Core Principles.

RTO adds up.

It’s the perfect time to RTO, because the O is almost finished.

RTO is the best way to surpass SodaPorn.

RTO allowed me to have a sex affair with my coworker.

RTO is the best way to surpass Cagefight Pharma.

RTO helps me be my best.

When I said how much I loved RTO, Mondo Mayo gave me my medicine. (Thank you for my medicine!)

About Our Super El Niño Climate Crisis–Accurate Hot Pilates Studio

PREPPING FOR HOT GIRL SUMMER (CLIMATE CATASTROPHE)

ABOUT OUR CLASSES

When I said how much I loved RTO,
Mondo Mayo gave me my medicine.
(Thank you for my medicine!)

PREPPING FOR HOT GIRL SUMMER
(CLIMATE CATASTROPHE)