The Highlight
A digital magazine unpacking the big ideas changing our present and shaping our future.
As the holidays approach, we look at the cult of Pokémon, what turns a tiny toy into a major obsession, and the upside — and dark side — of fad culture.
Pokémon had all the hallmarks of a flash in the pan. Two decades later, it’s a $100 billion empire.
I’d inherited his family’s money, his height, his arthritis. Could I inherit the very worst parts of him, too?
The slippery nature of obsessive-compulsive disorder has resulted in decades of misunderstanding and misdiagnosis.
A bell was always ringing. A tenant was always asking for something. Money was always short. How could this place be home?
Amid distance and estrangement and strain, some are happily replacing the clans they’re born into with chosen families.
Children left behind by Covid-19, growing up in a motel, and why we’re forging clans of our own.
The number of American kids whose caregivers have died in the pandemic has surpassed 140,000.
In the ’80s and ’90s, kids’ media was full of murder and mayhem. What changed?
Cosmetic procedures are on the rise. So is our voyeuristic fascination with how they go wrong.
When a pandemic rages just outside our doors, maybe escapism is all we can hope for.
Realtor? Check. Appraiser? Check. Ghostbuster? Check.
How a century of horror movies reflects our existential fears, the surreal real estate market for ghostly homes, and visiting a haunted house in 2021.
From the first morbid films a hundred years ago, scary movies always been a dark mirror on Americans’ deepest fears and anxieties.
Oh, the performative faux labor of it all.
I thought I could check all the boxes and be well again. The universe had other plans.
How a surge in police force against demonstrators collided with last summer’s protests.
Officially, the Covid-19 recession lasted just two months. So why are so many still suffering?
In extraordinary times, we ask: What does it truly mean to recover?
How a potent mix of frustration and optimism led to the Great Resignation.
How our Covid-19 backslide taught us there may be no going back to “normal.”
Cotton’s connection to forced labor by Uyghurs in Xinjiang ought to have you rethinking fast fashion.
On the Georgia coast, leisure and a grim history of slavery co-exist.
I lost my hobby and gained a revenue stream.
For generations, forces worked to curtail Black freedom and joy. The Vineyard proved a safe place.
With all of its sparkle and chipped paint.
How amusement parks captured the American imagination; grappling with the grim history of a coastal Georgia retreat; choosing between a hobby and an income; and more.
Digital distractions such as social media and smartphones wreak havoc on our attention spans. Could they also be making us less ethical?
The fascinating history behind why students today are still eating square pizzas, crinkle fries, and cartons of milk.
What does a cool high schooler wear these days? For Gen Z, the defining style is that there isn’t one.
How the number of police officers in schools skyrocketed in recent decades.
Dropping out helped me see the lies we’re sold about the college experience.
An Ivy League economist, Oster won fans by empowering parents with data. Then she began calling for schools to reopen.
As schools prepare to open, we’re crunching numbers with the economist who fought to reopen schools, exposing the myth of the perfect college experience, dressing for class, and more.
In 1976, a school bus carrying 26 children and their driver disappeared from a small California town. Forty-five years later, we revisit the story.
The influence of the “wave” of Korean music and film on global culture was no accident.
I never believed I could be a critic. That’s a problem.
Twitter had a field day with Isabel Fall’s sci-fi story “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter.” Now, the author is speaking out.
Streaming services’ playlists make listening easy. But they’re also breaking fans’ relationships with artists.