2. The Toy Story Story

Burr Snider, WIRED (1995)

Pixar has inarguably changed the landscape of popular culture. But it’s also easy to imagine, after 20 years of pretty much non-stop success, that it was always destined to be a winner. This story — published in the run-up to the release of Toy Story — may be a little prosaic, but it does get to some of the genuine nervousness, insight and genius that lay behind it all.

3. Mr (Swipe) Right?

Nellie Bowles, California Sunday (2016)

Sean Rad, the CEO of Tinder, is one of the dudes who made the app that made it easier for dudes to get laid. That alone makes him easy to lampoon. But add the fact that he appears to swim in a toxic soup of brodacity while simultaneously being concerned that he (and the company) gets taken very seriously indeed, and, well. This one is wry, observational, and sharp.

4. The Boy Who Burned Inside

Maria Cramer, The Boston Globe (2015)

This story of revenge enacted by a young man who was abused by a family friend is a little too newspapery for my tastes — you can feel the windows rattling as it speeds through the story — but even so, I couldn’t stop reading.

5. The True Story of Roland the Farter, And How the Internet Killed Professional Flatulence

Linda Rodriguez, Atlas Obscura (2015)

I was looking for a way to say that, no, this is really actually a seriously interesting piece on the role of the flatulist as entertainer, the history of fart jokes, the changing view of the human body, our very modern sense of disgust. 
But in the end, let’s face it: It’s a long, funny story about farts.

And now for a special surprise! Here’s a little extra reading that you get for being an IYO OG.

Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Trust You

Ezra Klein, Vox (2016)

One of the great realizations of living in America is exactly how inwardly focused its politics is—more so than you can imagine—and how that fact that seems exacerbated by the reality that this is a country that is almost constantly in an election cycle. I often stand aghast at the way in which the political machine operates, makes assumptions, the rhetoric, the rules. (I remain confounded, for example, by the fact that messages intended to appeal to the base while not upsetting the general population are known as “dog whistles.” This assumes that most people can’t hear them. The truth is that to almost anybody, they really sound like foghorns, blasting away at their partisan message. The truth is that it’s not about a secret code, it’s about not giving a crap about how some people will receive your message.)

Anyway, few politicians seem to have the same acres of guff and tosh written about them as Hillary Clinton. And yet as an outsider, I feel like I really have very little understanding of who she is, what she stands for, and why she’s running her campaign in the way she is. This Klein piece really feels like the first time I’ve been able to understand all that. So if you feel at all like me, go and read it.