Today has been a difficult day on the Internet, with people dissecting Renee Zellweger’s face (LOL except NOT), Adobe apparently pulling its ads from Gawker under pressure from #GamerGate, and this tragic mansplain-y piece about mansplaining. But there’s hope, still, for content that keeps its head above water. Onward, my friends, or backward, perhaps: today marks the 20th anniversary of the White House’s website launch. Elahi Izadi has an illuminating examination of that fateful day, and—good lord—how far we’ve come. Although, I guess if you had to sign up for health care on the Affordable Care Act website…maybe not.
I vaguely remember watching Nightmare on Elm Street when I was about four or five (don’t ask), and have, since then, been a big fat baby when it comes to horror films. At BuzzFeed, Louis Peitzman’s piece on Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, the seventh installment of the meta-fictional Freddy Krueger series, inspects star Heather Langenkamp and Craven’s experience of the film, and the lasting effects of the series as a whole on the horror genre. “When Craven wrote the first Nightmare on Elm Street film, critics and fans alike were loudly bemoaning that horror was dead,” writes Peitzman. “So he gave them something new.” New and memorable, if my dreams are any indication.
At The Billfold, Amanda Tomas has a terrifying piece about her recent job interview at Handybook. Tech startup interview processes are notoriously difficult, but this is a whole ‘nother level of awful. Happy Halloween, indeed.
I’ve worked in the food industry for seven years, and I’ve met a lot of incredible people and lasting friends. I’ve also met a lot of jerks, and I’m not unique in that experience. From sexual harassment to demeaning wages (in New York state, the minimum wage for tipped workers is five dollars), restaurant industry workers are definitely survivors. The Daily Dot has a great piece on how to make your waiter’s life a little more pleasant/easy, with such tips as “Say hello!” and “Don’t cut in line!” You’d be surprised how many people don’t do those things.
Last night the legendary fashion designer Oscar de la Renta passed away at the age of 82. ELLE has a roundup of 82 of his most heart-stopping looks; Vogue has tender odes by Anna Wintour and Andre Leon Talley, as well as a stunning collection of some of his most famous designs featured in the magazine; and, at Jezebel, Laia Garcia has written perhaps the most beautiful piece of them all, titled “Oscar de la Renta Was One of Us”:
“One of my earliest memories of his work is a picture that ran inVogue: three models sit on a bench in a secret garden that looks like something from the movie, in a world unto their own. They are all wearing matching Oscar gowns—long, silk, and floral-printed, with skirts so big the fabric folds into itself at their feet many times over. Their shoulders are trimmed in matching fur. I am eight, I think, and I cannot stop staring at the picture, getting lost in the fabric, examining the differences between each dresses, ascribing characteristics to each girl, trying on each dress in my head, imagining an ideal version of me. The dresses are inspired by another time—and yet their defiant attitude seems to me resolutely modern.”
The Oscar de la Renta label will live on, but in a different form and with a different (and hopefully not lesser) magic.