Here at Flavorwire, we pride ourselves on not only writing some of the best content on the Internet, but keeping an eye on all of the great writing that other folks on the ‘Net are doing, too. Today, we have stories about a veteran’s long road to suicide as well as all of the scary situations female reporters find themselves in while covering sports. Plus, profiles on Hamilton‘s hardcore internet fandom, and the next phase of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Pacific Standard published a long story about one PTSD-stricken Australian army veteran, who travelled all the way to Saranac Lake, New York, to “get lost” and commit suicide in its woods.
The Adirondacks, which the Iroquois and Algonquin called “the dismal wilderness”—deeming it unfit for human habitation—are one of the largest forested areas in the country. “If you wanted to come up here and disappear, you could,” said Captain John Streiff of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
In response to the ongoing legal battles of Erin Andrews, who was recorded in her hotel room by a stalker without her knowledge, Sports Illustrated spoke with female sports reporters about the preventative measures they take to shut down stalkers and avoid unwanted attention, which they find frequently when reporting on the road.
After returning from dinner with friends while covering the Brewers in Philadelphia, Kusnierek noticed a stranger had followed her from outside the Hilton Penn’s Landing hotel, through the lobby, and on to her elevator. By chance, Prince Fielder and another Brewers player happened to be on the elevator with them. Kusnierek made eye contact with the then-Brewers first baseman. Her unsaid words: This guy isn’t with me and I don’t know why he’s on the elevator.
The New Yorker pondered the past and future of Black Lives Matter, which has become a single, iconic banner for a group of similarly motivated, but unconnected activists.
Black Lives Matter has been described as “not your grandfather’s civil-rights movement,” to distinguish its tactics and its philosophy from those of nineteen-sixties-style activism. Like the Occupy movement, it eschews hierarchy and centralized leadership, and its members have not infrequently been at odds with older civil-rights leaders and with the Obama Administration—as well as with one another.
The Daily Dot explores how Hamilton accrued a massive, overwhelmingly positive online following that exceeds anything one could expect from a show that only exists on a single stage.
A significant part of Hamilton’s appeal to online audiences is that it’s essentially fanfiction—that is, it’s a racebent Alternate Universe story based off historic events happening in a nebulous setting that could be modern-day America. Like all the best fanfiction, Hamilton honors the spirit of the original narrative while critiquing it, deconstructing the mythos that “American values” were forged in the singular cultural identity of whiteness.