{"id":83421,"date":"2025-12-29T12:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T12:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/83421\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T12:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T12:28:09","slug":"new-york-magazine-comments-december-29-2025-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/83421\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Magazine Comments: December 29, 2025 issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Photo: New York Magazine.\n <\/p>\n

\n Photo: New York Magazine.\n <\/p>\n

New York\u2019s annual \u201cReasons to Love New York\u201d issue catalogued 39 things to cherish about the city right now. On Instagram, Daisy_ste_and_me<\/a> lamented, \u201cI left nyc for a long weekend and regret it.\u201d For the four covers, we photographed pairs of celebrity New Yorkers sharing wired headphones on the subway. Saying there was \u201csomething very sweet\u201d about this choice, editor-at-large Erik Maza<\/a> explained on The Brian Lehrer Show, \u201cObviously, it was a challenging year for everyone, and we wanted to capture a sense of community, a sense of New Yorkers \u00adembracing each other.\u201d Stating a common complaint, however, Cags<\/a> wrote, \u201cjust egregious man\u00adspreading on Ben Stiller\u2019s part in that photo; he clearly never got told about himself on the train at rush hour.\u201d Drawing the most commentary was an item<\/a> about teens adapting to the ban on cell phones in city schools by playing poker and conversing face-to-face. Jour\u00adnalist \u00adRobinson Meyer<\/a> tweeted, \u201cPeople say\u202f\u2026 you\u2019re looking at the wrong problem, that it\u2019s pointless to resist. And then you \u00adenforce a phone ban and miracles happen.\u201d Also on X, L.A. based writer Jamie Lynn Harris<\/a> said, \u201cThis is the most nature is healing article I\u2019ve ever read. Sorry, but you\u2019ll never convince me the problem with a lot of things today isn\u2019t the phones. All these kids \u00adactually developed hobbies and interests in a matter of months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the issue, Charlotte Klein traced Bari Weiss\u2019s journey to the top of CBS News. The ACLU\u2019s Gillian Branstetter<\/a> said Weiss\u2019s \u201cmain role in public life is telling rich people they were right all along.\u201d YouTuber \u00adMichael Burns<\/a> agreed: \u201cWeiss has become a media mogul not because her work has ever been popular, but because a small group of rich and well connected guys liked her work as it made them feel good about not using pronouns and stuff.\u201d Eric Alterman<\/a>, author of We Are Not One: A History of America\u2019s Fight Over Israel, tweeted, \u201cIt\u2019s so weird that someone who tells the super wealthy that they are wonderful and racists that it\u2019s ok to be \u00adracists would be successfully funded by the super wealthy and beloved by \u00adracists.\u201d Music writer Maura \u00adJohnston<\/a> called the \u00adarticle a guide to \u201chow to become a big pseudo\u00adintellectual fish in a rancid pond full of credulous dopes who love being sucked up to.\u201d Journalist Taylor Lorenz<\/a> \u00adnoted the consequences: \u201cChallenge their worldview and oppor\u00adtunities will be cut off and you will not make money. This is especially true in the MSM.\u201d Calling out Weiss\u2019s \u201cstrategic patronage,\u201d T.I.gilpatrick<\/a> called her content \u201ca collection of warmed-over critiques of \u2018wokeism\u2019 and a siege mentality concerning Israel, all presented with an irritating tone of persecuted righteousness. The \u00adactual brilliance lies not in the ideas, but in her slight skill at \u00adbranding and positioning,\u201d adding that her \u00adboosters \u201cneeded someone who could navigate the cultural swamp and \u00addeliver their anti-progressive grievances without sounding like a Fox News host. Weiss, with her New York Times lineage and queer identity, was the perfect choice to validate their private anxieties. This is why her rise is not a story of \u00adentrepreneurial success but of structural enablement.\u201d Some readers were struck by former \u00adActivision CEO \u00adBobby Kotick\u2019s role in elevating Weiss. Joshua Rivera<\/a> said Kotik had gone from \u201cruining video games to \u00adruining jour\u00adnalism,\u201d while esports writer Jackie Peanuts<\/a> noted, \u201cif you\u2019ve ever played World of \u00adWarcraft this is actually all your fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lane Brown laid out the theory that \u00adStanley Kubrick\u2019s final film was \u00adactually about Jeffrey Epstein.\u00ad Brimorche<\/a> wrote, \u201cI\u2019ve never heard a thing about this conspiracy theory but \u2026 it \u00adimmediately clicked in my head that \u00adSydney Pollack could be an Epstein-esque stand in.\u201d Other readers threw cold water on it. \u00adRedditor jackieirish asked, \u201cIs there any filmmaker more subject to conspiracies from his fans than Kubrick? You can point to \u00adalmost any detail \u2026 and there will be someone out there confidently claiming that, not only was it proof of Kubrick\u2019s \u00adutter God-like intentional genius, but also how it ties into some \u00adbroader concept he was apparently trying to communicate in \u00adsecret.\u201d Wred42<\/a> \u00adreiterated the point that \u201cthe movie is a straight adaptation of a book written 70\u202fyears \u00adearlier in a different \u00adcountry. It\u2019s an incredibly faithful adaptation, not some secret message that could only be revealed this way.\u201d And \u00adMissmagda<\/a> concluded, \u201cMy \u00adperhaps too-optimistic view is that the conspiracy freaks are \u00adresponding on a \u00adsubconscious level to a film that feels like a dream. But because they don\u2019t know how to \u00adprocess art, they start trying to make it literal.\u201d<\/p>\n

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