Our weekly recap highlighting the best feature stories from around the internet.
Zayn Malik, centre, has announced he's leaving One Direction. Photo: Unknown
Zayn quits One Direction: the heartthrob changes, the heartbreak's the same - by Elle Hunt, The Guardian
"I’m not calling for a national day of remembrance, partly because I know Malik is going to have a kickass solo career as soon as he realises that being a “normal 22-year-old” is quite boring, and in the meantime I can look at pictures of him on the internet. But a little empathy wouldn’t go amiss."
Sitting on the Edge of the National Couch – by Steve Braunias, The Spinoff
“Most New Zealanders who saw the Black Caps incred, sometimes ridic and ultimately LOL semi-final against South Africa on Tuesday night will always remember where they watched that very cheerful piece of history: on TV. You have to feel sorry for the 40,000 at Eden Park. Being there isn’t the same as belonging to the tribe gathered around their flat screens. We fed off each other’s hopes and fears, the whole explosive psychic charge of it all traveling through fibre optics and into each other’s homes – each of us connected, a nationhood forged in Telco.”
Don't Fall in Love 10,000 Miles From Home – by Chloe Angyal, The New Republic
“It’s hardly a novel observation that you see your hometown anew when you show it to someone who is seeing it for the first time. The familiar becomes strange, viewed through the stranger’s eyes. You notice new things, appreciate the old things more. I loved Sydney, my strange land, more with him in it—and I loved him more than ever in Sydney. And I saw him learning things about me, too. He was seeing Sydney, and me—and I saw my home, and myself, differently through his eyes. And then it was time to go. Time to leave home, yet again.”
Notes on the Hip-Hop Messiah – by Jay Caspian Kang, New York Times Magazine
“There seemed to be a reluctance, especially among white critics, to straightforwardly criticise [To Pimp A Butterfly]. This caution is a testament to Lamar’s talent, but also to the power that comes with his messiah status: Critics seem afraid to say much about this album because they want to believe in him too, even when what’s in front of them doesn’t exactly deliver on their expectations.”
A Second Chance: Of Hearts and Hospitals – by Max Harris, The Pantograh Punch
“I’m meant to be in New York, coming to the end of an internship with the office of Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme – a dream job. Instead I’m on a Megabus heading to Baltimore, on my way to Johns Hopkins Hospital, about to see the doctor responsible for discovering a rare condition called Loeys-Dietz Syndrome and an expert in heart surgery. How did I get here? And how did it come to this?”
ASAP Rocky, Dearly Missing ASAP Yams, Half of Their Formidable Hip-Hop Tag Team – by Jon Caramanica, New York Times
“Yams was an ideal partner: a facilitator who didn’t crave the limelight, and was intensely focused on [ASAP] Rocky’s success. An affable and passionate hip-hop encyclopedia who approached his work like a kid sitting in Yankee Stadium bleachers called in to play in the game, Yams helped forge connections with producers and other rappers, and used the Internet to get Rocky’s music to the right ears.”
The Neurological Pleasures of Fast Fashion – by Marc Bain, The Atlantic
“In wealthy countries around the world, clothes shopping has become a widespread pastime, a powerfully pleasurable and sometimes addictive activity that exists as a constant presence, much like social media. The Internet and the proliferation of inexpensive clothing have made shopping a form of cheap, endlessly available entertainment—one where the point isn’t what you buy so much as it's the act of shopping itself.”
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