Virginia Heffernan
Contributor
Virginia Heffernan (@page88) is a contributor at WIRED. She is the author of Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art. She is also a cohost of Trumpcast, an op-ed columnist at the Los Angeles Times, and a frequent contributor to Politico. Before coming to WIRED she was a staff writer at The New York Times—first a TV critic, then a magazine columnist, and then an opinion writer. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree and PhD in English from Harvard. In 1979 she stumbled onto the internet, when it was the back office of weird clerics, and she’s been in the thunderdome ever since.
In Praise of Unglamorous American Invention
Forget Blue Origin, Silicon Valley, and unicorns—small but mighty innovations are the true breakthroughs of human ingenuity.
Why Is It So Hard to Believe In Other People’s Pain?
People—and groups—who are suffering are often dismissed. Scarry’s axiom might help us understand why.
The Future Is Bleak. Pondering Pangaea Gives Me Hope
In 200 million years, our far-flung continents may join up again. It reminds us of humans' tiny place in this intergalactic drama.
When You're Living in an Immaterial World, What's for Sale?
On influencers, symbolic analysts, and buying and selling in the age of turbo-capitalism.
TikTok Smells Like Gen X Spirit
On the app you'll see a raucous reboot of "slacker" attitude. Or not. Whatever.
On Microphones, Music, and Our Long Year of Screen Time
Pianist Glenn Gould proved long ago that an existence heavily mediated by technology is not nonexistence.
To Observe the Muon Is to Experience Hints of Immortality
Attempting to model the universe as precisely as possible is to try to see the one thing that even the strictest atheist agrees is everlasting.
Trump Abused the System. Facebook Created It
The company's oversight board failed to mention one thing in its ruling this week: Facebook's responsibility for making the tools to wield undue influence and power.
Who Let the Doge Out? The Cryptocurrency Is As Nutty As Ever
The much wow Dogecoin has had its notable influencers—including, for a brief moment, me.
Bed Tricks, Cod, and the Hidden History of Catfishing
Intriguing, maddening deception can shake up our existence and sometimes—sometimes—set us free.
While Jack Dorsey Mans the Monastery
The small but boisterous slice of Twitter that's preoccupied with politics imagines @jack, the author of our collective Twitter being, as all-powerful. He's not.
Hamlet 2000 Has Never Made More Sense
Michael Almereyda’s future-minded Shakespeare adaptation (with a WIRED cameo) is 20 years old. Now it feels like an eerie premonition.
Something Was Wrong. My Nightgown Was in Flames
When a body is reduced, all at once, to a crude dichotomy of hot and cold, what happens to your soul?
The Art That Defied the Last Four, Terrible Years
My mind has slipped anxiously off books and movies since 2016. But as the credits roll on 2020, I’m ready to look back.
My Roomba Has Achieved Enlightenment
To my robovac, hitting a doorjamb and cleaning with dispatch are one and the same. There is no success or failure—these concepts have merged.
The Fantasy of Pokémon Go Is More Important Than Ever
Players of the alternate-reality game are still at it. They also seem, in these crazy days, to exhibit well-being.
Steely Eyes, Tragic Ends: The Bromantic Theory of History
It’s no exaggeration to say that emotional affairs of the male heart can influence technology and geopolitics.
What French Feminism Can Teach Us About Karens
The latest viral female archetype is complicated. Dramatizing her entitlement, she's at once familiar to the philosophers and a new phenomenon entirely.
Covid-19 and Living Through a New American Revolution
The collective action we've participated in over the past few months is transformational in a way we haven't seen in decades—maybe even centuries.
Metaphors Matter in a Time of Pandemic
Warfare may be a rousing way to speechify, but it's perilous when used to describe disasters from hurricanes to viral outbreaks.