Photo: Clockwise from left: Bobby Doherty, Beth Sacca, the Cut, Andrew Rae, Philip Montgomery, Paul Murray
And so we come to late December, and the annual year-end lists, wherein we tell you which magazine articles readers enjoyed the most this year. We tend to think these lists reveal something of the id of the reader — for what better proxy could there be for your deepest curiosities than what you click on in the privacy of your own device? And, oh boy, are New York Magazine readers intriguing specimens! By turns serious and silly and status obsessed, always ready for some Schadenfreude, with catholic interests that range from the inner workings of Hollywood to the problems with LED bulbs to the sharpest controversies of the fashion industry. They are as interested in a richly reported account of the head of Goldman Sachs as they are in the real story behind the megablockbuster book on trauma, The Body Keeps the Score. Many of the articles that got readers going this year pried into the lives of our neighbors and friends, whether it was our definitive guide to modern etiquette, our drilling down on the real cost of living in New York City, a fantastically candid essay from people who had their class anxieties shook by Fleishman Is in Trouble, or an uncomfortably honest accounting of what children do to adult friendships.
Below, you’ll find a list of our 20 most-read articles we published this year. This list, which is measured by total collective minutes of audience engagement, is just a small sample of the work New York puts out each day in print and across its six digital sites — Intelligencer, the Cut, Vulture, Grub Street, the Strategist, and Curbed — and in its growing portfolio of newsletters. If you missed any of these stories, you are in for a treat, and if you’ve already read them all, then we encourage you to pretend you’re an anthropologist 200 years in the future trying to discern 2023 culture, a year when both a chronicle of Taylor Swift’s dining habits and the 60-year-old mystery of JFK’s assassination were chart-topping topics of interest.
For more of all of it, be sure to sign up for One Great Story, our daily recommendation newsletter, and to subscribe.
By Lisa Miller
Illustration: Mark Harris; Photo:@CobraTate/Instagram
What a generation of boys have found in Andrew Tate’s extreme male gospel. Read the story …
By Andrew Rice
Photo-Illustration: Adam Maida/Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
After a decade of punking liberals with hidden-camera stings, James O’Keefe becomes the story. Read the story …
By Maggie Smith
Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Cavan Images/Getty Images
In 2016, I wrote a poem that went viral. My home life got complicated. Read the story …
By John Herrman
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer
Why does it feel like the company is making itself worse? Read the story …
By Tahirah Hairston
Photo: Paper Monday LLC
Kerby Jean-Raymond was one of fashion’s most celebrated young designers. Then what happened? Read the story …
By Danielle Carr
Photo: Frankie Alduino
How Bessel van der Kolk’s once-controversial theory of trauma became the dominant way we make sense of our lives. Read the story …
By Rebecca Traister
Photo: Philip Montgomery
How a conspiracy-spewing literal Kennedy posing as a populist outsider jolted the Democratic Party. Read the story …
By Lindsay Peoples
Photo: The Cut
Law Roach on the reasons behind his sudden retirement from celebrity fashion styling. Read the story …
By Caitlin Moscatello
Photo-Illustration: by the Cut
In a city of Rachels and Libbys, the FX show has some New York moms worried they’re the ones in trouble. Read the story …
By Elizabeth Weil
Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images
What it’s like to live in a city that no longer believes its problems can be fixed. Read the story …
By Paul Murray
Photo: Paul Murray
Searching for friends in Mark Zuckerberg’s deserted fantasyland. Read the story …
By Josef Adalian and Lane Brown
Illustration: by Jess Ebsworth
TV’s streaming model is broken. It’s also not going away. For Hollywood, figuring that out will be a horror show. Read the story …
By Tom Scocca
Photo: Photograph by Beth Sacca, Set design by Phillip Nuveen
There’s something off about LED bulbs — which will soon be, thanks to a federal ban, the only kind you can buy. Read the story …
By Rachel Handler
Photo: MEGA/GC Images
Servers, bartenders, and owners explain what happens when Taylor Swift visits their NYC restaurants. Read the story …
By Allison P. Davis
Photo: Bobby Doherty
Our friendship survived bad dates, illness, marriage, fights. Why can’t it survive your baby? Read the story …
By Matthew Schneier
Photo: Pierpaolo Ferrari and Maurizio Cattelan
A diabetes drug has become an off-label appetite suppressant, changing the definition of being thin and what it takes to get there. Read the story …
Reporting by Rachel Sugar, Jack Denton, Laura Thompson, and Adriane Quinlan
Illustration: Zohar Lazar; Photo: Busà Photography/Getty Images
We asked young New Yorkers about their dream futures. Then we calculated exactly how much each would cost. Read the story …
By Scott Sayare
Photo: JFK Assassination Records Collection (Oswald) & CIA FOIA files (Joannides)
How a dogged journalist proved that the CIA lied about Oswald and Cuba — and spent decades covering it up. Read the story …
Illustration: Andrew Rae
How to text, tip, ghost, host, and generally exist in polite society today. Read the story …
