We pay a lot of attention to the way readers respond to our stories. It’s one of the ways we get a sense of how our journalism is landing with people, what sort of effect it’s having in the world. Last week, we rolled out our newly redesigned print magazine and not surprisingly, the responses flooded in. The magazine’s print readers are a dedicated bunch. Many of the emails began with the writers declaring that they had been subscribers for years. Some loved the new look; others had quibbles. This, too, is unsurprising; the last time we redesigned, in 2015, I saved all the emails that complained about the new design in a folder I entitled “Dear Schmuck,” after the salutation in one of the notes. This doesn’t bother me; in print and digital form, The New York Times Magazine reaches many millions of people, and many of them (perhaps this is you) cherish the magazine as a crucial element of their weekly routines. It stands to reason that when changes are made, they will feel strongly about them (maybe this is you, too). We wouldn’t want it any other way. Another sort of response to our journalism occurred this past week when the subjects of Farnaz Fasihi’s remarkable Iran War diaries project got in touch with her after reading the piece. If you missed Farnaz’s powerful project, it was a compilation of correspondences from two Iranians describing their experiences during the first month of the war. One of them, Mehrdad, is a 32-year-old government contract worker who supports the Iranian regime; the other, Yassi, is a 40-year-old who works in business administration, opposes the regime and has marched in antigovernment protests. American readers have not heard a lot from everyday Iranians like Mehrdad and Yassi during this conflict. It’s hard to reach people inside the country, and many are afraid to speak. Farnaz, who is the paper’s United Nations bureau chief and has written extensively about Iran for years, found these two subjects and asked them to write down simple accounts of what they were going through. With her editor, Raha Naddaf, she then wove their stories together to create a braided narrative of the war from two opposing perspectives. After it published online, Farnaz heard from both Mehrdad and Yassi. As she wrote: The most moving result of the story was Mehrdad and Yassi reading one another’s account and reaching out to one another through me unprompted. They both sent me text messages addressed to the other. Mehrdad: “Hello, Yassi, I’m very happy to be in this project with you. We are both from the same country, I am under bombs the same way you are. I hope the war ends quickly and we can rebuild our country together despite our different points of views. Because Iran belongs to both of us. Best, Mehrdad” Yassi: Hello, Mehrdad, Thank you for your message. I wish our message to each other were not under airstrikes. Everything about this project was so interesting. I am also hopeful for better days, for all the people of Iran. I wish for peace, for hope, and for freedom.” Yet another type of response can be found most weeks in the comment thread to Nitsuh Abebe’s On Language column. Part of our interest in reviving this column, which ran from 1979 to 2011, came from the lively discussions that we noticed were taking place in the comment threads when we published a few experimental versions of On Language last year. Turns out, Times readers have a lot to say about language and usage! So most weeks when this column is published online, Nitsuh will be jumping into the comments and discussing it with readers. His column this week was about how the word “gatekeeping” has evolved, especially among online influencers, to describe a kind of information-hoarding that should be avoided at all costs. Nitsuh notes that this represents a “semantic shift” in the term’s meaning: It used to describe a necessary way of filtering the “too-muchness of the world’: now, it’s “a practice that’s distasteful at best,” he writes, “supervillainous at worst.” In response to one reader in San Francisco who noted that a healthy democratic society needs “rigorous filters,” Nitsuh wrote: This is absolutely the main thing that strikes me — people and institutions generally earn trust in their gate management when they demonstrate transparency, accountability, ethical standards, and a clear mission to serve the people relying on their judgment. When it comes to, say, individual online personalities, there are some who earnestly try to create that sort of trust. But it certainly does feel like, as a general matter, more and more of how information reaches us features none of those factors, or even any effort to fake them. Lastly, of course, I’d love to hear your response to this newsletter. Write to me at magazine@nytimes.com and let us know what you think. FEATURES ON THE COVER
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FROM THE ARCHIVES Larry David Wants You to Kiss His HeadThis week’s story on the hair-loss prevention drug finasteride isn’t the first time the magazine has covered baldness. Back in 2000, before the premiere of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Larry David wrote an essay on embracing his baldness: Somebody asked me recently what it is I’m most proud of. “That’s easy,” I beamed. “It would have to be the way I’ve adjusted to baldness.” I’m a bald man who’s out there. No toupees, no transplants, no hats, no beards. Just totally unvarnished, unabashed bald. One of an ever-increasing minority of bald men who have chosen to do nothing. COMMENT OF THE WEEK Thinking in TikToksFrom a 14-year-old named Bibi on Willy Staley’s essay on how memes have nuked our culture: I go to boarding school, and because there are no parents around to say “stop scrolling,” many of my friends are addicted to social media. Even when I’m around them I can tell that they are thinking in TikTok posts. They convince themselves that they are making “niche references” and, not being on TikTok, I don’t understand them and they make fun of me a little. In fact, I am quite proud that I don’t “get the reference.” And maybe you would all be more interesting if half our conversations weren’t pulled off TikTok. My friend said to me once that TikTok made her feel like she had never had an original thought. Random videos like “me realizing I need to pee so I enjoy my meal more” and you’re like, OMG I have felt that way too! But these videos bring the focus onto our shared thoughts. The most valuable things about us are our unique thoughts. If this keeps going, we are all going to be social media curated carbon copies of each other, and that’s going to be really boring. That’s all for this week. Email us at magazine@nytimes.com with your thoughts, questions and feedback. Stay in touch: Like this email? Forward it to a friend and help us grow. Loved a story? Hated it? Write us a letter at magazine@nytimes.com. Did a friend forward this to you? Sign up here to get the magazine newsletter.
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