Guardian Selects

Most recent stories in Guardian Selects

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  The Guardian

  

  Why are we obsessed with symmetrical faces? An investigation

  The Guardian - Haley Nahman for Maybe Baby

  People on TikTok are obsessed with facial symmetry, which means, per the laws of the algorithm, I am too. I started playing with symmetry filters in 2020. The first one I tried, Inverted, doesn’t tweak your features like other filters, it simply reverses the image of your face. It quickly became …

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  The Guardian

  

  ‘If I followed me, I would mute myself’: confessions of a former pandemic shamer

  The Guardian - Shelby Lorman for Please Clap

  If I followed me on Instagram, I would mute myself so quickly. I found myself thinking this often over the last two years, shame winding its way into the back of my brain after I’d log on to share my daily array of Covid-related information. My posts were normal enough: mutual aid links, articles …

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  The Guardian

  

  A cure for bad days: how I’m living my worst life the best that I can

  The Guardian - Katie Hawkins-Gaar for My Sweet Dumb Brain

  After my husband died, a silly catchphrase became a lifeline for me. Instead of wishing for a reality I couldn’t have, I embraced the circumstances I was dealt It’s been gloomy in Atlanta lately, unrelentingly rainy and unseasonably warm. Each day is gray, gray, gray – both weather- and …

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  The Guardian

  

  Is the ‘cozy season’ trend a secret cry for help?

  The Guardian - Kathryn Jezer-Morton for Mothers Under the Influence

  Coziness has become a powerful aesthetic, but are we using it to chase a feeling that the outside world denies us? Take a peek on social media, and it’s obvious we are burrowed deep within “cozy season”. It surrounds us with clouds of neutral-toned knits and the steam of freshly brewed hot drinks. …

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  The Guardian

  

  I got a camera to spy on my cat – and it made me question everything about myself

  The Guardian - Haley Nahman for Maybe Baby

  We document everything obsessively. And implicit in this compulsion is the suspicion that our lives are best understood at a distance – but what do we lose? This summer I bought two in-home security cameras. I told people I got them because my cat was sick, and I required on-demand proof he was …

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  The Guardian

  

  Invisible fridges and cooling cubbies: how kitchens have been designed for the rich

  Guardian US - Meg Conley for Homeculture

  The latest status symbol in kitchens is invisible appliances – but hiding behind that fridge disguised as a cabinet is a long history of people trying to engineer society Rich people are having a couture cooling moment. The new status symbol, according to the New York Times, is an invisible fridge. …