Luke Winkie

2020 was the year of the online petition. Did they actually make a difference?
By Luke Winkie
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, 21-year-old college student Amrita has been dawdling in her New Jersey hometown, waiting for classes to reopen. During that time, she's still been getting monthly bills for the vacated apartment she…
YouTube series 'All Gas No Brakes' perfectly captures our national confusion
By Luke Winkie
I needed to know why this man screamed "Butt Pussy." The incident happened at the tail end of Andrew Callaghan's trip to a NASCAR weekend at Talladega Speedway for his intrepid YouTube docu-comedy series, All Gas No Brakes. On the outskirts of the…
Here's what a Disney World employee thinks about going back to work in a pandemic
By Luke Winkie
Disney World celebrated its July 11th reopening with a disorienting Twitter video. The staffers at Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and The Magic Kingdom vogued for the camera in sky-blue hospital masks, drawing a stark contrast between the…
Inside the budding economy of buying and selling shoutouts on Fiverr
By Luke Winkie
"Check this man out." The Instagram Story is beamed to my phone. Sure enough, there is my handle, "@Luke_Winkie" in red-and-yellow neon, hovering in the feed of a meme page with 62,000 followers. The whole transaction took less than a minute. I sent…
On Reddit's PillowTalkAudio, Strangers Want to Whisper Sweet Nothings In Your Ear
By Luke Winkie
The top upvoted post of all time on the subreddit r/pillowtalkaudio is called "Girlfriend Cuddles You While You Sleep." The clip consists of more than nine minutes of user noremedyformemory showering you with the sort of dreamy, delirious, intimate…
In Honor of Twitter's 10th Birthday, We Salute the Men and Women Sliding Into Your DMs
By Luke Winkie
On March 21, 2016, Twitter celebrated its 10th anniversary — and with it, the 10th anniversary of people hooking up on the social media platform. While meeting people over the internet — from MySpace to Facebook to AOL Instant Messenger — has been…
Why Millennials Are Ditching Tinder to Hook Up on Reddit
By Luke Winkie
As difficult as people say it is to find love in the 21st century, it's pretty easy to get laid. You can take the traditional route and try your luck at a club or a bar. You can thirst-fave Twitter and Instagram posts. Or you can stick to the…