Features
A collection of Vox's longreads and feature reporting projects.
The US is in danger of learning the wrong lessons from Covid-19
America is already missing its chance to prepare for the next pandemic.
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An oral history of the Dawson crying GIF and its outsized legacy
How Crying Dawson ascended to "the Mount Rushmore of GIFs."
The Pandemic Playbook
Vox explores the successes — and setbacks — in six nations as they fought Covid-19.
Joe Manchin wants to save Democrats from themselves
But is his love for the filibuster dooming the country to dysfunction?
How the UK found the first effective Covid-19 treatment — and saved a million lives
The United Kingdom is not a pandemic success story. But its massive Covid-19 trials program is.
Vietnam defied the experts and sealed its border to keep Covid-19 out. It worked.
How the country has kept coronavirus deaths to just 35, and grew its economy in 2020.
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Just because you can work from home doesn’t mean you’ll be allowed to
Which jobs are heading back to the office and which can stay home varies widely.
The wild frontier of animal welfare
Should humans care whether creatures live good lives, even in the forests or jungles? A group of philosophers and scientists has an unorthodox answer.
Germany contained Covid-19. Politics brought it back.
Germany was returning to normal last summer. Then Covid-19 surged.
The very cute, totally disturbing tale of the American “it” dog
How the quest to own the tiniest, most Instagram-worthy and low-maintenance pup has bred a world of problems.
How one company and way too many pigs destroyed America’s heartland
Iowa’s largest hog producer courted power and turned farming into a numbers game. Businesses like it are increasingly the norm.
South Korea’s Covid-19 success story started with failure
The inside account of how one country built a system to defeat the pandemic.
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America’s gun problem, explained
The public and research support gun control. Here’s how it could help — and why it doesn’t pass.
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The rise of the horny, x-rated, gay Twitter alts
Exhibitionism lives on Twitter, if you know where to find it.
The spectacle of anti-Asian violence on Instagram
Asian news sites like NextShark brought attention to anti-Asian racism — at the cost of circulating graphic imagery.
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Why the US egg industry is still killing 300 million chicks a year
Hatcheries promised to stop killing male chicks by 2020. What’s taking so long?
Long Covid isn’t as unique as we thought
The nagging symptoms long-haulers experience reveal a frustrating blind spot in medicine.
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One weird trick to fix our broken child care system
What if caring for kids was a public good?
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One Year Later
A collection of stories about the coronavirus pandemic — what we’ve been through and where we go from here.
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Ball lightning is real, and very rare. This is what it’s like to experience it.
Close encounters with mysterious, hovering balls of lightning, illustrated.
A fight over housing segregation is dividing one of America’s most liberal states
Who gets to live in Connecticut?
There are no easy answers on canceling student debt
From mental health to home-buying, there are myriad ways education loans can affect lives. That’s why it’s so difficult to find a one-size-fits-all solution, economists say.
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What would you tell your pre-pandemic self?
14 people look back and offer advice to their past selves on what’s to come.
“You can’t get away from the idea that you’re just lucky to be alive”
Pandemic survivor guilt may be pervasive, but it’s hard to detect, leaving many struggling in silence.
The problem is work
Pandemic parenting is impossible. American work culture is a big reason why.
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The danger of the new skepticism
"Question everything, right?" is the new mantra for some. But social echo chambers have propelled "healthy" skepticism into surreal terrain.
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Bias, disrespect, and demotions: Black employees say Amazon has a race problem
Interviews with diversity managers and internal data obtained by Recode indicate that Black Amazon employees are promoted less frequently and are rated more harshly than non-Black peers.
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There’s a clear fix to helping Black communities fight pollution
Industrial pollution has sickened and poisoned Black communities for decades. Environmental justice experts have a solution to stop this.
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The wild and irresistibly saucy tale of the curry con man
J. Ranji Smile served Indian food and tall tales to a hungry American public. Was he the first "celebrity chef" or a crook? The truth is complicated.
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The future of the middle class depends on student loan forgiveness
Canceling debt is what’s needed to ensure a solid, equitable middle class.
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As Times Square sits idle, so do Mickey and Elmo
Life was never easy for New York’s costumed performers. What happens when the tourists disappear?
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Now is the time to revolutionize policing
The BREATHE Act is a bold plan to address police violence — and it’s made for this moment.
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“It’s criminal”: A Texas community left without aid in the cold
An Austin organizer explains how the Texas freeze left her already vulnerable community in crisis.
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Figure skating is on thin ice. Here’s how to fix it.
The sport that peaked in the 1990s in the US could desperately use a makeover — and not just at the Olympic level.
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How school funding can help repair the legacy of segregation
America’s schools spend less money on Black students. Closing the gap is key to equality.
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For Black Americans, the middle class has always been a mirage
So many Black families have been shut out of stability at every turn.
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How the Biden administration can save the Postal Service
The Postal Service has to do more than deliver mail if it wants to survive.
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Terrible financial advice is going viral on TikTok
TikTok is full of dubious personal finance myths. Here are 10 of them, and why you should be wary.
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The paradox of online “body positivity”
Is this the beginning of a mainstream fat acceptance movement? Or will it be buried by the algorithms?
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Stories from a Lost Year
2020 was a hard, hard year. Here are the stories of people who lived through it.