This week on The Deep Dive: The Cut either platforms people who have terrible judgment or are straight-up lying and I can’t tell which is worse, how to capture the essence of a city in a video game, Fifth Harmony’s mess in all its 2010s nostalgic glory, a take on plagiarism that I’m still not sure I totally agree with, and the stolen car that launched an exploration into dread, marshmallows, rented fridges, and poverty trauma.

I also interviewed tiffanyferg, the creator who helped me discover video essays back in 2018, for tomorrow’s issue of The Rabbit Hole! And in case you need more reasons to sign up, check out the Searchable Playlist to help you find the perfect video to watch while folding laundry…or eating lunch…or pretending to work…or whatever else…

MEDIA

Is this author's husband trashing her novel on Goodreads? Maybe, but there's a bigger problem here. by withcindy (18:30)

Between Charlotte Cowles talking about how she was too smart to get scammed before telling a story about the time she put $50,000 in a shoebox to hand over to some random in a white Mercedes who she thought was from the CIA and this bonkers advice column question, I need to know what kind of nonsense is going on at The Cut. So let’s entertain the possibility that one of these stories is completely made up. I’m still holding out hope that it’s the $50,000 scam one but in this video, withcindy breaks down the suspicious details in a story of a successful writer’s hater husband. All there is to say is if this story is true, its submitter is going to need way more than surface-level advice from a columnist at The Cut and should probably call a divorce lawyer instead.

GAMING

City Levels: The Most Underrated Biome by Pixel a Day (28:24)

I never thought I could be so blown away by an analysis of city levels in video games, but here I am nearly crying over visual and sound design. In this video, Pixel a Day reminds me of what I love so much about being in the city by spotlighting the abstract cityscapes of two video games I’ve never even heard of and will most likely never get to play. How do you capture the essence of a big city? How do you bottle up its sounds, moods, and the joy of human connection and manifest it into a nameless metropolis of a fictional universe? What do busy streets sound, feel, and look like during the day and how do those details change when night falls? And what is it about Super Mario Odyssey that just makes me want to party in the streets?

This issue of The Deep Dive is sponsored by

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