“To investigate the geography of selfie-taking, TIME built a database of more than 400,000 Instagram photos tagged ‘selfie’ that included geographic coordinates. In total, we ranked 459 cities to determine the selfiest places on earth.”

The Catapult is a new podcast that highlights emerging fiction, nonfiction and poetry writers, with your host Jaime Green. Here’s episode one! You can subscribe on iTunes or follow on Tumblr.

by James Hamblin

What is an “explainer”?

There are a lot of things out there to read. Some of them are long. Many involve complex, nuanced ideas. That doesn’t have to be the case. When it is the case, it’s a failure of journalists to make news engaging and accessible. An explainer is an article that breaks down an important topic into just the things you care about and need to know. It’s unlike all other kinds of articles in that way. If you still can’t understand it, that’s on us. That’s our bad.

How do I know what I care about and what I need to know?

Explainers tell you. We are all over this. All you have to do is read words and then click a button to share with your friends. (Facebook is better than Twitter.) Don’t like words? There will be simple charts and neat vids. It’s that simple.

Huh I don’t get it?

That’s fine! We didn’t think you would. Traditional media outlets aren’t equipped to explain most topics to people like you. Let’s see if we can break it down further — just the basics now. What is it you really need to know about explainers.

I don’t know.

Oh, sorry! That was rhetorical. I mean, that was a statement that might have sounded like a question, but it was not. Okay. Now, try and remember the last time you read a news article in its entirety. See, you can’t. You never have. Or the last time you thought, “I understand what’s happening in the Ukraine well enough to make a smart comment about it at a party.” You can’t. Obviously nobody explained to you not to say “the” Ukraine either. Understanding all you need to understand would take literally hours of reading about history. You’re going to click away to watch dogs on treadmills. Who says you can’t have both? Can dogs on treadmills explain international conflicts?

I hope so, that’d be neat. I could get into that.

So let’s say you want to know about something, but it’s an oo-ey gooey topic. Like, it’s super gross. Maybe it’s about something that’s happening on the whole other side of the world and will never affect you in any tangible way. It’s like, you know, Internet vegetables. No one wants to eat vegetables, and no one should have to. Explainers turn those vegetables into delicious sweets. Remember how your mom used to say you can’t just eat cookies all day? Well, you’re a grown-up now, and we say you can eat those cookies all day.

I like cookies.

We know. We know you do. We like when you like them. We like watching you like them.

I love your real smart idea. What about important issues, I want to care about them?

Yes, you do. It’s great to care about important issues. Deep down you are a compassionate, profoundly intellectual person. You deserve the opportunity to share articles that reflect that.

i lke cookies!

You bet.

obamacare

Exactly. That is such an important issue. You are really getting it now.

I like to read. Health care is v import

It seems we’ve succeeded in getting you to understand this.

ow hit my face on desk

That’s on us. We failed to keep you engaged.

James Hamblin is a senior editor at The Atlantic.

★★★★ An uptilted oval of cloud balanced itself low down in an egg-blue sky. More white puffs moved in and out again, the leisurely theater of the heavens. Sharp light and a brisk breeze came up the avenue together. Pale pigeons nibbled at birdseed on the sidewalk, and a passing boy kicked at the pigeons. The day wasn’t warm, but it was bright and fine enough to be out in, in then now-displaced afternoon. Now the wind somehow did the trick where it was headed down Broadway but up Amsterdam. It chilled the forehead and stiffened the muscles tightening the eyes against the glare. More pigeons, possibly some of the same ones, perched on a well-spattered ledge below the blankly vigilant gazes of three fake owls.

“De Blasio Deputy Acknowledges Hiring Process Has Been a ‘Bit Slower Than Some’”

“Catchy hashtags are a hallmark and give clues that the tweeting in question is a Black Twitter thing.” [Related]

“Letting Lis Smith go was De Blasio’s biggest mistake”

I keep feeling like the right combination of sounds and speeds might finally shake some alertness into all of us, but maybe today is a lost cause. Anyway, let’s give it one last try with this one, via Stereogum. If it doesn’t work we at least made an effort, and we can reconvene tomorrow morning with fresh hope.

“A sturgeon which escaped from an aquatic centre during the floods which swept Britain has been found in a puddle a mile away, as experts hope another missing Koi Carp could still be found.”

Guess what’s artisanal now!