Why Do We Love ‘Choose-Your-Own-Adventure’ Stories?

From the I Ching to an Upcoming Netflix Romcom, Interactive Fiction Dares Us to Decide What Happens Next

The new Netflix original horror movie Choose or Die turns on an interactive computer game called “CURS>R,” which resembles a classic ’80s adventure program in which a user inputs text to move the story forward. Naturally, there’s a twist—the protagonist discovers that every choice in the game, no matter how small, will determine whether she and the people around her stay alive.

While the movie itself isn’t interactive (something that could have helped rehabilitate the plot), the release reflects Netflix’s growing interest in choose-your-own-adventure-style programming. Since the debut of Black Mirror: …

by Jackie Mansky | April 29, 2022

Digging Up the History of the Family Bomb Shelter

For 75 Years, Images of Bunker Life Have Reflected the Shifting Optimism, Anxieties, and Cynicism of the Nuclear Age

by Thomas Bishop | April 18, 2022

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not the first conflict to unfold on social media, but commentators have been quick to dub it the first “TikTok War.” Videos by young …

Before Wordle, There Was Cross-Word Mania

In the 1920s, Puzzling Inspired a Broadway Musical, Built a Publishing House, and Counted the Queen of England as a Fan

by Jackie Mansky | April 1, 2022

In its short lifespan, Wordle has already made the tricky transition from cult phenomenon to established part of our daily lives.

Created by a software engineer in Brooklyn for his partner …

How 1970s Pop Culture Cemented Today’s Partisan Divisions

Journalist Ronald Brownstein Explores the Creative Explosion in Los Angeles That Prefigures Our Current Politics

by Sara Suárez | April 23, 2021

Longtime political journalist Ronald Brownstein paid a visit to Zócalo yesterday to speak about his new book, Rock Me On the Water: 1974- The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, …

Quarantine Won’t Be Forever, but Pandemic Humor Is Timeless

A Century Before TikToks and Memes, the 1918 Flu Inspired Rhyming Poetry and Skeptical Satire

by Katherine A. Foss | July 27, 2020

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, as society shut down and social distancing became the new norm, user-created media content about life during the pandemic exploded. Today’s technology makes it easy …

Television and Film Have a Role to Play in Repairing a Fractured America

Despite the Bitterness Splintering the Nation, History Shows We’re “All in the Family"

February 20, 2017

In American memory, if not always in reality, television and film once played a unifying role. During the Great Depression, decadent Hollywood productions delivered welcome diversion. At the dawn …

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