In its heyday, Wired magazine gave the entire technology and Internet press a steady stream of wacky, outrageous material to react to. On the blog he has created to accompany his new history of Wired, “Wired: A Romance” (Andrew Leonard’s Salon review is here), Gary Wolf is posting some reminiscences and other Wired miscellany.
I have to agree with his judgment that Wired’s worst story ever was the “Push” cover story he was credited as co-author of. Wolf’s recollections of how that absurd piece of puffery came into existence is illuminating and worth reading; Wired, it seems, was even more seat-of-the-pants in its editorial process than those of us on the outside could tell. I’ll stand by my assessment of February, 1997, that the story wounded the publication’s credibility. But reading Wolf’s account, you can’t help feeling a little more charitable toward the people responsible for the open-ended, improvisatory provocation that was the Wired game. Viewed as a moment rather than a movement, it all seems a little funnier and less heinous. After all, the next three years would see far vaster corporate scams unfold — and ones with far less style.
Also, don’t miss Wolf’s riff on the hapless San Francisco Chronicle, whose book reviewer made a big fuss about Wolf’s single misspelling of a single name — only to wind up with his own review sitting under a misspelled headline.
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