Welcome to the last Friday Fourteen of 2021!
Instead of reading the internet this week, we’ve been looking back on the year that was. We sent out 45 Friday Fourteens in 2021, and about 75% of you opened every! single! one! (thank you 😭))
We asked the Slice team to share their favourite fourteen things from this year’s Friday Fourteens, and this is what they said:
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Charlotte, content coordinator —>
To every single person in my life’s surprise, I joined the Formula 1 bandwagon this year. What began with a few episodes of Netflix’s Drive to Survive has become a fully fledged obsession (I stayed up until four am last Sunday to watch the season’s finale 😵). It wasn’t until I read this engrossing piece about how Netflix made people care about sports that I was able to put my finger on why I like it so much
The Modern Love essay ‘An Anxious Person Tries to Be Chill’ was one of my absolute favourite pieces this year. It’s a love letter to everyone who exudes ‘chillness’ at the start of a relationship
In a year marked by career crises, I loved this thought provoking article about careers that raises simple questions, which have potentially life altering answers: "What if people don’t want a career? What if work didn’t make you feel awful? What would life be like if we didn’t live to work?”
Claire, copywriter & content producer —>
Of these 99 pieces of unsolicited advice, IMHO at least 90 of these are worth reading twice. My favourite: “History teaches us that in 100 years from now some of the assumptions you believed will turn out to be wrong. A good question to ask yourself today is “What might I be wrong about?”
This beautiful, sweet, sad, funny piece by the writer Roxane Gay about how nice it is to have someone else to care about pulled at my heart strings when I first read it (pre my Slice days!), and now that I’ve had my dog for nearly a year, I wholeheartedly get it (“We’d put some food in his bowl, and watch, holding our breath, as he sniffed tentatively. If he disapproved, he backed away, because that’s what he does when he doesn’t like the smell of something. Several times, he looked up with the saddest eyes, like he was saying, “Get it together, humans.”)
For my fellow book lovers, if you’re planning your summer/2022 reading list, this literature map has your back. Just enter in an author you like and it will tell you who else you should read (🙏🏼 internet gods). I had to share this one again because I’ve set a goal to read 100 books next year — there’s nothing like public accountability 📚 — and have bookmarked this for when I need some inspo!
Lizzie, managing director —>
Since discovering it, I’ve constantly gone back to this TikTok when I need a laugh
I keep thinking about this excellent argument for why we need better out of office replies (but I’m yet to actually jazz up my OOO)
This photo of a 100 year old rhododendron and the woman who planted it never fails to make me smile
Jesse, content coordinator —>
One of my fave pieces from this year was Pete Davis' How to stop living in 'Infinite Browsing Mode' (in other words… the state of hopping from job to job or relationship to relationship in the same way someone watches shows on Netflix). He writes: "This is not a bad problem to have — compared with a century ago, people today have far more agency over what they do, what they learn, where they live, and whom they marry — but when weighing all the options, holding out for some better imagined alternative can deny people the pleasures of long-term, committed immersion."
Something I missed at the time that I really wish I'd shared (it happens every Friday morning!) is this New Yorker obituary to Virgil Abloh. No matter how you feel about his work, you can't deny the impact he had on not only the fashion industry, but music, design, art and architecture. A Renaissance man in the truest sense, he certainly made the most of his 41 years. "[Virgil] longed to build an intricately structured life for his muse, the young Black man. Abloh designed not only this man’s clothing but also his shoes, the music he listened to in order to prime himself for the workday, the furniture he looked upon before leaving for said workday, the shiny vernacular he used in his speech, the high-concept museum exhibition at which he could practice this speech."
Please, please, please, if there’s only one album you listen to over summer, make sure it’s Genesis Owusu’s debut album Smiling With No Teeth. I’ve been rinsing it all year and am still not sick of it yet. There’s so many layers and something new to gain from every listen, but the genre-bending artist also finds a way to mix so many different elements together — from experimental hip-hop, to punk guitar solos, to smooth soul and RnB — there’s something for everyone!
And finally, me, Vanessa, content & strategy director (hi!) —>
I’ve read this astonishingly beautiful short story from Ann Patchett about half a dozen times since I included it in issue 65, and probably think about it weekly. It’s about Tom Hanks, chemo, Covid, magic mushrooms and true friendship and it’s just so, so good
I’ve struggled with fertility this year, and this piece about the slippery slope of pregnancy forums made me feel extremely seen. I imagine it will resonate with lots of you out there too
And for lucky number 15, how could we do a wrap-up of 2021 without including the video clip of the lawyer who logged into a virtual court session only to be accidentally turned into a cat. When questioned, he said, “I’m here live, I’m not a cat,” and thus the catchphrase of 2021 was born. It’s the cat’s sad but shifty eyes that do it for me 😂
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That’s a wrap! From everyone at Slice, thank you for letting us into your inbox every Friday throughout 2021. We love every single email, DM, note, and recommendation you send us, so please keep them coming in 2022.
Whether you’re having a break or you’re one of those excellent people keeping our hospitals, supermarkets and public transport running while the rest of us eat too much chocolate, we hope you have a restful and safe end to the year. And if you’re looking for some holiday reading, you can delve into the Friday Fourteen archives here.
We’ll be back on January 14!
~ Claire, Charlotte, Jesse, Lizzie & Vanessa ~
