Erin Langner

Sep 19, 2024 | theoffingmag.com | Jessica Poon |Erin Langner |Kim Tongin |Jessalyn Maguire

I was not attractive in high school. I’m not complaining. Being homely is an underrated form of birth control. It isn’t necessarily salubrious for a teenage girl’s self-esteem, but self-esteem is a lie invented to sell shampoo. I fancied myself a photographer as a teenager, but I had ulterior motives. All this to say, I knew that the boys I liked in high school would not reciprocate my feelings, unless they were lobotomized and had uncorrected vision problems. I didn’t need to date them.

May 13, 2024 | therumpus.net | Erin Langner

Cancel culture is usually linked to the end of something: an event, a relationship, a career. And yet, Christine Ma-Kellams’s debut novel The Band (Atria Books, 2024) begins with the cancellation of K-pop star Sang Duri, in the wake of his downfall. On its surface, the writer’s slim debut novel chronicles Duri’s attempt to escape the public eye by approaching a woman in an H Mart and offering to cook tteokbokki in her home, a McMansion on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Nov 17, 2023 | brightwalldarkroom.com | Erin Langner

The Chicago of High Fidelity (2000) is the one I wanted to live in back when I was young and stuck in the suburbs. In my mind, I could follow its graffiti-lined, wheat-pasted streets, to get beyond the cul-de-sacs of tidy family homes that felt so clean and so stifling to me back then. I still see that Chicago as the El rumbles behind thirtysomething Rob Gordon (John Cusack), who walks in his Gen-X uniform (long leather jacket, Adidas sneakers) to Championship Vinyl, the record store he owns.

Feb 16, 2023 | metropolismag.com | Erin Langner

Breakthroughs in technology often cause more problems than they solve, resulting in negative consequences like social disorder, environmental degradation, and economic marginalization. But the winners of our second annual Responsible Disruptors program demonstrate that when employed thoughtfully, technology can make change for the better and disruption can be ethical.

Feb 14, 2023 | metropolismag.com | Erin Langner

DLR Group’s mass timber hotel prototype was a winner of Metropolis‘s second-annual Responsible Disruptors program. By: Erin LangnerBreakthroughs in technology often cause more problems than they solve, resulting in negative consequences like social disorder, environmental degradation, and economic marginalization. But the winners of our second annual Responsible Disruptors program demonstrate that when employed thoughtfully, technology can make change for the better and disruption can be ethical.