Jenny G. Zhang

Writer and Editor at Freelance

writer, senior culture ed @slate, contributor @washingtonpost. previously @gawker @eater @criticismisdead. i am not jenny zhang. https://t.co/DKLJqT0iST

Articles

This book strips away the orange peel to ask what fruit means

5 days ago | washingtonpost.com | Jenny G. Zhang

This book strips away the orange peel to ask what fruit means (washingtonpost.com) This book strips away the orange peel to ask what fruit means By Jenny G. Zhang 2025051012000000 Among the many hallmarks of the slice of literature known as diaspora writing, perhaps none is more frequently revisited than the significance of fruit to a child of immigrants.
Katy Perry’s Blue Origin space flight is the successor to 2025’s “Imagine” video.

4 weeks ago | slate.com | Jenny G. Zhang

The one news story that the entire world cannot stop talking about just keeps going. That’s right, I’m referring to the “historic” all-female Blue Origin space flight, which took a crew of six women—including three very famous ladies—to suborbital space and back in less than 11 minutes on Monday.
People Are Really, Really Going to Hate Mike White Over Those White Lotus Finale Deaths

1 month ago | slate.com | Jenny G. Zhang

Television This post contains spoilers for the Season 3 finale of The White Lotus. In the week leading up to Sunday night’s season finale of The White Lotus, theories abounded about who would wind up the dead bodies floating in the water that had been so tantalizingly teased in the first episode. Would it be the Ratliffs, the privileged family whose fortunes had unexpectedly changed without most of their knowledge?
Dear Prudence Uncensored: I Think My Friend Would Highly Benefit from Plastic Surgery—And It’s My Duty to Tell Her.

1 month ago | slate.com | Jenée Desmond-Harris |Jenny G. Zhang

Skip to the content An Authentic Academic Feel Dear Prudence Each week in Dear Prudence Uncensored, Prudie discusses a tricky letter with a fellow Slate colleague. This week, they dig into “Face the Truth.” Dear Prudence, I’m in my mid-30s and I have a good friend in her early 20s that I’ll call “Mia.” Mia is an incredibly smart, sweet, wonderful person.
You won’t believe how much money magazines used to have.

1 month ago | slate.com | Jenny G. Zhang

Skip to the content Forget That the Real World is Still Happening Books Make no mistake: When the Going Was Good, legendary Vanity Faireditor Graydon Carter’s memoir about “the last golden age of magazines,” is an elegy. The newly released book, co-authored with James Fox, may have the pluckiness of a rags-to-riches—OK, fine, Ontario-to-Manhattan—fairy tale. It may be part résumé, part time capsule, part gossip trove, part Rolodex.
Hayao Miyazaki would hate the losers using ChatGPT and OpenAI.

1 month ago | slate.com | Jenny G. Zhang

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Since OpenAI released an update earlier this week that improved ChatGPT’s ability to generate images based on detailed requests, a dark evil has infected the internet, responsible for the shriveling of souls and the wanton destruction of life and nature itself: Studio Ghibli A.I. slop.
One of Severance’s Most Interesting Puzzles Is Something We Grapple With in the Real World, Too

1 month ago | slate.com | Jenny G. Zhang

In the cold, barren world of Severance, Lumon Industries is capital-E Evil. The corporation is responsible for such atrocities as employing child labor, leaving a small town kneecapped by ether addiction, and abducting at least one woman for a yearslong experiment in which she’s subjected to painful tests and then doomed to die.
Media's unspoken "talent" hierarchy

Jan 27, 2025 | jennygzhang.substack.com | Jenny G. Zhang

In the past five years since I last published this newsletter, much has changed. I got a new job (staff writer at the publication known as “Gawker 2.0” or “new Gawker” or “nü Gawker,” depending on how pretentious you are), partly thanks to this newsletter. I became an editor. I lost that job when Bryan Goldberg abruptly snipped the purse strings keeping the entire venture afloat.
Buying or Selling a Business? Look Out for Employee Benefits Issues!

Oct 31, 2024 | inbusinessphx.com | Jenny G. Zhang |Ryan Curtis |Benjamin Little

When a company is bought, sold, merged or reorganized, unexpected employee benefits issues may surface that can significantly affect the structure of the deal, liabilities and future benefit plan design for the surviving entity and its employees. Those buying, selling or merging businesses should consider the following situations in the early stages of exploring potential transactions.
The 2024 Election Is Officially the Pet Election. It’s Not Cute.

Sep 13, 2024 | slate.com | Jenny G. Zhang

Skip to the content Spiraling Through Rabbit Warrens of Gibberish Life A person observing the American election from abroad could be forgiven for thinking that we’ve all finally succumbed to toxoplasmosis this year, given how pet-forward the discourse has been.