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11 Noteworthy WIRED Long-form Stories of 2023

This year’s standout feature stories will transport you, make you think, and maybe even change your mind.

Personally, I think you should spend your holiday season reading all of WIRED’s standout features. Start here, work backward. Have fun!

But fine, if you insist on spending some of that time with family or friends, we’ve also come up with 11 picks for more focused perusal. Not necessarily the best or most popular stories—as editors, we can’t choose favorites among all our precious children—but a collection that captures the wild range of life and weirdness on this planet in 2023. There’s AI, of course, and TikTok. Hardware and software. Stories that take you inside the biggest hacks of recent history, and personal quests to confirm family lore. Stories are important. We have to believe that, or we wouldn’t be here. And we’ll be here again next year, with even more stories to share.

  • household items on porch
    Photograph: Holly Andres

    The Battle for the Soul of Buy Nothing

    Vauhini Vara chronicles how an idealistic community of people exchanging free stuff on Facebook descended into chaos.

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  • Illustration: Basile Fournier

    I Saw the Face of God in a Semiconductor Factory

    A six-chapter travelog that makes a startling case for the eminence, sublimity, and global centrality of a single company—TSMC—by one of the greatest living writers of English prose.

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  • Illustration: Khyati Trehan

    The Unbelievable Zombie Comeback of Analog Computing

    Charles Platt, veteran WIRED writer and lifelong believer in digital, confronts his prejudices.

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  • Photograph: Dan Winters

    Where to Find the Energy to Save the World

    What starts off as a rousing profile of a geothermal energy entrepreneur trying to stave off the climate crisis soon becomes something deeper, a story by turns hopeful and devastating.

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Most Popular
  • Photograph: Jessica Chou

    What OpenAI Really Wants

    Steven Levy’s in-depth cover story on the most talked-about company of the year.

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  • Photograph: Josh Valcarcel

    The Night 17 Million Precious Military Records Went Up in Smoke

    A search for some family documents turns into an investigation into who or what could be blamed for destroying 17,517,490 pieces of American history in a fire 50 years ago.

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Most Popular
  • ILLUSTRATION: VANILLA CHI

    The World Is Going Blind. Taiwan Offers a Warning, and a Cure

    Myopia is serious business, but—some good news for once!—the solution is simple.

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  • ILLUSTRATION: MATTHEW MILLER, JAMES JUNK; GETTY IMAGES

    The Mirai Confessions

    A 22,000-word blockbuster on the three teenage friends who took down the internet in 2016 and then (spoiler alert) went to work for the FBI.

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Most Popular
  • Photograph: SINNA NASSERI

    Watch This Guy Work and You’ll Finally Understand the TikTok Era

    Brendan Koerner takes you inside a TikTok talent factory for misfit stars.

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  • Photograph: Ian Bates

    How Citizen Surveillance Ate San Francisco

    Layer upon layer of video footage twists one narrative about a homeless man in San Francisco into something more complicated.

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Most Popular
  • Illustration: Tameem Sankari

    The Untold Story of the Boldest Supply-Chain Hack Ever

    One of the world’s foremost security reporters reveals how Russian hackers compromised thousands of victims in the epic SolarWinds attack—including at least nine US government agencies.

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Caitlin Kelly is a features editor at WIRED. Previously she was a senior features editor at VICE and a managing editor for VICE Sports. She has also worked at The New Yorker, ESPN, and Glamour.
Features editor
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