Here’s How to Celebrate Slate’s 30th Birthday!

Slate Fare Thirty Wonderful Years of Slate It’s our birthday! Honor the occasion with a trip back to 1996. Illustration by Charlie Powell Ten years ago, as Slate celebrated its 20th birthday, editor-in-chief Julia Turner noted that Slate’s ability to endure was as notable as its best journalism. “When Michael Kinsley launched Slate in 1996,” Julia wrote, “he was one of many journalistic pioneers staking out claims on what people still called the World Wide Web. Suck, Feed, and Salon were already publishing; dozens of other digital ventures were launched during that mid-’90s boom. Slate—thanks in large part to the ambitious, experimental, convivial spirit Kinsley instilled here—is one of the very few that’s still thriving.” These words are even truer today. It has been an honor to lead this unique, ambitious, surprising, and wonderful magazine for the past four years, and to be writing this on its 30th birthday—an age some of our staff members haven’t even reached yet! My love for Slate goes back to its earliest days. In 1996, I was a college senior, with barely any access to a computer, let alone the internet. But just a year later, I was in New York City, using dial-up at my receptionist desk at a tiny literary agency, searching for mentions of the authors and books we represented on the (web)pages of these new, weird, provocative magazines, including Slate. And in my next gig, at Lingua Franca magazine, where multiple editors took turns using a dial-up line, Slate became an even bigger part of my routine. I’d look forward to the day each month when the mail guy, on his regular tour around the office, would have a copy of Slate on Paper for me—a physical supplement to the scant time I was able to spend with Slate on the internet. Before long, I published my first byline in the magazine, compiling a bunch of higher-education news for a column called Egghead, a partnership between Slate and Lingua Franca. Jack Shafer was my editor, and we went through his edits over the phone. When I visited the D.C. office in the late ’90s, I got to meet Jack in person, as well as Mike Kinsley. The details are a bit fuzzy, but I remember that it was fun. The office was full of smart people who made each other laugh. It felt close and special in the ways that hanging out in magazine offices did back then. The impish, troublemaking spirit that Mike and the editors who came after him—Jacob Weisberg, David Plotz, Julia Turner, and Jared Hohlt—stoked and tended to over the years has remained embedded in Slate’s DNA even as the way we look at and interpret the world has evolved. To celebrate these 30 years of Slate’s signature mix of mischief and rigor, we’ve collected some of our best, most-loved work—suggested by former Slatesters, our devoted Plus readers, current staff, and contributors—to showcase in a very special format: Slate’s original 1996 homepage! Over the next month, you can travel back in time to revisit some of Slate’s best journalism, explore forgotten gems, and relive the early days of the World Wide Web. (I love the cursor—you’ll see!) Some featured stories will also offer reflections on how the work has held up (or not) over time; others will stand on their own. You’ll find a wealth of archival advice columns as well, from the dawn of Prudie to now, and a few contemporary pieces—like Luke Winkie’s forthcoming deep dive into Slate’s most loyal commenters—to mark Slate’s milestone birthday. Thank you for reading, listening, arguing, and sticking with us for three decades. We hope you enjoy dipping into Slate’s past with us, even as we continue bringing you the most important stories and sharpest commentary of the present.