Episode
Ben Smith Isn’t Afraid of the Future
- Podcast
- The Kicker
- Published
- Dec 23, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 2194
- Processing state
not_requested
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Summary
It has been called “the last good day on the internet”: on February 26, 2015, Americans flocked online to watch fugitive llamas in Arizona evade their captors on a live broadcast, shortly before an ambiguously colored dress—blue and black to some, white and gold to others—was uploaded online. At BuzzFeed, which sent the dress to unprecedented levels of global virality, Ben Smith watched it all unfold. He realized in that moment just how popular divisive content could be. In hindsight, it was ...