2021 was a great year on Readup and we’re pleased to announce the fifteen articles that got the most reads, the highest ratings, and the most vigorous commenting activity.

As we did last year, we broke the list into three sections based on article length: Short (less than 10 mins), Medium (between 10 and 30 mins) and Long (more than 30 mins).

Major thanks to all the readers who scouted (that is, found & posted) these excellent reads. Your service to the community can’t be measured in words or read counts.

Enjoy!

Jump to Short - Medium - Long

Short (9 mins or less)

You could finish reading these in the time it takes to get a cup of coffee!

The Type of Love That Makes People Happiest

6 mins — By Arthur C. Brooks in The Atlantic — comments

The writer of the “How to Build a Life” series in The Atlantic, Arthur C. Brooks (Readup profile), regularly captures the attention of the Readup community. This year’s top hit compares friendship to passion ❤️

I loved this article but liked the comments even more. - @Pegeen

I spent 2 years cleaning houses. What I saw makes me never want to be rich.

8 mins — By Stephanie Land in Vox — comments

Netflix released the acclaimed TV series Maid in 2021, but in 2015 the main subject of these episodes already wrote an article airing out the gory details of her work. Want to be a voyeur for a few minutes?

The Netflix show is on now, and I just watched the first excellent episode. But you know what’s even better than that first episode? This piece. - @sjwoo

7 Overlooked Signs You’re Living an Extraordinary Life*

6 mins — By Barry Davret in Curious — comments

A short reminder to reflect on your life. Maybe it isn’t that bad after all? Readers found these prompts helpful.

Why You Should Wait Out the Wild Housing Market

6 mins — By Derek Thompson in The Atlantic — comments

This approachable market analysis from late May might still help you today! Learn about the key metrics that drive real-estate prices.

Omicron Is the Beginning of the End

6 mins — By Yascha Mounk in The Atlantic — comments

Writer Yascha documents an unwillingness to respond to COVID-19 waves with the same intensity as we did early early in the pandemic.

Medium (10-30 mins)

These reads take a bit more commitment, but are a bit more rewarding too.

I Am a Heroin User. I Do Not Have a Drug Problem*

14 mins — By Mark Macnamara in Nautilus — comments

An article doesn’t have please everyone to be valuable. What’s important to us is that it invites civil discourse and free thinking. Drugs are definitely a politically and culturally sensitive topic, and this article offered a contrarian opinion. I’m proud of the way the Readup community handled this one. Read the thesis, then read the reactions to learn more!

How Giving Up Refined Sugar Changed My Brain

12 mins — By Michael Grothaus in Fast Company — comments

According to the comments, this article could change lives for the better! Worth a read if you’re battling with sugar or interested in the topic.

Off the rails: Inside the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency

19 mins — By Jonathan Swan & Zachary Basu in Axios — comments

Possibly the most entertaining read of the year?

I actually didn’t even want to read this, but once I started I couldn’t stop. Which is surely why it won AOTD. Just too juicy to resist. — @bill

My non-binary gender identity was a cope

17 mins — By Molly Frances — comments

Readers appreciated the refreshing honesty of Molly in this essay. Check it out!

Great job, Molly, sharing your truth - real and uncensored - @DellwoodBarker

Brave and unflinching. - @EZ1969

Edward Snowden Explains Blockchain to His Lawyer — and the Rest of Us

21 mins — by Edward Snowden on aclu.org — comments

I’ll let @bartadamley say it:

Such an informative piece on what cryptocurrencies are. Highly recommend this piece, as it seems we are at the very beginning of the blockchain being implemented on a “mainstream” level.

Long (30 mins or more)

Most of these reads take you on a deep, personal journey. Live another’s life for an hour.

The Time I Went On A Lesbian Cruise And It Blew Up My Entire Life

61 mins — by Shannon Keating in BuzzFeed News — comments

Is it a review of a lesbian cruise experience? A treatise on gender identity? Read the wild story that blew many minds.

This was a fascinating glimpse into a world I’m not really familiar with. — @Karenz

A seriously amazing read! My eyes were welling up towards the end. — @jeff

The Voyeur’s Motel

69 mins — By Gay Talese in The New Yorker — comments

In April, @DellwoodBarker surfaced a 2016 longread by the legendary journalist Gay Talese. In a decades-long project, Gay tells the story of Gerald Foos, who bought a motel in order to watch his guests having sex. A story that eventually entangles the writer himself too.

Wowwww. People are so fascinating and the truth is absolutely stranger than fiction. — @Alexa

This was an interestingly weird article, lol — @OMS

How Twitter can ruin a life: Isabel Fall’s complicated story

32 mins — By Emily VanDerWerff in Vox — comments

This is a remarkable story, and heartbreaking in it’s own way. I tend to be drawn to stories that show the machinations of the internet at work, especially the dark side, and this one is a beautifully written and engaging story of how it ate this woman up for daring to publish her art. — @Alexa

Wow, this is incredibly nuanced reporting. — @Jessica

The Psychology of Money

43 mins — Morgan Housel in Collaborative Fund — comments

Much less mundane, much more readable and entertaining read on money than I expected on the subject. — @DellwoodBarker

The Feminist

41 mins — By Tony Tulathimutte in n+1 — comments

His friends, mostly female, told him he was refreshingly attentive and trustworthy for a boy. Meanwhile he is grateful for the knowledge that female was best used as an adjective, that sexism harms men too (though not nearly to the extent that it harms women), and that certain men pretend to be feminists just to get laid. — n+1

Highly recommended even though reading this might ruin your day. Really exceptional writing. - @jeff

Congratulations to all the winners! And extra props to The Atlantic for winning three times in the Short category.

*: These two articles don’t load properly in Readup’s reader as of Feb. 1, 2022. We’ll fix these parser issues asap. For now, we included direct links to the publisher’s article pages.