Video games we play (and watch)

What could be more sedentary than sitting around playing video games all day? How about sitting around all day and watching people play those addictive games?

The New Yorker reports on the ascent of gaming as a spectator sport, and the facts of the situation are suitably sad — and borderline disgusting. To be successful, streamers say, they must “work” — i.e. play video games — as much as 18 hours a day.

Glued to their computer screens and frantically tapping at buttons, these gaming geeks can mint millions of dollars. But there’s a price to the lifestyle, too. One of them, Roberto Garcia, once weighed 420 pounds.

If that’s not gloomy enough, turn to the feature about women trying to break tech’s glass ceiling. Among other things, we were a bit surprised there wasn’t more of a hardhitting treatment of the Harvey Weinstein-style antics that have been well-documented at a number of Silicon Valley venture firms.

From the dark to the stark, New York takes us backstage at a concert by Cardi B — the stripperturned-singer from the Bronx who recently scored the No. 1 song “Bodak Yellow” — and does a fine job of taking all the fun out of it. Cardi B stripped herself completely naked in the middle of a costume change, yet the reporter was unimpressed, griping that the whole thing looked staged and that “I’m not the first journalist Cardi stripped down in front of.”

Time, meanwhile, goes trendspotter with a cover story on 39- year-old French President Emmanuel Macron, making a case that with the decline of Germany and England’s leaders, and President Trump making America first, it is Macron who is stepping into the global breach.

Another relative youngster to watch, Time tells us, albeit with a more authoritarian style, is 32-yearold Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is quickly consolidating his power by arresting rivals and holing them up at the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh.