The Battle to Make Reddit Brand-Safe | How 9/11 Changed the Super Bowl

From yoga and meditation to exercise and virtual reality experiences, airlines are battling to offer passengers the best onboard wellness solutions.

At the end of a tough week at work, you want to relax. You plug your headphones into a device that helps you meditate. Instantly, you’re cut off from the troubles of the world, transported to a quiet, rocky beach in Australia, even though you’re actually surrounded by people in a cramped space. And not just any space — you’re 30,000 feet in the air.

For decades, airlines have tried to differentiate themselves from competitors by offering better prices or greater luxury. Now, airlines are rushing into a new arena of rivalry — fighting it out to offer passengers midair wellness solutions they’re used to finding on the ground. In the process, they’re transforming flights into aerial spas.

All eyes are on superduo Brady and Belichick, but there’s a lot else to watch at this year’s Big Game.

Super Bowl LIII, which kicks off Sunday at 6:30 pm and will air on CBS, has taken over the airwaves this week, a clash between the much-decorated New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams were the league’s hottest team early in the season but stumbled a bit down the stretch, while the Patriots — as they always seem to do — are peaking at the right time.

This year’s Big Game is best understood as a generational clash. Pats head coach Bill Belichick (66, baby boomer) and quarterback Tom Brady (41, Generation X) are seeking their sixth Super Bowl title together — which would make Brady the player with the most rings ever and give Belichick a tie for the most as a coach. Here in Atlanta to teach them about Instagram and avocado toast are the millennials seeking their first titles: Rams head coach Sean McVay (33) and quarterback Jared Goff (24). Both teams arrived by the skin of their teeth.

Chief operating officer Jen Wong is turning the internet’s front page into a space where brands want to be.

No one gives a shit if you were sexually assaulted because you idiots deserve it for wearing slutty clothes!” a Reddit user wrote in 2017 to an unidentified group of women he saw jogging in yoga pants that morning. The comment was posted in the subreddit r/incels, a group of men who gained notoriety for claiming to be “involuntarily celibate,” blaming women and society at large for their unsuccessful sexual pursuits.

Today, r/incels is banned from Reddit, along with subreddits like r/Nazi, r/farright and many other groups spewing racism, sexism or hate. The move was part of a larger evolution for “the front page of the internet” in 2018 that included redesigning the website, growing its team to nearly 500 employees and substantially increasing ad revenue. But enticing advertisers to spend money on a platform that calls to mind hate speech is no easy task.

That’s where Jen Wong comes in.