pborenstein.com

How things ended


Every era has its own style. I’m particularly interested in the way articles end. It changes from decade to decade, but the desire to wrap a piece of text in a little bow is eternal.

I asked Claude to make a table of different article-ending styles through the decades.

The following text is completely synthetic. It may not be accurate, true, or kind. Rinse before using.


Era Style Example Ending
1930 Authoritative, moralistic A writer without a proper conclusion is like a ship without a rudder – adrift in a sea of words.
1950 Professional, objective The data suggests writers will continue experimenting with various conclusion methods. Further research is needed.
1970 New Journalism, experiential I’m smoking a cigarette now, staring at my blank screen. The cursor blinks. I stop typing. Is that it?
1980 Ironic kicker After spending $2 million on the perfect wedding, Sarah realized she’d forgotten to invite the groom.
2000 Meta-commentary Maybe the real ending was the conclusions we left behind along the way.
2020 Systems thinking Our endings anxiety reveals how platform algorithms have trained us to think every piece must neatly click into place.