In honor of the changing of the guard at Slate (the fabulous new editor, Julia Turner, is Slate‘s first female editor in history! Hooray!), I would like to offer the following homage to David Plotz, who helmed the site when the following ten articles were very popular/incited minor shitstorms. He once emailed me to tell me he “LOVE LOVE LOVE[D]” my work, and I shall cherish that email until my dying day.

1. “Trader Joe Has a Brother. He’s Even Better.” (145K FB shares)
2. “The End of the College Essay” (49K)
3. “The Clever Stunt Four Professors Pulled To Expose the Outrageous Pay Gap in Academia” (47K)
4. “Thesis Hatement” (39K)
5. “Needs Improvement” (27K)
6. “PowerPointless” (23K)
7. “Doing Higher Ed Right” (19K)
8. “Confessions of a Grade Inflator” (18K)
9. “This Crazy Supermarket Commercial Provides a Window into German Culture” (10K)
10. “The Ghosts of Kafka Present” (10K)