Sometimes this is indeed merely "fancy" and vacuous, but other times it is a meaningful and more engaging way to present the content. I feel like this is an example of the latter.

Even if you're not a fan and would have done it differently, it seems a bit hard to understand what could be so bothersome that you have to close it in 10s...

Well, it literally makes me feel almost nauseous, i.e. I felt physically unwell from the images and text moving around the screen.

Note: this doesnt happen from a regular video, or normal scrolling text behaviour. Just sites like this that combine overriding the scroll bar with moving text and images.

I often like the use of advanced media. The NYT and Washington Post have done some amazing advanced media that fully exploits the richness possible with the web.

Not so sure about this one, though. Like others, I was more annoyed with the constant scrolling to get tiny niblets of information and didn't even make it through. It makes it feel like work and the mechanisms completely overwhelms the message.

Also weird that it's hogging CPU even when you're sitting on a completely static portion of the page.