Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz presents a social history of the internet—revealing how online influence and the creators who amass it have reshaped our world, online and off.
[A] terrific history ... Lorenz...is a knowledgeable, opinionated guide to the ways internet fame has become fame, full stop. She zooms by people and places widely covered by the mainstream press...but slows down for people...whose popularity was driven by internet-native media ... Lorenz has a beat reporter’s eye for detail, which can occasionally be overwhelming ... Aims to tell a sociological story, not a psychological one, and in its breadth it demonstrates a new cultural logic emerging out of 21st-century media chaos.
She takes a reporter’s approach to cultural history, interviewing many of the most famous (or at least influential) users of various sites and apps. Along the way, she provides a thoroughgoing account of the modern internet, from the perspective of those who have, at one time or another, found ways to mine it for opportunities ... Tapping her deep expertise in the subject, Lorenz makes a strong case that creators — not the tech platforms — truly shaped internet culture ... Infectious in celebrating the tsunami of creative youth culture ... Lorenz gives us a clear and compelling history of how the money came to flow into amateur-made short video content. But the book can’t quite prove that we’ve lived through a true revolution.
That this state of things might actually be horrible, a kind of monkey’s-paw curse delivered upon these online savants, is not a possibility that Lorenz brooks. What matters is only whether they can monetize that fame ... I don’t mean that I wish Lorenz was passing negative judgment on such behavior. It’s not exactly that I think Lorenz should...add parentheticals to each paragraph reading...though I confess it might ease my mind if she did it just once ... Bland ... We are not reading Taylor Lorenz for her analysis of early-2000s TV! We are reading her because she has a preternatural talent for informing nonteenagers about people whom millions of teenagers love passionately. Unfortunately, for the most part Extremely Online fails to make use of its author’s superpower ... What’s odd about this is that the book could have been, should have been, Lorenz’s chance to break out of the constraints that have notably chafed her while writing for mainstream outlets.
