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romcm's review against another edition
5.0
Loved it. Some were laugh-out-loud funny, and some just a sad indictment of contemporary culture. But it’s a gem of a book. And the format! People asked if I was carrying a bible! Sure was.
P.S. I purchased this on behalf of my academic library, as I’m sure it will be the focus for research in future.
P.S. I purchased this on behalf of my academic library, as I’m sure it will be the focus for research in future.
jonathan_lee_b's review against another edition
5.0
Selected Tweets is finding loose Runts in a jacket and eating them.
lindick's review against another edition
3.0
This is super hard to rate -- some tweets I loved & wanted to read out loud to whoever I was with, some made me laugh out loud, a lot made me cringe or roll my eyes and/or be extremely worried about both of them. And some were just ~extremely 2012, and I feel like maybe it's unfair to use my 2017 expectations to view some of it (plus like, the edginess is obviously the point, but does that excuse the rampant fat-shaming, use of the r-word, etc.?), so idk what to do with that.
I def preferred Mira's section, for what it's worth. Tao's was fun/cool/interesting at first but got *so* repetitive I could barely finish it and skimmed large portions.
I def preferred Mira's section, for what it's worth. Tao's was fun/cool/interesting at first but got *so* repetitive I could barely finish it and skimmed large portions.
otterno11's review
4.0
I’ve been following Tao Lin’s oeuvre for awhile now, even after the collapse of the “alt-lit” scene a few years ago after allegations of sexual harassment deservedly brought it all down. I never really followed the movement aside from Lin but there is still something about his detached, surreal yet banal style that fascinates me. I’ve mentioned in a previous review that I feel like Lin’s work, terse and yet literary, filled with a numbness and self-conscious irony, might be the new literature of the internet age. I even compared his writing to tweeting itself. So, seeing Lin publish a book devoted to tweets as an important part of his literary output, along with those of poet Mira Gonzalez, was interestingly fitting.
I used to be on Twitter, for professional reasons, but never really got into it and as the Twitter platform seemed more and more to be a negative force in the world, I jumped ship. That is not to say that I don’t think that tweeting is a worthy literary activity, and in fact, it seems to be a driving force in much of today’s creative writing. It makes sense for social media to be the natural home of many millennial age writers, and Lin and Gonzalez really make the most of the platform to push their styles, condensed into its famous 140 characters, the poetic voice of the internet age.
Tweeting is, like any social media, an autobiographical medium, and Lin and Gonzalez each use this, both to publish their work and elicit a response from readers. At the same time, it is interesting to think about the effect the medium has on the message. It is an instant way to share what one is thinking or feeling with the world, for better or for worse. Reading their work, I was struck by how much they chose to share, how much of their lives they bare to the world, and, like all of us, how lost they seem in their own lives, as well as taking a somewhat self destructive stance. There may be, in some ways, an exhibitionist element present, but for the reader, there is an equally strong voyeuristic feeling in perusing this work or following anyone on Twitter.
People may have perhaps always felt these impulses, but the internet makes it more efficient than ever. It is interesting, then, to see these ephemeral, fleeting thoughts published in the traditional media of a book. The little book itself is an interesting artifact, compact and bound not unlike a religious text with shiny gilt titles. The book is also organized to be with Tao’s and Mira’s tweets reversible on each side of the book, allowing the reader to flip it upside down to read the work of each. Arranged on each side from the earliest tweets circa 2010 and continuing until 2014, we watch them cycle through a variety of Twitter accounts, created to capture different voices or moods. For the most part, I was fascinated by the rather uncomfortable view into their thought processes, as each begins to delve into deeply personal subjects in their own ways. They can also be very funny, and I laughed quite a few times while going through the book, and it was also a struggle to not share too many of them with my wife.
Both write in a similar confessional, earnest, minimalist style, with drug use being a major theme for each, though they seem to be responding to the ennui of contemporary existence in slightly different ways. Lin’s, for instance, comes across as detached, surreal- he masks his emotions through strange thoughts and whimsy. His voice is neutral, bland, even as he speaks of absurd or comedic situations or personal fears. His work seems colder, more quirky, as he returns to familiar themes, whales, or fast food, or awkwardness, multiple times. In an interview on Hobart, Lin writes that he tweets what he would never feel comfortable saying in real life. I think that is a common feeling for many users, and it makes me wonder if there isn’t something cathartic about having such an outlet for such inexpressible feelings. This is especially evident when reading the other half of the collection, the tweets of Mira Gonzalez.
Gonzalez’s, in contrast to Lin’s cool, dispassionate style, feels much more raw, her emotions deeply expressed, hiding nothing. While also evoking comedy, phrasing a lot of pop culture references and puns, she writes her life in generally bleak terms, struggling with relationships, body image, and drug use and makes the reader even more disconcerted than Lin’s. She depicts a life in a free fall, self-excoriating and blunt. To be frank, it is almost a bit too visceral to read comfortably, particularly towards the end.
I did like how each of them used footnotes to annotate various dated references to pop culture, or other places where some explanatory notes may be necessary, as if they are already anticipating the use of these texts by historians looking for primary documents of 21st century life. Even if the Library of Congress has, since December 2017, ceased preserving the bulk of the worlds’ tweets, a few of the most unique words will persist here.
I used to be on Twitter, for professional reasons, but never really got into it and as the Twitter platform seemed more and more to be a negative force in the world, I jumped ship. That is not to say that I don’t think that tweeting is a worthy literary activity, and in fact, it seems to be a driving force in much of today’s creative writing. It makes sense for social media to be the natural home of many millennial age writers, and Lin and Gonzalez really make the most of the platform to push their styles, condensed into its famous 140 characters, the poetic voice of the internet age.
Tweeting is, like any social media, an autobiographical medium, and Lin and Gonzalez each use this, both to publish their work and elicit a response from readers. At the same time, it is interesting to think about the effect the medium has on the message. It is an instant way to share what one is thinking or feeling with the world, for better or for worse. Reading their work, I was struck by how much they chose to share, how much of their lives they bare to the world, and, like all of us, how lost they seem in their own lives, as well as taking a somewhat self destructive stance. There may be, in some ways, an exhibitionist element present, but for the reader, there is an equally strong voyeuristic feeling in perusing this work or following anyone on Twitter.
People may have perhaps always felt these impulses, but the internet makes it more efficient than ever. It is interesting, then, to see these ephemeral, fleeting thoughts published in the traditional media of a book. The little book itself is an interesting artifact, compact and bound not unlike a religious text with shiny gilt titles. The book is also organized to be with Tao’s and Mira’s tweets reversible on each side of the book, allowing the reader to flip it upside down to read the work of each. Arranged on each side from the earliest tweets circa 2010 and continuing until 2014, we watch them cycle through a variety of Twitter accounts, created to capture different voices or moods. For the most part, I was fascinated by the rather uncomfortable view into their thought processes, as each begins to delve into deeply personal subjects in their own ways. They can also be very funny, and I laughed quite a few times while going through the book, and it was also a struggle to not share too many of them with my wife.
Both write in a similar confessional, earnest, minimalist style, with drug use being a major theme for each, though they seem to be responding to the ennui of contemporary existence in slightly different ways. Lin’s, for instance, comes across as detached, surreal- he masks his emotions through strange thoughts and whimsy. His voice is neutral, bland, even as he speaks of absurd or comedic situations or personal fears. His work seems colder, more quirky, as he returns to familiar themes, whales, or fast food, or awkwardness, multiple times. In an interview on Hobart, Lin writes that he tweets what he would never feel comfortable saying in real life. I think that is a common feeling for many users, and it makes me wonder if there isn’t something cathartic about having such an outlet for such inexpressible feelings. This is especially evident when reading the other half of the collection, the tweets of Mira Gonzalez.
Gonzalez’s, in contrast to Lin’s cool, dispassionate style, feels much more raw, her emotions deeply expressed, hiding nothing. While also evoking comedy, phrasing a lot of pop culture references and puns, she writes her life in generally bleak terms, struggling with relationships, body image, and drug use and makes the reader even more disconcerted than Lin’s. She depicts a life in a free fall, self-excoriating and blunt. To be frank, it is almost a bit too visceral to read comfortably, particularly towards the end.
I did like how each of them used footnotes to annotate various dated references to pop culture, or other places where some explanatory notes may be necessary, as if they are already anticipating the use of these texts by historians looking for primary documents of 21st century life. Even if the Library of Congress has, since December 2017, ceased preserving the bulk of the worlds’ tweets, a few of the most unique words will persist here.
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