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whatthedeuce's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
ajb24's review against another edition
4.0
A lot of the ideas discussed in the book are very interesting and the book provided academic insight/intellectual analysis of internet culture in a way that was intriguing/thought-provoking. I didn't give this 5 stars because there's just something about it that feels overly casual to me? I think I would have liked it more if there were visible citations instead of the "Notes" section where key phrases are bolded. It's a frustrating way to fact-check and leads me to just having to accept the narrative McCulloch puts forward. The book has more anecdotal evidence than a typical "research" book, so perhaps that's why she chose this reference format, but there's also quite a bit of data taken from academic papers. The way this is written without citations made me question her logic at times because there was no easy way for me to double-check, say, the results/methods of a linguistic survey that she uses to make her argument. I found that she was good at explaining the possible limitations of the data she was sourcing, but overall I felt it was a bit too narrative-y and doesn't lend itself to critical analysis.
sara_shocks's review against another edition
4.0
4/5 stars
This was so full of facts and thoughtful analyses that gave me new views and ideas to ponder in relation to the internet! McCulloch has an infectious sense of delight and wonder for the internet and how people communicate on it/through it. I'm feeling unashamed of emoji use now! More emoji for all! She has some really great metaphors and similes for discussing internet phenomena that I never would have considered.
Not quite a 5/5 for me because I found the endnote style a little frustrating (how to know if something discussed has an endnote without pausing to flip to the endnotes to check!), and because I find her view of the internet to be a little rosy. She does touch on, say, toxic subreddits briefly, but generally there's not much engagement with how the deviant population uses internet language or how misinformation is spread; those topics are somewhat outside her scope but ultimately tied (the medium is the message).
If you enjoy learning about linguistics and want to see that framework applied to Internet language, run, don't walk.
This was so full of facts and thoughtful analyses that gave me new views and ideas to ponder in relation to the internet! McCulloch has an infectious sense of delight and wonder for the internet and how people communicate on it/through it. I'm feeling unashamed of emoji use now! More emoji for all! She has some really great metaphors and similes for discussing internet phenomena that I never would have considered.
Not quite a 5/5 for me because I found the endnote style a little frustrating (how to know if something discussed has an endnote without pausing to flip to the endnotes to check!), and because I find her view of the internet to be a little rosy. She does touch on, say, toxic subreddits briefly, but generally there's not much engagement with how the deviant population uses internet language or how misinformation is spread; those topics are somewhat outside her scope but ultimately tied (the medium is the message).
If you enjoy learning about linguistics and want to see that framework applied to Internet language, run, don't walk.
kristins3's review against another edition
5.0
Awesome book! I don't have much background in linguistics but found this very readable and entertaining. I thought the author had a great understanding of modern internet language and it was really cool to get an analysis of the language used on the internet, as well as a history of different trends and cultures. Honestly this was somehow both an academically oriented book and a page turner - overall fantastic.