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ioyler22's review
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
An interesting review of influencers and how they’ve come to power with social media. I feel like it should have been broken into two parts: pre-Covid and post-Covid. 90% of the book covered the pre-Covid world and I would argue that what has happened during Covid and afterwards is more important than all of pre-Covid social media history put together.
cartridgepink's review
lighthearted
medium-paced
2.0
Too surface level to really dig into online culture in any meaningful way. Sadly this suffers from the author's background in marketing; there isn't much meaningful interrogation into online celebrity beyond financials and engagement measurements (which are still interesting, at least). There's a bit of political insight but nothing new if you're at all engaged with this topic already. I'm not sure who this book is really for.
The tone of the first-person segments are likewise quite simplistic – whether the intent was to humanise a supposedly dry nonfiction read, inject attempted humour or add #relatable moments, none of them have any positive effect on the text. It just makes the author seem naive and out of her depth in every new situation she finds herself in. You can't write "authority" without "author"; stand up and show us some!
With the obvious caveat that any book about the internet would demand a fast turnaround so it isn't woefully out of date, and therefore a faster edit, there are also a couple of factual error clangers. One Direction definitely had more than four members on their debut! This may be the only mistake in the book but it led me to read the rest with scepticism.
Frustrating, simplistic, awkward, and worst of all – not online enough.
The tone of the first-person segments are likewise quite simplistic – whether the intent was to humanise a supposedly dry nonfiction read, inject attempted humour or add #relatable moments, none of them have any positive effect on the text. It just makes the author seem naive and out of her depth in every new situation she finds herself in. You can't write "authority" without "author"; stand up and show us some!
With the obvious caveat that any book about the internet would demand a fast turnaround so it isn't woefully out of date, and therefore a faster edit, there are also a couple of factual error clangers. One Direction definitely had more than four members on their debut! This may be the only mistake in the book but it led me to read the rest with scepticism.
Frustrating, simplistic, awkward, and worst of all – not online enough.
eshaghbeigi's review
5.0
My favorite read of the year, validation for being extremely online for the last ten years
aqulia's review
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
Has lots of good information, but doesn't know how to slow down and go in depth on broader context. Perhaps that's fitting, given the subject of the book.
annemariewhelehan's review against another edition
3.5
Interesting inside story of some of the antics that goes on behind the scenes for influencers and the like. Thankfully, I had not known most of what goes on and I’ll happily stay that way. Grateful to be enjoying this small little world on insta, so hopefully I’ll manage to keep it this way.
lib_07's review
3.0
2.5 stars. It was a struggle to get through this one. I found myself skimming multiple pages. The first two or three chapters set up the rest of the book but the info is very dry, with lots of statistics. Once you get into the meat of the book, it gets better, but not enough to really hold my attention.