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A review by lucasmiller
I Hate the Internet by Jarett Kobek
3.0
I bought this book on a whim, based on the cover when it popped up in my Amazon recommendations list. After reading Matthew B. Crawford's book a few weeks ago, I've been thinking a lot about the internet, creativity, and how people navigate through the world. This book seemed to be a screed against all of that stuff, and looked fun. I appreciate it mostly because it spends the bulk of its pages informing the reader about how social media companies have tricked people into generating free content for them to fuel their advertising revenue while these freshly duped "content creators" believe they are the vanguard of social change, that a new era of free speech and free expression is burgeoning in their hands. The Arab Spring almost worked out guys. guys.
I found this book because of the data that has been mind from me while using Google Chrome. I bought it from Amazon, and am writing a summary/reaction on a social media site. I guess the thematic through line here is that Mr. Kobek sees things in 2016 as pretty hopeless.
A dear friend from college moved to San Francisco a little over a year ago, and his rocky transition to the west coast is mirrored quite closely in this book. There are people aware of the terribleness of the tech culture Mr. Kobek skewers with such verve. He is also a communications director for a internet startup company that is basically an e-reader platform for iPads, so, make of that what you will.
A few marginal notes:
- How much does this remind me of early Tao Lin? Less effort?
- Series of definitions, paraphrased, in place of plot.
- Thesis statement?
- Spelling of words/names keeps changing. Intentional?
- I would rather read the review of this on HTMLGiant than continue, but that is not an option.
- Almost like David Markson, but without the Western Canon or Continental Philosophy (analytic is scratched out)
- Description of viralality and jokes is really good. Warming to whole project.
- Brutal, but how damning would this actually be? Probably pretty damning.
- I wonder if this was brought up at the Mt. Vernon Teachers workshop?
The book does an amazing job of including many of the forms of junk media the author rails against including lists of tweets, liticles, invented words from sci-fi novels, etc. The plot, especially in the first half of the book breaks the fourth wall and falls into a much more essay-ish format, before picking back up with the characters. I often had to look up if authors and books were real or invented.
The five page speech near the end of the book, in which a character yells at San Francisco from a tourist infested scenic overview is magnificent.
I like this book because it is unashamedly participating in the world that it seeks to destroy. It is itself an example of hypocrisy that it asks its reader to at least recognize moving forward. I am guilty of most of the sins the book catalogs, but it goes to great lengths to make sweeping generalizations as sweeping as possible, to the point of making fun of itself. But perhaps that's the only recourse in these times. Recommended. (Even if you just read the trigger warning and the speech)
I found this book because of the data that has been mind from me while using Google Chrome. I bought it from Amazon, and am writing a summary/reaction on a social media site. I guess the thematic through line here is that Mr. Kobek sees things in 2016 as pretty hopeless.
A dear friend from college moved to San Francisco a little over a year ago, and his rocky transition to the west coast is mirrored quite closely in this book. There are people aware of the terribleness of the tech culture Mr. Kobek skewers with such verve. He is also a communications director for a internet startup company that is basically an e-reader platform for iPads, so, make of that what you will.
A few marginal notes:
- How much does this remind me of early Tao Lin? Less effort?
- Series of definitions, paraphrased, in place of plot.
- Thesis statement?
- Spelling of words/names keeps changing. Intentional?
- I would rather read the review of this on HTMLGiant than continue, but that is not an option.
- Almost like David Markson, but without the Western Canon or Continental Philosophy (analytic is scratched out)
- Description of viralality and jokes is really good. Warming to whole project.
- Brutal, but how damning would this actually be? Probably pretty damning.
- I wonder if this was brought up at the Mt. Vernon Teachers workshop?
The book does an amazing job of including many of the forms of junk media the author rails against including lists of tweets, liticles, invented words from sci-fi novels, etc. The plot, especially in the first half of the book breaks the fourth wall and falls into a much more essay-ish format, before picking back up with the characters. I often had to look up if authors and books were real or invented.
The five page speech near the end of the book, in which a character yells at San Francisco from a tourist infested scenic overview is magnificent.
I like this book because it is unashamedly participating in the world that it seeks to destroy. It is itself an example of hypocrisy that it asks its reader to at least recognize moving forward. I am guilty of most of the sins the book catalogs, but it goes to great lengths to make sweeping generalizations as sweeping as possible, to the point of making fun of itself. But perhaps that's the only recourse in these times. Recommended. (Even if you just read the trigger warning and the speech)