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A review by bleary
I Hate the Internet by Jarett Kobek
3.0
A frustrating book. It's a Vonnegut pastiche, with endless asides, repetition of phrases, a plot that's completely forgotten about most of the time, and even a Kilgore Trout-type character.
Kobek has a core idea in this, which is that corporate America is a long history of unpaid labour. There was slavery, America's original sin (apart from the ethnic cleansing prior to the formation of the state, of course). Then there's the comic industry, with creators like Jack Kirby being paid a few hundred dollars for intellectual property that is now worth billions and which dominates all of world culture. The internet has now turned us all into Jack Kirbys, creating content for free on social media platforms, which allows those social media platforms to sell advertising. Collectively, our Facebook posts generate more revenue than all of Marvel's characters, but Mark Zuckerberg pays us even less than the comics industry paid Jack.
If this sounds like a slightly tedious guy sounding off at a dinner party... well, that's what this book is like. Sometimes. And other times it's quite lucid and funny and entertaining. I read it in a few hours and I would say that I hated it for about 30% of the time.
What's really funny though is how this now reads as a period drama. It's a vivid and very accurate snapshot of internet life in 2013, meaning that it's not only pre-Trump but pre-#Gamergate, and therefore feels as distant as the Georgian era. Still, at least this opens the door to a sequel: "I Fucking Hate The Internet".
Kobek has a core idea in this, which is that corporate America is a long history of unpaid labour. There was slavery, America's original sin (apart from the ethnic cleansing prior to the formation of the state, of course). Then there's the comic industry, with creators like Jack Kirby being paid a few hundred dollars for intellectual property that is now worth billions and which dominates all of world culture. The internet has now turned us all into Jack Kirbys, creating content for free on social media platforms, which allows those social media platforms to sell advertising. Collectively, our Facebook posts generate more revenue than all of Marvel's characters, but Mark Zuckerberg pays us even less than the comics industry paid Jack.
If this sounds like a slightly tedious guy sounding off at a dinner party... well, that's what this book is like. Sometimes. And other times it's quite lucid and funny and entertaining. I read it in a few hours and I would say that I hated it for about 30% of the time.
What's really funny though is how this now reads as a period drama. It's a vivid and very accurate snapshot of internet life in 2013, meaning that it's not only pre-Trump but pre-#Gamergate, and therefore feels as distant as the Georgian era. Still, at least this opens the door to a sequel: "I Fucking Hate The Internet".