Extremely Online

May 1, 2023

Offering a social history of the internet, Washington Post reporter Lorenz's Extremely Online explains how deeply it has changed our world, toppling traditional barriers, creating new economic sectors, and reinventing our understanding of connection, content, and power. Prepub Alert.

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August 1, 2023
A technology journalist looks at the downside of the social media revolution. A former tech reporter for the New York Times, Lorenz is now a columnist for the Washington Post, and she has been accused of reporting errors. In her debut book, the author walks us through the rise of the major platforms, such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, and recounts the eclipse of MySpace and Vine. She identifies "mommy bloggers" as the first group to become influencers and the first to see the potential for monetization of their social media presence. (Readers interested in a more in-depth discussion of this aspect of the online world should turn to Stephanie McNeal's Swipe Up for More!) The development of simple video editing tools switched the emphasis from written to visual material, and internet-enabled phones meant that social media became ubiquitous. The problem with this book is that Lorenz fails to offer enough novel analysis of the industry. There are already numerous books on influencers, YouTube, online celebrity marketing, and virtually every other aspect of the social media phenomenon. The author's theme is that while social media has changed the business and cultural landscape by giving power to creative individuals, it has also created a dangerous whirlpool of conflict, exploitation, and disinformation. True enough, but it's hardly a revolutionary insight. Is she unaware of the widespread view that has taken hold in the past few years that social media is a very mixed blessing? This points to the most surprising aspect of the book: It seems dated and dull. The author's online followers might like it, but other people will probably be unimpressed. Social media, writes Lorenz, "is often dismissed by traditionalists as a vacant fad, when in fact it is the greatest and most disruptive change in modern capitalism." If only the text reflected the gravitas of that disruption. A capable piece of historical research that breaks little new ground.

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August 21, 2023
This astute debut from Lorenz, a Washington Post technology columnist, traces the tumultuous history of social media from the early 2000s to the present. She describes how such platforms as Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter evolved from the humblest of beginnings, noting that YouTube launched as a dating site in 2005 before broadening its focus. The internet, she explains, afforded new modes of audience interaction and forced legacy outlets to “rewrite” their playbooks, with blogs enabling “real-time interaction between writers and readers through comments sections” and sparking national publications to hire popular bloggers and buy their sites. Lorenz also covers how technological advancements drove new social media platforms; for instance, the advent of cellphones capable of recording video led to the rise of Snapchat, Vine, and Musical.ly, now known as TikTok. Lorenz accomplishes the difficult feat of wrangling a cogent narrative out of the unruliness of social media, while offering smart insight into how platforms affect their users. For instance, she suggests that the “pursuit of shareable content often seems more urgent than the desire to actually do the thing that will be recorded and shared,” observing that some January 6 insurrectionists appeared “more interested in documenting their violent ransacking of the Capitol than they did in overthrowing American democracy.” It’s a powerful assessment of how logging on has changed the world.

September 15, 2023
Lorenz has been covering the twisted confluence of media and technology for her entire career. As a millennial journalist, she's lived all the ways that tech changed the way people connect and experienced firsthand how news and marketing have moved to the social media sphere. This book is a history of social media: its key players, insidious side effects, and breathtaking scale. She chronicles the rise of blogging, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vine, and eventually, TikTok, and explains the horrific events surrounding Gamergate and the sudden demise of Vine. She tracks changes in creator habits across platforms and time. In some ways, this book is the official history of the profession of ""content creation,"" which has generated wealth without gatekeepers for the first time in history. Readers will learn valuable lessons about the math and science behind what goes viral and are sure to be blown away when they see the dollar amounts moving through the industry. This socioeconomics docudrama is both fun and terrifying . . . just like the internet.

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