Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence and Power on the Internet

by Taylor Lorenz

'This book is about a revolution. It has radically upended how we've understood and interacted with our world. It has demolished traditional barriers and empowered millions who were previously marginalized. It has created vast new sectors of our economy, while devastating legacy institutions. It is often dismissed by traditionalists as a vacant fad, when in fact it is the greatest and most disruptive change in modern capitalism.'

Acclaimed Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz presents a groundbreaking social history of the internet-revealing how online influence and the creators who amass it have reshaped our world, online and off.

For over a decade, Taylor Lorenz has been the authority on internet culture, documenting its far-reaching effects on all corners of our lives. Her reporting is serious yet entertaining and illuminates deep truths about ourselves and the lives we create online. In her debut book, Extremely Online , she reveals how online influence came to upend the world, demolishing traditional barriers and creating whole new sectors of the economy.

By tracing how the internet has changed what we want and how we go about getting it, Lorenz unearths how social platforms' power users radically altered our expectations of content, connection, purchasing, and power. Lorenz documents how moms who started blogging were among the first to monetize their personal brands online, how bored teens who began posting selfie videos reinvented fame as we know it, and how young creators on TikTok are leveraging opportunities to opt out of the traditional career pipeline. It's the real social history of the internet.

Emerging seemingly out of nowhere, these shifts in how we use the internet seem easy to dismiss as fads. However, these social and economic transformations created a digital dynamic so unappreciated and insurgent that it ultimately created new approaches to work, entertainment, fame, and ambition in the 21st century.

Extremely Online is the inside, untold story of what we have done to the internet, and what it has done to us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, Technology, History, Sociology, Internet, Cultural

351 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 3, 2023

About the author

Taylor Lorenz is a technology columnist for The Washington Post's business section covering online culture and the content creator industry. She was previously a technology reporter for The New York Times business section, The Atlantic, and The Daily Beast. Her writing has appeared in New York magazine, Rolling Stone, Outside magazine, BuzzFeed, and more. She frequently appears on NBC, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and the BBC. She was a 2019 Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and is a former affiliate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.

Lorenz has appeared in documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, and HBO including Netflix's Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga, HBO's 'Fake Famous', HBO's and Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia. In 2020 she helped adapt a feature she wrote for The New York Times into the documentary Who Gets To Be An Influencer?, which ran on FX and Hulu.

Lorenz was named to Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list of leaders in Media and Entertainment in 2020. Adweek included her in their Young Influentials Who Are Shaping Media, Marketing and Tech listing, stating that Lorenz “contextualizes the internet as we live it.” In 2022, Town & Country magazine named her to their New Creative Vanguards list of a rising generation of creatives, calling her “The Bob Woodward of the TikTok generation.” In 2023, Lorenz was named tech and media influencer of the year by the World Influencers & Bloggers Association.

Reviews

[Madison · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subtitle of this book (“The Untold Story of…”) is hilarious. I hope it goes without saying that any story about the rise of social media and influencer culture is already extremely, exhaustingly told.

That aside, I don’t really know what need this book is trying to fill. People will buy it because Taylor Lorenz is a journalist with a large online following who has built a career around knowing what’s happening on the Internet, but in terms of its actual informational utility…it doesn’t really have any. The first several chapters are basically like “here’s how Facebook started, here’s how Youtube started,” etcetc, all of which has been told with more depth and detail in 1000 other places. It gets more interesting when she starts talking about Vine and the shift to video, but then the pacing falls completely apart. She’ll describe the whole rise of a particular subculture or site in the middle of one chapter, then backtrack and tell the story again at the start of the next chapter. There’s an entire chapter on mommy bloggers that feels completely disconnected from the rest of the narrative. Part of the problem is that Lorenz doesn’t really weave any connective ideas between chapters, it’s just a more or less linear narrative, so you’re sort of left to intuit how the different pieces fit together.

And then there are a few times when she does give some editorial perspective, but it feels oversimplified or off-base. For example, she says Tumblr’s popularity waned because the site didn’t “innovate.” Uh, what? Literally 0 mention of the explicit content bans that drove power users away. Tumblr users (and Instagram users, and Snapchat users, and on and on) BEG sites NOT to innovate, which usually just means ugly and useless layout or algorithmic changes to maximize ads. She also makes no mention of Zuckerberg’s disastrous “pivot to video" mandate, except in broad, neutral terms with no mention of its aftermath. I know there’s no way to cover everything, but these moves had MASSIVE impacts on the social internet, so to say your book is a history of that environment and then not even mention these things feels wild to me.

Sparse, dry, and ultimately unfulfilling: that’s my ultimate takeaway here. Readers with less familiarity with the subject matter might find it of more interest.




(Netgalley)

[Kristyn Pittman · Rating 2 out of 5]

As another Taylor once said, "it was rare, I was there. I remember it all too well."

It didn't take long for me to figure out that millenials that grew up online (with Taylor Lorenz) were not the audience for this. Extremely Online is a well researched, but surface level, history of online social platforms and creators. My main gripe is that this was not the 'untold story' as the subtitle asserts. The reality is that this story is well known and widely reported on.

Overall, this is a skip for anyone that coded their own MySpace layout, subscribed to Zoella, or had a semi-popular anonymous Tumblr blog about the most niche fandom you could imagine.

[Malia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was undeniably well researched and written, however, it just did not hold my attention. The subject matter is interesting and relevant, so I was surprised that it didn't really hook me. Maybe it's a matter of it being the wrong book for the current time. I am so consumed with anxiety and sadness over the Israel-Hamas war that I cannot concentrate on reading anything beyond the news and what I would affectionately call, "literary fluff". All in all, I would say, don't be put off by my three stars, as it is not a bad book, but it felt too long and maybe too in depth in certain areas that just weren't that engaging for me.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm an old person. I remember dial up internet. I remember AOL Instant Messaging. I remember MySpace and Friendster. I'm your grandmother kids. I don't use any social media unless you count Goodreads and Letterboxd( I dont), but I used to as mentioned above I use early social media( I don't think we even called it social media back then). I'm not a social media hater I understand it's pros and it's cons I just don't have any desire to participate. I don't feel like I'm missing anything even if my family and friends keep saying I am.

Extremely Online is as far as I know the first serious deep dive into the history of social media. Taylor Lorenz is a technology journalist for the Washington Post and she first appeared on my radar when earlier this year or last year ( what is time?)she and several other journalist including Matt Binder were banned from Twitter for hurting Elon's feelings. If you are pissing off billionaires than you must be doing something right. And I found out about this book from an unexpected place that I've recently been getting lots of recommendations....a sports podcast. She discussed this book and her fears about AI.

Extremely Online made me feel old but also super nostalgic. As I said before I remember a time when not everything revolved around the internet. My classmates thought I was rich in grade school because we had a computer. Most people didn't. As a child Oregon Trail was about as social as the internet got for most of us. Social Media may feel to us now like it's been around forever but it's really only 20 years old. This book walks us through all the ways that social media has changed in those two decades and some of the earliest internet stars. I'm not someone who looks down on internet stars. I think creating content is real work. It takes talent even if it looks easy it's not. I've become friends with some content creators who work multiple jobs on top of creating and editing content. I think it's elitist to look down on Tik Tok or YouTube creators. A hundred years ago stage actors thought that movie actors weren't real actors. Sixty years ago movie actors looked down on Tv stars. Social media is the new Tv. I watch YouTube more than any other streaming platform. My 69 year old dad loves YouTube and Tik Tok. In 20 years it will seem silly that we ever questioned if social media is real life...it is.

I look forward to more books about the effects of social media on not just Gen Z but on the generation that follows them. Every generation has a different relationship with social media and I feel like Gen Z are the lab rats that will help shape the future of social media. We are still in the early days of social media and to use a silly analogy "You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet" Gen Zers are unfortunately the eggs but I think their kids will have a very different relationship with social media.

Extremely Online is a must read for anyone who is interested in or who uses Social media or the internet as a whole. We shouldn't be scared of social media, we should be learning from it. My only problem with this book is that I don't think it talked enough about just how racist social media is. Black creators rarely get the same opportunities despite creating most of the content that white creators steal to make millions on.

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book as a mini-history on the early days of influencer culture and how we got here. The first 60% if fantastic, the book fizzles a bit on the way out. I wish the author talked more about why some of this stuff is important and news worthy and what it means for us moving forward. I wish she spent more time on the disparities within influencer culture as well since that is so well documented and impacts the entire culture. Overall really good.

[Nina · Rating 1 out of 5]

A stunning lack of critical commentary on any of the events recounted. Reads like a breathlessly enthusiastic press release for the importance of platforms and “creators” with zero examples of value either have added to the actual world.

[Stitching Ghost · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I was a bit too old for this one. A lot of the "events" in this book are things I was online for and there really wasn't much that was "untold" for me even as someone who wasn't in the least interested in most of the leading figures of each era of the rise of the creator economy (I followed Philip DeFranco on Youtube for a couple of years after the point where MCNs were really a thing and he was pretty much the only person mentioned in this book I ever followed/paid attention to). I also wasn't sold on the this ONE person did this and it changed EVERYTHING approach that Lorenz took.

That being said, it was still a generally fun and engaging read.

[abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

In “Extremely Online,” Taylor Lorenz traces the creation and influence of internet celebrity from the beginning of the online age until now and shows how online creators have been “defining the dynamics” of social media in real time.

This book reads like a vindication of the rights of creators; it shows how ordinary people circumvented traditional gatekeepers to create a new class of celebrity & how industries have had to adapt. The book also reminded me that the internet today would be nothing without the work of creators who are women, nonwhite and queer.

I loved this book, and not just because this is a subject I care deeply about and I look back with fondness on many of the online periods discussed. Lorenz meticulously pinpoints watershed moments and creators in internet history, (some of which I had never heard of!) simultaneously tracing the tech industry & traditional media’s forays into, and acceptance of, social media’s influence. I was fascinated in particular by Lorenz’s recounting of the beginnings of Twitter and how users shaped the social network to truly become the world’s town square.

Essential reading for anyone whose screen time is way higher than they’d like to admit.

[Jessica Mae Stover]

not even out yet and already hypocritical af
https://twitter.com/JSto/status/15655...

what a shame: and I do mean shame

2022
—-
[edit/update: the author removed her original tweet that was embedded in the link I posted above during the pre-order period (which is fine: people on Twitter can and should of course do with their posts as they wish). But let’s be clear about my comment, which is meant to be highly critical and is absolutely about experience and expertise. Contextually, her post was an attempt to promote her book by pivoting off of the heinous way Tucker Carlson has harassed her, which would be admirable if her book wasn’t an S&S published book —

so let’s be clear here:
- S&S also cutting deals with and distributing J6 figures
- S&S has an official Tucker Carlson page
- S&S made him an American bestseller

i.e. they have the same publisher

the profit goes to the same publisher
their paydays and promotion come from the same publisher

the author has since also attempted to drive sales of this book via Twitter in response to Musk’s rude and ridiculous comments about her, but guess which publisher is currently laundering Musk into normalized spaces and further intellectualizing the myths built around him? — yup, you know it: S&S

hence my response, which the author has since asked me to remove thinking that I’m in error regarding my original post, which is not the case, and this update clarifies that]
—-
2023

[Sam · Rating 1 out of 5]

By far the worst book I’ve read in some time. This was just lazy writing. This read like a 280 page version of a paper I would write in high school where I would barely cover the given topic and just write a bunch of empty words to eat up space and cover my obvious lack of research. She didn’t cover Tumblr porn. She talks about black content creators not getting credit for their dances but then completely ignored Black Twitter. She missed Reddit for god’s sake. And in a 4 page epigraph she finally starts to get into the social impacts of social media way too optimistically and completely ignores the highly reported dangers of social media on the mental health of teenage girls. This really goes to show how low the bar has gotten for “serious” journalism these days. 🤮

[Kaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend reading for those wanting to understand the rise of social media through the lens of the creators and power users of these platforms rather than through a corporate narrative. I particularly enjoyed the early chapters about the rise of mommy bloggers and Julia Allison who were blue prints for the modern creator economy

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brief history of social media and the rise of influencers and content creators.

I learned a lot, particularly influencers who I never even knew existed and various subcultures on the internet. As a chronically online person myself, I felt a little better in not knowing.

[Ks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started out pretty good, but devolved into the same thing over and over and over again. The author completely misses some huge points, which she could have talked about instead of regurgitating the same points for like 2/3rds of the book.

1. Despite talking multiple times about how changed the world, the book is 100% focused on the US. It never talks about world-wide social media behemoths, especially in Asia. If the author wants to stick to just the US, that’s fine. But the book repeats over and over again about the impact on the world. The summery of the book doesn’t mention this either.
2. Incredibly narrow definition of “creator” or “influencers”, which is white people on their teens and early twenties. What about sports stars hyping their shoe collabs? What about musicians who are a brand in and of themselves (Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, BTS, etc)? What about Martha Stewart or Oprah? They are always promoting something, and millions of people put enormous weight on what they say and do. I’m a young millennial, consider myself very online, and work in tech, but I have never heard of like half the influencers she talks about in the book. This especially applies to many of the people she interviewed, most of whom had eye rolling takes that were just fluff. I almost died when people were saying that gen z is keeping it more genuine. They’re not. They spend a lot of time and effort making it look like they’re not spending a lot of time and effort.
3. Completely ignores other social media giants throughout history. Reddit (one of the top 20 website in terms of traffic) is mentioned in passing. No mention of Digg and the drama that went down with that site, which was surprising because it totally fit into topics raised in the book. No mention of Discord. Other than referring to Twitch in passing, no mention of hugely popular gaming platforms with social elements. No mention of big failures and what went wrong, like Google+. No mention of Medium, Substack, etc. Fleeting references to Pinterest, which is crazy given everything else she talked about. No mention of SoundCloud, and barely any mention of any other platform for artists to get their own music out.
4. Extremely focused on white creators and lazily mentions how unfortunate it is that non-white creators aren’t nearly as successful because of racism. Come on. You can say that AND dive into spaces where black and other people of color are influential. I swear it’s like the author doesn’t even think black people are even on social media outside a handful of creators. At least mention black Twitter ffs.
5. Acting like something is new and unique, even though she spent forever talking about nearly the same thing for previous platforms.
6. Inexcusably limited space spent on the most serious way people influenced others through social media: by promoting election lies, spreading covid misinformation that literally killed people, and attempting to end democracy as we know it. She talked a little bit about this on TikTok (all positive of course 🙄), but how can you possibly not mention Facebook and Twitter when talking about this? It’s mind blowing. Racism, antisemitism, anti-lbgtq, and other hate flourished on ALL platforms in recent years. She brought up TikTok being used for good during the pandemic to help stop misinformation. Like…what. Did she look at TikTok at all during the pandemic? Because it was a mess with all that bs.
7. There were several points in this book where I seriously thought she was being paid by TikTok to write this book. It legitimately sounds like propaganda or advertising for the platform throughout the entire TikTok sections, especially towards the end. The embellishment and straight up lies about how rainbows and sunshine TikTok is was ridiculous. Like you’d think that 15 year olds on TikTok singlehandedly ended racism, reversed climate change, and saved democracy after reading those last couple of chapters. And it was like none of the other social media platforms existed in the last 1/4 of the book. Part of me truly would not be surprised if TikTok compensated her for its sections.

I’d love to know how well this book stands up in 5-10 years. The epilogue could not have misread the room more. The author grossly underestimates the impact that gen ai is going to have on social media and content creators. The future of creators is not nearly as bright as she thinks it is. AI is going to flood the market and make it nearly impossible for people to break through. And I don’t think people are going to be turned off by human-like AI generating content as I imagine she thinks they would.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I treated this book as a long podcast, and since I’m pretty interested in digital culture/technology I enjoyed it. The sections on mommy bloggers and rise & fall of content houses were particularly interesting to me.

My main complaint is that a book on the “social history of the internet” is too broad, and it showed. Like I get it’s a marketing thing, but calling this an “untold story” is fairly inaccurate considering the bulk of the book is repackaging previously reported facts and quotes (there’s literally a 100 page references list at the end). Even though it was in chronological order, some of the topics felt disjointed, frequently connected by hyperbolic sentences to the effect of ‘And then, there was an innovation that changed the internet.’ I think if the author picked a more narrow focus, she would have been able to dive more deeply and more critically into one or two things since she’s obviously super knowledgeable!

[katie]

this was such an interesting and fun read! this book breaks down all eras of social media and how we got to where we are today. social media has been such a huge part of my life for almost as long as i can remember, so reading this almost felt like reliving so many things that were foundational in my childhood and teenage years. this book also explored a lot of things that were going on behind the scenes in the companies which was interesting to learn about! i think this is a pretty niche book, but if you are interested in the history/evolution of social media and influencers i would def recommend!

[thirdworldstar · Rating 3 out of 5]

i was very excited to read this. i love the idea of a social history of the internet, and the sneak-peaks of the book's index that lorenz put out on social media were exactly my thing. unfortunately, while Extremely Online covers a lot of ground and sheds light on the origin of several Internet Moments, i'm a little bit disappointed by the execution.

the overall book is structured linearly, but the structure within chapters felt a little ambiguous. lorenz mentions something, then moves on, then explains that thing in a later chapter, and this jumping around leads to a slightly confused timeline. i was also expecting less emphasis on Big Tech and the history of apps like Instagram and Twitter, most of which we already know. some of the chapters were a welcome break from the tech talk, like the one on mommy bloggers and the subsequent commercialization of social media. but a lot of the earlier chapters read like explainers on the history of founders of apps and the apps themselves... and i was anticipating this book specifically because it seemed to not be that. even though you cannot tell the story of the Internet's users without discussing its founders, i felt like these founders got away with way too much page-time.

i really liked lorenz's overarching point - that users shape the internet (and therefore, culture), and tech founders never expect the way users transform their creations and make them better (or worse!). we drove the changes that made the internet what it is now. i just wish more of the book focused on the creators and movements that powered these changes. the latter half of the book does more in this respect, but it's very standard fare. the one thing that stood out to me were the chapters on Vine, because of how lorenz centered the creators in them. while she does explore how creators influenced the other apps in other chapters as well, the Vine chapters were an interesting look into the dynamic between the creators of the app and the creators on the app. beyond that, the book is a fairly basic chronicle of the internet, especially the TikTok chapters.

Extremely Online is a very American history, which i expected, considering the origin of all of these tech companies, and the global reach of American media. the book's diversity extends to some discussion of the absence of Black creators in collab houses, and the lack of opportunities available to them in comparison to white influencers. there is no discussion of East/South Asian or Latinx influencers. but this is a minor gripe - i understand that the breadth of material available on this topic is impossible to cover, and that to write this book means to craft a focused narrative. my main issue is that none of this story felt Untold. it felt very Told, like a collection of New York Times articles (or a two hour long video essay on Youtube), and i didn't feel like i took anything away from it except the author's thesis statement.

maybe if your expectations are different, or you're less chronically online, this might be an interesting read for you. as it turns out, Extremely Online may not be very enjoyable for the extremely online. you probably lived everything that happened in this book, either in real-time or retrospectively, and i doubt you're in need of a recap.

[vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 3.5? This was a pretty succinct walk down memory lane regarding internet culture, social media companies that rose and fell, and the rise of the influencer over the past 20 years. Ultimately, this is a very readable account that features the stories and touch points the author wants to focus on. I enjoyed the new-to-me stories, especially about the early days of the internet (blogs, MySpace, the beginning of Facebook) into Tumblr. Past 2017 or so, I was less interested. I don't know what it is about Gen Z Tik Tokers but it's not a group I fully understand/want to read about yet. It's almost like to me, their reach isn't solidified. There was some discussion about the ugly side of the internet, but probably not enough; it's less about political extremely-online people and more about fun lifestyle, dancing, singing kind of influencers. Lorenz touches on race and gender, but definitely not enough. It was an approachable, fast paced listen (thanks LibroFM!).

[美音 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of like the fish asking “what’s water” story, I feel like the interesting stories and powerful forces have to do w the stuff we’re in the middle of day to day—in this case, social media. I am also the exact right age and amount of online for this book, in that I got excited w cameos from people I grew up with (vlogbrothers, bo burnham, Emma chamberlain, etc) but also have a fascinated distance from the more bulk of the mainstream economy of social media stars (hype house, Jeffrey star, etc), and also was not there the true genesis of the internet/social media (how each platform came into being and what content catapulted each platform to vitality, the foundational importance of mommy bloggers, etc), so I found that beginning part very interesting. Yes obviously the story of these stars is not “untold,” but I think the behind the scenes of the financial and social dynamics have been untold unless you’re deep into the fandom of these people.

[Kevin]

I wish I could have liked this book more, but it came off more like Wikipedia articles of social media platforms than having anything truly meaningful to say about social media. As a fan of Taylor Lorenz’s social media accounts, I found it so interesting that she could be outspoken and dynamic online, yet have almost no voice here in this book. I wish she could tie the stories with a stronger theme, sort of through line, or even explain what her aim for this book was. I’m choosing to not give a star review out of respect for Ms Lorenz. I continue to be a fan and will read her next book, but I do hope she chooses to actually say something next time.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an elderly Millennial, I’m not this book’s target audience, but I guess it’s okay. Lorenz really digs into creator/influencer culture and not much else in the book.
Personally, I’d like to read more about Amazon’s reach and other more everyday online shifts. YouTubers, TikTokkers, and all that jazz are fine. I just have very little sympathy for those who cannot make a living off spoof videos and sponsorships.

[Maher Razouk · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author said in his introduction that this is not about the history of the internet. actually it is : there is no psychology, no philosophy, no academic research. just history!!

[Cait · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had the feeling of being well researched, but it felt so... surface level and dry? you're calling your book "Extremely Online" and yet I'm bored 75% of the time? not great, bob!

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book detailing the rise of influencer culture on the internet. It will be a trip down memory lane for most 20-30 year olds. It did remind me of how I missed the internet before social media and corporations kind of ruined it. Quick and easy read.

[Peter Knox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taylor Lorenz has lived on the internet (I first came across her on early Tumblr, 2007 days) and wrote it all down here in this well researched and often firsthand account of what's changed in the last 10-15 years for everyone.

If you know it all well, then this book allows you to relive it like a yearbook. If you don't, it's a necessary overview and primer for how we got to here.

The barriers and gatekeepers fell away, creators built brands through direct relationships to their audience, and innovated their way to income on ever-changing media properties they didn't own.

Taylor brings you along this journey, with mini-profiles of the major and minor characters alongside tech-explainers that show she knows what she's talking about.

If anything, I wish the book were longer so she could go deeper into the creator stories that she has to stay surface-level on to get through everything she has to cover.

[Rachel Greenspan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Equally fun to read as it is compelling, zooming out to show the online influencer economy’s full history, in all its messy, strange, random, unprecedented glory…

The cliffhangers will leave you running home to finish and flipping back to earlier pages going WAIT THAT GUY AGAIN? and then WAIT NO THAT IS A BAD DECISION GUYS NOOO and then boom another platform implodes

[Jolee · Rating 4 out of 5]

as a person who is already self-diagnosed 'extremely online', this book only sort of ripples at the surface of the cultural impact of the internet in the last two+ decades. the best part (most informative) for me is the early sections on the rise of youtube and the downfall of vine, as my presence on the internet at those times was either minimal (early middle school) or insular to specific communities (trapped in the glee fandom).

such a fun listen though! love to read/listen to a book and think "oh, i remember that!!" every few minutes.

[Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75. Impressive overview of the history of online content creation. The first half especially felt well researched whereas the second half felt that it lacked depth in narrative. Chapters were snippets of history, so much so each chapter could be much longer or even their own books. Wish Lorenz spent more time on community/fandom that play huge role in platform development and creators. Also strangely lacked much exploration of talent abroad, let alone creators of the Global South. Could’ve also used more significant attention on how already marginalized groups (particularly Black creators) influence the sort of online culture we saw play out, who is privileged by the algorithms, who gets paid/credit, etc.

[Eileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this short history of the internet/social media/influencing and the culture it has spawned! If you’re at all interested in the rise (and sometimes fall) of social media giants, would highly recommend.

[Cristina Prentice · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoy a good deep dive into our toxic online culture. It is a topic that truly scratches an itch for me. With that being said, Extremely Online did no scratching for me. I find it a bit funny that the subtitle includes, “the untold story…” when we consider that the content provided by Lorenz, has very much been told. I was really hoping for a more data heavy deep dive into what being “extremely online” truly means.

If you use the internet, even casually, nothing in Extremely Online will surprise you.