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Escape: How a Generation Shaped, Destroyed and Survived the Internet
'Fifteen years ago, the internet felt like a special place my friends and I had built for each other; by 2020, we were standing on its ruins, wondering if we'd played a part in its destruction.'
Journalist Marie Le Conte was born in 1991, the same year the World Wide Web was invented. She had her first blog at 12, a successful music website at 15, a Wikipedia page at 17 and now, at 29, over 78,000 followers on Twitter. From MSN, Tumblr and MySpace, to chat rooms, forums and blogs; Marie is part of the millennial generation that grew up while the internet was growing up with them.
The generation that entered a new reality.
The generation that saw it all.
The generation who are now witnessing its collapse.
Where did it go all wrong? How did the internet go from a place where you went to escape real life to where real life is shaped? A place where you could be yourself and find like-minded people to a world of filters and ads? A place where everything you post is open to scrutiny? A place we are all now desperately trying to escape from?
Escape is a fascinating exploration on the birth and death of the internet. It's a look back on the platforms, the people and the online places. It's an analysis of the lessons being online has taught us, how the internet has changed us - and a celebration of the tools it gives us to feel less alone. The online generation have forever altered the world we live in, but the internet is no longer a place for the people that shaped it.
Journalist Marie Le Conte was born in 1991, the same year the World Wide Web was invented. She had her first blog at 12, a successful music website at 15, a Wikipedia page at 17 and now, at 29, over 78,000 followers on Twitter. From MSN, Tumblr and MySpace, to chat rooms, forums and blogs; Marie is part of the millennial generation that grew up while the internet was growing up with them.
The generation that entered a new reality.
The generation that saw it all.
The generation who are now witnessing its collapse.
Where did it go all wrong? How did the internet go from a place where you went to escape real life to where real life is shaped? A place where you could be yourself and find like-minded people to a world of filters and ads? A place where everything you post is open to scrutiny? A place we are all now desperately trying to escape from?
Escape is a fascinating exploration on the birth and death of the internet. It's a look back on the platforms, the people and the online places. It's an analysis of the lessons being online has taught us, how the internet has changed us - and a celebration of the tools it gives us to feel less alone. The online generation have forever altered the world we live in, but the internet is no longer a place for the people that shaped it.
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First published September 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
January 3, 2023
I found this book incredibly frustrating. A subtitle like “How a generation shaped, destroyed and survived the internet”
led me to believe that this would have been some kind of analysis or social theory. Instead what you get is a collection of, often repetitive, memoir-style essays about what it was like for the author to grow up on the internet ‘back when it was good’. I felt let down because I really did relate to a lot of her anecdotes and found her voice at times to be genuinely charming but it just… really lacked substance. There were points in the book where Le Conte tiptoes around actual theory before refusing to actually reference say Deleuze and Guattari or any studies on the rise of internet fascism, mental health statistics or surveillance… usually she justifies this with something along the lines of ‘I’d rather not bore you, the reader, or myself, the author’. The citations in this book then end up being the occasional news article and email correspondence with her friends who also had blogs ‘back when the internet was good’. I wish this book had either had the integrity to actually study internet culture or admit that it was a memoir and lean into the narrative of the author’s actual lived experience.
led me to believe that this would have been some kind of analysis or social theory. Instead what you get is a collection of, often repetitive, memoir-style essays about what it was like for the author to grow up on the internet ‘back when it was good’. I felt let down because I really did relate to a lot of her anecdotes and found her voice at times to be genuinely charming but it just… really lacked substance. There were points in the book where Le Conte tiptoes around actual theory before refusing to actually reference say Deleuze and Guattari or any studies on the rise of internet fascism, mental health statistics or surveillance… usually she justifies this with something along the lines of ‘I’d rather not bore you, the reader, or myself, the author’. The citations in this book then end up being the occasional news article and email correspondence with her friends who also had blogs ‘back when the internet was good’. I wish this book had either had the integrity to actually study internet culture or admit that it was a memoir and lean into the narrative of the author’s actual lived experience.
November 13, 2022
Honestly, reading this was a form of self-care. I really needed this - something I can truly connect with. Highly recommend this for anyone in the same generation.
This sounds sad, but it made me feel less alone. Especially when I have to ask my Gen Z colleagues what their slang means because I didn’t understand what they just said lol :(
I really appreciated the candour and incisiveness of this memoir. Many of the points were things I’ve been thinking about and feeling for a while now, but I hadn’t come across in written form. It put words to those feelings and made me realise I’m just not just imagining them. We are truly well past the good old days of the internet.
I didn’t agree with absolutely everything though - the author seems to have had way more luck with finding community in the internet than I have. She makes it sound too easy at times! Her life was wild compared to your average millennial’s. There’s also a touch too much of ‘overly sincere humbleness’. But this is a memoir, not an analysis, so I wasn't expecting it to cover all bases.
After reading this book, I definitely want to seek out more writing on similar topics. 4.25 stars.
This sounds sad, but it made me feel less alone. Especially when I have to ask my Gen Z colleagues what their slang means because I didn’t understand what they just said lol :(
I really appreciated the candour and incisiveness of this memoir. Many of the points were things I’ve been thinking about and feeling for a while now, but I hadn’t come across in written form. It put words to those feelings and made me realise I’m just not just imagining them. We are truly well past the good old days of the internet.
I didn’t agree with absolutely everything though - the author seems to have had way more luck with finding community in the internet than I have. She makes it sound too easy at times! Her life was wild compared to your average millennial’s. There’s also a touch too much of ‘overly sincere humbleness’. But this is a memoir, not an analysis, so I wasn't expecting it to cover all bases.
After reading this book, I definitely want to seek out more writing on similar topics. 4.25 stars.
August 21, 2023
I heard about this book via an article shared in one of my feeds. I'd never heard of Le Conte, so I checked the reviews: "uneven", "too personal", "weak conclusions", "almost entirely memoir essays" — based on the complaints, I knew I had to order it.
I'm around 10 years older than Le Conte, and like her, I got online early, and never really left. The online world, which for her was entirely the internet, but for me included the die-off of BBSs in the 1990s, was responsible for so many formative and imprinting memories; the worst, but also some of the best, moments of my life.
To see what the internet has become is to feel Le Conte's arguments viscerally. We used to make things and now we scroll. We used to update our websites and now we see Minion memes on Facebook. We used to inhabit spaces offered by other people and now we're data points on platforms. We had something incredible and now it's gone.
I'd like to tell you this book is perfect, but it's not. The things people say in their reviews are true, and Le Conte needs an editor who knows when a colon should be used. But I don't care. And if you were a weird misfit on the early internet, neither should you. Because rather than some bland sociology book, this is a collection of writings from an author that deeply cares about the forces that made her. It's documentation about what we left behind, what we lost, what we'll never see again. And it's an indictment of how we now spend our days: hemmed in by Google, tapping listlessly on the same five social apps, never exploring, never growing, our sense of wonder dulled to nothing as we tell ourselves that this is actually good.
I'm around 10 years older than Le Conte, and like her, I got online early, and never really left. The online world, which for her was entirely the internet, but for me included the die-off of BBSs in the 1990s, was responsible for so many formative and imprinting memories; the worst, but also some of the best, moments of my life.
To see what the internet has become is to feel Le Conte's arguments viscerally. We used to make things and now we scroll. We used to update our websites and now we see Minion memes on Facebook. We used to inhabit spaces offered by other people and now we're data points on platforms. We had something incredible and now it's gone.
I'd like to tell you this book is perfect, but it's not. The things people say in their reviews are true, and Le Conte needs an editor who knows when a colon should be used. But I don't care. And if you were a weird misfit on the early internet, neither should you. Because rather than some bland sociology book, this is a collection of writings from an author that deeply cares about the forces that made her. It's documentation about what we left behind, what we lost, what we'll never see again. And it's an indictment of how we now spend our days: hemmed in by Google, tapping listlessly on the same five social apps, never exploring, never growing, our sense of wonder dulled to nothing as we tell ourselves that this is actually good.
September 5, 2022
This is a brilliant, rather sad memoir of what the internet means to one person. However it is one person whose experiences feel like mine, nd frankly are mine. It is a book written for perople who have been in the same spaces together for a long time, and have noticed the same things. It is written about the cultural phenomena and quotes the people I have isknown for years. This is not a book of analysis, and I would read that too, but as a set of personal reflections it is instantly familiar and genuinely incisive. It's core thesis, that the internet has stopped being fun because everyone is here all the time now, is one I find convincing. If you lived a good portion of your life on the internet this is a must read (and at times start to underline whilst nodding vigorously).
May 10, 2023
I want to like this book. I finished it quickly, which has to say something. But it's also a terribly easy read.
La Conte writes in a meandering stream-of-consciousness that is shadowed by sadness – the internet is no longer what it was. But while much of the book is repetitive monotonal pseudo-psychology, she lights up some portions with small but bright fires. She writes of her time occupying university grounds, which is engaging. She writes of her youth in the real world, and this adds some colour to the grey. She writes of how she became interested in politics, which gave me genuine insight to her as a person and made me want to like her more. These self-contained stories are brilliant and drew me to her as a writer. But these splashes of colour are few and far between compared to the monotonous "the internet is flat and open". Her enthusiasm ebbs away, and we return to television static. This is never clearer than at the conclusion of the book, when she says she found no joy in her writing of it.
La Conte has capacity to be a perceptive and insightful writer. I do not doubt if I were to pick up any of her other works, be it a Tweet or previous book, that I would find it compelling. This collection of essays, however, suffers from a weak heart. There was no love poured into them.
This book will hit the mark if you are a particular type of person (do you know the rules of the internet? Do you recall when forums were not just Reddit?) in the mood for a sombre but nostalgic trip down memory lane. But understand that when you open it up, you will not be engaging in any level of deeper thinking. It is a surface level ode to the internet, written almost as a blog post – which at the end of the day, is unsurprising given the author’s roots.
La Conte writes in a meandering stream-of-consciousness that is shadowed by sadness – the internet is no longer what it was. But while much of the book is repetitive monotonal pseudo-psychology, she lights up some portions with small but bright fires. She writes of her time occupying university grounds, which is engaging. She writes of her youth in the real world, and this adds some colour to the grey. She writes of how she became interested in politics, which gave me genuine insight to her as a person and made me want to like her more. These self-contained stories are brilliant and drew me to her as a writer. But these splashes of colour are few and far between compared to the monotonous "the internet is flat and open". Her enthusiasm ebbs away, and we return to television static. This is never clearer than at the conclusion of the book, when she says she found no joy in her writing of it.
La Conte has capacity to be a perceptive and insightful writer. I do not doubt if I were to pick up any of her other works, be it a Tweet or previous book, that I would find it compelling. This collection of essays, however, suffers from a weak heart. There was no love poured into them.
This book will hit the mark if you are a particular type of person (do you know the rules of the internet? Do you recall when forums were not just Reddit?) in the mood for a sombre but nostalgic trip down memory lane. But understand that when you open it up, you will not be engaging in any level of deeper thinking. It is a surface level ode to the internet, written almost as a blog post – which at the end of the day, is unsurprising given the author’s roots.
December 20, 2023
To everyone who is similarly disappointed in this book: I recommend to you Gretchen McCulloch's Because Internet, which is everything this book wants to be, AND MOAR. Also, Gretchen has actual qualifications beyond just "had a blog."
January 8, 2023
Both delightfully nostalgic and insufferably self important, but then the personal story of growing with and apart from the internet was always going to be. Will be interesting to revisit in a decade.
July 28, 2024
I really didn't like this book. It was a fluffy opinion piece mixed with uninteresting biographical content. The central thesis was never really proven and read more like a vapid, non-technical wannabe influencer lamenting the way the internet has changed in a curmudgeonly "in my day" / "get off my lawn" kind of way. No real insight or interesting internet history was presented.
July 14, 2024
This was more of an essay than a book - which made it both compelling and an easy read. it was a great beach book for me - very familiar and nostalgic for an Online Millennial, with some really thoughtful theories. I understand the criticism about the lack of depth, but would say Marie is very clear up front about what the book is and isn’t - it’s a eulogy, and a reminder/ time capsule of what things were like and may never be again.
July 26, 2024
a dull memoir about somebody you've never heard of with a shockingly inflated sense of self and a completely uninteresting tale to tell, labeled as an exploration of a topic I would be genuinely interested in reading about!
the author actually gleefully details how she couldn't be bothered to research what she's saying at multiple different points - makes sense for an ex-Buzzfeed employee.
don't waste your time or money on this absolutely hack piece of writing by somebody who would have saved their readers some time and their publishers some money by just masturbating in front of a mirror for a few hours 🙏
the author actually gleefully details how she couldn't be bothered to research what she's saying at multiple different points - makes sense for an ex-Buzzfeed employee.
don't waste your time or money on this absolutely hack piece of writing by somebody who would have saved their readers some time and their publishers some money by just masturbating in front of a mirror for a few hours 🙏
January 25, 2023
Maybe it was because I thought this book was going to be different that I really enjoyed it for what it was. A more personal history of growing up alongside the internet. At times heavy on anecdote, it was fortunate that the anecdotes were so enjoyable to hear.
Listened to in the car going to and from work.
Listened to in the car going to and from work.
January 25, 2023
Solid 3.5, I really enjoyed this book! It’s memoir-style which makes it a really accessible read, and there are some incredibly familiar deep cuts for people who grew up on the internet of the early 2010s. I do wish it had gone deeper into cultural analysis in some places, but overall had a really good time and do rec
October 4, 2022
A barely formed thing. Milquetoast analysis of the power in general (if you want no borders, you need a revolution not reform) and the internet specifically (there remain corners, outwith twitter, for the outcasts of whom she seeks to speak)
January 15, 2023
Era 2004. El padre de un amigo, químico y profesor de secundaria, me invitó a acompañarles a una excursión de un día al Parque de las Ciencias de Granada. Al entrar al parque por el edificio principal había (y hasta hace un par de años seguía habiendo) una hilera de ordenadores conectados a Internet. Yo tenía nueve años y aún faltaban unos meses para que llegase el primer ordenador a mi casa, y no tenía ni idea de qué hacía uno con un ordenador a internet. Así que al ponerme delante de uno de esos ordenadores, unos iMacs antiguos, creo, escribí en la barra de direcciones del navegador la única URL que conocía por haberla visto en anuncios: cocacola punto com.
Unos meses después llegó a casa el primer ordenador. Un año después –el año que nació YouTube– la primera conexión a internet. Un módem de 128kbps de Vodafone con el que descargar una película requería dejar el ordenador encendido una semana. Como fui un niño bastante gafas y un poco gilipollas, una de las primeras cosas que busqué fue cómo hacer un virus para joder los ordenadores de la sala de informática del colegio. El intento no llegó muy lejos, pero recuerdo llegar a foros en los que otra gente explicaba cómo escribir comandos de la consola de Windows que daban la instrucción de apagar el ordenador en cuanto se encendiese.
El internet de entonces era muy diferente al de hoy. Mucho más fragmentado, la gente con intereses comunes se encontraba en foros de temáticas específicas. Casi todo el mundo era anónimo y casi todo se publicaba en abierto. La gente tenía blogs. Pedir algo por internet casi siempre implicaba pagar a contrareembolso, en parte porque con diez años uno no tiene tarjeta de crédito, en parte porque cómo vas a pagar por algo que no te llega hasta dentro de tres semanas, te van a engañar. Estar online era algo que uno hacía deliberadamente, encendiendo el ordenador, escuchando los ventiladores ponerse en marcha, clac clac clac, esperando a que Google o Yahoo o el portal de Terra o cualquier otra página cargase. Era otro internet, y es un internet que, con sus deficiencias, a veces echo de menos.
Lo que tan brillantemente explica Le Conte es que muchas de las dinámicas que hoy nos afectan y que aún estamos tratando de entender tienen su origen en esto: todo nos coge de nuevas. En ningún momento decidimos que íbamos a compartir una plataforma con nuestros padres, con nuestros mejores amigos y compañeros de clase y trabajo, con jefes de estado, con parejas liberales que buscan participantes en una orgía, con niños racistas de 15 años y con artistas cuya subsistencia depende de cómo les trate un algoritmo. Nadie sabe muy bien cómo actuar en esa situación, qué faceta de su personalidad mostrar, y tener presente el alcance de algo así es complicado. El paso del tiempo, que suele desdibujar lo que se dijo, desaparece: alguien puede plantarte en la cara una cosa que dijiste hace trece años y pedirte explicaciones. No es este el único punto del libro (que me ha parecido un ensayo magnífico), pero sí una de las ideas que se exponen con mayor claridad.
Tenemos un internet que democratiza e iguala, pero también un internet dominado por esa oscura madeja de redes neuronales, programas y bases de datos que conocemos como el algoritmo. Es un tema complicado y no quisiera caer en reducciones, ni dejarme llevar por las nostalgia. Pasé demasiado tiempo en 4chan entre 2008 y 2014 y todavía no entiendo por qué. Sin embargo, Le Conte habla de estos temas con lucidez, referenciando su propia experiencia online y la de sus amigos y conocidos, y acaba por escribir un ensayo que, si bien no es esperanzador, sí que ofrece respuestas (y muchas preguntas) acerca de todos estos fenómenos emergentes que aún estamos tratando de descrifrar.
Unos meses después llegó a casa el primer ordenador. Un año después –el año que nació YouTube– la primera conexión a internet. Un módem de 128kbps de Vodafone con el que descargar una película requería dejar el ordenador encendido una semana. Como fui un niño bastante gafas y un poco gilipollas, una de las primeras cosas que busqué fue cómo hacer un virus para joder los ordenadores de la sala de informática del colegio. El intento no llegó muy lejos, pero recuerdo llegar a foros en los que otra gente explicaba cómo escribir comandos de la consola de Windows que daban la instrucción de apagar el ordenador en cuanto se encendiese.
El internet de entonces era muy diferente al de hoy. Mucho más fragmentado, la gente con intereses comunes se encontraba en foros de temáticas específicas. Casi todo el mundo era anónimo y casi todo se publicaba en abierto. La gente tenía blogs. Pedir algo por internet casi siempre implicaba pagar a contrareembolso, en parte porque con diez años uno no tiene tarjeta de crédito, en parte porque cómo vas a pagar por algo que no te llega hasta dentro de tres semanas, te van a engañar. Estar online era algo que uno hacía deliberadamente, encendiendo el ordenador, escuchando los ventiladores ponerse en marcha, clac clac clac, esperando a que Google o Yahoo o el portal de Terra o cualquier otra página cargase. Era otro internet, y es un internet que, con sus deficiencias, a veces echo de menos.
Lo que tan brillantemente explica Le Conte es que muchas de las dinámicas que hoy nos afectan y que aún estamos tratando de entender tienen su origen en esto: todo nos coge de nuevas. En ningún momento decidimos que íbamos a compartir una plataforma con nuestros padres, con nuestros mejores amigos y compañeros de clase y trabajo, con jefes de estado, con parejas liberales que buscan participantes en una orgía, con niños racistas de 15 años y con artistas cuya subsistencia depende de cómo les trate un algoritmo. Nadie sabe muy bien cómo actuar en esa situación, qué faceta de su personalidad mostrar, y tener presente el alcance de algo así es complicado. El paso del tiempo, que suele desdibujar lo que se dijo, desaparece: alguien puede plantarte en la cara una cosa que dijiste hace trece años y pedirte explicaciones. No es este el único punto del libro (que me ha parecido un ensayo magnífico), pero sí una de las ideas que se exponen con mayor claridad.
Tenemos un internet que democratiza e iguala, pero también un internet dominado por esa oscura madeja de redes neuronales, programas y bases de datos que conocemos como el algoritmo. Es un tema complicado y no quisiera caer en reducciones, ni dejarme llevar por las nostalgia. Pasé demasiado tiempo en 4chan entre 2008 y 2014 y todavía no entiendo por qué. Sin embargo, Le Conte habla de estos temas con lucidez, referenciando su propia experiencia online y la de sus amigos y conocidos, y acaba por escribir un ensayo que, si bien no es esperanzador, sí que ofrece respuestas (y muchas preguntas) acerca de todos estos fenómenos emergentes que aún estamos tratando de descrifrar.
February 4, 2024
I always thought it was a little pathetic to feel nostalgia for the Internet. It hasn't gone anywhere, and it suggests a life lived sat hunched over a desk. Millennials who came of age with the Internet are now reflecting on that time and are making a case for how it's changed ever since - for worse, in most ways. Every couple of days, tweets go viral questioning when was the last time anyone visited a website. Before algorithms decided what we wanted to see, we had to go find it. Before social media made us all hang out in the same space, the Internet was a sprawl of neighbourhoods, each populated by weirdos with niche interests who couldn't believe they'd found each other.
It's crazy to think, but at one time, not everyone was on the Internet. Conte, humorously but not inaccurately, pinpoints the moment it all went south as when the pretty people turned up. Those who came of age blogging on LiveJournal under a username were liberated from all the anxieties of the school lunch hall. Your appearance and social standing didn't matter because you gravitated towards people's souls, which were all too readily spilled in specialised corners of the world wide web. We didn't know each others real names, we didn't know where anyone else lived, but we engaged in good faith with people who wanted to be understood and graciously understood us in return.
That's impossible to do when everything we say online can now be viewed by everyone, be associated with your real name, and be contextualised among everything you have ever said. How can we have stage fright on social media unless we accept it as a performance? At a time authenticity is supposedly lauded, we have to shape our words so they are palatable to, well, everyone, which we would never do in real life when talking to partners, friends, colleagues.
Conte misses the anonymity of the Internet and its separation away from our offline lives, and how it used to involve an element of curiosity. Back in the mid-2000s, routines formed around visiting different websites, hoping they had been updated since you'd last checked in. A new forum post, a recent blog update, the drop of a new feature. Wherever you had found to hang out was yours, unlike the social media of today. I didn't have to block out the voices of gender critical activists and nazis every couple of minutes, like we do today scrolling Twitter, when I was chatting to nerds about the TV show Lost on a vBulletin message board.
I don't mind like others do that Escape reads like an extended blog. Its target audience is those who grew up reading and writing them. What jarred was how often Conte referenced raves, sneaking into events, and hooking up with band members, which are all explicitly offline activities! For a book ostensibly about what the Internet did for our generation, the author often gets in the way by signalling all the ways in which they're pretty cool actually, and don't you forget it. It's when she pines for the long-gone Internet the book comes to life, because if you're like me, if you're an 'Internet person', you'll feel that something is missing from how it used to be. There are more technical books that will talk about how it's changed and why - money, algorithms, influence(rs), etc - but this is a POV, one of many, of someone who was there when it was better than it is now. If you were there too, Escape will make you feel vindicated in believing the same thing.
It's crazy to think, but at one time, not everyone was on the Internet. Conte, humorously but not inaccurately, pinpoints the moment it all went south as when the pretty people turned up. Those who came of age blogging on LiveJournal under a username were liberated from all the anxieties of the school lunch hall. Your appearance and social standing didn't matter because you gravitated towards people's souls, which were all too readily spilled in specialised corners of the world wide web. We didn't know each others real names, we didn't know where anyone else lived, but we engaged in good faith with people who wanted to be understood and graciously understood us in return.
That's impossible to do when everything we say online can now be viewed by everyone, be associated with your real name, and be contextualised among everything you have ever said. How can we have stage fright on social media unless we accept it as a performance? At a time authenticity is supposedly lauded, we have to shape our words so they are palatable to, well, everyone, which we would never do in real life when talking to partners, friends, colleagues.
Conte misses the anonymity of the Internet and its separation away from our offline lives, and how it used to involve an element of curiosity. Back in the mid-2000s, routines formed around visiting different websites, hoping they had been updated since you'd last checked in. A new forum post, a recent blog update, the drop of a new feature. Wherever you had found to hang out was yours, unlike the social media of today. I didn't have to block out the voices of gender critical activists and nazis every couple of minutes, like we do today scrolling Twitter, when I was chatting to nerds about the TV show Lost on a vBulletin message board.
I don't mind like others do that Escape reads like an extended blog. Its target audience is those who grew up reading and writing them. What jarred was how often Conte referenced raves, sneaking into events, and hooking up with band members, which are all explicitly offline activities! For a book ostensibly about what the Internet did for our generation, the author often gets in the way by signalling all the ways in which they're pretty cool actually, and don't you forget it. It's when she pines for the long-gone Internet the book comes to life, because if you're like me, if you're an 'Internet person', you'll feel that something is missing from how it used to be. There are more technical books that will talk about how it's changed and why - money, algorithms, influence(rs), etc - but this is a POV, one of many, of someone who was there when it was better than it is now. If you were there too, Escape will make you feel vindicated in believing the same thing.
October 26, 2022
Really interesting book delving into the early internet and how it has changed and grown up over the years.
Le Conte looks through her own perspective of being born in the early '90s, and takes you through those infant internet years when it was far smaller and more intimate, through to the corporate age of big tech. The anecdotes and unorthodox life the author has lived to get to this point are both fascinating and hilarious, painting a vivid yet vaguely familiar picture of what the internet once was.
Scattered throughout these stories lie some really thought-provoking points: social media artifically maintaining friendships that would otherwise have long disintegrated. How once a simple 'AFK' allowed you some space, now it lies redundant with a keyboard ever at the fingertips. Context collapse. The longing for ignorance in an age of information. The 2-d internet preserving all of our past-selves and forcing them to co-exist online. The rise of the scroll. All of these woven and explored well within the stories that Le Conte tells.
The generational differences between those who grew up as the internet was growing up, those who were already grown up once the internet arrived, and those who grow up with a 'matured' internet provide further insights. Arriving as I did in the late '90s, I fall very much in between the matured and maturing internet.
For me, I loved the mixture of recognition of things I grew up with with a slightly different context. MSN messenger for example I once used a lot, but I never appreciated the game-changing element of a live-internet conversation: where you could see the other person was online, had read your messages and so forth. To hear a millenial perspective of how this forged a new form of communication that I had always taken for granted, was eye-opening.
A great read for anyone who wants to learn more about early-internet culture and its development. From boomer to zoomer, you don't need to have grown up alongside the internet to appreciate this personal and highly entertaining recount of a little-discussed era.
Le Conte looks through her own perspective of being born in the early '90s, and takes you through those infant internet years when it was far smaller and more intimate, through to the corporate age of big tech. The anecdotes and unorthodox life the author has lived to get to this point are both fascinating and hilarious, painting a vivid yet vaguely familiar picture of what the internet once was.
Scattered throughout these stories lie some really thought-provoking points: social media artifically maintaining friendships that would otherwise have long disintegrated. How once a simple 'AFK' allowed you some space, now it lies redundant with a keyboard ever at the fingertips. Context collapse. The longing for ignorance in an age of information. The 2-d internet preserving all of our past-selves and forcing them to co-exist online. The rise of the scroll. All of these woven and explored well within the stories that Le Conte tells.
The generational differences between those who grew up as the internet was growing up, those who were already grown up once the internet arrived, and those who grow up with a 'matured' internet provide further insights. Arriving as I did in the late '90s, I fall very much in between the matured and maturing internet.
For me, I loved the mixture of recognition of things I grew up with with a slightly different context. MSN messenger for example I once used a lot, but I never appreciated the game-changing element of a live-internet conversation: where you could see the other person was online, had read your messages and so forth. To hear a millenial perspective of how this forged a new form of communication that I had always taken for granted, was eye-opening.
A great read for anyone who wants to learn more about early-internet culture and its development. From boomer to zoomer, you don't need to have grown up alongside the internet to appreciate this personal and highly entertaining recount of a little-discussed era.
March 9, 2024
It is strange to have grown up right in the cleavage that divides history between "analog" and "digital". It is not possible to have lived through that and not reflect on how much it has affected our personalities for better and for worse.
It was very nice to be able to read in a book ways of describing that only live on the web, since they show how traditional formats need to make room for new forms of expression; those that we use every day and with which at least I communicate more.
The relationship with the Internet is complex. One day it seems to be the greatest treasure of humanity, and the next you wish you were recording a cassette from the radio and then transcribing the lyrics in a notebook, bouncing and advancing the cassette.
Without going too deep, in this book it is possible to see how the big industries have robbed us of spaces of expression and anonymity, trying to make us believe that the "normal" thing to do is to replicate "real life" in digital life.
If you are looking for a companion that allows you to understand and compare your experience of growing up with the Internet, I invite you to read this book.
It was very nice to be able to read in a book ways of describing that only live on the web, since they show how traditional formats need to make room for new forms of expression; those that we use every day and with which at least I communicate more.
The relationship with the Internet is complex. One day it seems to be the greatest treasure of humanity, and the next you wish you were recording a cassette from the radio and then transcribing the lyrics in a notebook, bouncing and advancing the cassette.
Without going too deep, in this book it is possible to see how the big industries have robbed us of spaces of expression and anonymity, trying to make us believe that the "normal" thing to do is to replicate "real life" in digital life.
If you are looking for a companion that allows you to understand and compare your experience of growing up with the Internet, I invite you to read this book.
January 7, 2025
To start: many negative reviews are (as normal for goodreads) about the book the reviewer *thinks this should be* rather than what the book actually *is*.
For me, this was an excellent anecdotal self history of the internet from the mid 00s to the 2020s. There are also some musings from the author and others about what the deeper meanings of the changes in the internet landscape might mean, or have meant to those coming later.
As someone who started on IRC in the mid 90s and had a similar overall trajectory, I found an awful lot of this book rang true. It was nice to hear of some old habits I'd forgotten about. Also to lament about the normies invading.
Marie's idea that the driver of the current hyper polarisation of social media platforms & society isn't always bubbles, but rather bubble collapse is well worth thinking about and rings very true for me. However I do feel like she lets small forums off the hook a bit in driving extreme para social behaviours and social inroup feedback (bubbles) that then leak onto the platforms.
For me, this was an excellent anecdotal self history of the internet from the mid 00s to the 2020s. There are also some musings from the author and others about what the deeper meanings of the changes in the internet landscape might mean, or have meant to those coming later.
As someone who started on IRC in the mid 90s and had a similar overall trajectory, I found an awful lot of this book rang true. It was nice to hear of some old habits I'd forgotten about. Also to lament about the normies invading.
Marie's idea that the driver of the current hyper polarisation of social media platforms & society isn't always bubbles, but rather bubble collapse is well worth thinking about and rings very true for me. However I do feel like she lets small forums off the hook a bit in driving extreme para social behaviours and social inroup feedback (bubbles) that then leak onto the platforms.
October 7, 2024
First, Marie is French so that makes her cool by design (what do you mean it's not an argument?). Super interesting read, especially if like me you're from the same generation aka the one that remembers life before the internet and the very beginning of us being online.
My favourite part was the last one, the reflection on what went wrong since those glorious days (or you know better days), totally agreed with most of her point : the internet is flat and never forgets which is a problem cause humans are supposed to grow and change and the internet doesn't allows us to ; there is no real separation between the private and the public anymore, who we are online has an impact on who we are offline (and vice versa) ; in real life we don't say the same thing depending on the audience we have, you can't really do that online.
Not a super optimistic book (but have you seen the internet today?), but incredibly interesting read
My favourite part was the last one, the reflection on what went wrong since those glorious days (or you know better days), totally agreed with most of her point : the internet is flat and never forgets which is a problem cause humans are supposed to grow and change and the internet doesn't allows us to ; there is no real separation between the private and the public anymore, who we are online has an impact on who we are offline (and vice versa) ; in real life we don't say the same thing depending on the audience we have, you can't really do that online.
Not a super optimistic book (but have you seen the internet today?), but incredibly interesting read
September 21, 2022
I loved this book, in short. I know I've lived through the changes to the internet Le Conte describes, but I've not really read anything quite like this that sets them out in black and white.
The book hits the nail on the head, I think, with lack of compartmentalisation, and how everyone existing in the same spaces explains so much of how the internet has changed, in part for the better (I like being able to message almost anyone I know at the press of a button, if I am so inclined) but also for the worst, baring everyone's whole character to everyone and causing others to expect nothing less.
The book hits the nail on the head, I think, with lack of compartmentalisation, and how everyone existing in the same spaces explains so much of how the internet has changed, in part for the better (I like being able to message almost anyone I know at the press of a button, if I am so inclined) but also for the worst, baring everyone's whole character to everyone and causing others to expect nothing less.
May 19, 2023
This is a fascinating but mind-boggling read.
It fascinates me to learn how other people from this odd decade (1985-95) experienced the internet. But it boggles my mind as it is very far from my experience.
I am only 5 months younger than Marie and I grew up in a home that had a separate phone-line for the internet before I was 7-year-old but I was never as 'online' as she was.
I'm left yearning to chat to Marie about so many of the topics raised by this book. This sensation might not have been so strong if I hadn't first encountered her on a political podcast and will be seeing her live in 5 days' time. Or if I didn't have most of my friends through online spaces.
It fascinates me to learn how other people from this odd decade (1985-95) experienced the internet. But it boggles my mind as it is very far from my experience.
I am only 5 months younger than Marie and I grew up in a home that had a separate phone-line for the internet before I was 7-year-old but I was never as 'online' as she was.
I'm left yearning to chat to Marie about so many of the topics raised by this book. This sensation might not have been so strong if I hadn't first encountered her on a political podcast and will be seeing her live in 5 days' time. Or if I didn't have most of my friends through online spaces.
August 27, 2024
Very readable, but that's not to say it's the greatest book - the subtitle makes it sound like it's going to be more of an academic exploration with sources etc, which it isn't. However, as someone of the generation just prior to the author's, there was much that was relatable, and I tend to agree with the basic conclusion that once brands and money got involved, it all went a bit sh*t. I remember really lofi sites where coloured text was a novelty, now much of the Internet is just a homogenous mass of advertising, it's just a bit sad. The creativity does appear to have been desperately diluted away once and for all. C'est la vie, I guess...
October 23, 2022
I've stopped rating books since I read somewhere this is a right-wing stuff to do, but would I'll make an exception for this one and give it 5 stars.
I'm can't remember how I came to follow Marie Le Conte on Twitter - probably common acquaintances. Anyway, her witty tweets have made me giggle for the past two years. I've been looking for more, but Marie's journalistic work covers UK politics (and frankly, I can't be bothered). Her two first books were also somehow related to what happens on the other side of the Channel.
This is why I was really excited when Marie - born 1991 - announced the release of "Escape", a book that explores what it's like to be part of the first ever generation who got to grow up online, and how "the internet" has changed since. So excited that I pre-ordered the book from the editor, who was kind enough to send me the digital proof copy. That was a great idea: I then realised the kindle version is unfortunately not available outside of the UK (and - sorry Marie - for practical reasons I only read on Kindle).
In what turned out to be a sometimes funny, sometimes sad, honest, personal but - to a worrying extent - extremely relatable testimonial of the pioneer generation, Marie explores different dimensions of what OUR Internet was like, how it shaped many members of our generation into - I'd say 'hybrid' (half online, half offline) individuals.
She goes on to compare the Internet from before with today's, touching upon subjects such as mental health, advancing her own theories on the growing polarization of individuals.
Marie also mourns the disappearance of a diverse Internet, with lots of hidden, underground spaces towards the rise of a 'flat' internet.
I thought it was refreshing to read a book on the topic that did not need to resort to the boomers vs. millenials semantic.
I personally liked very much the bit on the influence of the Internet on the process of building one's identity.
Also made me realise how much I miss reading and writing blogs.
"There is a fundamental problem with how we live our lives online and it is that we are now all together, all of the time. The spaces in which I talk to my family are the same spaces in which I talk to my friends and interact with my work contacts. My father follows me on Twitter and so do my childhood friends and several government ministers. We have all been squished into the same dashboards, timelines and feeds, and we have no idea how to deal with it.
We are, after all, not meant to be the exact same person to everyone we encounter, not because people are inherently duplicitous but because that is how we function. You will not make the same jokes to your aunt, a school friend or your partner, just like you would not wear flip-flops to the office even if you own a pair to go to the beach.
We are built to be multifaceted because we are social beings; at no point in their history did humans roam alone. For a community to work as it is intended to, everyone involved in it needs to tweak their behaviour, consciously or unconsciously. There is a reason why people who pride themselves on always being honest, no matter how coarse their truth is, are not especially prized as friends."
I'm can't remember how I came to follow Marie Le Conte on Twitter - probably common acquaintances. Anyway, her witty tweets have made me giggle for the past two years. I've been looking for more, but Marie's journalistic work covers UK politics (and frankly, I can't be bothered). Her two first books were also somehow related to what happens on the other side of the Channel.
This is why I was really excited when Marie - born 1991 - announced the release of "Escape", a book that explores what it's like to be part of the first ever generation who got to grow up online, and how "the internet" has changed since. So excited that I pre-ordered the book from the editor, who was kind enough to send me the digital proof copy. That was a great idea: I then realised the kindle version is unfortunately not available outside of the UK (and - sorry Marie - for practical reasons I only read on Kindle).
In what turned out to be a sometimes funny, sometimes sad, honest, personal but - to a worrying extent - extremely relatable testimonial of the pioneer generation, Marie explores different dimensions of what OUR Internet was like, how it shaped many members of our generation into - I'd say 'hybrid' (half online, half offline) individuals.
She goes on to compare the Internet from before with today's, touching upon subjects such as mental health, advancing her own theories on the growing polarization of individuals.
Marie also mourns the disappearance of a diverse Internet, with lots of hidden, underground spaces towards the rise of a 'flat' internet.
I thought it was refreshing to read a book on the topic that did not need to resort to the boomers vs. millenials semantic.
I personally liked very much the bit on the influence of the Internet on the process of building one's identity.
Also made me realise how much I miss reading and writing blogs.
"There is a fundamental problem with how we live our lives online and it is that we are now all together, all of the time. The spaces in which I talk to my family are the same spaces in which I talk to my friends and interact with my work contacts. My father follows me on Twitter and so do my childhood friends and several government ministers. We have all been squished into the same dashboards, timelines and feeds, and we have no idea how to deal with it.
We are, after all, not meant to be the exact same person to everyone we encounter, not because people are inherently duplicitous but because that is how we function. You will not make the same jokes to your aunt, a school friend or your partner, just like you would not wear flip-flops to the office even if you own a pair to go to the beach.
We are built to be multifaceted because we are social beings; at no point in their history did humans roam alone. For a community to work as it is intended to, everyone involved in it needs to tweak their behaviour, consciously or unconsciously. There is a reason why people who pride themselves on always being honest, no matter how coarse their truth is, are not especially prized as friends."
December 28, 2022
This book made me think. It made me nostalgic, but not necessarily normal nostalgia... perhaps more nostalgic for a time before the internet and also the times when the internet was simpler. I discussed some of the topics in this book with others and we all thought that the author brought up some great points. I would definitely encourage millennials to read it and possibly the generations before and after to see how their experiences differ. 8.5/10!
October 22, 2023
A personal and thought-provoking series of essays on the history of the social internet. Her writing was honest and reflective and I got a lot out of it. Her overarching thesis, that the internet was better when people congregated in small hubs rather than mega platforms, was persuasive and convincing. There are a lot of people writing about the downsides of the modern internet, but this was a new perspective on what came before it, and that felt distinctive - well worth reading.
January 12, 2025
While I completely agree with the sentiment and am also disgusted by the state of the internet these days - it used to be a nice place, until all the normies, fathers, mothers, grandmothers, coworkers and employers discovered it too - this book is just really not well written, it's all over the place and often deviates into topics that had me wondering for pages what they even had to do with the book.
February 24, 2024
I felt all sorts of nostalgia reading this book because I grew up with that old internet the author was divulging about. It was an expanse space to be weird and made me a lover / hater of internet culture that I am today. Grateful for the book as a token of the good ol days (Livejournal I still miss you so much).
January 11, 2023
Good! Enjoyable! Relatable content! Nothing earth shattering! But I'm glad someone put into words what lots of us have been feeling and thinking, and the words are mostly well written words! A fun, easy, thoughtful, mournful, joyful, and enjoyable read.
July 21, 2024
a refreshingly light book in between heavier ones, about an age on the internet im too young to have known. i liked how personal, and yet enlightening it was, but it was not the most groundbreaking for me (coming from someone with a media studies degree). 3,5 stars, id say.
February 25, 2025
Expected an analysis of the decline in the quality of the internet based off the subtitle. Instead got cute anecdotes about smut blogs the author used to read.
Nothing interesting or profound in here. Don’t bother.
Nothing interesting or profound in here. Don’t bother.
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