Extremely Online

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

By: Taylor Lorenz

Narrated by: Emily Tremaine, Taylor Lorenz

Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

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—“terrific,” as the New York Times calls it, “Lorenz…is a knowledgeable, opinionated guide to the ways internet fame has become fame, full stop.”

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. Lorenz shows this phenomenon to be one of the most disruptive changes in modern capitalism.

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. In this “deeply reported, behind-the-scenes chronicle of how everyday people built careers and empires from their sheer talent and algorithmic luck” (Sarah Frier, author of No Filter), 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 have resulted in 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 aims to tell a sociological story, not a psychological one, and in its breadth it demonstrates a new cultural logic emerging out of 21st-century media chaos” (The New York Times). Lorenz reveals the inside, untold story of what we have done to the internet, and what it has done to us.

©2023 Taylor Lorenz (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio

Read so fast!

So interesting and well written, I flew through this book and highly recommend! Learned a lot!

A pop culture history of the internet

I have recommended this book to everyone I have met. Well researched and structured, Lorenz lays out the history of the internet (that we care about)

A people's history of the internet

I've spent my life since adolence on the internet, but I've definitely missed out on a lot of the trendy sites while they were big, and missed out on a lot of the more popular viral trends. So this book really taught me a lot.

While most books about the internet would focus on billionaires who started these companies, like Google or Facebook, they're not the story here, this is about the regular people who used websites from blogs to YouTube to create something no one had thought of before. How an anonymous blogger became the authority on the NYC party scene in the 90's. It's stuff like that, especially a focus on the better aspects of the internet over the dark side of the internet, which is like under 10% of the book.

I never used Vine, but after this book, I know about all there is to know about it's risen and fall, and the stars who migrated to YouTube and Twitch. There's a lot of interesting stories of regular people becoming internet famous before it was seen as a possibility to people becoming actual media stars because of the internet.

As for the narration, as much as I'd be up for Taylor Lorenz to read the whole book (she does the introduction) I can see why she chose a professional narrator, she is perfect for the reading, like respectfully using accents for different people and getting the right tone, the kinds of things you'd expect of a professional voice actor.

T Lorenz does it again

As a member of the “extremely online” I have to vouch for the thoroughness and care with which Taylor has chronicled these events. If you think you’re among the MOST in the know this book will still teach you more than you will imagine.

Interesting and well-reported

Taylor Lorenz treats the history of the rise of social media with the respect this major industry deserves. Her book is fascinating, well-reported, and a really great read.

Great crash course of digital engagement!

A fascinating crash course through the history and evolution of digital engagement! Gives insights into the why and how behind the rise and fall of digital platforms, celebrities and trends. A must for anyone trying to understand what drives social and where its going.

Highly recommend.

Chronicles the history and trends related to how people have engaged socially on the internet.

Intermixes business, technology, marketing, and regulation to create a compelling story.

Great read on the evolution of social media

This book is for you if want to learn and know how social media has redefined and shaped our lives from an analog to an always-on digital world. Insightful and well documented, the author knows her subject and how to package it in an accessible and relatable way for a non-tech person. Highly recommend.

Great look at how social media has totally taken over the culture.

It was really fun going on this deep dive and bringing these stories back to life.

Really well researched

You can tell the time it took to research this book. It was really well written and reminded me about a lot of things in social media I’ve already forgotten!

I liked the narrator in this audio version. Perfect history of our online world