Book: Taylor Lorenz's "Extremely Online"

The fifth book of the year for me was Taylor Lorenz's "Extremely Online".  The book follows the rise of the internet 'influencer'.  An influencer is someone who uses their social media presence to influence the buying habits and style trends of their followers.  This is done to make money for the influencer and for the products they promote.

I have personally looked down on influencer culture.  This book didn't change my opinion on them much at all and, it should be noted, that is not the purpose of this book.  Being an influencer, while making a lot of money - millions of dollars in some cases - is not an easy profession.  You are constantly trying to one up your competition and one upping yourself.  Social media abuse along with long hours producing internet content often results in burnout.

The biggest surprise I had reading this book were all the social media sites I'd never heard of  before.  I consider myself internet savvy but I now realize there is a whole world online that I have never encountered.  The more I read the more I think I was lucky not to discover this world sooner.

I gave this book four stars out of five on Goodreads.  I learned something which is always a good thing.