3.5 stars rounded up. This was more of a straightforward narrative history of the rise of social media platforms and the ways that power users came to define them--and often, to be exploited by the platforms' owners. It was really interesting to see the same patterns play out across platforms, not only in the sense of each one being used in ways that were unexpected and/or unintended, but also in the implications for regular users (the linguistic shift from "friends" to "followers," the increasing pressure for everyone to be a content creator, the shift to video and its impact on how we spend time online now).

There's not much analysis from Lorenz, though, which I felt that the book needed. And as other reviews have noted, the tumblr chapter is weirdly incomplete and totally omits the porn ban that had a huge impact on the platform and chased away users as varied as fanfiction authors and sex workers. It also claims that there have been no changes or "innovations" on the site, ignoring (or unaware of?) the livestreaming feature that caused a ruckus among longtime users when it was rolled out. I mean, I think you could write a whole book just about tumblr, so its near-dismissal struck me as odd. I do concede that the idiosyncratic nature of tumblr "fame" does make it a challenge to fit into the same narrative as other platforms that are more centered on recognizable personalities and don't function with the same anonymity.

This book also made me so nostalgic for the internet circa 2008, oh my god.