kafiro_ka_kafka's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
3.0
An easy and simple read.
jentidders's review against another edition
4.0
When I first saw the title for this book I thought it might be some right-wing pundit complaining about the 'snowflake' generation, but thankfully it's a really powerful call to action for us to focus on what is an important issue and effective activism, rather than getting caught up in clicktivism and dragging/cancelling culture.
Ashley "Dotty" Charles is a BBC Radio 1Xtra presenter (also known as Amplify Dot) who ticks a few intersectional boxes as a Black gay woman. She became interested in mob outrage after the public shaming of Rachel Dolezal (the white American woman who claims that she is 'transracial).
In her fascinating, well researched and powerful book (which brings to mind Jon Ronson's 'So You've Been Publicly Shamed'), Charles actually manages to interview Dolezal, as well as right-wing troll Katie Hopkins, sociologists, and Richard Wilson from the Stop Funding Hate campaign, in order to consider why it is we're sucked into mass movements on social media and whether this actually does anything to foster long term change (spoiler, the answer is 'not often').
Charles cautions that if we don't change the way we get involved in social justice issues then we are likely to get outrage fatigue and become apathetic. Instead, she encourages us to make sure we pick our battles as well as returning to old school protest and direct action.
I absolutely loved reading this book, which I think is essential in the current climate of Black Lives Matter and the erosion of trans rights. Rather than vilifying one woman in a park or one children's book author on Twitter, we should be writing to our politicians, targeting business and advertisers, staging demonstrations, and setting up picket lines, to work towards dismantling deep-rooted systemic prejudice.
Buy this now and feel incentivised to make some real change.
Ashley "Dotty" Charles is a BBC Radio 1Xtra presenter (also known as Amplify Dot) who ticks a few intersectional boxes as a Black gay woman. She became interested in mob outrage after the public shaming of Rachel Dolezal (the white American woman who claims that she is 'transracial).
In her fascinating, well researched and powerful book (which brings to mind Jon Ronson's 'So You've Been Publicly Shamed'), Charles actually manages to interview Dolezal, as well as right-wing troll Katie Hopkins, sociologists, and Richard Wilson from the Stop Funding Hate campaign, in order to consider why it is we're sucked into mass movements on social media and whether this actually does anything to foster long term change (spoiler, the answer is 'not often').
Charles cautions that if we don't change the way we get involved in social justice issues then we are likely to get outrage fatigue and become apathetic. Instead, she encourages us to make sure we pick our battles as well as returning to old school protest and direct action.
I absolutely loved reading this book, which I think is essential in the current climate of Black Lives Matter and the erosion of trans rights. Rather than vilifying one woman in a park or one children's book author on Twitter, we should be writing to our politicians, targeting business and advertisers, staging demonstrations, and setting up picket lines, to work towards dismantling deep-rooted systemic prejudice.
Buy this now and feel incentivised to make some real change.
crikeyastoria's review against another edition
3.0
Read in a few sittings, this is one of only books of its types that kept me interested the whole way through, so props to writing style.
Deffo agreed with outrage fatigue, I think we are all tired of the world's shit thrusted at us 24/7, but I'm unsure that this gen and the next gen have the tools to combat it successfully. This book made me want to engage more with younger people outside of the internet and encouraged me to live life offline and outside the realms of social media. While I do think there is something to be said of re tweeting liking or sharing posts that call out opressors and the like, is it worth the emotional damage that eventually leads to us disengaging with topics in real life??
A hard hitting read that covers the uncomfortable aspects of any type of activism.
Deffo agreed with outrage fatigue, I think we are all tired of the world's shit thrusted at us 24/7, but I'm unsure that this gen and the next gen have the tools to combat it successfully. This book made me want to engage more with younger people outside of the internet and encouraged me to live life offline and outside the realms of social media. While I do think there is something to be said of re tweeting liking or sharing posts that call out opressors and the like, is it worth the emotional damage that eventually leads to us disengaging with topics in real life??
A hard hitting read that covers the uncomfortable aspects of any type of activism.
frannymuzza's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.75
Excellent book and so relevant with the current wave of strikes and the political climate at the moment. Really reinforces the idea that online activism barely scratches the surface of creating meaningful, tangible change. A refreshing reminder to check myself before investing my outrage needlessly and to be mindful of social media’s limitations when it comes to activism. Always do your research. Always back up speaking out with taking action. Have conversations offline about these issues too.
rathernovel's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
ezzo's review against another edition
funny
informative
medium-paced
2.0
The interviews the author does for the book are quite interesting but the points made in the rest of the book are so simplistic. The points made were so contradictory at times that I could barely tell what she actually wanted to convey. It also seems that she does not want to take her own advice and actually have more nuanced thoughts about which issues are more important than others and how to go about addressing them. This book truly read like a Twitter thread and maybe it should have been. It really seems the author has barely dipped her toes into understanding the issues she's trying to talk about.
afreen7's review against another edition
3.0
Wow This is a mess of a book!
I get the original idea that outrage for the sake of outrage and misdirected outrage is a waste of human emotion and energy and all it does is make people lazy when they could be using that effort on things that really matter.
But somewhere along the way between interviewing really terrible people and some cringy metaphors("cancelled like an Amazon Prime subscription on day twenty-nine of the free thirty-day trial.") the author's hot takegetting outraged about people getting outraged knowing it would trigger more outrage Charles loses the plot.
Excessive outrage derails movements by adding too many trains to the track. Black Lives Matter, but wait, polar bear lives also matter, and have you even stopped for a second to consider the real meaning behind Thanksgiving?
I don't see why these are all not important trains. There are other less important topics Charles could've picked here as an example
"The kind that convinces narcissistic do-gooders to film themselves feeding the homeless. Those charitable-on-camera types. The boastfully benevolent who flaunt their humanitarian values, not from a position of altruism but simply to satisfy their self-adulation."
She says it is okay for people to appropriate culture or commit other such acts like Dolezal faking their race cause there's no malevolent intent and then goes on to bash YouTubers who perform charitable acts and then make a video of it (with permission of course)?
"I’d been royally played like a well-tuned guitar at an Ed Sheeran gig."
And enough with the weird metaphors if you want me to take this book seriously
Why report that two thirds of Brits sleep peacefully in their beds when you could spin it to read one in three brits plagued by incurable insomnia?
this is about sensational headlines. I mean whats the logic of this statement? Anyone would be worried if a third of a country's population are insomniacs. It feels like Charles wants to say 'why focus on the percentage of people dying of cancer due to air pollution, we should focus on the percentage of people not dying!
By now I was becoming a bit of an activism purist, which is rich coming from me, someone with little to no protest experience.
Well..another keyboard warrior then.
There's a good sentiment hidden in this book getting lost because the author thought making contradictory and mindless quips was more important.
I get the original idea that outrage for the sake of outrage and misdirected outrage is a waste of human emotion and energy and all it does is make people lazy when they could be using that effort on things that really matter.
But somewhere along the way between interviewing really terrible people and some cringy metaphors("cancelled like an Amazon Prime subscription on day twenty-nine of the free thirty-day trial.") the author's hot take
Excessive outrage derails movements by adding too many trains to the track. Black Lives Matter, but wait, polar bear lives also matter, and have you even stopped for a second to consider the real meaning behind Thanksgiving?
I don't see why these are all not important trains. There are other less important topics Charles could've picked here as an example
"The kind that convinces narcissistic do-gooders to film themselves feeding the homeless. Those charitable-on-camera types. The boastfully benevolent who flaunt their humanitarian values, not from a position of altruism but simply to satisfy their self-adulation."
She says it is okay for people to appropriate culture or commit other such acts like Dolezal faking their race cause there's no malevolent intent and then goes on to bash YouTubers who perform charitable acts and then make a video of it (with permission of course)?
"I’d been royally played like a well-tuned guitar at an Ed Sheeran gig."
And enough with the weird metaphors if you want me to take this book seriously
Why report that two thirds of Brits sleep peacefully in their beds when you could spin it to read one in three brits plagued by incurable insomnia?
this is about sensational headlines. I mean whats the logic of this statement? Anyone would be worried if a third of a country's population are insomniacs. It feels like Charles wants to say 'why focus on the percentage of people dying of cancer due to air pollution, we should focus on the percentage of people not dying!
By now I was becoming a bit of an activism purist, which is rich coming from me, someone with little to no protest experience.
Well..another keyboard warrior then.
There's a good sentiment hidden in this book getting lost because the author thought making contradictory and mindless quips was more important.
_jpmh_'s review against another edition
4.0
"We don't need to care less; we just need to care better."
There's nothing particularly groundbreaking in this study, and at around 140 pages it was never going to dive all that deeply into this most current of phenomena, but it is nonetheless a great look behind the scenes of online outrage, how and why it happens, how it can be used in a considered and worthwhile way, and how in general we can lead healthier and saner online lives.
The writing style is informal and engaging, with just the right balance of humour that will genuinely make you laugh out loud, and serious discussion points. Most people seem to be saying it (jokingly?) in reviews (mostly in social media posts!), but anyone with a social media account really should read this before wading into their next pile-on!
There's nothing particularly groundbreaking in this study, and at around 140 pages it was never going to dive all that deeply into this most current of phenomena, but it is nonetheless a great look behind the scenes of online outrage, how and why it happens, how it can be used in a considered and worthwhile way, and how in general we can lead healthier and saner online lives.
The writing style is informal and engaging, with just the right balance of humour that will genuinely make you laugh out loud, and serious discussion points. Most people seem to be saying it (jokingly?) in reviews (mostly in social media posts!), but anyone with a social media account really should read this before wading into their next pile-on!
ellagrant26's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting and topical book on why getting into arguments on Twitter over every bad opinion out there isn't all that productive in effecting change. I think we can all get addicted and in turn exhausted by drama on Twitter, revelling in a well crafted and witty call out of an obviously bad person and feeding the monster that is Twitter, who undoubtedly don't care what's being argued about on their platform but that everyone is tweeting about it. Outraged is a book for people who are sick of arguments online and want to find a way to translate this energy to direct action. How focusing on the mistakes of one person can take attention away from larger issues that are being swept under the rug.
I do feel like I've heard the same point in youtube video essays on cancel culture, some I think did a better job on the topic. It's a small book that I don't think dives as deep as I wanted into the topic even if I liked the points she brought up. In fact, for such a small book it felt very padded out by the two big interviews she did with Rachel Dolezal and Katie Hopkins. I enjoyed her talk with Stephanie Yeboah a lot more and felt that conversation brought a lot more productive thoughts to the table. The jokes were very hit and miss for me and felt clunky to read. The most useful takeaway from this is her conversation with stop funding hate, a group that pressure big companies to pull their ads from news outlets that promote hate. It showed a very useful way that online outrage can be harnessed to achieve real outcomes and financially impact those who profit from hate.
Overall, an interesting read on a topic I like reading about but left me wanting more analysis and not just the author's YouTube rabbit hole.
Thanks to Bloomsbury for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
I do feel like I've heard the same point in youtube video essays on cancel culture, some I think did a better job on the topic. It's a small book that I don't think dives as deep as I wanted into the topic even if I liked the points she brought up. In fact, for such a small book it felt very padded out by the two big interviews she did with Rachel Dolezal and Katie Hopkins. I enjoyed her talk with Stephanie Yeboah a lot more and felt that conversation brought a lot more productive thoughts to the table. The jokes were very hit and miss for me and felt clunky to read. The most useful takeaway from this is her conversation with stop funding hate, a group that pressure big companies to pull their ads from news outlets that promote hate. It showed a very useful way that online outrage can be harnessed to achieve real outcomes and financially impact those who profit from hate.
Overall, an interesting read on a topic I like reading about but left me wanting more analysis and not just the author's YouTube rabbit hole.
Thanks to Bloomsbury for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.