Taylor Lorenz knows a thing or two about being extremely online. Lorenz got her start as a blogger before becoming one of the best-known reporters at the Daily Beast and covering tech and internet culture for the New York Times and, now, the Washington Post. She also runs several delightfully unhinged, popular Instagram accounts rounding up some of the best memes from across social platforms, including one specifically for her debut book, Extremely Online.
The book is a social history of social media. In it, Lorenz eloquently weaves a narrative about the rise of social platforms and alongside it, the rise of influencers. The chapters chronicle the distinct eras of social media, beginning with nostalgic blogging on WordPress or connecting on MySpace, and ending with the revolution of social media as we know it now: the monetization of Instagram and the domination of TikTok. Each story Lorenz spotlights is carefully chosen to highlight the power that users have historically held in shaping social media trends and culture.
Lorenz spoke to Teen Vogue from her home in Los Angeles about the inspiration behind her book, some pivotal moments in social media history, and the need to keep marginalized voices in mind when pushing for reform.
Editor’s note: This conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Teen Vogue: What moment or experience in your tech reporting career inspired you to write a book entirely on blogging and social media, influencer culture, and the creator economy?
Taylor Lorenz: It was kind of during the pandemic — I know we’re still in a pandemic — but sort of after COVID hit. I noticed that there was a lot of revisionist history happening from people in Silicon Valley. They were giving a lot of credit to certain creators and certain movements, and they were erasing the user's side of the rise of social media. I feel like there's this tendency in Silicon Valley to put these tech founders on pedestals and say, like, “Oh, you know, these are the people that are responsible for all this stuff.” But, actually, a lot of times, it's the users and the content creators and these creative people on the periphery that really end up shaping the internet and the way we use it. So I wanted to flesh out something that was a real history, that wasn't just a corporate narrative but was a user's history of how this all actually emerged, what went down, and why we use the platforms we do and share things the way we do and act the way we do on the internet.
TV: Why did you choose to highlight the specific stories of people like journalist and 2000s internet celebrity Julia Allison or early Instagram creator Liz Eswein?
TL: One big theme in my book is women. Gamergate is not a huge part of my book, but it was a really pivotal moment in how the internet became weaponized against women. Again, going back to Silicon Valley, there's this great narrative of “men built the internet and men built our tech ecosystem.” In fact, so much of the early internet was pioneered by women and, frankly, LGBTQ+ people and people who were marginalized in other ways. So, I really tried to tell the stories of those people, people that have been written out of history, or people haven't really given them their due, or there's a lot more nuance to their story than you might think. So many early influencers are people who were shut out of legacy institutions. And, you know, I work for a legacy institution now, but that's how I came about too. If I hadn't found the internet, I wouldn't be anywhere that I am today. And so, those stories resonated with me.
TV: As you mention in the book, it can be difficult for people like creators of color to gain traction and get the credit they deserve. How can companies and users better support members of marginalized groups?
TL: I think pushing for feature changes. A lot of times users want to go around and call out the individual content creators, right? But what's far more productive is to pressure these platforms to actually institute features and products that allow for, for instance, credit to be given or allow people to see the source of the content or allow people to grow.
[It’s important to recognize] the inherent disparities of the internet because it was built by these cisgender white men and pressure them to correct it because what my book shows is that users have a lot of power. It's really just as much users who determine how a platform evolves as it is the tech founders themselves. We're always in this push-pull with the people that make the products that we use and I think users should exert more pressure.
TV: Mommy bloggers were the OG influencers, with brand deals and large readership. However, as your book details, they were also on the receiving end of the extensive hate that women online can receive. You have been incredibly vocal about the online harassment you’ve experienced, and after speaking with early mommy bloggers and female influencers, what are some measures platforms can take to better protect women, especially those with large followings?
TL: One thing I think is really important to clarify surrounding these issues is that it's a free speech issue. When you have small, virulent, misogynistic, and racist groups of people on the internet, hellbent on attacking any woman or person of color who speaks out, those bad actors are stifling women's and people of color's free speech. I think we need ways to have healthy discussions that hear all people, especially marginalized groups because right now, marginalized groups don't have a voice online. It's very hard. These tech platforms are basically built to reward fringe trolls and harassers and abusive behavior. And so, I think we need a reset. We need to, obviously, update content moderation guidelines to ensure that women and people of color and marginalized groups are able to exert the right to free speech. And I think we need better platform incentives. I think that platforms themselves, in terms of the way they're structured, need to be better at not incentivizing hate and extremism.
I think young people are so ignored and dismissed and maligned. It's horrible, especially for young women and especially young women of color. They're on the front lines of the internet, they are the ones that are seeing the worst of it. We really need to pay attention to these groups, because if we don't listen to them, these bad actors become emboldened and it ends up affecting everyone's experience.
TV: Your book begins by discussing the blogging revolution, showcasing how Talking Points Memo at one point was a more trusted source than some traditional Washington media. Nowadays, we are seeing a similar shift, where influencers are becoming more trusted than traditional news outlets. You write that TikTok fills a news vacuum for young people who are interested in politics and turn to the platform for news. How do you think journalists and news outlets should grapple with this trend?
TL: There are two things: One, I think that media organizations need to understand consumption habits of how young people get their news and not be dismissive of that. There's this tendency among a lot of people in traditional media to dismiss TikTok as a silly dance app or laugh at influencers and not take this stuff seriously. My whole beat is based on taking it seriously, so I think it's really important. But the thing that's more important that every single news organization across the industry seems to struggle with is, if you want to retain young talent, you need to also adhere to values that young people value.
I think this notion of “both-sides journalism,” where you give equal weight to two sides of an issue and don't really tell people what's the actual truth, or don't properly contextualize what's a harmful position on something, can be really dangerous. Look at how the media covers trans issues. Look at how the media covers COVID. Look at how the media covers police brutality. On all of these issues, I see legacy media really losing ground and I think it's their own fault that young people don't trust them, because the way that they're covering these news stories is grossly biased toward corporate power, toward institutional power. I think it should be a journalist's job to speak truth to power.
TV: The central theme your book explores is users giving platforms their power. You detail how social platforms eventually became dominated by ads and monetization strategies, even if they didn’t start out that way. You write about the “pressure to commodify ourselves and our lives,” so I'm curious to hear your thoughts as to how users can continue to use these platforms in regard to trust and privacy.
TL: That's such a good question. It’s a push-and-pull relationship that we have to have with these tech platforms. Ultimately, these platforms will always try to seize power and exploit every ounce of our energy and attention. I think we need to be mindful of it. I see that a lot with Gen Z. It's really important to be open and express yourself, but I think there's that understanding around consent [with what parts of you are put] on the internet that's starting to emerge. Ultimately, I think users have a lot more power than they imagine. I think that this era of blasting every single post out to the entire internet publicly is definitely over.
TV: What’s your personal favorite social media trend of all time across any platform?
TL: The first ever TikTok trend really, which was bad boy weekend. It was this thing in the summer of 2018, literally the week TikTok changed from Musical.ly to TikTok. It was to the audio, “Why do good girls like bad guys?” People would dress up like normal and then put their hands to the camera and then pull it away and then they would be a bad boy. It was so funny, I can’t even explain to you how much I love this trend. I made a video of it with my friend. I felt so much joy and it got me hooked on TikTok. It was just so fun.
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