User Profile

I was a at best a reluctant user of FB, and my scepticism of tech had probably kicked in before the time frame of this book, but I definitely held that kind of naïve optimism about tech's power for good at some point in time - a thing that in 2025 is already proving really difficult to rationalise in hindsight.

It's not a huge surprise to learn that the big personalities in this book are all dicks, and that working culture in a Silicon Valley tech company is dysfunctional and toxic. It was also good to be reminded just how implicated FB is in genocides and shitty election outcomes. On top of the diss to tech company culture (which I am always here for), Wynn-Williams' personal story is actually pretty killer (almost literally a couple of times) on its own!

Am getting through this one pretty quickly!

As a basketball fan and someone who holds some fondness for Ohio, I was interested to read this book, The parallels Abdurraqib makes between the extended LeBron era of basketball in Ohio and his own life are really pretty beautiful and amazingly well put together. I really don't believe I picked up on half of what he was putting down and I still enjoyed the read.

I found the first half easy, drawn in by Patti Smith's recounting of a cherished daily routine, but the second half was more difficult as she attempted to break our of a malaise, wonder about loss and evoke the kinds of feelings that words will often fail to provoke. Sometimes it made me angry that she tried, but in the end we are witnessing a person figure out some big universals in the only ways they know how and it was certainly interesting to observe, and made me more conscious of the ways I move through my own world.

I found the first half easy, drawn in by Patti Smith's recounting of a cherished daily routine, but the second half was more difficult as she attempted to break our of a malaise, wonder about loss and evoke the kinds of feelings that words will often fail to provoke. Sometimes it made me angry that she tried, but in the end we are witnessing a person figure out some big universals in the only ways they know how and it was certainly interesting to observe, and made me more conscious of the ways I move through my own world.