Book Review: We Are The Nerds

Katie October 13, 2018 0 Comments

We Are The Nerds tells the story of the birth and tumultuous life of REDDIT, the Internet’s culture laboratory.  It may be a surprise to many, but I do not spend much time on reddit at all.  I am aware of what it is and I know a ton of people who spend hours there checking everything out but for whatever reason it never really clicked as a place for me to check out. However, I am a nerd and I am all about the internet and making webpages and apps and the like so getting to read a bit about how everything behind the scenes went down before the site was created and then trying to figure out how to balance its popularity as well as know what to censor and what not to censor was really interesting to me.  A lot of fun stories from behind the scenes, some sad ones as well.  I learned a lot, even if it did seem to take me forever and a day to actually end up finishing the book. (Where has all my free time gone!? No wonder why I have no time for reddit…)

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

A riveting look inside Reddit, the wildly popular, often misunderstood website, whose intensely-engaged users have changed the culture of the Internet–“a must-read for anyone hoping to make sense of the century ahead” (Ashlee Vance, bestselling author of Elon Musk).

Reddit hails itself as “the front page of the Internet.” It’s the third most-visited website in the United States–and yet, millions of Americans have no idea what it is.

We Are the Nerds is an engrossing look deep inside this captivating, maddening enterprise, whose army of obsessed users have been credited with everything from solving cold case crimes and spurring tens of millions of dollars in charitable donations to seeding alt-right fury and landing Donald Trump in the White House. We Are the Nerds is a gripping start-up narrative: the story of how Reddit’s founders, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, rose up from their suburban childhoods to become millionaires and create an icon of the digital age–before seeing the site engulfed in controversies and nearly losing control of it for good.

Based on Christine Lagorio-Chafkin’s exclusive access to founders Ohanian and Huffman, We Are the Nerds is also a compelling exploration of the way we all communicate today–and how we got here. Reddit and its users have become a mirror of the Internet: it has dingy corners, shiny memes, malicious trolls, and a sometimes heart-melting ability to connect people across cultures, oceans, and ideological divides.

Book Review: Widespread Panic in the Streets of Athens, Georgia

Katie October 13, 2018 0 Comments

Widespread Panic in the Streets of Athens, Georgia is all about a concert that was held there back in 1998 and referred to as “Panic in the Streets”.  This book is not really a biography of the event, but instead a recount with stories from people who were there.  This was not a casual event, people didn’t just show up, it was all planned.  There even was a wedding at the concert!  This concert opened the door and brought a lot more music festivals to Athens and it still being talked about 20 years later!

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

In April 1998, legendary southern jam band Widespread Panic held a free open-air record release show in downtown Athens, Georgia, its homebase. No one involved could have known that the predicted crowd of twenty thousand would prove to be nearly five times that size. The ultimately successful show, now known as “Panic in the Streets,” went on to become a cult favorite of Panic fans and a decisive moment in Athens music history. This event still holds the record for the world’s largest record release party, but the full story of how the event came to be has not been told until now.

Widespread Panic in the Streets of Athens, Georgia places readers at the historic event, using in-depth investigation and interviews with the band, city officials, and “Spread Heads” who were there. Told as much as possible in real time, music journalist Gordon Lamb’s narrative takes the reader from conception to aftermath and uncovers the local controversies and efforts that nearly stopped the show from happening altogether.

This deeply researched and richly sourced book follows every stage of the concert’s development from the spark of an idea to approximately one hundred thousand people from all over the world packing the streets of a legendary music town. Taking us back to 1990s Athens through vibrant, on-the-scene writing, Lamb gives us the story of a band on the verge of greatness and a town reckoning with its significant place in music history.