Synopses & Reviews
Breaking news, fresh gossip, tiny scandals, trumped-up crises-every day we are distracted by a culture that rings our doorbell and runs away. Stories spread wildly and die out in mere days, to be replaced by still more stories with ever shorter life spans. Through the Internet the news cycle has been set spinning even faster now that all of us can join the fray: anyone on a computer can spread a story almost as easily as
The New York Times, CNN, or
People. As media amateurs grow their audience, they learn to think like the pros, using the abundant data that the Internet offers-hit counters, most e-mailed lists, YouTube views, download tallies-to hone their own experiments in viral blowup.
And Then There's This is Bill Wasik's journey along the unexplored frontier of the twenty-first century's rambunctious new-media culture. He covers this world in part as a journalist, following "buzz bands" as they rise and fall in the online music scene, visiting with viral marketers and political trendsetters and online provocateurs. But he also wades in as a participant, conducting his own hilarious experiments: an e-mail fad (which turned into the worldwide "flash mob" sensation), a viral website in a month-long competition, a fake blog that attempts to create "antibuzz," and more. He doesn't always get the results he expected, but he tries to make sense of his data by surveying what real social science experiments have taught us about the effects of distraction, stimulation, and crowd behavior on the human mind. Part report, part memoir, part manifesto, part deconstruction of a decade, And Then There's This captures better than any other book the way technology is changing our culture.
Review
"Wasik is fascinated by how the Internet and handheld wireless devices are changing basic social relationships....Wasik is well-informed and sharply addresses his slippery subject..." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
An entertaining and eye-opening look into the new frontier of idea making.
Breaking news, fresh gossip, tiny scandals, trumped up crises — every day we are distracted by a culture that rings our doorbell and then runs away. Stories spread wildly and die out in mere days, quickly replaced by more stories with ever shorter shelflives. How we participate in these stories has changed, too. No longer do we sit on the sidelines waiting for monolithic media giants to tell us what's happening. Anyone on a computer in his or her local Starbucks can spread a story almost as easily as The New York Times, CNN, or People — in fact, blogs are now often the source for journalists working in big media.
And Then There's This is Bill Wasik's journey along the unexplored frontier of our churning and rambunctious viral culture. Covering this world — watching new bands promote themselves at South by Southwest; reporting on a Web site contest while secretly entering it; and creating a site that aggregates all blog smears against the presidential primary candidates — he ends up conducting six experiments himself. He doesn't always get the results he expected, but along the way he meets a cast of characters who are capable of getting their information into our brains — and they're not who you think.
And Then There's This reveals how our culture is now created from the ground up. Wasik proves that any one of us can cause a small ripple that can turn into a tsunami. Anyone involved in journalism, business, or information technology — and those who want to be — must read this book. And for the rest, Wasik's tour is great, eye-opening fun.
Synopsis
Wasik journeys along the unexplored frontier of how stories live and die in viral culture to reveal how anyone on a computer can spread a story almost as easily as The New York Times, CNN, or People. 26 diagrams throughout.
Synopsis
An entertaining and eye-opening look into the new frontier of idea making
Are you ready for a world of nanostories, memes, microcelebrities, and meta-narratives? As the Internet expands its reach, and the flow of information accelerates, a new kind of culture has begun to replace the quaint narratives supplied by newspapers, books, and TV: that of viral culture. In Bill Wasikas irreverent and thought-provoking And Then Thereas This, he argues that digital technology has resulted in entirely new ways of thinking, organizing, and communicating, ways that will dictate the pace and meaning of our culture. Building on his famous aflash moba experiments of 2003, Wasik shows how the new paradigm for our information society is inclusive, instantaneous, and self-reflexive, built more on the speed and ubiquity of the Internet than on the hierarchies of print and other linear media. Wasikas book helps us understand how viral culture permeates music, politics, culture, consumerism, and even romance, helping us to understand and master the swirling digital universe around us. Like The Tipping Point and The Long Tail, And Then Thereas This is one of those rare books that both define and create new understandings of our world.
Synopsis
"An odd but happy marriage of sociological observation and Gonzo- style adventure." -Wired
Journalist and new media provocateur Bill Wasik journeys to the edge of our churning and rambunctious viral culture to illuminate how anyone with a computer can initiate a small ripple of a story that can turn into a tsunami. While exploring this fascinating landscape, Wasik (who organized the very first flash mob in 2003) conducts six experiments himself. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in journalism, business, technology, and how cultural information spreads. Wasik's tour is great, stimulating and fun.
Synopsis
An engrossing, lively history of a fearsome and misunderstood virus that binds man and dogand#160;The most fatal virus known to science, rabiesandmdash;a disease that spreads avidly from animals to humansandmdash;kills nearly one hundred percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. In this critically acclaimed exploration, journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy chart four thousand years of the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies. From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment,
Rabid is a fresh and often wildly entertaining look at one of humankindandrsquo;s oldest and most fearsome foes.
Synopsis
An engrossing, lively history of a fearsome and misunderstood virus that binds man and dogand#160;The most fatal virus known to science, rabiesandmdash;a disease that spreads avidly from animals to humansandmdash;kills nearly one hundred percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. In this critically acclaimed exploration, journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy chart four thousand years of the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies. From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment,
Rabid is a fresh and often wildly entertaining look at one of humankindandrsquo;s oldest and most fearsome foes.
About the Author
Bill Wasik is a senior editor at
Harper's Magazine and the author of
My Crowd: Experiments in Viral Culture. He lives in New York.
Roger D. Hodge is the editor of Harper's Magazine. He lives in New York.