Antisocial

We live in an era where current events are driven as much by scrolls of binary code as they are by matters in the physical world. With Antisocial Andrew Marantz has crafted a map of this digital landscape, charted how it came to be, and pointed to its implications for all of us. This is an important book whose relevance will only grow over time

Jelani Cobb, Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University and author of The Substance of Hope

Antisocial is a close-up portrait of the new species of online shock artists who have taken over the American conversation. It is the most detailed and concrete account of how our politics have been changed by social media. This book is essential reading

Jaron Lanier, Interdisciplinary Scientist at Microsoft Research and author of You Are Not a Gadget

Nowhere is the propagation of racist ideas more apparent today than on the social media platforms Silicon Valley created—but failed to govern. In Antisocial, Andrew Marantz crafted a complex, unsettling portrait of how blind techno-utopianism can lead to disaster. This is necessary reading if we intend to keep the next generation of social networks from becoming yet another American source of oppression

Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist

This is a book about how the unthinkable becomes thinkable: how, in the Age of Trump, the alt-right, and outright fascists, have come to claim a central place in American discourse. This book scared the hell out of me, but every American could benefit from reading it. Andrew Marantz has written a chilling, deeply sourced, rivetingly told account of how a few fringe figures saw the potential of the internet as a vehicle for mass disinformation, and became prophets of the new fascism. Antisocial is political reporting at its finest

Suketu Mehta, author of This Land Is Our Land

Marantz, a staff writer at the New Yorker, makes a timely and excellent debut with his chronicle of how a “motley cadre of edgelords” gleefully embraced social media to spread their “puerile” brand of white nationalism . . . This insightful and well-crafted book is a must-read account of how quickly the ideas of what’s acceptable public discourse can shift.

Publishers Weekly

I absolutely loved Antisocial and found it terrifying, timely and a wonderful work of reportage.

Marcel Theroux, author of Stange Bodies

Antisocial by Andrew Marantz is so humane and lucid and absorbing and good!! Everything in it is a nightmare and I couldn’t put it down.

Jia Tolentino, via Twitter