Get Rich or Lie Trying by Symeon Brown (Atlantic Books)

There are now millions of people making a living from their digital followings. This book is the result of an investigation and is a journey into their world.

The book explores the dark side of the influencer's world. Social media has emerged as the most exploitative frontier of late-stage capitalism. The author tells tales of exploitation, delusion, and dishonesty.

Brands have aggressively told us that the road to contentment is through consumption. You are what you possess. As millions of us clicked to take a voyeuristic interest in the mundane affairs of ordinary people, we wrested power away from the mass media that had once had a monopoly on our attention. In the process, we generated a new global currency: influence.

Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have disrupted the old expectations of the working class that they would spend their life in menial work and enabled a new class altogether: celebrity.

Social media encourages us to glamorise ourselves and misrepresent our reality as it introduces a profit motive into our social lives, with a profound impact on the way we behave. 

The problem is that success in this world is not as attainable as some make it seem, and the addictive rewards of accruing followers by any means necessary are warping human behavior both on- and offline.

For influencers, deception is lucrative and becoming increasingly extreme.

Its real beneficiaries – the companies and shareholders reaping the highest rewards – are hidden by those desperate to take center stage.

Symeon Brown reveals the impact of social media on the sex industry, beauty surgeries, cryptocurrencies, online educational market, self-development industry, dropshipping phenomenon, activism and so much more. 

And who wins in this game? The only certain winners are the tech companies disproportionately located on the West Coast of America.

Compelling, informative, and eye-opening book.

Must read!

4/5