Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix

by Katherine Alejandra Cross

Social media was supposed to pull us together for noble causes, but doomscrolling might not have been what most of us had in mind. Elon Musk might have ruined Twitter, but "he's merely Twitter's all-too-Dantean punishment."

In this impassioned, funny, and deeply thoughtful essay, Katherine Cross excavates a fallen world of social media's political promises, from Twitter epidemiology, to handwringing over TikTok, to the ersatz hopes of new platforms like Bluesky. A kind, incisive, and unsparing argument from one of the Millennial Generation's wisest essayists, Log Off is a poisonous love letter that Is this all really the praxis that posting was supposed to be?

PRAISE FOR LOG OFF"One of the most thought-provoking books I have read all year."
―Largehearted Boy

"Clear, funny, humane and game-changing. The internet brings out the worst of humanity, but Cross might be the best person on it. With razor-sharp logic and empathetic vision, she guides us away from posing and posting toward the work of building a better world."
―Jude Ellison S. Doyle, author of Dead Blondes & Bad Mothers and Trainwreck

"Urgent and irreverent ... makes a convincing case ... with iconoclastic flair and personable anecdotes, Cross is an incisive guide through the jungle of social media."
― Shelf Awareness

“Katherine Cross innately understands both what's so alluring about social media and what's so dangerous about it. Instead of writing a polemic, however, she's written a book that looks beyond our screens to a whole world whose problems won't be solved through posting. Compassionate, incisive, and funny, Log Off might make you (literally) touch grass.”
―Emily St. James, author of Monsters of the Week

"Serves as a gateway between a past where the internet still gave hope of collective, grassroots organizing, and a future where we have squandered that potential for a couple cheap laughs and ephemeral popularity. Log Off proffers a world where we take digital citizenship as a serious and valuable tool―just one of many in the toolbox―for building a better world. As someone whose posts have changed the world and who is guilty many times over of the sins Katherine describes, I cannot agree more."
―Emily Gorcenski

"A fascinating meditation on how social media has falsely seduced the planet into believing that it represents a gigantic step forward for humanity, written by a woman with a lifetime of experience in the extremely online trenches. Despite the title, Cross’s book doesn’t ask that we all delete our instead, she’s asking for the more radical step of rethinking our relationship to Online."
―Faine Greenwood

"Joyous and informative. Simultaneously a collection of standalone essays and a comprehensive whole, Log Off sees Katherine Cross explore the politics of social media, the problems those spaces host and create, and what we - collectively, and individually - can do about it. Written with a loving cynicism, Log Off leaves the reader with new answers, new questions, and a new sense of hope."
―Os Keyes, University of Washington

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Essays, LGBT, Technology

240 pages, Paperback

First published June 4, 2024

About the author

Katherine Alejandra Cross is a Ph.D. candidate in Information Science at the University of Washington's School of Information, where she studies the causes and dynamics of online abuse and how platform affordances shape social interaction online.

Reviews

[Amy Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent very quick read that contrary to its title doesn’t try to get you to log off and burn your computer (darn, damn, dang, I know). Instead it does a good job of explaining why social media is a questionable tool for organizing and activism. Katherine Cross makes a compelling argument that social media platforms tends to individualize problems and their responses, bending its users to the goals of the platform, rather than the other way around. It’s a well thought out and well written thesis that also is a joy to read. I particularly liked her inclusion of the longer version of famous FDR quote (“The only thing…”) , which really shows how relevant it is a watch phrase in this times of worry and uncertainty.

It’s already paying dividends, as the book has helped me keep perspective every time my quick check of Bluesky risks turning into a doomscroll through the cavalcade of bad news that seems omnipresent at times. I mean fuck, have you seen that fucking Muppets poster and their terrible, terrible legs?

[Emily St. James]

I blurbed this, so... here is my blurb????

Katherine Cross innately understands both what's so alluring about social media and what's so dangerous about it. Instead of writing a polemic, however, she's written a book that looks beyond our screens to a whole world whose problems won't be solved through posting. Compassionate, incisive, and funny, Log Off might make you (literally) touch grass.

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars felt kinda mean, it’s actually closer to 2.5. Still, I’m left wondering: what did Cross hope for this book to do? Who was it for? Was it meant as an outlet for her fairly common frustrations and musings on what community really means, and familiar pandemic observations as life has become more and more grounded in reaction over action? The reason I disliked this book isn’t because Cross is wrong, or that her observations are offensive. I agree with almost everything here. This low rating is because I’m at a loss as to who could benefit from reading this book: those unaware of what she discusses are likely too Offline to understand without steep on-ramps that would render this book moot. Those, like me, who understand her references, have seen each of these points run into the ground numerous times over. I just don’t see the point.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book, and appreciated Katherine Cross' points, anecdotes, and thoughts on creating real community and meaningful change. This book explores the limits of social media but also highlights the things it's useful for. I loved the love for trans women that runs throughout the book.

[cae · Rating 3 out of 5]

katherine cross eloquently explored twitter Discourse, how it snowballs and inhibits social progress; she encouraged me to be a mindful scroller against vicious social media algorithms, and made me want to return to instagram days of yore, where i could post a picture of skittles in my hand with the rio de janeiro filter without being labeled "cringe." and you know what? maybe that's exactly what i'll do. thought-provoking and well-written while remaining readable - not too dense!

[shiloh]

I enjoyed "Log Off" -- it gave me even more reasons to get off Twitter! That said, I do wish it were a bit more rigorous. The lack of references really stood out to me, especially because the book's author is studying information science. I found the book interesting, but it might not be as convincing to someone who wasn't already pretty anti-Twitter and pessimistic about social media.

[trinity · Rating 3 out of 5]

really good subject, wasn't super big on Katherine's voice but really really like what she had to say and her contributions to the oeuvre

[Amy Baumgarten]

DNF at 50% - could’ve and should’ve been a substack essay

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good arguments and thought provoking takes. There are some basic editorial issues such as misspelled words and missing spaces between words, which can be distracting, but the writing is good enough that these errors don't make the work as a whole seem amateur

[angelslayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Log Off by Katherine Cross is a collection of essays centered around the impotence of social media as a political tool for leftists.

Summary:

Cross's central thesis (as I understand it) is that online action can only solve online problems, and very few meaningful problems have their origins online. Cross thoroughly debunks the idea of "posting is praxis". Social media (Cross focuses specifically on Twitter and BlueSky) is excellent at division, keeping us in a fascinating contradiction of worldly connectedness and intense isolation. Moderate, status quo opinions don't draw eyeballs and engagement in the same way extremist takes do; and thus, the loudest, most abrasive voices tend to conquer the algorithm.

The isolating nature of social media makes it uniquely suited to harassment campaigns, and not much else. The collective organizing and community bonds required for most leftist goals simply cannot exist on centralized social media platforms. And the essence of modern social media ensures that this collective organizing will never take root; there is no such thing as "Twitter but Good Actually". Collective organizing goes against the fundamental construction of the platform. She makes a clever analogy to road design, citing 'road calming' measures like adding speedbumps and narrower lanes to increase safety. Similarly, to increase safety for social media sites, the site must introduce friction against hatred and harassment. Alas, such friction safety measures are broadly unprofitable, and thus undesirable to implement for the platform.

There are some compelling uses for social media (career opportunities, networking minorities, spreading trans joy, silly memes). Political action is not among these.

Cross makes rather meek arguments for logging off. If you're an artist, a hornyposter, a shitposter, or otherwise create valuable content for your given social platform: stop. You give people a reason to come back. "To log off is to deprive the social media engines of fuel." Although she insists that to log off is to "step away for a bit, let it go for a while". She does not advocate for complete severance of social media, but rather encourages an intentional and more thoughtful usage of one's energy.

Critique:

Cross's provided examples are Extremely Online and will date this book unkindly. Perhaps that is the point, to show the frivolity of most online drama, but it makes her arguments somewhat hard to connect with unless ample context is given. Sometimes she provides this context, other times the reader is left hanging. As a trans woman who is only Moderately Online, I can vaguely recall some of the drama of yesteryear but certainly not all of it. That rift will only grow with time.

Cross has a brief aside about guns, asking for extreme caution when advocating that trans people should be in possession of firearms. She makes a one-sentence acknowledgement that responsible gun ownership is possible, but spends the rest of her time listing the manifold dangers of gun ownership. The concerns are real, but simultaneously feels like concern trolling.

Cross weaves in twenty-dollar words too frequently for my taste.

I do think her core idea is a good one, but I don't think she was overly proficient at expressing that idea. Her conclusion is lukewarm at best. Not much of a call to action. She makes several references to "the unsexy, slow work of genuine political progress" but doesn't give us any helpful nudges in that direction beyond vaguely gesturing to its existence. Tell us the possibilities that await those who log off; more time to spend on worthy projects. Give tangible advice to get Terminally Online leftists jumping into the real world of activism. Or maybe learning to be a responsible gun owner. It doesn't even have to be politics-adjacent, enjoy a hobby without a screen. Be happy. Be free.

Katherine Cross understands that logging off is an important step, but doesn't seem to know what comes after that. I don't much know myself; I was hoping for answers and found none useful for me.

[jerbel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I am online more than I want to be and the title caught me.

I agree with other reviews that the author chooses some 5-dollar words. For instance, one chapter is titled Oubliette of Terror when I think Trapdoor of Terror would've sufficed. The instances of these words popping up were probably once every 10 pages, so I think the writing as a whole did not suffer from the choice of vocabulary.

Another thing I agree with other reviewers is that the work probably will land only with the progressive political niche online -- a lot of political online talking heads casually appear in the quotations, and Cross does explain who they are... in the Endnotes. There are many case studies in the books and Cross does explain these case studies at length. So overall, it seemed inconsistent in its use of 1. explaining within the text of the book, 2. explaining in the footnotes, and 3. explaining in the Endnotes.

I disagree with some reviewers saying the book is lacking citations. The book has a few academic citations, but the majority of the citations are tweets and professionals speaking off-the-cuff. Yes, tweets aren't factual, but the entire book is an opinion. Cross merely examines each tweet to illustrate her view on how the (capital D) Discourse works. She doesn't necessarily get into hard data of "how many tweets supported X person in this beef?" Instead, she tries to quote tweets to illustrative a microcosm of the environment social media operates in, and I think anyone who is terminally online can understand exactly what she's saying. Now, is this book scientifically rigorous? No, I think it's more of a hypothesis that has a compelling idea at the center.

Are the takes cold? Maybe. Nothing controversial is really stated in this book, but there are some ideas completely new to me that helped name some of the problems with social media I noticed, but never pieced together:

1. The walled garden metaphor. Platforms are easy to join and hard to leave. Once you have situated yourself on your corner on the internet, you are effectively trapped there.
2. The Discourse works by boosting individuals who garner reactions. A simple tweet into the void can launch a harassment campaign. For instance, a trans author who used the title "I Identify as an Apache Attack Helicopter" was demonized by their own community because of missing context and the justified vigilance of the trans community. It demonstrates that even if your cause is objectively pure, it can make you create harm for your cause by engaging in "Main Character" harassment campaigns.
3. We're all just humans who are reacting to the aforementioned missing contexts of a post. It becomes a vicious cycle of how platforms milk us for attention without contributing anything of value. I particularly liked this quote:

On an open platform, there's no way to make [venting] work without every cheap-as-free dream intruding on every other. Hence, every conflict that you've seen: someone's catharsis is someone else's harassment; someone's release is someone else's grief; someone's self-expression is someone else's inopportuning. In the process, our endless misery may only serve to feed someone else's.
- Page 130, The Oubliette of Terror

4. Platforms are designed in a way to create what cross refers to as "affordances". If TikTok wants you to post videos, it will put a camera button on your home screen. If Twitter wants you to post microblogs, there will be a large textbox ready to send something out to everyone. If YouTube wants your attention, then it will neuter anything that breaks you out of your hypnotic state. If any platform cared about building connection, then they would design a product that wasn't about fighting through the screen. Cross points out that even the "hip" platforms are doomed to fail if it doesn't seriously consider the affordances of the platform design.

Overall, I liked the book and it gave me a lot to think about. This was the first book I read in a while, and it was enough to get me to finish.

[V · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually Kickstarted this book because I thought even if I didn't get anything out of it, it seemed like something that needed to be out there, even if it was only on the ether.

I want to give this book more stars, as I think it has a good thought process on the evolution of social media and politics. Unfortunately, I feel that the audience this book is for compared to the level of writing comprehension you need to read this book are askew and that it will be a major turn off for the eternally online before they even get to making miracles.

And really, that's my overall takeaway. The writing feels unnecessarily elitist and I think it would have been a much more powerful narrative if it didn't fit so neatly into the trope of the 'educated elitist.' I don't think I could give this book to an average person without including a dictionary and I think most of them would get frustrated and stop reading shortly into the book.

Maybe that's what the author's fans were expecting, so this would be right up their alley. As someone who just ran across it on Kickstarter, it was a bit of a turn off.

That said, I think there still is a place in the world for this book, but I think that the writing level makes that a very small place.

[Lilith · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, and foremost, thank you to LittlePuss Press for this ARC!

From the mind of a brilliant Trans woman comes a book that, while describing acts we've all come to witness or been a part of in our social media, manages to dissect the interactions we have and why social media is so toxic in a way that speaks to the layman as well as the academic.

Their knowledge is only surpassed by their ability to weave narratives and also see beneath the surface all at once. They expertly break down how journalism itself has become problematic in an Always Online space, and how we, as users of social media, are perpetuating the problems that exist simply by participating in or refusing to leave the services that govern our online spaces.

As a Trans woman myself, I found this book to be hard to put down thanks to the author's humor and wit, but also because their experiences mirror my own. I definitely have a different perspective on what my posting and online existence has an affect on.

In other words, read this, and LOG OFF! :)

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Journalistic evaluation of Twitter and post-Twitter online culture with a strong criticism of the naive belief that social media is good for politics. Chapters include: Log Off of Twitter, Bluesky, or…", "It's Not Your Fault You're an Asshole on Social Media", "The Oubliette of Terror", "Up Against the Wall", and "A Vindication of the Rights of E-Girls." In this book, Katherine Cross argues for a more deliberate use of social media, aware of its non-neutral nature, and a less earnest belief in the good of social media, gained from the history of scapegoating and promotion of genocide that has gone hand in hand with social media.

This book is packed with positive ways to engage with politics in the community as well as to improve one's relationship with social media. Through this book, I was able to learn of Faine Greenwood's exploration of how Facebook facilitated genocide in Myanmar.

Cross is a funny writer and this book, she gives an almost gossipy look at social media in the time between late Twitter and early Bluesky.

[neens · Rating 4 out of 5]

a smooth and funny read sprinkled with the odd meme reference and the odd french loanword--the "oubliette of terror" is a pretty fitting metaphor for twitter. still, the author manages not to dive into the same type of paralyzing doomerism she critiques and instead advocates for users to be mindful of platform affordances and how discourse, dog-piling, decontextualization, and the disproportionate attention drawn to outlier voices are embedded in them. many-to-many communication on platforms can rally but not organize people, which remains reserved for smaller, more controlled, slow efforts, e.g. a group chat. i loved the chapter about e-girls staying with the whimsy of social media via ceaseless horny- and foodposting. i also had not considered how social media can perpetuate a meme-ified desensitization towards violence that may actually convince some leftists that violence is a viable (individualist) solution rather than community-building etc.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The internet is very personalized these days, so while this polemic is all well and good for leftist discoursers, as an explanation why posting isn't praxis, there were some missteps. No book can be for everyone, of course, so the missteps may be on purpose - such as putting a large emphasis on doom scrolling but not noting the more common experience of seeing everyone's highlight reels or dipping into there's a moral micro blogging service discourse. ( at least her discussion of the affordances of platforms made up for it)

Worthwhile, but not perfect.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book, Cross argues that social media drives individualism, fear, paranoia, and loneliness which undermines potential collective action for real, material change in the world. I have to agree. She also made me reconsider my own social media “bad habits” that don’t do much connecting with others, but reek of irony poisoning. I’m coming away from this book with a slightly different outlook on social media, one where I am aware of tendencies for siloing, panic-inducing doomscrolling, and the need to connect with community in the world to make any realistic change.

[Lis · Rating 5 out of 5]

very readable- illustrates points about social media with specific examples that the very online will recognize, but treads lightly enough with these that they won’t seem terribly dated in a few years. i think there are people who will get quite a bit out of this book. it’s definitely convincing. note that it is very wedded to twitter and bluesky and does not really touch on tiktok or anything else of its ilk

[Aeslinn Noel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sharp, witty argument from someone I'd die to have a coffee with. This book was a compelling argument to log off politically - and I loved that the author included a part about how the frivolous & whimsical side of social media is not the problem. I did find the chapter on guns a little out of place, but I understand where the author is coming from. Can't really complain about anything, this was a great read!

[Brennan Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was pretty good but not revolutionary. Overall, Cross convinced me that social media by-and-large doesn't work for collective political action. I do feel like a lot of the examples she gave too often relied on her own social media feed. I also think it was funny and off-topic that the main point of the last chapter is that she's too down bad to quit Bluesky.

3.5/5

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really, really enjoyed this and it gave a lot of food for thought. I think I would have liked more of a delve into Instagram, especially now that Twitter is almost defunct for the left. Also, the editing. Omg the editing. I spotted 3 (I think) typos. Overall though the writing was extremely engaging and I'd like to read more work by the author!

[Nat Buchbinder · Rating 5 out of 5]

who the fuck is scraeming "LOG OFF" at my house. show yourself, coward. i will never log off

[Siobhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think and read about the internet and social media quite a lot, and I love Cross' straightforwardness in the call to log off, and her nuance in discussing the current state of social media posting.

[Caio Major · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re looking for a timely book to read post 2024 election, choose this one.

[Kim Narby · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly necessary read right now. (And fairly hilarious at times)