Break the Internet: in pursuit of influence

by Olivia Yallop

Traditional media is over. The internet reigns. And in the attention economy, influencers are royalty. But who are they … and how do you become one?

Break the Internet takes a deep dive into the influencer industry, tracing its evolution from blogging and legacy social media such as Tumblr to today’s world in which YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok dominate. Surveying the new media landscape that the rise of online celebrity has created, it is an insider account of a trend which is set to dominate our future — the economy of influence will be valued at $15bn globally by 2022.

Olivia Yallop enrols in an influencer bootcamp, goes undercover at fan meetups, and shadows online celebrities to understand how digital personas are built, uncovering what it is really like to live a branded life and trade in a ‘social stock market’. From mumfluencers and activists to governments and investors, everyone wants to build their online influence. But how do you stay authentic in a system designed to commodify identity? Break the Internet examines both the dangers and the transformative potential of digital culture.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, Sociology, Internet, Audiobook, Business, Cultural

288 pages, Hardcover

Published November 4, 2021

Reviews

[Oyinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The internet--once a spectrum of unique experiences--was now dominated by a handful of monolithic platforms that were increasingly indistinguishable, patrolled by brands and policed by algorithms.

I snagged this one from a library without thinking about it too hard, and I did NOT expect it to send me on such a thoughts-n-opinions rollercoaster. Who knew I had so many conflicting ideas about influencers?

This book journeys from the 2008 economic collapse to the Jan 6th insurrection, taking us through influencer infancy (like that weird phase when everyone was adding strangers on Facebook to make Number Go Up), the first stages of the YouTube famous, so on, until we hit the tidal wave of content and, ermmm, internet-brain that we have right now. Yallop offers some fascinating theories for what social and economic circumstances took us from one stage to another.

She also unearthed all sorts of vague internet-life memories for me. It's hard to remember a time where 10k followers was unfathomable and brands weren't forcing their interns in front of an iPhone to film a fauxfluencer ad to embed into your morning YouTube video. Even the birth of TikTok feels like it happened a decade ago. It's kind of amazing how quickly these people burn out and vanish, and how with every platform, you need higher and higher numbers to stand out (think of 100k followers on MySpace, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. The impressiveness tanks significantly with every platform).

Every anti-influencer BreadTube video uploaded, every million views accrued, ultimately feed the YouTube beast, in keeping with BreadTube's key critique of late-stage capitalism--that it commodifies any form of resistance to it, undermining any threat to its supremacy by making resistance ultimately serve its purpose.

While I would have really liked her to go harder on the "dark side" of the unchecked power, visibility, cash, and [cough] influence that big internet figures have (imo there were some gaps regarding family channels in particular), the book feels like it's steeped in irony and bitterness. The bad optics came out in how she frames things. She doesn't need to tell you outright that it's sickening to see 'junklord' YouTubers destroy property for views, or that it's infuriating to hear influencers bragging about shopping hauls during the pandemic (apparently thinking that their clothing magically appeared in their mailbox with no at-risk workers on the way?).

Still, I think there's something left to say about who the fuck the viewers are. Why are we culturally so obsessed with unfunny, untalented, uninteresting, and frankly exhausting pretty white people? Why does junk content get millions of views when, the higher you go up the influencer food chain, the more interchangeable the content, ideas, and faces get? Why are these people raking in so much money when their audiences are primarily unsupervised ten year olds? Yes, I can name a good handful of online-famous folks who (ugh) 'deserve' their fame, but we all know who dominates the top 90% of every platform. Come on.

Regardless, I've never read anything like this, and if you're even a somewhat chronically-online person, I recommend two things: go onto each of your platforms not logged in and see the face of the devil AKA what normies are watching in droves, and also, give this book a read.

(Also, note how many names you don't recognize.)

[Imran Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Break the Internet by Olivia Yallop is a good and often witty introduction to the world of social media influencers.

While reading the book it is clear Yallop has researched her subject well. However, the book is not authored like a research paper but more like a voyage of discovery. The discovery of social media by the author.

Readers who wish for more quantitative analysis of social media (is there any?!) may find Yallop's book disappointing. Nonetheless, it serves a purpose by filling in the blanks about social media at a particular time in history (published in 2021).

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you ever wonder about the social media platforms we spend so much of our time on, and how we relate to them as users?

In ‘Break the Internet’ Olivia Yallop, who works as a digital strategist, explores the role that social media plays in our lives and in our society as a whole in a critical way. Yallop dives into the history of social media, offers an insight into the lives of some of the biggest influencers of this time and finds out what it takes to become an influencer herself.

It took me a while to get into this book, as it starts off quite dry with a lot of quotes and numbers on social media and influencer marketing. This really changes in the chapters where the author shows more of her own personal journey and gives a deeper insight into the lives of the influencers she speaks to and made me really enjoy the book as a whole.

This is an very interesting read for anyone who spends their time on social media like ourselves!

Thank you to Scribe UK for this gifted copy!

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful, factual look at the rise of the influencer over the past 10 years. I read this in conjunction with a couple fictional thrillers about influencers, and actually found myself more interested in this nonfictional account instead! I did find the chapters really long, and wish they had been broken up into more manageable pieces, but the inherent juiciness of the content does help with readability. This is one of those books that is probably going to feel dated pretty quickly, simply due to the nature of the content (the whole last chapter is devoted to speculating how the COVID pandemic might affect the future of influencing) but I enjoyed reading it and reflecting on how much things have changed on social media in just the past decade.

[Alex]

Brb just checking myself into a retirement home

[Niamh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 🌟

[erinsbookcase · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather witty and somewhat sarcastic perspective of discovering (or rather uncovering) all corners and concepts of social media and influence. It was well-researched, thoughtful and inquisitive, as well as featuring many anecdotes from both the author and fellow influencers. Break the Internet did explore some interesting topics such as the influencer economy, the impact of covid, and political influence but its chapters did feel quite long at times. I am partial to any non fiction read which approaches popular culture and digital media topics, but I do think this would be a great option for anyone looking to break into non fiction reading, especially with how social media places within our society today. A little dry and poorly put together at times, but generally a good account of the past 10 years of social media communities and careers.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting account of the changes transforming the internet and its cultural output over the decade spanning 2010-2020.

It’s perfectly legible for the lay person and pitched at non-experts. This is also its reason for losing a star: I’d have hoped to have seen some more robust citations but this ain’t an academic text, and it’s doesn’t purport to be.

[Cass · Rating 4 out of 5]

Break the Internet is an insider's guide to the world of influencing - Yallop pivoted into digital marketing as Youtube boomed in the mid-2000s. Here, she examines what it means to be an influencer - and whether they can be created.

Yallop chronicles her own journey attempting to become a social media star - from vlogging bootcamps to shady "engagement pods", snarkers and more. If you've ever wondered how much Mr Beast makes (or even how he makes some of his wild videos), pick up this book.

For those who grew up online, most of the context around apps like Tumblr is obvious, however for a business reader, this can offer new insight, particularly the sections on the business of influencing. How much *can* you make? How can you collaborate with online creators without hitting a sour note?

From hype houses, cancellations, stalkers and everything in between, this is a fascinating look at the dark side of the feed.

[Rosie reads books · Rating 5 out of 5]

The influencer economy is so endlessly fascinating to me. This book is a brilliant look at the wild west that is The Internet. Yallop distills the crux of the book best when she states when people post on social media it is as much for those who weren't invited as it is for those who were invited.

Jia Tolentino describes it as performative - everyone thinks they have an audience and everyone thinks they deserve one.

I enjoyed the parts of the book that mapped out the beginning of social media and how we were taught that privacy online was key to safety, however with the move from anonymous based platforms like tumblr to "self as brand" platforms like YouTube and tiktok suddenly the more you expose your self and surrender personal information the more your identity is seen as your brand. And brand = the ability to be monetized.

The book also explores how society has shifted from getting information from corporations like government institutions to individuals - for example right wing media, the rise of Donald Trump and the cult of personality.

Equal parts fascinating and terrifying but illuminating nonetheless.

[Patrick Pilz · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a while to get into the book, but once I got over the hump, I was fully engulfed in influencers.

Olivia Yallops investigative journalism takes us into the world of influencers, a new industry which arose out of the growing media platforms and their content providers. Some of these content providers rival major TV shows with their audience sizes. Some very few of these make a fortune and are in all fairness media empires on their own.

The book illustrates all aspects of influencing, from creating content, creating brands and creating a following. It looks at the industry along with the major conventions and associations. One clear take away after reading this book is, that influencing is a serious business, a sizable industry and your chances to succeed in this line of work are about the same as getting a star on the Hollywood walk of fame.

Fascinating!

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As it turns out, there are quite a few books on influencers. Break the Internet is somewhere between Swipe Up For More and Get Rich or Lie Trying in terms of how positive it is about influencers, which I guess makes it fitting that I read it last out of the three.

As with Swipe Up For More, Olivia Yallop talks about much of the same issues/the drama facing influencers – Caroline Calloway and her haters, Huxley’s adoption and subsequent disappearance from Stauffer family’s youtube channel are two big things that are discussed in both books. But Break the Internet differentiates itself with Yallop’s attempt to become an influencer; which I suspect is partly for this book and partly because she was tumblr-famous for a time and thought she could be famous again.

All this, to be honest, treads the same ground as the previous books on influencers. What makes it different is its discussion of influencer economics; Yallop makes the point that most aspiring influencers don’t make money, in fact, they pay in order to someday make money. But for me, the most interesting were the discussions on hype houses and the economics of junklord youtube videos. The latter stood out to me because it was clear that this comes at an environmental cost (not to mention the workers in third-world countries who are likely being exploited making these products). Yallop uses this to discuss the concept of financialisation, where influencers and the economy start working together in closer and closer ways; an example given is of influencers investing in startups and using their influence to help the company succeed.

The line that stood out to me the most when I was reading was about the central tension in influencing:

“it [influencing] is a profit-driven activity engaged in the continuous obfuscation of its own identity and intentions.”

When I read it, I thought “yes, exactly!” This is probably the reason for my uneasy relationship to the concept of influencers. I like the idea of using the internet to be social, I like the idea of giving and receiving recommendations from friends, but I remain ambivalent about making it profit-driven. It turns something that is meant to be fun and connection-driven into something exploitative, because what else can you call using the connection your followers have with you to make money?

Yallop attempts to explore this tension a bit further in her section on breadtube, an anti-capitalist part of youtube that can make its creators a lot of money. However, she seems to take breadtube at its word that they are anticapitalistic, possibly because she enjoys their content. I wished for a bit more exploration of the hypocrisy and tension of using a capitalistic model to rail against capitalism, especially since that chapter follows immediately after the chapter on haters and I’m sure that exploring the ecosystem of relationships (and how the money flows) in breadtube, the intellectual dark web, and the far right would be fascinating.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how the book developed. The start of the book seemed to be very positive about influencers, and the bit on trying to be one seemed unnecessary, but I liked how the analysis deepened in the latter half of the book. I appreciated the focus on economics here, though I still think that it understates some of the harm the influencer aspiration can cause.

This review was first posted at Eustea Reads

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally found enough brain-space to read this properly - lots of people were interested when I posted it in stories. So here are some thoughts. (And it’s out from @scribe_uk on 11 November so you can read it yourselves then)

There was lots in it that I didn’t know and am glad I have been educated in: the madness of TikTok hype houses, the economics of JunkLord YouTubers, the mechanics of Telegram Engagement Pods and the compromise required to be a Breadtube star who also makes money. I know right - they went ahead and invented a whole new language while I was still bitching about twitter!

The author works at a digital agency, but if you’re looking for a gossipy tell-all on influencers, it’s not that. And if you’re looking for political analysis, it’s much more focussed on influencers than the Cambridge Analytica end of things. It’s more interested in how we spend than how we vote.

The chapter on the author trying to be an influencer is quite dull, and I feel like I’d heard all that before. The Under The Influence podcast (which I found better on feminism/motherhood than this) tried a similar gimmick with the same lack of impact: it just seems contrived from someone already doing well in the media. The author did go to Oxford with Caroline Calloway though, and is quite fun about that.

The analysis I really enjoyed was about how we can’t hold back technology, and everything from printing presses to moving trains has freaked the hell out of people, but how fragile and open to misuse the whole follower count/influencer dynamic value is. She is also good on how permeable language is, and how quickly the line fades between what makes eg ‘a good YouTube video’ and what makes ‘a video that YouTube thinks is good’.

And there is an interesting section on the whole world of ‘snark’ or ‘tea’ sites. I had no idea there was such a universe of podcasts, sites etc, and the analysis of how many of them are doing the work of underfunded mainstream journalism is sharp. She also makes an interesting clarification between ‘classic trolls’ and the way that many of those snark threads prompt ‘nuanced discussions of the intersection between influencers & political polarisation, cultural appropriation, online activism and wokewashing.’ She seemed to think that midwife firebombed her career by slagging off her husband online though, rather than the racism situation, which seemed .. off.

The line that *really* stuck with me was about what Yallop calls “influencing’s central tension: it is a profit driven activity engaged in the continuous obfuscation of its own identity and intentions.” I wrote “THIS!!!” in the margin and put my phone down for a while.

Above all, I came away thinking most influencers either want to ‘graduate’ to something ‘better’ (a book deal, tv show, fashion line etc) or to deny that they are influencers at all. As with Ozark or Breaking Bad, I just ended up thinking ‘You are smart creative people! Just do the thing that makes you happy! Because this looks like no less work!!” Then again, I still did’t understand how to launder money after watching either of those shows, so what do I know.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some notes and pull quotes below. I've been skeptical of folks that tout how "authentic" they are on the internet (everything is still mediated), so I found Yallop's book to be an interesting look at the Influencer economy behind the scenes (the sincerity & satire), through her attempt to follow the "playbook" and become an influencer herself.

No matter what they’re selling, the brief is usually the same: brands want to engage young customers, drive hype, go viral. They want to be woke, but not political; aspirational, but still authentic; to speak as if they are your friend and not a subcommittee of overworked social media managers reworking Twitter copy in a Google Doc for the seventh time that week. (9)

Read Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino (51)

The recession facilitated widespread casual self-employment: in other words, the exact economic conditions for influencing. (60)
-Read Platform Capitalism by Nick Srnicek

Far from innocent minds being corrupted by the insidious influence of a training course, the students who enroll arrive preconditioned to understand themselves as marketable objects within a performance-driven system. (76)

When you become an influencer you are signing up to a life of entertaining your followers. (99)

Creator houses are sometimes jokingly compared to a modern-day digital commune where members collaborate on shared content production; but they are more like a hollowed out, ultra-capitalist reimagining of a commune, forcing housemates to compete with each other for a place to stay and undermining the solidarity that might stem from cohabitation. (114)

“It’s a very fine line between reality and curation, to keep that myth of authenticity.” (127)

Caroline Calloway becoming a parody of herself, for the money: “Welcome to the Golden Age of Internet trash.” (194)

Instead of transforming industries, technology allows broken institutions to become further entrenched, and enables them to scale and centralise in ways that they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do. (205)

[Kendall Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Olivia Yallop’s ‘Break the Internet” to be an entertaining and informative read. It’s somewhat comforting to know that other people are just as enveloped by internet culture as me. Her easy-to-understand and contextually backed definitions of internet slang allow the reader better to understand internet history in an “IRL” context.

Yallop’s voice proves relatable and comforting. As the book progresses and she turns to criticize aspects of the influencer industry, she never shames those consuming social media for their participation in the influencer industry. While Yallop spends time researching specific subgroups found in influencer Stan communities, such as the “snarkers” she joins for lunch, she doesn’t shame individuals. She seems to accept that influencer culture is a substantial part of modern life and that one who doesn’t “keep up” is actively falling behind. It shares a message that one can either make it big or fall into obscurity through their reception on the internet, a case for which Yallop provides many examples.

I enjoyed reading this book. However, ‘Break the Internet’ lacked a sense of finite resolution. This feeling of incompleteness is not Yallop’s fault, as no one knows how this story will end. While discussing Logan Paul’s fall from grace and regaining grace in his YouTuber era, one cannot ignore seeing him still making content in 2024.

Also, the emojis used in the text did not print correctly and are barely distinguishable black blobs.

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the fourth book about the rise of social media and influencers that I've read this year (I am just so fascinated, and I keep picking up these books from the New Nonfiction section of the library and then being surprised by how many I've read) and it is easily the most compelling and haunting, as Olivia Yallop casts herself as a character in this nonfiction book. I didn't connect with previous titles that were presented as a bone-dry thesis, an academic distance separating the author from the subjects.

I do (painfully) connect with a tired Millennial author who admits to scrolling for upwards of 15 hours a day, shilling out tons of cash for a #candid photoshoot in an attempt to curate her Instagram, and being the oldest attendee in a class to teach teens how to become YouTubers. This is someone who seems to actually follow the people she talks about, someone who has seen the D'Angelo Wallace video she references, who has clicked on the TikToks that go inexplicably viral. And because she's so close to her subject, so are we, her readers, until the whole thing feels like she's holding up a mirror that I wish I could back away from.

I appreciate that some readers will not like this personal touch and will wish for a little bit more professionalism, but Olivia Yallop sucked me in and now I want to delete every social media platform I've ever interacted with.

[David Walton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm 67 years old, so Olivia described a world that I was vaguely aware existed, but knew nothing about. I picked up the book because I felt that I should know something about it - apparently "influencing" is a big thing with younger generations.

I found myself in the company of an intelligent, knowledgeable, witty and engaging companion. Yet also rueful, jaded, disillusioned and, I think heartbroken. I wanted to tell her about The South Sea Bubble, The Dotcom Revolution and all those other occasions when something new emerges, gets huge, dominates everything and then evaporates. And yes, enormous numbers of people are violated, abused, ripped-off, hurt, sometimes broken and left behind in the wake of the event. I wanted to tell her that whatever happens, it'll be fine.

So now I've read the book and enjoyed her company. I have no intention of visiting their world.

[Hilson]

Olivia makes young adults wonder about the social media platforms that they engage so much time on and its relation to the users. There is a heavy amount of insights onto the content creator/influencers industry that will provide readers a more critical thought on their favourite subscriptions. For young adults who are currently inspired and determined to enter this industry, they have to first understand the deep fundamentals of this business and having the mindset to adapt to such quick changing demands of the media world.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A handy guidebook for older media teachers who haven’t managed to stay abreast of social media, but for a SM native, this is mostly just a recap of the past ten years on various platforms. I listened as an audiobook and found each chapter (they’re long—75-100 minutesish) to be as consumable as a podcast on any topic of interest you want to learn more about, but was mildly irritated by the chosen narrator, whose voice sounded more early Gen X than I would have expected for a book about digital
influence.

[Laura Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book and a lot of the information was really interesting and captivating but it just didn't flow particularly well and it often seemed like it was going off on tangents without any real connection to anything other than to list things that had happened on the Internet. Or they would raise really interesting points to explore and then would move on to describing a play by play of a YouTube clip instead

Disclaimer: I listened to this as an audio book which may have impacted the 'reading' experience

[Mae B · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC

This was a very informative and well researched book that I thoroughly enjoyed. The author examines social media and how one becomes and thrives as an influencer. From hype houses to TikTok and YouTube, the book highlights how the world of advertising and connecting to others has changed. It was eye opening and definitely a book I would suggest others read for insight into the rapidly changing world of social media.

[Victoria Sparkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the blend of expertise and personal experience that Olivia brought to this book. I really appreciated the effort of interviewing so many people for this book too. I am fascinated by the influencer world and have listened to podcasts and such and done research and a lot of thinking on my own too, but this book definitely added more facets to my learning. Overall great book and primer especially if you want to learn about how influencing works!

[Darya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most people who have seen and aware of influencers and their existence, I didn't know the details of their how and why. Just for general knowledge supported by multiple influencers exaples, this book can be an eye opening factsbook on where the advertising is going. I found the stories of influencers featured in this book quite interesting as well as the stories about the author.

[Elizabeth Steffen · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. It was a struggle to get through this one. I found myself skimming multiple pages. The first two or three chapters set up the rest of the book but the info is very dry, with lots of statistics. Once you get into the meat of the book, it gets better, but not enough to really hold my attention.

[Jess Lomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Incredibly thorough exploration of the history of social media and influencers. Much in the book wasn't new to me but was written in an engaging way. My favourite part was the closing section on social media during Covid, would have enjoyed reading more on this.

[xtie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smart and informative - a 3.5 only for how some chapters felt a little inconclusive, most notably a singular one dedicated to early lockdown internet - but perhaps an unfair criticism for a topic that is constantly in flux. Actually really enjoyed the stats and laid the ground well!

[Caitlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very informative, thoroughly researched, and not what I thought I was going to be getting into at all when I came across this book at the library. What I thought was going to be a juicy read was pretty dry and academic.

[April Pastis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve never felt so old & out of touch

This was an eye opener for me, a member of the baby boomers generation (at least the end of it, anyway). A lot of it is almost impossible to understand Influencers, but the author does a good job explaining them.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me starting this during fashion week was A Choice! I hate it here!

Olivia was such a brilliant writer. I only ever exchanged a few emails with her but I was so sad to hear she passed. This is the most definitive work I’ve read on influencer culture and how it really has changed everything.