What do you think?
Rate this book
The Extreme Self
The Extreme Self is a new kind of graphic novel that shows how you’ve been morphing into something else. It’s about the re-making of your interior world as the exterior world becomes more unfamiliar and uncertain.
The sudden arrival of the pandemic pushed the world faster and further into the 21st century. Now, life is dictated by two forces you can’t see: data and the virus. Are you really built for so much change so quickly?
Basar/Coupland/Obrist’s prequel, The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present, became an instant cult classic. It’s been described as, “a mediation on the madness of our media,” and, “an abstract representation of how we feel about our digital world.”
Like that book, The Extreme Self collapses comedy and calamity at the speed of swipe. Dazzling images are sourced from over 70 of the world’s foremost artists, photographers, technologists and musicians, while Daly & Lyon’s kinetic design elevates the language of memes into a manifesto. Over fourteen timely chapters, The Extreme Self tours through fame and intimacy, post-work and new crowds, identity crisis and eternity. This is an eye-opening, provocative portrait of what’s really happening to YOU.
The sudden arrival of the pandemic pushed the world faster and further into the 21st century. Now, life is dictated by two forces you can’t see: data and the virus. Are you really built for so much change so quickly?
Basar/Coupland/Obrist’s prequel, The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present, became an instant cult classic. It’s been described as, “a mediation on the madness of our media,” and, “an abstract representation of how we feel about our digital world.”
Like that book, The Extreme Self collapses comedy and calamity at the speed of swipe. Dazzling images are sourced from over 70 of the world’s foremost artists, photographers, technologists and musicians, while Daly & Lyon’s kinetic design elevates the language of memes into a manifesto. Over fourteen timely chapters, The Extreme Self tours through fame and intimacy, post-work and new crowds, identity crisis and eternity. This is an eye-opening, provocative portrait of what’s really happening to YOU.
256 pages, Paperback
Published June 15, 2021
15 people are currently reading
1008 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
September 21, 2021
it is not eye-opening, as in we already know what the book says, but it is undoubtedly thought-provoking in the most relevant way. basically, the book makes you face the uncomfortable truths about our contemporary lives and our current selves that we try to avoid on a daily basis. also, the design is top-notch!!
July 10, 2021
I feel like I should have been less disturbed by this book. It doesn't contain anything surprising. It's just the step back from technology to make you realize, with horror, that we all participate in the scam that is trading some of the deepest information about ourselves for things we already have or know (access to our own friends, the library, maps, knowledge of where to buy things, etc.) And it's only a mental step back too, because there's no going back to 1995, before we were all data subjects.
September 6, 2021
Basar, Coupland, Obrist: An unusual trio creates an impossible book
“The Extreme Self” seems the ultimate representation of Zeitgeist. For now.
Deliberately incomplete and fragmented on one hand. Almost all-encompassing on the other.
A canvas full of points that, once overlayed with connecting lines, reveals a map with geography too treacherous to navigate with confidence.
If this clever combination of visuals and text would have been handed over to somebody in 1990, little had been understood. Gibberish? Dada?
To illustrate this, take the word “microothering”, plug it into google and hit the return button: Nothing. 0 Results. Yet, when you see “The Extreme Self", you exactly know its meaning and what it means to and for us. The word sticks as a spot-on abbreviation for a relevant societal black hole that sucks in solid reason around it. The book is chock-full of such revelations.
If there should be more of history (?), most of this work could be far from contemporary in 2050, relegated to a “what-we-talked about-then” archive. Or maybe not if “the internet” keeps on digging itself in ever deeper and tinier holes, fragmenting concerns and language down to atomic dimensions. Perhaps as a welcome distraction from addressing the more fundamental, holistic issues that change at a glacial pace contrasting the frenzy of “NOW”.
Apart from being highly quotable, every page could easily be a powerful, deliberately superficial conversation starter to either fall more into an abyss both ever darker and narrower, confirming a kind of “Kali Yuga”. Or it can be full of hope, understanding how easy it really is to listen to all the noise, recognize and store it, just to then mostly cancel it out, moving both back and onwards to a canvas of greener pastures from this desert of disjoint pebbles. Once when, as the authors say, “Feelings would (no longer / added) obliterate facts” and “Feelings would (no longer / added) legitimize lies”.
It would be exciting to see these pages in an exhibition perhaps plotted out for large format or even divorced from each other, replacing some of the advertising on streets and in the subway. How would we react? What would it do? “Autophobia” (page 37) anyone?
Brilliant!
See it. Read it.
“The Extreme Self” seems the ultimate representation of Zeitgeist. For now.
Deliberately incomplete and fragmented on one hand. Almost all-encompassing on the other.
A canvas full of points that, once overlayed with connecting lines, reveals a map with geography too treacherous to navigate with confidence.
If this clever combination of visuals and text would have been handed over to somebody in 1990, little had been understood. Gibberish? Dada?
To illustrate this, take the word “microothering”, plug it into google and hit the return button: Nothing. 0 Results. Yet, when you see “The Extreme Self", you exactly know its meaning and what it means to and for us. The word sticks as a spot-on abbreviation for a relevant societal black hole that sucks in solid reason around it. The book is chock-full of such revelations.
If there should be more of history (?), most of this work could be far from contemporary in 2050, relegated to a “what-we-talked about-then” archive. Or maybe not if “the internet” keeps on digging itself in ever deeper and tinier holes, fragmenting concerns and language down to atomic dimensions. Perhaps as a welcome distraction from addressing the more fundamental, holistic issues that change at a glacial pace contrasting the frenzy of “NOW”.
Apart from being highly quotable, every page could easily be a powerful, deliberately superficial conversation starter to either fall more into an abyss both ever darker and narrower, confirming a kind of “Kali Yuga”. Or it can be full of hope, understanding how easy it really is to listen to all the noise, recognize and store it, just to then mostly cancel it out, moving both back and onwards to a canvas of greener pastures from this desert of disjoint pebbles. Once when, as the authors say, “Feelings would (no longer / added) obliterate facts” and “Feelings would (no longer / added) legitimize lies”.
It would be exciting to see these pages in an exhibition perhaps plotted out for large format or even divorced from each other, replacing some of the advertising on streets and in the subway. How would we react? What would it do? “Autophobia” (page 37) anyone?
Brilliant!
See it. Read it.
October 19, 2021
5 stars because the content is provoking and the format is innovative. Bleak af tho.
November 20, 2021
Wow, just wow! One of the best things Ive read this year.
June 3, 2022
I fucking love this book. MANDATORY READING! zero excuses.
its so fucking comforting and awesome to discover this intellectual subculture dedicated to investigating the intersection between social technologies, the internet age, psychology, the collapse of institutions and relating them to philosophical/artistic/historical contectualization of these phenomena. every day i wake up and i think about how i am standing on the shoulders of marshall mcluhan, mark fisher, and nicki minaj,,, i feel like i'm part of something bigger than myself idk. i'm trying to get a crypto bro to invest in my theatre company, [THE NEW MODERN PRODUCT THEATRE]. maybe i should start posting on reddit to court investors. my first production will be an adaptation of this book...
its so fucking comforting and awesome to discover this intellectual subculture dedicated to investigating the intersection between social technologies, the internet age, psychology, the collapse of institutions and relating them to philosophical/artistic/historical contectualization of these phenomena. every day i wake up and i think about how i am standing on the shoulders of marshall mcluhan, mark fisher, and nicki minaj,,, i feel like i'm part of something bigger than myself idk. i'm trying to get a crypto bro to invest in my theatre company, [THE NEW MODERN PRODUCT THEATRE]. maybe i should start posting on reddit to court investors. my first production will be an adaptation of this book...
September 30, 2022
Those "the opposite of ___ is no longer ___" statements got me thinking. Pretty thought-provoking stuff overall
July 21, 2023
Borderline experimental
August 26, 2024
This was really good, definitely got me thinking on a deeper level about how much society has shifted over the last 10+ years. The art style was super interesting too!
January 31, 2025
This book is so easy to dismiss as "woahhh sooo deep sooooo edgy" but it honestly wasn't bad, food for thought was fed for sure
October 23, 2021
The Extreme Self seems to posit itself as The Medium is the Massage for the 21st century. The main flaw in that aspiration? It’s a (gasp!) BOOK. Full of pithy thoughts that echo our style over substance / delivery over content times. It feels years (if not decades) too late. Oh well. See you at the apocalypse. We gave it the old college try.
February 26, 2023
What if the internet but in book form? This is an interesting and effective experiment, but I hated the experience. It’s a bit like what if Adam Curtis made a Zine. I would have enjoyed this more as a collected of images on a website or even a video essay. It’s probably part of the point, but putting it together into a book feels wrong. Cringe.
October 23, 2021
Terrible. Couldn't finish it. Vacuous pronouncements about the state of the world paired with random images.
March 9, 2022
terrifying
May 9, 2022
The book raised better questions than answers.
Read
December 18, 2023Provocative questions—many of them—but little depth, which is perhaps a casualty of the format. Presents a pretty bleak view of the future. Getting Mark Fisher-y vibes.
Read
December 28, 2023First of all, this is a gift shop book that I picked up because the cover was literally shiny and I was drawn to the chaotic page layouts. I have now read it and engaged with it in good faith.
This book is mostly vibes, but I think this is the gist of their argument:
WHAT IS THE EXTREME SELF??
I think they’re arguing the Extreme Self is a narrative, external facing, marketable identity that we have all learned to curate for social media/onlineness?? Here are some points from the book:
- driven by technological change at a pace more rapid than we can really wrap our heads around (ch 1)
- persists after death in the data footprint left behind (ch 1)
- Curated by online attention (ch 2)
- Unable to relate to others healthily, either lonely or overwhelmed (ch 3)
- Can’t engage with work unless it fits into a larger personal narrative of some sort (ch 4)
- Relies on the dopamine hits of online browsing (esp comments) to pass time. In a perpetual present (ch 5)
- comfortable being loud and abrasive in the online crowd of anonymity (ch 6)
- Polarized (ch 7)
- Signals their virtues to others (ch 8)
- The Extreme Self fantasizes about sitting beneath a tree contemplating the universe. Unconnected with no dopamine. (Ch 9)
- “These days, our true selves are on the surface, for everyone to see. Our genuine (untrue) selves are locked away, behind a firewall even we can't access.” (Ch 9)
- Part of the mob rule of democracy (???) (ch 10)
- Influenced by the technology platforms we engage with, which in turn are shaped in the forms imagined by their creators (ch 11)
WHAT IS GOING ON
Like I said, this book is almost 100% vibes (which is fun!!), but here were a few moments/ideas that caught my attention:
- Could the expression of empathy be our new Turing Test?
- What is the self? Can we be digitized by collating our existing digital footprint + slapping some graphics on it?
- The idea of the world curating an influencer’s image if they delete all the content that doesn’t perform to a certain standard
- Using facial recognition technology to decide who is trustworthy/likely to commit a crime, etc is a new form of physiognomy
- “Workers inside the Extreme Self economy only feel comfortable if their labor in some way feels a part of a personal story board. If a job or task doesn't feel dramatic enough, they're gone. Unless it's narrating itself, the Extreme Self ceases to exist.”
- Distraction vs attention. Companies don’t actually want your attention. They want you to spend your distraction time with them.
- “Constant online existence is making your perceived biological existence, in a very real sense, much shorter.”
- “In today's decentralized crowds, amassing somewhere in the Cloud, the Extreme Self doesn't just hide. The anonymity of the new crowd is where the Extreme Self discovers a new, powerful infamy.” I think they’re trying to talk about this notion of the online rage machine and emotional maximalism encouraged by the online mob. “Impunity is as addictive and mind-altering as a drug. It's also what makes me feel invisible and utterly invincible.”
- Huh, not sure about this one: “Ghosting is the extreme opposite of empathy. Calling something toxic and then running away is a cowardly means of avoiding work and responsibilities.”
- In Ch 8, they seem to be suggesting that gender identities are proliferating in response to people feeling disempowered in other ways. It seems they are also saying all these gender expressions are “extreme” as compared to previous expressions of self. I think they’re being quite flippant on this one in a way that screams older het-male (which is what all the authors appear to be).
Read this if you like psychedelic takes on the technology-mediated personality, books from modern museum gift shops, shiny things.
Part of my EOY book binge. 13 books to go!
This book is mostly vibes, but I think this is the gist of their argument:
WHAT IS THE EXTREME SELF??
I think they’re arguing the Extreme Self is a narrative, external facing, marketable identity that we have all learned to curate for social media/onlineness?? Here are some points from the book:
- driven by technological change at a pace more rapid than we can really wrap our heads around (ch 1)
- persists after death in the data footprint left behind (ch 1)
- Curated by online attention (ch 2)
- Unable to relate to others healthily, either lonely or overwhelmed (ch 3)
- Can’t engage with work unless it fits into a larger personal narrative of some sort (ch 4)
- Relies on the dopamine hits of online browsing (esp comments) to pass time. In a perpetual present (ch 5)
- comfortable being loud and abrasive in the online crowd of anonymity (ch 6)
- Polarized (ch 7)
- Signals their virtues to others (ch 8)
- The Extreme Self fantasizes about sitting beneath a tree contemplating the universe. Unconnected with no dopamine. (Ch 9)
- “These days, our true selves are on the surface, for everyone to see. Our genuine (untrue) selves are locked away, behind a firewall even we can't access.” (Ch 9)
- Part of the mob rule of democracy (???) (ch 10)
- Influenced by the technology platforms we engage with, which in turn are shaped in the forms imagined by their creators (ch 11)
WHAT IS GOING ON
Like I said, this book is almost 100% vibes (which is fun!!), but here were a few moments/ideas that caught my attention:
- Could the expression of empathy be our new Turing Test?
- What is the self? Can we be digitized by collating our existing digital footprint + slapping some graphics on it?
- The idea of the world curating an influencer’s image if they delete all the content that doesn’t perform to a certain standard
- Using facial recognition technology to decide who is trustworthy/likely to commit a crime, etc is a new form of physiognomy
- “Workers inside the Extreme Self economy only feel comfortable if their labor in some way feels a part of a personal story board. If a job or task doesn't feel dramatic enough, they're gone. Unless it's narrating itself, the Extreme Self ceases to exist.”
- Distraction vs attention. Companies don’t actually want your attention. They want you to spend your distraction time with them.
- “Constant online existence is making your perceived biological existence, in a very real sense, much shorter.”
- “In today's decentralized crowds, amassing somewhere in the Cloud, the Extreme Self doesn't just hide. The anonymity of the new crowd is where the Extreme Self discovers a new, powerful infamy.” I think they’re trying to talk about this notion of the online rage machine and emotional maximalism encouraged by the online mob. “Impunity is as addictive and mind-altering as a drug. It's also what makes me feel invisible and utterly invincible.”
- Huh, not sure about this one: “Ghosting is the extreme opposite of empathy. Calling something toxic and then running away is a cowardly means of avoiding work and responsibilities.”
- In Ch 8, they seem to be suggesting that gender identities are proliferating in response to people feeling disempowered in other ways. It seems they are also saying all these gender expressions are “extreme” as compared to previous expressions of self. I think they’re being quite flippant on this one in a way that screams older het-male (which is what all the authors appear to be).
Read this if you like psychedelic takes on the technology-mediated personality, books from modern museum gift shops, shiny things.
Part of my EOY book binge. 13 books to go!
October 8, 2023
Got this book at an indie book shop in Manchester and went into my overdraft to buy it because it was shiny from the outside.
It's very little reading and a lot of looking at images of [...yeah what are you actually looking at? nobody knows] and short but thought-provoking philosophical paragraphs that sound slightly paranoid and like part of a trip diary.
I liked the art and the fact that it was quite literally "not like the other books". There were some interesting thoughts and questions in it about digitalisation and society and data and the self.
I didn't like the political propaganda.
The authors seem to be comparing right-wing and left-wing outrage when the reasons are so wildly different, one is about being angry at certain groups of people's existence and the other is rightful anger at human rights violations. So yeah, please don't compare them.
I also don't know if I agree with the statement about owing an explanation to toxic people as to why you decided to cut them out. According to the authors, you are "avoiding your responsibility to explain yourself to them". I respectfully disagree.
Every few pages there was a subtle criticism of gender diversity as well, although I'm not entirely sure if some of it was ironic. It's hard to tell because the whole book was so abstract.
I want to give it 4 stars for the cool art and because it's unique and I love when things look pretty and unconventional but I'm not comfortable with the idea of supporting these ideologies, so 3 stars because it did give me some cool stuff to talk to my boyfriend about.
It's very little reading and a lot of looking at images of [...yeah what are you actually looking at? nobody knows] and short but thought-provoking philosophical paragraphs that sound slightly paranoid and like part of a trip diary.
I liked the art and the fact that it was quite literally "not like the other books". There were some interesting thoughts and questions in it about digitalisation and society and data and the self.
I didn't like the political propaganda.
The authors seem to be comparing right-wing and left-wing outrage when the reasons are so wildly different, one is about being angry at certain groups of people's existence and the other is rightful anger at human rights violations. So yeah, please don't compare them.
I also don't know if I agree with the statement about owing an explanation to toxic people as to why you decided to cut them out. According to the authors, you are "avoiding your responsibility to explain yourself to them". I respectfully disagree.
Every few pages there was a subtle criticism of gender diversity as well, although I'm not entirely sure if some of it was ironic. It's hard to tell because the whole book was so abstract.
I want to give it 4 stars for the cool art and because it's unique and I love when things look pretty and unconventional but I'm not comfortable with the idea of supporting these ideologies, so 3 stars because it did give me some cool stuff to talk to my boyfriend about.
November 28, 2022
“The 20th Century was about what belongs to who. The 21st Century is about who belongs to what.”
A sequel of sorts to their previous collaboration, 2015’s “The Age of Earthquakes.” This short little book clearly takes its lead from some wonderful predecessors such as McLuhan’s “The Medium Is The Massage” and Pater’s “The Politics of Design”.
“Never before has being an individual been so easily broadcast. Yet never before has individuality felt so ever increasingly far away.”
There is a lot of good stuff squeezed into here and they have made a real effort with the colour and images too. This is a joy of a read, and makes for a highly stimulating and very entertaining hour or so read, with many a quote and point left ringing in your head for a good while afterwards too!
“Technology has outrun our ability to absorb it.”
“Nationalism weaponises anything it touches.”
“Democracy means that, ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.” Isaac Asimov
“Every new tech promises to make us feel freer than we felt before.”
“Micro-othering has turned the Left into a circular firing squad-to the glee of the Right.”
"Those who build walls are their own prisoners.” Ursula K. Le Guin
“Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon.” Susan Ertz
“Feelings have obliterated facts.”
“Feelings now legitimize lies.”
February 6, 2022
I've seen here that Basar's work are often considered pretentious or alarmist but I'd like to say that this is a great book if you're ready for it.
You can't put it into any certain niche. Wouldn't even call it a graphic non-fiction, but rather modern or digital art.
The team that worked on this didn't seek for telling us something new. It only brings attention to what is already out there, masterfully connecting it with the post-humanism theory and McLuhan's works, and yet trying to scare or shock us here and there.
I've been researching the influence of digital culture on our society for years now and I should say that this book does what it needs to. It alarms but yet entertains by gathering together the works of different artists at the same time.
Why multi-citizenships will probably disappear? Why is democracy becoming outdated in a digitalized world? Will politicians be living together with Elon Musk in the eternal nothingness? Why do people have FOMO and cannot connect to the place where they're at? Are we all becoming the conspirologists?
It answers all of those shortly even though somewhat mockingly. A great addendum to Zuboff, Doctorow or whoever is considered a surveillance capitalism guru in your world
You can't put it into any certain niche. Wouldn't even call it a graphic non-fiction, but rather modern or digital art.
The team that worked on this didn't seek for telling us something new. It only brings attention to what is already out there, masterfully connecting it with the post-humanism theory and McLuhan's works, and yet trying to scare or shock us here and there.
I've been researching the influence of digital culture on our society for years now and I should say that this book does what it needs to. It alarms but yet entertains by gathering together the works of different artists at the same time.
Why multi-citizenships will probably disappear? Why is democracy becoming outdated in a digitalized world? Will politicians be living together with Elon Musk in the eternal nothingness? Why do people have FOMO and cannot connect to the place where they're at? Are we all becoming the conspirologists?
It answers all of those shortly even though somewhat mockingly. A great addendum to Zuboff, Doctorow or whoever is considered a surveillance capitalism guru in your world
July 20, 2023
This book’s premise: we’re living in unprecedented extreme times and (social) media is maddening us.
An illuminating tongue-and-cheek meme-esque graphic novel revealing the horrors of technology, especially social media (as it intersects with capitalism and consumerism) and its influence on our consciousness as Human Beings. It doesn’t provide answers because they aren’t any. The world as we know it has changed forever since the invention of the Internet and it will never be the same again. Practice diligence in how you navigate this very real world but also get grounding, touch grass and remind yourself of your aliveness outside of “The Extreme Self” that you’re always fashioning and curating in the Digital World.
An illuminating tongue-and-cheek meme-esque graphic novel revealing the horrors of technology, especially social media (as it intersects with capitalism and consumerism) and its influence on our consciousness as Human Beings. It doesn’t provide answers because they aren’t any. The world as we know it has changed forever since the invention of the Internet and it will never be the same again. Practice diligence in how you navigate this very real world but also get grounding, touch grass and remind yourself of your aliveness outside of “The Extreme Self” that you’re always fashioning and curating in the Digital World.
December 29, 2024
“millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do on a rainy sunday afternoon” - susan ertz
busar/coupland/obrist have created a visual polemic that feels like the frames of a bill wurtz youtube video fused with existential doomer instagram reels then set to print. through familiar imagery of memes and social media schema* (comments sections spawning in the corner of the page), they present the intriguing accelerating effects of technology on social change, social interaction and the collective ‘us’
the book mimics the sensation of scrolling almost too well. it feels so familiar to the whiplash of autoplay when you’re watching a video of a baby goat frolicking one second and ingesting a heavy informational load the next. I found myself taking pictures and sharing pages like they were posts my friends would like. docked a star because this should be blown up, hardcover bound, coffee table book style
a snippet: “at any social event, one of the first questions a stranger asks you is, 'what do you do?" cue awkward hesitation: should you act modest, but run the risk of seeming boring? or, do you hard sell, like a QVC presenter or TED speakers.
this cocktail party mainstay may soon be a thing of the past. full automation will be here very soon. what will you do when you don't need to work anymore? what will be your measure of worth? and how will strangers break the ice with you then?”
*this is the second book I’ve read this year with an emoji on it. I don’t say that with pride
busar/coupland/obrist have created a visual polemic that feels like the frames of a bill wurtz youtube video fused with existential doomer instagram reels then set to print. through familiar imagery of memes and social media schema* (comments sections spawning in the corner of the page), they present the intriguing accelerating effects of technology on social change, social interaction and the collective ‘us’
the book mimics the sensation of scrolling almost too well. it feels so familiar to the whiplash of autoplay when you’re watching a video of a baby goat frolicking one second and ingesting a heavy informational load the next. I found myself taking pictures and sharing pages like they were posts my friends would like. docked a star because this should be blown up, hardcover bound, coffee table book style
a snippet: “at any social event, one of the first questions a stranger asks you is, 'what do you do?" cue awkward hesitation: should you act modest, but run the risk of seeming boring? or, do you hard sell, like a QVC presenter or TED speakers.
this cocktail party mainstay may soon be a thing of the past. full automation will be here very soon. what will you do when you don't need to work anymore? what will be your measure of worth? and how will strangers break the ice with you then?”
*this is the second book I’ve read this year with an emoji on it. I don’t say that with pride
October 28, 2022
This book uses a novel and effective approach to disseminating ideas using a thought-provoking and sometimes jarring set of graphical and meme inspired texts and representations. The pages are dripping with poignancy and juxtapositions, and are stitched together to take the reader on a journey of reckoning and reconciliation around the notion of the self being exponentially morphed by the rapid technological shifts of modern society.
Reading the book kick-starts a deep clean of what the reader might consider the place of the self within society today compared to a decade ago, before projecting where & how the extreme self could inhabit the future.
Reading the book kick-starts a deep clean of what the reader might consider the place of the self within society today compared to a decade ago, before projecting where & how the extreme self could inhabit the future.
August 10, 2022
Um livro que parece uma viagem a um museu. Reflexão sobre o efeito do mundo digital na percepção de nós mesmos e na nossa relação com um mundo. Tem uns bons takes para ficar a pensar sobre eles durante um bocado:
"Never before has being an individual been so easily broadcast. Yet never before has individuality felt so ever-increasingly far away."
"People think they're political, but all they want is the dopamine hit they get from the way politics now works on our brains. It's like opioid addicts saying the opioids themselves are unimportant - they "only want the rush"."
"Never before has being an individual been so easily broadcast. Yet never before has individuality felt so ever-increasingly far away."
"People think they're political, but all they want is the dopamine hit they get from the way politics now works on our brains. It's like opioid addicts saying the opioids themselves are unimportant - they "only want the rush"."
July 8, 2022
Commenting on modern society and nostalgia in unusual ways is a trademark of Coupland's work.
Full of insightful lists and comments that spark thought, liked this book a lot. Not a self-help book, but plenty of pages and images that made me think "oh, I hadn't thought of it in that way", which made for an enjoyable read. Similar to Bit Rot, if you've read that. Not to diminish Basar's effort, am glad Coupland continues to provide his observations and hasn't retired.
Full of insightful lists and comments that spark thought, liked this book a lot. Not a self-help book, but plenty of pages and images that made me think "oh, I hadn't thought of it in that way", which made for an enjoyable read. Similar to Bit Rot, if you've read that. Not to diminish Basar's effort, am glad Coupland continues to provide his observations and hasn't retired.
February 20, 2024
presented with striking visuals, a fun and flowing read. every page's composition is new and different. It's not groundbreaking conceptually, though may blow a 15 year old's mind.
pretty much my only gripe with it is how utterly awful the cover is. i know why it was done, but god is it uninspired. plastered on a book that tries to use graphic design and creativity to its advantage in every other instance.
pretty much my only gripe with it is how utterly awful the cover is. i know why it was done, but god is it uninspired. plastered on a book that tries to use graphic design and creativity to its advantage in every other instance.
March 2, 2025
some really relevant and interesting points. An analysis of digital culture and how it binds us. How data can be abused to manipulate you. Alot of bullshit too, that maybe I am too hard on because I feel like he have had these conversations before. I think we should stop the fear mongering or the opposite- techno-utopianism, because both can have dangerous consequences. Overall, nice quick read and the design is lovely.
December 11, 2023
An interesting concept for a book, a sort of post-graphic novel. However the content itself is nothing groundbreaking. Often times it comes off as a bit shallow but some more novel points are made. The real joy in the book comes from the visuals and the unique style it has. This makes it worth reading, as the text on its own would make for a very poor, brief read. 7/10
February 12, 2024
A very easy and quick ready simply surfacing thoughts you've already thought about the life we live in currently as AI and media drowns us. I quite enjoyed it, you end up reading it in 30 minutes thinking "that's all?", yet as time progresses and the information sinks in and truly makes you sit and think "fuck..."
October 3, 2022
Read in one standing at the New Museum gift shop. Has the same vibe as the conspiratorial "shark cyberattack" video about the racist implications of the internet infrastructure I saw as part of an art exhibit earlier this year. Nothing super new, interesting format but couldn't take it seriously.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews