Trigger Warning!

Jarett Kobek’s rant in the form of a book, titled I Hate the Internet, was a rather interesting one to read. First of all, the author describes the book as a terrible one to read, so why would I ever think otherwise? Needless to say, this book was pretty brutal to read for many reasons. The book starts out with someone sending the main character, Adeline, a rather violent message through social media reading, “Dear slut, I hope that you are gang-raped by syphilis infected illegal aliens.” In the book, Adeline was known to be a larger figure on social media platforms which fueled the author, Kobek, to introduce the readers to the topic of how social media “fame” isn’t always a great thing. For a reader who wasn’t prepared for the book to begin like this, like myself, it may be extremely startling. Personally, it just set a bad tone for the rest of the book and I didn’t look forward to continuing.

Throughout the novel, Kobek verbally attacked the normalized use of the internet in the everyday lives of people. With the constant advancement of technology, circumstances are bound to change. Kobek let his readers know how he is NOT a fan of the change. Kobek made some very valid points, but in my opinion, the outline of his points was very scattered and extremely unorganized. For example, in the last chapter of the book Kobek speaks on an event where some Google employees were feuding with some local Latino youth and ended up fighting them. The way I perceived this event in the novel was that it was used to show the complete division of power and knowledge that the internet creates in the community. This event may sound relevant to the book when read alone, but there was an earlier chapter of the novel that solely focused on Lady Gaga and her twitter following and influence. Both of these chapter’s topics may seem relevant to the overall scheme of the book, which they are technically, but for myself, they were just very scattered.

In conclusion, this novel is written in an extremely witty and sarcastic manner. This may appeal to some, but Kobek speaks about severe events that happen in real life, which in my opinion, should not be spoken about lightly or sarcastically. Many of the topics covered, like rape and death, can be major triggers for some, especially when they are spoken about in such a nonchalant and unconcerned tone that the book portrays. With that being said, those with a strong will and mentality that can bear through the euphemisms, threats, and unorganized mess that this book is, you might just enjoy it after all.