It Came from Something Awful, Dale Beran
It Came from Something Awful, Dale Beran
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It Came from Something Awful
How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office

Author: Dale Beran

Narrator: Dale Beran

Unabridged: 10 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/30/2019


Synopsis

This program is read by the author.

An insider's history of the website at the end of the world, which burst into politics and memed Donald Trump into the White House.

The internet has transformed the ways we think and act, and by consequence, our politics. The most impactful recent political movements on the far left and right started with massive online collectives of teenagers. Strangely, both movements began on the same website: an anime imageboard called 4chan.org. It Came from Something Awful is the fascinating and bizarre story of 4chan and its profound effect on youth counterculture.

Dale Beran has observed the website's shifting activities and interests since the beginning. 4chan is a microcosm of the internet itself—simultaneously at the vanguard of contemporary culture, politics, comedy and language, and a new low for all of the above. It was the original meme machine, mostly frequented by socially awkward and disenfranchised young men in search of a place to be alone together.

During the recession of the late 2000’s, the memes became political. 4chan was the online hub of a leftist hacker collective known as Anonymous and a prominent supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement. But within a few short years, the site’s ideology spun on its axis; it became the birthplace and breeding ground of the alt-right. In It Came from Something Awful, Beran uses his insider’s knowledge and natural storytelling ability to chronicle 4chan's strange journey from creating rage-comics to inciting riots to—according to some—memeing Donald Trump into the White House.

About Dale Beran

DALE BERAN is a writer and artist whose work has been published in McSweeney’s, Quartz, The Huffington Post, The Daily Dot, The Nib, and The Baltimore City Paper. His recent article on Medium, "4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump", became a sensation that was shared and recommended by JK Rowling and Marc Maron, among many others. He has a BA in classics from Bard and a JD from Fordham. He lives in Baltimore.


Reviews

Goodreads review by John on February 13, 2020

This book is incredibly informative and insightful. The power of a shitposting, nihilistic subculture to influence the language and arguments that form our discourse is disheartening but necessary to understand.......more

Goodreads review by Matthew on October 05, 2020

The quality varies wildly in quality and feels as if certain chapters were included to pad the length. I found the analysis of Tumblr to be particularly shallow. I'm certain that there is a great book waiting to be publishing on the history fringe politics on the internet, but this isn't it. That be......more

Goodreads review by Laird on November 01, 2020

I remember reading an interview with David Simon about the real life people that inspired the main characters on The Wire: The street level wheelers and dealers that sway with the tides of power and sometimes influence it in their own weird way, all connected in a twisted ecosystem. Heroes and villa......more