Two years ago there were more reporters in mainstream media covering Facebook, as a company, than there were covering online culture. That says so much about our media priorities…how people use technology and how social media shapes our culture is under-covered in mainstream media.

TESS POLLOK: I have beef with your new book, Extremely Online, because you seem too well-adjusted to be extremely online–you’re not acting hostile enough.

TAYLOR: Oh, thank you. I know.

POLLOK: You’ve been a tech and features reporter for The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others. When did you become interested in the internet as a topic?

LORENZ: I wasn’t really into internet stuff growing up, I had a Facebook and AIM but that was it. In 2009, when I was in my mid-20s, I got on Tumblr and started spending a lot of time on there gaining an audience and growing a following–that led to media opportunities, getting to do social media stuff for brands. It was a different internet back then because it actually wasn’t easy to monetize content that you were making. Eventually I became a blogger, started writing for smaller websites, then bigger news outlets, and, yeah, I’m basically still doing that. I’m very much a millennial and in the early ‘10s there was all this coverage of online culture that was really condescending and bad. It blamed millennials for everything. I just felt like it was rude to the online and people on the internet–especially those who were creating content or art for the internet, it was always seen as secondary and less than, especially the writing. Writing for websites was seen as less than writing for print and I always felt like that was stupid and it motivated me to write about the internet from the perspective of someone who actually uses it.

POLLOK: There’s a lot of condescension involved in, like, people who are invested in differentiating between High art and Low art. But that’s totally turned on its head now with respect to the internet, and you document that pretty thoroughly in your book.

LORENZ: Completely. Younger people don’t make much of a distinction at all. It was a different energy back then because the internet was still very niche. Earlier this year, my friend Kate Lindsay wrote a piece for her newsletter Embedded on Substack about how Halloween costumes are almost always memes or these hyper-niche online references. It reminded me of this party that used to happen in the early aughts called HalloMEME, hosted by this website URLesque. I wrote about it for the book because it was one of the first events to feature influencers, bloggers, Tumblr people, and early internet personalities. Now that’s everything, but back then it was just the one party. Things like that are examples of how internet culture started off as niche and small and now it’s the mainstream.

POLLOK: That’s really true. When were you born and where did you grow up, just so I can contextualize your relationship to the internet?

LORENZ: I actually don’t talk about the year I was born because of how many times I’ve been doxxed. I try to be sensitive about sharing my personal information online. But I’m from Greenwich, Connecticut, which isn’t a secret. And I’m in my late 30s.

POLLOK: Oh, yeah, of course, don’t worry about it.

LORENZ: Like a lot of millennials, I graduated into the recession and there weren’t any jobs available so I was just working temp jobs. When I started my Tumblr I was just working at a random call center, before that I worked in retail and other random temp jobs. There are a lot of conspiracies about me online–some of them totally ridiculous, like, at one point someone changed my Wikipedia page to say that I was secretly 47 years old. I was, like, “You know everyone I went to college with is also online.” Whatever, it’s fine.

POLLOK: I’m glad you brought up the issue of conspiratorial thinking online because I actually had an experience recently that I wanted to talk to you about. I’m assuming since you write about the online you know about Dimes Square?

LORENZ: Oh, of course. But everything I’ve learned has been against my will; I’m in LA. Mid-way through the pandemic all these articles started coming out about Dimes Square and I was just, like, “Oh my god, I’m so tired of hearing about this.”

POLLOK: Yeah. We talk about ourselves way too much. But I recently had an experience with how strange and vitriolic having an online presence can be so I wanted to get your take. Verso published an article about how myself and a bunch of other Dimes Square-affiliated writers are “the right-wing avant-garde of American fiction” and it really confused me. First of all, I was looking back at my life, like, volunteering for the PEN America prison writing initiative and working with traumatized people in hospitals and thinking, like, “Was I a conservative that whole time?” Also, I don’t know who Curtis Yarvin even is, and there were paragraphs and paragraphs about his influence over my thinking–it was just so parasocial and surreal. Scene reports like that are just ridiculous, I was just surprised by how involved and deep the thinking was in constructing these relationships between people that didn’t exist. I was also surprised Verso would even publish something like that.

LORENZ: Oh my god, I know. Yes. I have so many thoughts on this. First of all, when you start seeing yourself written about in the media, that’s when you start to realize how little you can trust traditional media. And I say that as someone who works in traditional media. So much gets published that is just nonsense. I’ve had that exact experience about myself, where someone is writing about me and I’m just, like, “This is just fanfiction about my life. This is not me.” Any time you’re part of a scene that’s getting written about you lose control of the narrative and that can feel really weird and disturbing. The Dimes Square discourse reminds me a lot of what it was like to live in Williamsburg in 2011. It was the peak of hipster culture and a lot of Gen X people were writing similarly miserable hand-wringing articles ascribing certain aesthetics and political affiliations to people; I think it’s similar to Dimes Square. It’s just not that deep.

POLLOK: I’m totally with you on that. It’s just not that deep. I reached a sort of galaxy-brained conclusion about how it’s the outcome of people becoming too sad and alienated to have meaningful relationships–I ended up thinking about hikikomori in Japan. Do you know about them?

LORENZ: Yeah.

POLLOK: They’re friendless Japanese people who don’t leave their rooms and it’s turned into a cultural trope representing the lonely person. But I look at the lifestyle of a hikikomori and I think it’s fine–they just harmlessly hang out in their rooms watching porn and playing video games, they have their anime girl pillows, it actually seems kind of nice. It’s so weird and American that when you don’t have friends you have this reaction where you write a manifesto and project your suffering onto other people. That’s such an American outlet for loneliness.

LORENZ: That’s such an interesting way of thinking about it. I think, like you said, it’s a parasocial fascination with people who are doing something new that involves projection. That’s just a fact of how the internet works now.

POLLOK: Were you drawn into writing about the internet more to comment on this sort of thing? Or to defend forms of art that were under attack?

LORENZ: Yeah, and it’s not that I can’t be critical of things. I’m very critical of some content creators that I cover. I just think the internet deserves to be taken seriously and that’s my fundamental belief. Increasingly, people are understanding that the internet is no longer a secondary mode of human interaction, it’s becoming our default reality–your reputation online is becoming your reputation in real life and it’s almost more permanent than anything that happens in the real world. There’s also huge amounts of economic activity online and a big part of the book is about the emergence of influencing, which has become a half a trillion dollar industry. I think that demands to be taken seriously and given the thought and scrutiny it deserves.

It’s hard for me to say that we’re moving towards [a decentralized internet] because Meta and Google still have an enormous tech duopoly on the way we socialize online. That’s only recently been challenged by TikTok, which is still owned by a multibillion dollar tech conglomerate.

POLLOK: I get that. You have a critical interest in the internet and you’re not trying to advance a specific attitude about it.

LORENZ: I don’t think this is still true, but two years ago there were more reporters in mainstream media covering Facebook, as a company, than there were covering online culture. That says so much about the media’s priorities in terms of how they cover technology. It’s all about who’s going to be on the board of Facebook and what is Elon planning next. Those are interesting stories, but there’s another side to the tech ecosystem and how people use technology, which is how it shapes our culture. It’s just an area that’s under-covered in mainstream media.

POLLOK: How do you find relevant conversations about online culture?

LORENZ: All over. Most of my stories I get from talking to other people. Also, a lot of things I find online–I mostly just write about whatever is interesting to me at the moment, which is a huge privilege and I’m really lucky to have gotten to a point in journalism where I’m able to do that.

POLLOK: I’m really interested in your early life on Tumblr. I grew up on Tumblr, too.

LORENZ: Really?

POLLOK: Totally. I was a Tumblr kid in high school and actually a lot of the visual artists we work with on Animal Blood are people I remember from my Tumblr days. I just think it doesn’t get the credit it deserves. The creative ferment on Tumblr was just amazing. It’s been so incredible to see all these people I knew as teenage fashion bloggers grow up in New York City and become, like, actual runway photographers working fashion week. It was perfect at incubating young creatives.

LORENZ: It really was. It’s a common thread among so many people who are doing really interesting creative things today. Tumblr was really great because there weren’t a lot of public metrics at first–I mean, there was note count, but that was it. You couldn’t see who someone was following or what they liked, it was just notes, and they weren’t prioritized on the content, so it became about the content itself rather than the metrics around it. I also liked the anonymity aspect of it. I made a lot of those single serving theme Tumblrs and loved exploring different visual identities and funny memes through those. It was a great training ground for early internet discourse, too.

POLLOK: Oh, totally. So much.

LORENZ: I learned what a non-binary person was for the first time on Tumblr. In the late aughts that was where the body positivity movement started to gain traction. It was interesting learning about all these concepts that later would become really mainstream. But it also exposed me to the level of brain poison discourse that happens online, which is kind of how the whole internet is now.

POLLOK: Yeah. That’s all so true.

LORENZ: You would see takes on Tumblr that you wouldn’t believe.

POLLOK: Oh, God, I know. I remember so much niche hilarious Tumblr drama. I like that you brought up that point about metrics because this is a note I made in your book. I really liked the critical attention you paid to the specific development of metrics. It was so interesting to read, for example, that Facebook didn’t always have the Newsfeed, and that people basically rioted when it was implemented.

LORENZ: I know, that was huge at the time. Social products are so unique and I think they’re the best tech products to cover because the outcome is as much the user base as it is anything else. I think Twitter is a great example of this because, obviously, there’s all these Twitter clones, but to replicate the community that’s been built by years of tweaks to the product is really difficult. With any other tech product, there’s not so much symbiosis with the users. Normally you make a product, you put it out into the world, and people use it–but social products are shaped so much by the users that the users and the connections they form with each other are the product, at the end of the day, and that makes tech really fun to cover. Another issue that was fun to cover with the book was that many social products start out with no idea what they were doing. [Twitter founder] Jack has a totally different vision for the company than what it became. I got to speak with the guy who invented the hashtag, and other people like that, who again invented all these things that we take for granted as norms on the internet now. These things were pioneering twenty years ago.

POLLOK: I know, I loved those details in the book. My favorite was that YouTube started as a dating site.

LORENZ: Yes! YouTube started as a dating site. Twitter started out as a podcasting site and then it spun out into text messaging and a way of sending text blasts to your friends. Later it emerged to be the product it is today. A key part of that was when it became a place to share real news at critical moments, like when Chesley Sullenberger landed his plane in the Hudson. The core thesis of the book is that tech founders make these products with no idea what they’re going to become or how they’re going to be used and they evolve in tandem with the users.

POLLOK: That’s so interesting to think about. It makes me think about the huge difference between Vine and TikTok. Fundamentally, it’s the same concept, but their personalities and communities are so different because of the user base.

LORENZ: 100%. This is something I talk about a lot in the book. The fundamental difference there is that Vine hated their biggest content creators which ultimately harmed them in a lot of ways because those were the people that generated all the engagement on the app. TikTok has always leaned into content creators, but obviously everyone’s very replaceable on TikTok because it’s an algorithmically driven feed. But they have a whole creative partnerships team–they took a lot out of YouTube’s playbook, I think.

POLLOK: I was actually invited to TikTok’s New York City headquarters when I worked as a social media manager as a “culture creator”–they’re very interested in doing that kind of thing. The office was really intimidating and overwhelming, it was floors and floors coated in the TikTok colors so everything was this vibrant raspberry blue and hot pink. Everyone who worked there was really young and had a laid back, smiley attitude. When I reached out for business cards or emails they were just, like, “Oh, we don’t have those.” It’s such a young company.

LORENZ: Getting in touch with anybody at that company is a total nightmare. But they have so much partnership stuff. It’s still such a baby app.

POLLOK: Does Twitter have a future? What’s your take there?

LORENZ: It’s already crumbling in on itself. I mean, every bank has already written off their value. But because it’s so political I think it’ll remain relevant at least within political circles through the 2024 election. But beyond that, Twitter’s not culturally relevant anymore. Everything you see on Twitter is stuff you saw from TikTok.

POLLOK: Who do you follow on TikTok?

LORENZ: Oh my god, I consume so much. I watch so many videos. I watch a lot of commentary. I love this girl Meredith Lynch who’s been doing these deep dives into really interesting topics–she just had a great one on private equity and how private equity firms acquiring fashion brands can be really bad. I’m also addicted to TikTok lives.

POLLOK: Oh, I do that, too. I love watching ASMR TikTok lives to fall asleep. Do you ever watch any wood soup?

LORENZ: Oh my god!! I can’t believe you just said that. This is so crazy–I literally just brought up wood soup in another interview and thy had no idea what I was talking about.

POLLOK: I’m obsessed. It makes me so sleepy.

LORENZ: Literally, same.

POLLOK: Have you seen them do it with soda yet? Newest wood soup just dropped.

LORENZ: No, what’s that?

POLLOK: The ASMRtists have started making wood soup with soda, so now you also get the sound of carbonation and bubbles. They took it to another level with that. ASMR kind of thrives in any environment, you can’t go online anywhere and not find ASMR.

LORENZ: It’s true, there’s certain genres of content that just thrive everywhere. I love ASMR, I find it so relaxing, although I don’t get the tingles people are always talking about. I love soap carving videos, have you seen those?

POLLOK: Yeah, I love those. I feel like the genesis of this stuff really relates to the original Instagram account that was posting this type of content, do you remember “@ifyouhigh?” That was where Instagram got the idea for the “Oddly Satisfying” algorithm they made for videos of people, like, organizing their fridge.

LORENZ: Oh my god, yeah. I know exactly what you’re talking about. Do you follow @left4rat on Instagram?

POLLOK: No, I don’t.

LORENZ: You have to follow her. It’s a very specific kind of normie aesthetic, very Target and suburban. You have to watch a lot of it to understand it but it’s really funny.

POLLOK: Is this where you see the internet going? Do you ever do any trend forecasting about this type of thing?

LORENZ: There’s a girl called Coco Mocoe on TikTok who does great trend forecasting. I don’t really do any trend forecasting myself, I use it to inform my writing and what I cover–I used to do more trend stories, but now I primarily write features. I think we’re in a period of flux with the social media landscape, which is why my book ends in 2022. People are burnt out by the public broadcast space social model of the 2010s in which everything is default public and default permanent. There was something I almost tweeted this morning that I just sent to my group chat instead. Everything gets so misinterpreted and weaponized online and I think people want that to stop. I think the novelty of being so public has worn off and people want more intimate online spaces, smaller spaces where you know who you’re going to connect with.

POLLOK: Isn’t that the instinct behind Web3? A more decentralized internet?

LORENZ: I like the idea of Web3 but I’m not sure about it. The crypto people love to say, “This is just about crypto,” but it’s not, because it’s not entirely financialized. I can at least hope that we’re moving towards a more decentralized world and a more decentralized internet. It’s hard for me to say that we’re moving towards that because Meta and Google still have an enormous monopoly on the way we socialize online so there’s this huge tech duopoly controlling everything that’s only recently been challenged by TikTok, which is still owned by a multibillion dollar tech conglomerate. So, I don’t know. The hints of something different are there. It might be more in things like Discord that offer smaller spaces online. The thing is, things that adhere to Web3 principles are already online, like, what about open-source platforms like Mastodon? Or think about BlueSky, created by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Mastodon and Bluesky aren’t Web3 platforms but they’re already part of a federated social ecosystem where there’s interoperability and customized feeds, building on these same principles of privacy and decentralization. Most people who are talking about Web3 are talking about the crypto-ecosystem and turning everything into micro-payments; that’s a really dystopian version of the internet that I hope we don’t get. I think the idea is cool and I like the concept of collective ownership. I’d love to see things move in that direction, hopefully we’ll get there.

Taylor Lorenz is a writer and journalist. Her new book, Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet, is out now from Simon & Schuster.

Tess Pollok is a writer and the editor-in-chief of Animal Blood.