Social Networking – DaneCobain.com

Title: In Real Life

Author: Nev Schulman

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 246

Rating 3.5/5

If you’ve ever watched MTV’s Catfish then you’ve already heard of Schulman. He’s the guy who presents the show, and in fact he earlier presented a documentary of the same name about his own experience as a victim of catfishing. Oh, and catfishing, for those of you who aren’t in the know, is when people pretend to be someone they’re not on a social networking site.

What was quite cool about this is that you get to know Schulman some more as a person, and it turns out that he wasn’t always the greatest of guys. In fact, it almost feels as though he wrote this book to come to terms with the person he was as a youth, when he got into fights, sold weed and magic mushrooms and was a bit of a womaniser.

But at the same time as telling his own story, Schulman also shares practical advice that’s designed to help other people to stay safe on social networking sites, and that makes it a little similar to one of my own books, Social Paranoia. He did it well though, and even though the book is a couple of years old by now, I think it’s held up well to the passage of time. I’d recommend it to fans of the show, but probably not to general readers. Yeah.

Click here to buy In Real Life.

Paul Carr – Bringing Nothing to the Party | Review

Title: Bringing Nothing to the Party

Author: Paul Carr

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 280

Rating: 4*/5

Paul Carr – Bringing Nothing to the Party

This book is a lot of fun, and even though it’s approaching the tenth anniversary since its publication date, it’s still timely and relevant, and a hell of a lot of fun to boot. In fact, it’s rare for a non-fiction book to be this much fun, and it reminded me a little bit of Tony Hawk, Dave Gorman and Danny Wallace. It’s just one man writing about his life, getting up to all sorts of trouble without really meaning to and telling stories about the unexpected consequences.

In a nutshell, it follows the true story of what happened when Paul Carr decided to become an internet entrepreneur in the early days of the social networking boom. He spends a lot of time getting drunk along the way, or accidentally offending venture capitalists and other powerful men who could make or break his business. And yet, in many ways, it’s endearing – even when he treats a woman so badly that she starts a blog about him, effectively annihilating his online reputation, it’s easy to empathise with his predicament.

The interesting thing here is that Carr’s writing style – like a latter-day Jonathon Swift, a recurring joke in the book – makes it easy for the reader to get absorbed into the story. And once you get into it, you’ll find it hard to put down, and whatever you think about the man’s personality, you’ll probably find yourself rooting for him to come out on top. And it’s even a little inspirational, too. Definitely worth spending time on.