If you're looking for a plotty book, full of rich characters and lush visual prose, go elsewhere. However, if you're looking for a laugh out loud, bitter polemic of modern day society chock full of biting wit and memorable quotes on nearly every page... have I got the book for you. It's less a narrative plotline than a series of rants strung together by a set of characters, yet I couldn't put it down, waiting for the next caustic take on internet culture... our culture...to appear. My only regret is that this came out too early for Kobek to point his scathing rhetoric at our current political nightmare.

Mercifully short "bad" novel that examines the Bay Area's changing culture in the meta-manner of a Stewart Lee monologue. Amusingly familiar for anyone who lived in San Francisco between the late-nineties and today, but probably best for those who have left. Not sure the author deserves to be so cynical about a city he only lived in for only four years.

This is not the kind of book I'd normally read...little in the way of plot, choppy writing style, not much action or character growth. But there is plenty to think about, so I enjoyed it nonetheless.

i hate the internet is largely a rant about the many imperfections in modern society, with special focus on how those imperfections tend to benefit white straight rich men over everyone who doesn't fit one of those four categories. The Internet is a primary target but far from the only one. Kobek pokes at everything, from religion to capitalism to despotic oppression to science fiction to music to celebrity. He shines the worst possible light on whatever he deems unfair, wrong, or just unlikable.

A few examples:

"...all revolutions happened because everyone everywhere wanted to be Americans."

"Wars were giant parties for the ruling elites, who sometimes thought it would be great fun to make the poor kill each other."

"A fluency with Black culture would attract more advertisers. Actual Black people would scare advertisers."

Those are some clean examples, of which there are not many...lots of profanity and tons of sexual references. But most of it is either humorous or thought-provoking, which makes it worthwhile in my view.

Now, this is not to say that I agree with all of what i hate the internet describes about our world. Far from it - I think much of what is said takes the imperfections in history and/or society, and blows them all out of proportion. But it's all entertaining and thought-provoking, whether you agree with how he describes something or not.

The words I write here will provide 'content' to a website owned by a major corporation based in SF. They may put advertisements next to it. They may use my words to promote the book. They will use my rating and browsing history to influence which ads they show me. And... I'm ok with that.

Other popular 'social media' websites are the same. While these companies say that they are giving voices to the powerless and improving democracy, etc, the real driving force is still making money off of advertising. The content provided by all of us, in bulk, makes a few people richer, and our use of the products fuels that money transfer. It doesn't matter whether we are talking about fostering positive change, grieving over a tragedy, spreading rumors and hate speech, insulting each other or making threats in comments sections. All the content gets served-up with a side of advertising.

These issues are the major themes of this 'novel'. Other themes include how internet companies and their employees have contributed to significant changes in San Francisco, making it increasingly hard to survive there if you are not rich.

It isn't a very good 'novel'; it even says so itself! It is basically an extended comedic rant with characters and plot thrown in to support the rant. But it is, at most times, quite funny. Especially if, like me, you are have witnessed the changes in SF over the last two decades.

So, hey, I use social media; I work in tech; I use an iPad. There is good in all these things. This novel focuses mostly on the dark sides, but it can really make you laugh, and think, while doing so.

BTW: this book appeared in my mailbox totally unexpectedly. Apparently somebody thought it was my birthday [it isn't] and that I'd like this [I do].

The 21st century, internet culture, feminism, politics and pop culture. Man this book!!

Not a great novel (nor does the author claim it is), but some good, fun rants about contemporary culture and the current tech mayhem in San Francisco.

You thought the internet was supposed to be an enlightened platform for free speech, enabling massive beneficial social and political change? Think again. It was, of course, created as a defense-related project. It is, of course, funded by wealthy venture capitalists and driven by the appropriation of its users creative output to make money. It will, of course, never be anything else, but at least I Hate the Internet allows you to believe, for a moment, that this is an outrage and before long the world will see that and change. Reading this book is a kind of visceral release, providing justification for every quietly-held theory you've ever had about why the internet is bad, and the personalities behind it are even worse. But in the end, it is a creation of humanity, and is it exactly what we deserve?

At first I wasn't sure about the style and then I inexplicably found myself hooked on the sarc, the side notes, and the frequent deviations into Jack Kirby.

"Somewhere along the way, Americans turned freedom of expression and freedom of speech into copy pasting the labor of others for the profit of the already rich."

A razor sharp satire of the current hour, Jarett Kobek’s searing and hilarious screed against the hypocrisy, delusion, and dangers of the tech boom is a refreshing, if bleak, exploration of exactly what it means to live under the shadow of the internet. It rings so true, and yet is so funny, going off on so many interesting, disturbing tangents, it feels like it could have sprung only from the internet itself. “I hate the internet” might just be the most illuminating book I’ve read on the corrupt, dark, reactionary heart the fuels the startup bro culture of Silicon Valley, weaned on Ayn Rand and the stolen labor of the masses. I read this weeks ago, before the horror Election Day, but I should have known what was looming after taking in Kobek’s deep understanding of how the internet has failed us, as Facebook still does not distinguish between fake and real news and the alt right continues to infect the online world.

Kobek writes in a deadpan, technical style explaining the each bizarre conceit of contemporary society (sports, fantasy movies) as though it were the backwards world of a quaint and irrational culture, I feel that Kobek has created a novel that could truly be used as a time capsule to capture just what things were like in this time and place. Bracketed by a loose plot involving a pretentious comic book artist with a silly, affected transatlantic accent and the unfortunate position of being a woman who publicly shares her opinion online in a society that hates women, Kobek takes on a variety of targets with a verve and cheek that never takes itself too seriously. In particular through a minor character, the autobiographical Turkish-American writer who finds himself ranting to the audience a lot, Kobek captures that overwhelming excess of information to be taken with a grain of salt (Tolkien is for morons), weird factoids (the word “polyamory” was coined by a woman who tortured goats to create “unicorns”), and the private information of everyone you know.

Here I am, a guy who, like the creators of the internet, lacks any eumelanin in the basale stratum of epidermis, providing unpaid content to boost the revenue of a social media site owned by “an unprofitable website dedicated to the destruction of the publishing industry,” and frequented both by fans of “good novels,” crappy science fiction, and self-described “bad novels” like this one. Going off on so many tangents, so many asides, yet stringing each of these disparate parts into a web of absurd truth, it feels like Kobek takes the internet to task for all the right reasons. Like the internet itself, Kobek pastes together a meandering but concise screed against the idea that the internet can change, in any way, the sexist, racist, homophobic, capitalist culture that prioritizes money, that pernicious fiction, above all else. Secretly, or not so secretly, all of this unprecedented access to information, connection, culture, exists as nothing else has to advertise to us and to harvest our productivity for profit.

Most of all, Kobek comes off not as curmudgeonly tech hating Luddite raging against “kids these days,” but as someone weaned and surrounded by the rarefied world of the information age which has, for better or worse, taken the reigns of our culture, though writing with a sharp, biting, and justified anger. Whether through BuzzFeed listicles, the hideous bloviating hatred of Reddit, or the mindless navel gazing of Facebook he understands the appeal and the costs of social media. There’s a reason, of course, the likes of Twitter or Reddit cannot, and in fact, have no desire to combat the festering pits of hatred that metastasize inside them- all content, every inflammatory flame war, death threat, hashtag generates money. There’s no incentive to ban the white supremacists, the MRAs, the “deplorables” any more than in promoting healthier alternatives- attention creates profit, and everyone is just feeding the machine. In the end, I hate the internet, in spite of its biting cynicism, is a refreshing and hilarious takedown of the technology that we were sorely lacking. Now, more than ever, the irreverent stance taken by Kobek in this novel may be just what we need to survive.

Angry Vonnegut snarls at tech. Brilliant aphoristic turns of phrase even if it isn't quite coherent.