Taylor Lorenz on her extremely online history of the internet
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When Taylor Lorenz turned in the draft of her new book, Extremely Online, she found that she had written 60,000 words on the history Vine.
“My editor was like, what the hell,” she says, laughing. Lorenz’s incisive commentary on the app’s rise and fall captures the fundamental tension between social platforms and the creators they rely on — a dynamic that been a central focus of her reporting over the past decade. “Vine was TikTok before TikTok,” Lorenz writes. “In 2014, Vine owned the market despite challenges from multiple rivals. The company’s only problem was itself.”
It would not be the last social...