We Are the Nerds

July 16, 2018
Reddit, a social news aggregation and discussion website that brands itself as “the front page of the internet,” is as varied, fun, vile, and tedious as the rest of the web, according to this scattershot business history. Inc. journalist Lagorio-Chafkin recounts the founding of Reddit in 2005 by pals Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian; helping out was Aaron Swartz, a 20-year-old eccentric programmer (at one point he was on an all-Cheerios diet) and “open access” advocate who later committed suicide in 2013 after being indicted for computer fraud. The book’s central theme is the tension between Reddit as populist platform that lets its users control the discourse by upvoting their favorite links, exploring their every whimsical interest (and, in some corners, wallowing in porn and racist memes), and Reddit as new-media juggernaut that struggles to profit off its users’ activity—in part by muzzling its less presentable voices. Despite Reddit’s potential as a case study in the clash between cultural values and business values on the internet, Lagorio-Chafkin’s bloated narrative bogs down in turgid office politics as Reddit cycles through staffers and CEOs with little growth beyond the swelling site traffic. The resulting soap opera about corporate nerds isn’t convincing enough to hold attention.

September 1, 2018
The messy business of tech culture as seen through the threads and histrionics of Reddit.Noted technology journalist and Inc. senior writer Lagorio-Chafkin diligently peels back the layered, tumultuous history of controversial web startup Reddit, which began as a discussion board platform envisioned as "the front page of the Internet." The author began writing about the online sensation in 2011 after meeting with Reddit's co-founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, friends who met and instantly bonded at the University of Virginia in 2001. Unsure her project's material would be sufficient for a full-length book, Lagorio-Chafkin amassed a stockpile of firsthand information from scores of interviews with current and former employees, leaked chat logs, and other sources. This surfeit of detail becomes more problematic after the author establishes the tech company's early origins and "wondrous traffic beast" growth, spurred by Huffman and Ohanian's keen development of the Reddit theoretical framework alongside Aaron Swartz, a "hacker prodigy with a libertarian bent and a flair for the dramatic." Once Condé Nast's 2006 acquisition of the site made young millionaires of the trio, their relationships with each other and with the industry changed. Ohanian's mother's death in 2008 radically shifted his perspective. A few years later, Huffman handed over his CEO post to a successor, and Swartz committed suicide after being charged in an MIT wire fraud scandal. More leadership shake-ups would occur within the Reddit executive echelon before both originators returned to the company in 2015 after changes had been made to detoxify the site's much-abused "user anonymity and almost-anything-goes content policy." Lagorio-Chafkin captures the ensuing vortex of tech-nerd office politics with a novelistic flair, but her verbosity hijacks some of the excitement of the site's rise to prominence. Still, die-hard Reddit fans and readers dazzled by the machinations of the technology and web development business will enjoy the hijinks.A readable, melodramatic treatment of the ascent of a popular internet startup.

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October 1, 2018

Journalist Lagorio-Chafkin (Inc. magazine) relates the story thus far of Reddit, the popular social sharing and discussion website, primarily through the perspective of its cofounders. The author describes the initial odd couple partnership between the programming wiz Steve Huffman and outgoing idea man Alexis Ohanian, the site's rise from obscurity at the Y Combinator tech incubator, the eventual estrangement and departure of founders, questions of how to profit from a website, and the triumphant return of the creators to save the site. Though some of the history has already been told by Ohanian (Without Their Permission) and onetime CEO Ellen Pao (Reset), Lagorio-Chafkin's access to Huffman and Ohanian provides continuity. On a site where anonymity and freedom of speech are paramount, there is inevitable tension between the community-building potential and the trolling and abuse that can grow in such an environment. Content and behavior policies have developed over the years as the company matured and tamed or excised some of the site's seedier elements. VERDICT Recommended for Reddit users and those curious about the social and business aspects of Internet free speech.--Wade Lee-Smith, Univ. of Toledo Lib.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2018
How did Reddit, a social news and discussion website known for stunts, nerdy in-jokes, massive acts of charity, and the web's darkest and most perverse content get to be the sixth most trafficked website in the world? Lagorio-Chafkin, a writer for Inc. magazine, covers the whole story in this meticulous and even-handed examination of one of Silicon Valley's most controversial and consequential successes. Founded by University of Virginia roommates Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005 through the Harvard startup incubator Y Combinator, the site had a meteoric rise and was sold just over a year later to Cond� Nast for $10 million. The author chronicles the company's public and behind-the-scenes struggles to rein in the site's unruly community, whose anything goes ethos begat popular features like Ask Me Anything but also rampant misogyny, racism, and malicious trolling?all of which peaked during the 2016 presidential campaign. Capturing Reddit at its best (like its philanthropic offshoot Reddit Gifts) and worst (the noxious troll Violentacrez), the book works as a portrait of both internet culture and a startup-turned-phenomenon reckoning with success.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)