Review: Must-read Social Media Satire

★★★★★

Jesse Sutanto’s searing satirical crime novel is set in LA among the world of TikTok and Instagram influencers who are all desperate to be skinny, beautiful, and have millions of followers no matter what their online “niche” is.  Not just any kind of skinny, mind you, but “LA skinny.”

Successful influencer and gifted schmoozer Meredith, whose super power is making people like her, was offering “beauty and fashion advice with sass” until her fan-protégée Aspen led her into “momfluencing.”  That’s content aimed at mothers of all ages to show how their lives can be fabulous and efficient at the same time. It seems like a deliciously inventive, smooth road that all-too-soon turns rocky.

Aspen was struggling hard until she met Meredith in person. She’s got three kids, one of whom has diabetes; no insurance; and a resentful, low-earning husband. As she puts it, she feels “like I’m on a hamster wheel, needing to come up with nonstop content to feed the perpetually hungry social media machine. But my family, spoiled by my success, had no idea how I was breaking my back to earn as much as I could for their sake.” 

Originally, Aspen only had a measly five thousand measly followers. Under Meredith’s canny guidance about “looks” and content, Aspen soon outpaces her mentor and her numbers blow up. But major success is a torment because it’s absolutely voracious–it makes her hungrier for more, more, more.  She’s increasingly desperate to churn out video and photos of her home and family to show how perfect her life is.

And pretty soon, the All About Eve bell starts to ring as the two women’s friendship goes downhill–and takes a wonderfully bizarre and vicious detour halfway through the book.

Dealing with racism and greed in subtle ways, the novel is alternately hilarious and chilling, an indictment of social media fakery and emptiness. I read it straight through, laughing on many pages, appalled on others, and transfixed by the author’s keen eye for detail and paradox.  She’s also given her dual narrators, Meredith and Aspen, pitch-perfect voices–and that extends to all of the minor characters too, including the kids.

Sutanto excels at hitting readers with the unexpected, and there are several jaw-dropping twists near the end along with what feels like a super-subtle reference to Sharon Stone’s Diabolique.  And then there’s the ever-delightful satire of LA:

“LA is full of wannabes.  It is weary of wannabes.  Its skin has been hardened by cynicism (and Botox), and it has no time for wannabes.”  And it’s “the land of over-the-top emotions.  When it comes to emoting here, you’ve got to go big and fake, or go home.”

I don’t dog-ear books, but I did find myself putting Post-its on page after page and even reading memorable passages to my spouse, like one about a picture-perfect dinner Asp[en cooks that is a total, tasteless sham. 

You Will Never Be Me can be seen as a beach read, but that doesn’t do it justice.  Sutanto’s thrilling, electrifying novel is an evisceration of how social media oppresses and intimidates far too many people and can ruin their lives when it’s ostensibly doing the very opposite. It’s also a fast-paced and thrilling story of narcissistic friendship and betrayal. 

I bloody love this book.

Lev Raphael is the former crime fiction reviewer for The Detroit Free Press and has reviewed for The Washington Post as well as several Michigan radio stations, one of which aired his interview show. His guests there included Doris Kearns Goodwin, Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, and Erica Jong.

Writers: Don’t Get Trapped By Social Media

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For the last few years, at every writers’ conference I’ve attended, the hottest topic has been social media.  Writers crowd these sessions like medieval pilgrims seeking miracles at a shrine. They seem convinced that with just the right piece of information, they can use social media to promote themselves into writing stardom.

Any why shouldn’t they be? Session after session, book after book, writing blog after writing blog all seem to promise that if you figure out the way to use Twitter or Goodreads or Tumblr or Instagram or Facebook or Amazon algorithms and SEO you’ll hit the jackpot.  Just read X’s blog or book and see how she did it…… Your books will be in the Top 100, you’ll have tens of thousands of followers and customers–if not more.  Hell, you might even develop your own lifestyle brand.  You won’t just have a platform, you’ll have a ziggurat.

But it’s not possible for every writer to score big, is it?  And just like all the other other promotional fads of recent years–like blog tours and Skyping to book groups–this heavy focus on social media might end up wasting an author’s time.

Americans love quick fixes and snake oil, they always have.  It’s not surprising, then, that so many writers are following what’s going to be a false lead for most of them.  It’s really tempting to imagine yourself just a hashtag away from fortune and fame.

Writing is intensely competitive. It’s hard to have a writing career of any kind and not compare yourself to other writers–that’s endemic in the business.  You’ll always find  someone else selling more books, appearing at more venues, winning more prizes, making more money than you are, getting better reviews (deserved or not). But things have only gotten worse now that publishing is easier, and more and more people just like you, it seems, are getting rich because they have the secret.

According to the New York Times, “A small but growing body of evidence suggests that excessive social media use can lead to an unhealthy fixation on how one is perceived and an obsessive competitiveness.” We writers have enough ways to make ourselves miserable without even getting out of bed–hell, some of us probably can do that in our sleep. Honestly, who needs more help?

Do you feel pressured as a writer to be engaged with social media? How do you deal with the pressure?

Lev Raphael is the author of 25 books in genres from memoir to mystery to historical fiction–and beyond. His web site is levraphael.com and you can find his books on Amazon.

Instagram Authors?

The New York Times recently reported that fashion designers like Jason Wu and Diane von Furstenberg are turning to Instagram for inspiration and to take the pulse of their fans.  They monitor where and how fans are wearing their designs and also poll fans for opinions and suggestions for their work.

The iPhone app is apparently “generating 25 times the level of engagement of other social media platforms.”  So when will publishers start pushing their authors to switch to this hot new social medium that’s outpacing Facebook and Twitter?

Think of the possibilities!  Authors could find out where and when fans are reading their books.  They could post and enhance photos of themselves on tour and at work. They could post images of how they imagine their characters, seek advice about book covers, and generally engage with their fans 25 times more than they do already on any other social medium and have their photos instantly posted to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Posterous and Tumblr.

Every aspect of their lives, from morning to night, could be photographed and commented on.  Best of all, the Instagram community doesn’t seem to generate the kind of snark other platforms do.

And if they plunged into the new, new thing, they could also catch up with the shifting social media landscape, discovering why Instagram is so hot, why Facebook acquired it for one billion dollars, and why it has this stellar track record, as Kelly Lux reports on her blog:

  • Launched on October 6, 2010
  • #1 in the App Store within 24 hours of launch
  • iPhone App of the Week
  • Holds the record as quickest to reach 1 million downloads, occurring on December 21, 2010
  • Launched 7 new languages
  • An Instagram photo made the cover of the Wall Street Journal
  • Surpassed 25 million users in early March, 2012

The possibilities for authors and their fans are endless, and publishers will no doubt be relentless in chasing after the next Holy Grail of PR.

If they’re not doing so already.