28: Book Review 11: Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
In this collection of essays‒curated as if Tolentino tapped into our collective post-millennial, chronically online, American social disarray‒we are squared up with a “black mirror” of sorts. Through the looking glass, we are taken on a journey to attempt to understand and navigate increasing political dissolution, self-commodification, and inhuman optimization in an era of influencers, monopsonies, and the dissolution of community.
“The con is in the DNA of this country, which is founded on the idea that if it is good, important, and even noble, to seek an opportunity to profit and take whatever you can.”
The subtitle of this book is “reflections on self delusion”, which frames how Tolentino, with a tone of critical self-awareness, dives deep into American culture and the myths that are perpetuated blindly, dissecting them down to questionable motives or, frankly, ugly origins.
Her writing comes off as honestly as it can, often trying to bring together discourse in ways that challenge an existing status quo with histories, buried perspectives, or refreshingly new takes that put a finger on some cultural shift that was previously unnamable. Tolentino gets academic, but also brings in anecdotes of her own to add to, challenge, or stir nuance into her assertions on contemporary American life.
“Fyre fest sailed down scam mountain with all the accumulating force and velocity of a cultural shift that had over the previous decade, subtly, but permanently, changed the character of a nation. Making scamming, the abuse of trust for profit, seem simply like the way things were going to be. It came after the election of Donald Trump, an incontrovertible, humiliating vindication of scamming as the quintessential American ethos. It came after a big smiling wave of feminist initiatives as female entrepreneurs had convincingly framed wealth acquisition as progressive politics. It came after the rise of companies like Uber and Amazon, which broke apart the economy, and then sold it a cheap ride to the duct tape store, all while promising to make the world a better and more convenient place. It came after the advent of reality tv and Facebook, which drew on the renewable natural resource of our narcissism to create a world where ourselves, our relationships, and our personalities were not just monetizable, but actively in need of monetization. It came after college tuition skyrocketed, only to send graduates into low-wage contract work in world-historical economic inequality. It came, finally, after the 2008 financial crisis, the event that arguably kick-started the millennial era, understanding that the quickest way to win is to scam.”
“Trick Mirror” is the type of book to make you gasp, laugh, and gape in realizations. You will enjoy this essay collection if you liked pieces of a similar genre, like “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” by Joan Didion, “I Like to Watch” by Emily Nussbaum, or “Intimations” by Zadie Smith.
Thanks for reading, and if you want to be friends on Goodreads, add me @groovygab! Feel free to comment below if you have any similar book recs or anything you’d like to add!
Page numbers are missing from quotes because I listened on audiobook, transcribing as I went to the best of my ability, forgive the lack of proper citation.
