A fun and provocative book. Reminiscent of So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson. This is a light-hearted look at online outrage, and cancel culture, with a strong resonant and rallying cry that we put our outrage to better use than shitposting on Twitter. Armchair activists are, almost by definition, still sat on their arses after all. But most of the rage online isn't real. People are hellbent on taking offence at every opportunity both real and imagined. Telling trolls to do something constructive with their time is a bit like telling the school bully to play nice with other children. That said, I'm all for spending your time more productively. That's why I'm writing book reviews instead of responding to people on Twitter. *resists urge to check phone*

Funny, informative and current: I listened to this book in one go and have recommended it to countless customers! I keep telling every single person who gets frustrated with twitter and internet culture that this is THE must read: not only it gives voice to something we all feel but can't quite articulate; it helps us find a better way to use social media and the collective outrage so that we can actually make a positive change. A gem of a short book!

I listened to the audiobook of Outraged. Despite being a short book, it really packs a punch. It explores the concept of outrage and why it is important that we channel our outrage towards the things that really matter, rather than wasting our energy by shouting about anything and everything. A thought-provoking read.

SUPRERB. Brilliantly and thought provoking. This wasn't just an eye-catching title with a few wise statements, there was real depth and analysis and brilliant reflections on society. 5 star read and recommendation.

These days (a phrase that suggests an oldie harping back to a non-existent golden era!) it seems outrage is being commercialised. Clickbait use targeted headlines to raise the emotions - emotional topics are more likely to be shared, and get more eyes on those all important ads. But this has always been the case - Fleet Street had the rule, "If it bleeds, it leads" long before the internet - outrage sold newspapers too.

Dotty makes good points that if people get outraged over everything, events that merit genuine outrage will be diluted or lost in the noise. The problem is that outrage generates clicks and follows, important for influencers and media companies, so the emphasis for change isn't on the content creators, it's on us, the content users, to define our own criteria on what's important, what justifies outrage, on what should be shared.

I felt the book was pretty well balanced, but Rachel Dolezal's inclusion was too long, and, for me, off topic. She scammed her way into jobs and positions of trust on a lie - a white girl pretended she was black. Dotty argued that 10 million Americans changed their race category in the last census so Dolezal wasn't unique in identifying as a different race, but it's one thing to change from "Black" to "African American", and a whole other thing to change from "White" to "Black".

My final point is that Dotty claims this outrage is vast, but outrage is limited to certain mediums, i.e. Twitter. Yep, Dolezal hit the tabloids and Twittersphere for days, but serious newspapers with serious themes and a serious audience, gave it less credit - they reported the facts and moved on. Part of the problem is that Dotty is immersed in outrage, she seeks out those videos, she responds to tweets from Piers Morgan or Katie Hopkins, so she will see more outrage and fuel more outrage than people who don't.

I left the book feeling that Dotty keeps standing in the swamp, keeps returning to the swamp, and then complains about being in a swamp...

I found this really engaging. Charles is a good narrator of her own work: she’s passionate and articulate.
This meditation on the rise of outrage in the social media age is is like listening to an extended or long-read article.
It’s clear you’re listening to a journalist: part of the pleasure of listening to it is that the writing is compelling as well as the content.
In fact, it’s perfectly possible that this could have been condensed into an article but the interviews - including with Rachel Dolezal who was exposed as pretending be black and with provoker of outrage Katie Hopkins - do give it balance/ hearing the other side of the story.
This did get me thinking, especially about the place of outrage, whether it’s just fanning the flames of people like Hopkins, and if ‘clicktivism’ is a way of making us feel we’ve taken action from the ease and safety of our Twitter account.
My only hesitation would be that it feels a little slight - think novella rather than novel.
Recommended if you’re interested in the you and will enjoy a book that takes the existing journalism a step further.

An interesting and topical book on why getting into arguments on Twitter over every bad opinion out there isn't all that productive in effecting change. I think we can all get addicted and in turn exhausted by drama on Twitter, revelling in a well crafted and witty call out of an obviously bad person and feeding the monster that is Twitter, who undoubtedly don't care what's being argued about on their platform but that everyone is tweeting about it. Outraged is a book for people who are sick of arguments online and want to find a way to translate this energy to direct action. How focusing on the mistakes of one person can take attention away from larger issues that are being swept under the rug.

I do feel like I've heard the same point in youtube video essays on cancel culture, some I think did a better job on the topic. It's a small book that I don't think dives as deep as I wanted into the topic even if I liked the points she brought up. In fact, for such a small book it felt very padded out by the two big interviews she did with Rachel Dolezal and Katie Hopkins. I enjoyed her talk with Stephanie Yeboah a lot more and felt that conversation brought a lot more productive thoughts to the table. The jokes were very hit and miss for me and felt clunky to read. The most useful takeaway from this is her conversation with stop funding hate, a group that pressure big companies to pull their ads from news outlets that promote hate. It showed a very useful way that online outrage can be harnessed to achieve real outcomes and financially impact those who profit from hate.

Overall, an interesting read on a topic I like reading about but left me wanting more analysis and not just the author's YouTube rabbit hole.

Thanks to Bloomsbury for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Dotty had me laughing out loud on several occasions - she is the perfect narrator for her own book. You really get a sense for what she is saying; the humour, the irony, the frustration and the subtleties all come across so well. To add to this Dotty really has a way with words. I particularly enjoy non-fiction that can competently balance engaging and charismatic prose with facts and figures. For me, Dotty achieved this - and she has some cracking one-liners to boot!

The reason I have given this a three star rating despite these assets is that there were still a few elements that didn't work for me. There almost didn't seem to be enough research for a whole book, and it's only short as it is. Consequently, there were a number of observations made by Dotty which felt inconclusive. This said, I don't believe she should be unable to pose a question if she doesn't have an answer - how would we get anywhere in life if that were the case? And as Dotty says herself, not everything is black and white. But for a researched piece, there were just slightly too many observations that didn't seem to conclude relevantly to her explorations.

However, my favourite element of the book was Dotty's razor sharp observations on social media culture. For this alone the book is worth reading. Few people live without social media and therefore this book is relevant to everybody. And yes, whether we are aware of it or not, we all exhibit outrage in responses to the world and people around us, so again, this is a perspective everyone should read.

Well I feel seen. Charles's short book (extended essay? monograph?) is a callout to all of us who spend too much time getting angry on social media. Why do we do it? Mainly for us, not so much to affect any real change. She argues convincingly that the value of outrage has plummeted as we have sacrificed the practical in favour of the performative. It's easy, it's addictive and it's corrosive, because while the consequences might be devastating for relatively powerless individuals, it's incredibly easy for the powerful to shrug off, because ultimately everyone will move on to the next novel outrage (it's more or less the explicit strategy of the current UK government).

Timely, well-argued and uncomfortable.

I hugely enjoyed most of this book. Charles is a brilliant narrator - instantly likeable, fun, and good at switching to different cadences for her interview subjects. Her interview with Katie Hopkins was one of the highlights for me - despite the voice staying the same, I could really imagine Hopkins saying the words she was quoted as saying, and Charles gave as balanced a view of Hopkins as she reasonably could.

Charles's writing also has flair, with plenty of irreverent metaphors and memorable phrases. I can see why Jon Ronson's provided praise - there's a definite flavour of 'So You've Been Publicly Shamed' here.

However, I can only give three stars, for two main reasons:
1) It's really short. Quite a bit shorter than I'm used to for nonfiction. Could've definitely been expanded.
2) Charles could have chosen a far more sensitive example of jumping on the bandwagon than the Charlie Hebdo slaughter/"Je suis Charlie" hashtag. She spent much more time talking about what was problematic with Charlie Hebdo than the fact that the Charlie Hebdo employees were shot. To death. She ends this case study of hers with the question "did they have to insult Muslims?". Hmm, probably not, but using that question as the last word implies she finds more wrong with "Je suis Charlie" than actual mass murder.

A few other important critiques: at one point, Charles suggests that companies increase profits when they make accidental/deliberate faux-pas, citing profit increases for a number of companies such as GAP. However, correlation does not mean causality. There's no mention of whether the author compared her example companies with competitors; maybe under the growth paradigm, companies generally do increase their profits on an annual basis? It's a case of half-finished analysis.
Finally, when the author lists a number of causes she clearly doesn't consider worthy of the outrage they are built on, she includes the Extinction Rebellion movement and campaigners wanting to ban boiling lobsters alive. I would counter that the only rationale response to climate breakdown and boiling sentient animals alive IS outrage.

(With thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review)

An insightful, thought-provoking, funny and self-depricating look at social media and what has become a culture of outrage, entertainingly narrated by the author. It's all too easy to (re)tweet a comment or sign a petition without fully understanding the ramifications and the issues at stake. Small issues can be blown into huge controversies which then disapper as quickly, whilst important issues, more worthy of our time and energy, remain relatively unnnoticed. The author examines real-life examples in depth to investigates the growth of this culture, the unexpected effects and the winners and losers.

“Make outrage great again” is the theme that runs through this book. Ashley ‘Dotty’ Charles looks at the trend in social media over the last few years for topics which have very little impact on our lives to become huge controversies. With people expending much energy and emotion on subjects that will blow over in a matter of days - or once the next twitter storm arrives.

The author examines various incidents in depth and interviews the people involved before coming to the conclusion that if we put our collective energies into the things that really mattered we could effect great change in the world.

I particularly liked that the author also provided the narrator for the book as her passion for the subject was contagious. Engaging and humorous, this is a fascinating introduction into the subject of online outrage which would be a great read for anyone who regularly uses social media or with an interest in sociology.