This book focuses on one situation that is unfortunately not as uncommon as one might hope. A student at a small school in Albany, California, started a private Instagram account that became a platform for hateful and racist memes. Some of these memes specifically targeted students at that same school. After the account was discovered by other students, the fallout was intense and lasting. In brief chapters that reflect hundreds of hours of interviews and research, Slater recounts the whole affair.Â
It raises a lot of questions you wish could only exist in hypotheticals. How do you go to school and do well in your classes when you know classmates have seen a meme of you with a noose around your neck? What if you followed the account because of an invitation but never engaged with the content? What kind of recompense is owed to the targets of online posts they were never supposed to see? Do you double tap that heart without really seeing what you’re liking? How do you move on from an embittered social and legal situation that has defined years of your young life? These are just some of the questions this book addresses. Â
Slater provides a thoughtful and nuanced accounting of the events in question. The chapters are very short and engaging, the book is thoroughly researched, and the story itself is very much worth examining. I would highly recommend this for teens AND adults that either work with and/or parent teens.Â