How Taylor Lorenz went from Tumblr queen to internet historian

“I do think that we're going to continue to live in a very personality-driven media ecosystem for a long time,” she says of her new book, ‘Extremely Online.’

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

It always comes back to Tumblr. —Kate

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Photo credit: Brian Treitler

My fondest memories on the internet have been lost in the rubble of collapsed servers and expired domains. In fact, so much of the internet that paved the way to where we are now is all but inaccessible, despite being so crucial to understanding how we got here—and, perhaps most importantly, how we get out of it. But luckily, Taylor Lorenz took on this necessary archival work in her new book, Extremely Online.

Out now, Extremely Online is a thorough history of the internet’s key platforms, with their respective power users properly contextualized as the trailblazers they were—a respect many of them only received in hindsight. At the time, the internet was of little interest to the mainstream media and more traditional entertainment figures, which meant the day-to-day activities of its users were not seen as important. Now, however, we know they built the groundwork for an entire industry. 

Internet nostalgia is so potent because of the web’s instability: Those who grew up online have no assurance that the platforms of their youth will later be there for them to look back on. I’ve found the best way of holding onto it is simply talking with people who share this digital history. That’s why this conversation with Lorenz was so validating to have, and why her book is such a gratifying read.

“I think anyone will read it and be able to see themselves [in it], especially millennials or younger,” she told me in our call. “You can read it and you remember.”

In this interview for paid subscribers, Lorenz and I talk about how she was able to dig up all this internet history, how users have the power to change the internet’s future, and her own history as an extremely online teen. 

The first thing that came to mind when I was reading your book was how so much of the internet that you're writing about is really not accessible anymore. How difficult was it to find these early internet artifacts?