crabbygirl reviewed Too Famous by Michael Wolff
Review of 'Too Famous' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
The introduction was the best part: hypothesising that being famous (once an upper middle class pursuit) had been democratised with the invention of social media, that there were many more famous people today, albeit famous in their little fiefdoms. And then Wolff goes on to prove that point when he titles many of his following chapters with the first names of people who I didn't know a thing about - nor care.
Most of the pieces are circa 2000 to 2015. He dropped off the face of the earth after Trump was elected, only to write numerous scathing books about him (full disclosure, I've read none of them). The 2020 pieces seem to come from an Audible book which is not the same animal as 1) a commissioned magazine article or 2) a published book. I would assume that he has no further connections to the famous, political or celebrity, …
The introduction was the best part: hypothesising that being famous (once an upper middle class pursuit) had been democratised with the invention of social media, that there were many more famous people today, albeit famous in their little fiefdoms. And then Wolff goes on to prove that point when he titles many of his following chapters with the first names of people who I didn't know a thing about - nor care.
Most of the pieces are circa 2000 to 2015. He dropped off the face of the earth after Trump was elected, only to write numerous scathing books about him (full disclosure, I've read none of them). The 2020 pieces seem to come from an Audible book which is not the same animal as 1) a commissioned magazine article or 2) a published book. I would assume that he has no further connections to the famous, political or celebrity, as he's probably burned all his bridges. Calling people fat and/or old as a supreme insult would land him the title of 'bitchy' if he'd been a woman. (As an aside, I wonder if his success writing about Trump can be more attributed to people's loathing of Trump than any sort of trust or talent in him)
Mostly this book was a confirmation of things I read about Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc and Freddie DeBoer's substack: the pre-internet media hedonism days, and the brief period (now over) when the media crowned the next presidential candidate based on his likeability and other factors they invented and reported.