Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.Įveryone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). For the unwoke among us, Ramsey thoughtfully includes “Franchesca’s Simple Explanations of Not-So-Simple Concepts,” a “social-justice glossary” that includes definitions of such terms as “gender binary,” “cisgender,” “Latinx,” and “Slacktivism.”Īn admirable exploration of the rapidly morphing boundaries of social mores and online outrage the author helpfully points the way toward better communication. “I know the exact date I went from being a nobody, minding my own business in my corporate retail job,” she writes, “to being ‘internet famous’-and inadvertently making a lot of girls cry.” That moment came after she posted a video, “Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls,” which went “super-massive, mainstream-news viral.” Ramsey’s narrative is a snappy mix of the funny, sad, and horrifying incidents that have shaped her life, many of which demonstrate lessons that can apply to a wide variety of modern-day readers. Ramsey was an early fan of YouTube and began making videos for fun. By high school, she had purchased her own domain name and began blogging. I basically grew up online.” She built her first website while still in middle school. Early on she admits that she is a product of social media: “I have a long and complicated history with the internet. With a program in the works with Comedy Central, the author offers her story as an illustration of why, in today’s overheated social and political environment, it is more important than ever to pay close attention to how we communicate with each other. Ramsey has a solid media platform: A comedian, actress, and blogger, she was a writer and correspondent for the Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore and has been featured on NPR, the BBC, and Anderson Cooper 360. With sharp humor and her trademark candor, Ramsey shows readers we can have tough conversations that move the dialogue forward, rather than backward, if we just approach them in the right way.The host of MTV’s web series Decoded chronicles her difficulties navigating the early days of social media and her evolution as an advocate for social justice. Well, that Escalated Quickly includes Ramsey's advice on dealing with internet trolls and low-key racists, confessions about being a former online hater herself, and her personal hits and misses in activist debates with everyone from bigoted Facebook friends and misguided relatives to mainstream celebrities and YouTube influencers. In her first book, Ramsey uses her own experiences as an accidental activist to explore the many ways we communicate with each other-from the highs of bridging gaps and making connections to the many pitfalls that accompany talking about race, power, sexuality, and gender in an unpredictable public space.the internet. After a crash course in social justice and more than a few foot-in-mouth moments, she realized she had a unique talent and passion for breaking down injustice in America in ways that could make people listen and engage. ![]() Faced with an avalanche of media requests, fan letters, and hate mail, she had two choices: Jump in and make her voice heard or step back and let others frame the conversation. ![]() But then her YouTube video "What White Girls Say. Or a commentator on identity, race, and culture, really. ![]() A sharp and timely exploration of race, online activism, and real communication in the age of social media rants, trolls, and call-out wars, from veteran video blogger and star of MTV's Decoded Franchesca Ramsey.įranchesca Ramsey didn't set out to be an activist.
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