Dylan Marron has published a book, filled with short essays, stemming from his already popular podcast. Conversations with Friends is a stark reminder that there are actual human beings behind the comments (both positive and negative) left on social media outlets. As an adult, raising children in the digital age, I loved the deep look that Marron has taken to discover not only who people are, but why they feel the way they feel and how that can relate to us. It’s easy to assume things about each other, particularly in today’s world, but Marron rips off the blinders and shows us the humane side of challenging conversations. While this is a different style of writing than I normally lean towards, it was worth the read.

A sincere thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

With each essay, Marron ushers his readers into the depths of life in a digital world and gently guides them into a conversation about compassion, information, access, and identity. It is his ability to dissect having an online presence between dealing with the vitriol and hatred that we often encounter to developing connections and fostering an environment of understanding and respect.

Dylan Marron continues what is a truly amazing podcast in this book. An intimate look at how we navigate the world and look at viewpoints that are, not only, against us - but actively wish us harm. Perhaps it's too exhausting to navigate that space for everyone, it certainly seems like it's exhausting for Marron, but Conversations with People Who Hate Me proves that sometimes its worth it. Even if those conversations just end up being fact finding missions, rather than bringing people over to a more pleasant state of being.

Dylan Marron, host of the podcast with the same name, has compiled some short essays in the book "Conversations with People Who Hate Me." In this book, Marron navigates his journey to reach out to those who leave hateful comments online to those they've never met. Rather than simply ignoring comments that have been left on his social media accounts, he decided to speak with the commenters to understand their motives.

I thought this was a really interesting book, and I enjoyed reading through these conversations. It's really true that talking things out can help, and it reminds us all that there are people on the other side of our screens. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book perfectly illustrates the modern-day use of the internet, hate comments, and the concept that people think that they’re safe to say whatever they want just because they’re hiding behind a screen.

It was definitely a thought-provoking read, though I did find that the book at times was uncomfortable to read, and parts of it felt straight out insensitive. I’m not entirely sure that those were the feelings that the author was trying to bring forward in the readers, but that was the effect it had on me.

This ARC was kindly provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I just can't get into this book. I keep trying, but it feels like a chore and life us just too short for all that. I'm not saying it's a bad book. It's just not for me for some unknown reason. I find myself unintentionally skimming parts of it and retaining nothing, so I go back and actually really read the parts that I skimmed and still retain nothing. It's not fair to me or the author. Maybe I will revisit it at a later time.

Dylan Marron took a terrific idea, turned into a brave and engaging podcast, and now, this amazing book. Marron does what we all dream of doing—bravely facing our detractors—and manages to have thoughtful, and, surprisingly, profoundly moving conversations with people who "hate him". The ubiquity of thoughtless hate on the internet led him to take this much more positive approach, and there are many meaningful lessons here. I especially loved how, when reconnecting with one particular participant again months after their conversation, Marron was able to see a significant change in their thought and behavior. I would guess this was not an anomaly. Before I read the book, I had listened to a couple of his podcasts, so some of the calls were familiar. Still, Marron reports these in such a compelling way that I was not tempted to jump ahead. I highly recommend the book and the podcasts—they give me hope that we can someday work ourselves out of this polarizing divide.

Moving and heartwarming, this book is exactly what I needed. Stories like this, about the common humanity that everyone shares, are timely and relevant now more than ever. Marron's prose occasionally left something to be desired, at least to me, but conceptually it was a wonderful book full of empathy and heart

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

I’ve been familiar for Dylan Marron for years, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of his work. This book was no exception. While it occasionally veers into something close to self-indulgent celebrity memoir territory, Conversations with People Who Hate Me ultimately has a lot more going on than that. Marron’s podcast has always fascinated me, and I loved learning more about its origins and the conclusions he’s reached from it. I also appreciated the compassionate, nuanced approach he took to discussing contentious issues and difficult conversations.

This book isn’t necessarily brilliant or groundbreaking. It certainly won’t be for everyone. But I found a lot of value in it, especially as someone who spends far too much time on the Internet, and I think that others likely will as well.

NOTE: while no part of this book describes these things in graphic detail, there are multiple mentions of various types of bigotry as well as hate crimes and sexual assault.

Thank you to Atria Books for an early copy of Conversations with People Who Hate Me in exchange for an honest review.

I had not heard of Dylan Marron before reading this book, and found the premise fascinating. He conducts a social experiment to hold conversations (not debates, nor attacks) with internet trolls. The book features these conversations, but also dissects the notion of internet hate and whether his approach was actually making a difference in making the internet a less hateful place. There was a lot of interesting analysis of why people choose to send hurtful messages to others, and he ponders such ideas as to whether showing empathy to his haters is equivalent to endorsing bad behavior. Overall, I enjoyed the concept, but parts of it were slow. I enjoyed Marron's humorous tidbits about his personal life scattered throughout each chapter.

I've been aware and a fan of Dylan Marron for a long time. As a long-time listener of Welcome to Night Vale, I was first introduced to Dylan as the voice of Carlos, then through his unboxing videos for Seriously,TV. As a subscriber to Conversations with People Who Hate Me, much of this book of the same name was repetitive, like a transcript of the podcast episodes rather than a companion to them. So, I may not be the ideal audience for this book. The promise in the book's description of helping readers navigate their own difficult conversations isn't quite kept, either, as the audience is encouraged to just "have the conversation" without any guidance beyond the anecdotes contained within the previous 12 chapters.
In the buy/borrow/bypass/burn rubric, this is a borrow for me. If you have little to no awareness of Dylan's work and in particular have not listened to CWPWHM, this may be an interesting starting point, where you can then listen to the episodes he cites in the book. But if, like me, you're already a fan and listener of the podcast, you probably won't discover much more than what you've already heard.

Veteran podcaster Dylan Marron decides to create a new podcast in which he has conversations with people who have sent him hate mail or left hateful posts on social media. But instead of experiencing the thrill of taking down morons who he can easily outwit, Marron finds an unexpected ability to get along with these people. He can't always change their minds about issues, but they do grudgingly (usually) see his point of view.

The podcast took place largely during the most divisive period in US history (a.k.a., the Trump presidency) when many people found themselves at odds with friends and relatives they'd gotten along with well enough for decades. How was that possible?

Marron discovered a lot about people, and about himself, through his podcast and writing this book about it. In fact, he was only able to complete the book (and maintain his sanity) by giving up social media altogether.

Although I would have laughed gleefully at a book full of snarky takedowns, which is what I'd anticipated, I appreciate this far more thoughtful treatment of the subject. I should review his lessons frequently, most especially today, a day in which I can't help hating a lot of people. #Conversationswithpeoplewhohateme #NetGalley

Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers by Dylan Marron is the story of the author's social experiment that he conducted in order to learn from the negative criticisms he received from online commenters. He invited these commenters to talk to him on the phone so that they could better understand and talk out their disagreements, and he learned that having these conversations is beneficial for both parties involved. He says, "One conversation will not heal the world. Empathy alone will not cure what ails us. Inspiring words will not protect us from harm. But in an era when we feel increasingly isolated, when we speak to each other on platforms that divide us by rewarding competition over connection, conversation is a tiny, enormous, mundane, epic, boring, thrilling, simple, complex act of rebellion that builds a bridge where there wasn't one before." I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I appreciate so much the author's honesty and thoughtfulness in his writing. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

Conversations With People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I Learned From Talking to Internet Strangers was one of my most highly anticipated reads of the year. I’ve been a fan of Dylan Marron since 2016 when he was a content creator with a social justice tilt, making unboxing videos that instead of unboxing products, unpacked topics like white privilege or police brutality. After the 2016 election, he began a podcast called Conversations With People Who Hate Me, which was a surprisingly earnest and refreshing part of the internet where he had conversations with his internet trolls.

This book takes us through this journey from making politically-minded content, to starting a podcast to evaluating the ways we interact on the internet—seeking clarity on a question I often find myself pondering, what is the best way to reach people who disagree with you? And is it a worthy use of one’s time?

The answer is, of course, complicated and nuanced and Dylan balances this discussion so well as he describes talking to his own detractors and then finally his journey towards moderating conversation between others. Through it all he adopts a mantra I find helpful, “Empathy is not endorsement,” meaning simply that to have empathy for someone, to see their humanity does not correlate to subscribing to or endorsing their beliefs. This is of course hard and again unique for everyone. Dylan does a great job of holding emotional space for the fact that having these conversations is not safe for everyone equally.

In listening to the podcast over the years I’ve tried to have my own conversations both in real life and on the internet. They have not always been successful by any means, but the act of trying and sometimes even reaching a small sliver of common ground has felt like both a small but somehow big step in the right direction. There have also been times when conversations haven’t gone well that have left me discouraged and wondering if it’s worth it to try, and in reading this book Dylan reminded me that conversations can bring hope.

Conversations With People Who Hate Mw is like a palate cleanser for this place we call the internet and is refreshing to the soul. Read it!

3.5 Stars.
Thank You, Net Galley, for the ARC of Conversations with People Who Hate Me. This is an exciting book about the authors' experiences with how people hate him. It is effortless to be a hater or envy, especially when anonymously.

This is an interesting retelling of how the author created a podcast to talk to his “Internet trolls” and how the project grew to include other difficult conversations. Some of the strategies can be used for other types or conversations we face in our lives, so it is interesting to read about what worked and what didn’t work for him.

I wanted so much more from this book - but just couldn't get passed the author's pompous and self centered narration. Did not finish.

My phone's photo album is currently dominated by screenshots of pages from this book: there was so much here I wanted to save to re-engage with later! As I read, I itched to have a hard copy and a pencil in my hand - there was so much it was sparking for me, so many questions and reactions and !!!!s.

Given the above, it should go without saying that this book is a powerful thought-starter. I was fascinated by Marron's evolution - from conceiving of online debate as a game you win or lose, to starting to cope with virtual hate slung his way by imagining touchingly human narratives about his 'trolls', to questioning whether 'trolls' is maybe not the right term at all, to wondering whether he's been going about things the wrong way. I particularly loved this summation: "My videos alone were never going to sufficiently evangelize progressive ideas ... Was I simply enjoying the reverberations of virality in my own little echo chamber, thinking that. was slaying Goliath when I was simply cosplaying battle reenactments with my fellow self-identified Davids?" (Yes, this book is also, at times, laugh-out-loud funny.)

From there, the real excitement begins: he starts to engage - civilly, curiously, sans any persuasive agenda - with individuals he plucks from his 'HATE FOLDER' (which, spoiler alert, he rethinks the name of down the line) and invites to connect. These stories - wow - I was on the edge of my seat. And this isn't Chicken Soup for the Soul; not all of them go well - in fact, some of them go really badly, and not just for him but for other folks he invites into the conversations once he decides to take more of a mediator role. (One, in particular, was a punch to the gut.) Through it all, Marron keeps questioning his own assumptions, acknowledging his mistakes, and trying to do better.

My favorite part, if I had to choose: his careful consideration about whether engaging and empathizing with people who believe things that are deeply harmful is implicitly validating or endorsing those beliefs. I've been wrestling with this myself, and it's often prevented me from engaging in conversations that, maybe, could have been worthwhile. I loved his analogy: people are the trees, ideologies are the forest, and it's crucial to not lose sight of either.

I would recommend this book to anyone who senses that polarization is a race to the bottom, but isn't quite sure what to do about it. I will be thinking about this book for a very long time

I very much appreciate Dylan Marron for inventing his own kind of podcast (a conversation rather than a debate, which he frequently touches upon). His social experiment was successful in that it generated thoughtful interaction between two different people - or so you would think, considering the majority of Marron's guests ultimately found similarities with each other.

My first foray into Marron's work was during his time on the popular sci-fi podcast Welcome to Nightvale, where he played Carlos, the main character's love interest and eventual husband. Following his work there, Marron laid out the history of his time at Seriously.tv and his obsession with creating viral, humorous content. Thus began a new obsession of keeping track of all of his "hate mail" as a result of said online content. This HATE FOLDER evolves into conversations between Marron and his detractors and, eventually, conversations between others and their "trolls." Marron shares some truly profound interactions that he experienced in these conversations, and these interactions are what truly make the book (while the history behind his thinking is fascinating, it can be tedious at times).

I will end this review with the quote that most stuck out to me in this book: "These phone calls have been teaching me the value of distinguishing between the system and the individual, the big and the small, the person and the hate." This is something that I will keep in mind going forward in interactions both in person and online.

NetGalley ARC | As a public figure and podcaster, Marron creates a podcast where he has conversations with the people that hate him.

If you are looking for “12 things learned” as the subtitle implies, you may be sorely disappointed.

The book is formatted in stories about each of his guests that most impact his thought process.

Although there are a few solid takeaways, the style and - at times - the tedious narrative just didn’t work for us.

We also found the interview and seeming exploitation of a woman who was raped and the person who left her mean comments distasteful.

The premise sounded interesting but the execution was all wrong. This one left a bad taste in our mouths.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for a free advanced copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Read our full review under March 2022 book releases on The Uncorked Librarian here: https://www.theuncorkedlibrarian.com/upcoming-new-book-releases-2022/