I was hoping this was going to be a book about the evolution of language, what I got was Strunk and White for the Internet age. Which seems bizarre, as internet slang is all about breaking every rule, setting fire to the rulebook, and dancing in the ashes. Not to mention that being at the speed of real-time, Internet fads and slang have the shelf life of raw beef. I’m pretty sure three slang terms were created and deemed passé since I started this paragraph.
The irony of a printed style guide for Internet writing notwithstanding, this is pretty much what you’d expect from an informational guide assembled by buzzfeed, for better or worse. It’s irreverent, distracted, fun, and something you forget about shortly after reading. This seems like it was written to be on the “cool teacher’s” syllabus to show that they get youth culture. It’s the equivalent of Steve buscemi in 30 Rock posing as a teenager; you’re not fooling anyone by dressing a textbook in emoji, and you’re not going to teach anyone who cares about language anything they couldn’t get from a style guide or google.
I will of course concede that I am no longer in my 20s, but this is less a “get off my lawn” review as it is one skeptical that a book like this should exist, much less in print. The people who could use it won’t read it, and the people who would be interested have moved on.
Also? Who versus whom? Not that hard.