Book Review: The List (2023)
The List, by Yomi Adegoke, is one of those books were it takes a while to process what you have read. The List follows the lives of Ola and Michael, two black-British social media personalities that are the epitome of #CoupleGoals. Their extravagant wedding is only 4-weeks away but plans are quickly derailed when an anonymous Google Doc is published on Twitter publicly naming dozens of men accused of sexual abuse of varying degrees.
Michael is named on the list and is accused of assault and harassment. Named amongst high profile celebrities including footballers, rappers and high profile media types, feminist journalist Ola has a decision to make, does she believe Michael or the girl who submitted his name?
The balancing act
Yomi the story from both Ola and Michaels’s perspective, we hear their worries, concerns and deepest secrets that influence the mind of the reader. The relevancy of this book is stark and it made me question my own behaviour and attitudes regarding internet culture, the woke agenda and modern life. For me to hash out my own feelings, I am going to break down each of these themes and offer my critique of the book and how it shaped my thinking.
Internet culture
As a 27 year old female, I am beginning to feel very bleak about internet culture, the negative environment it creates and opinion vacuum it fosters. Everyone has an opinion and once the bandwagon gets going there is no stopping it. In The List, Adegoke shows us how the anonymity of the internet can cause real world problems, even death and can largely go unpunished. Michael saw first hand how it is a lawless place that left him feeling helpless, alone and vulnerable. Michael was cancelled online and offline, his online community shunned him and his very real job let him go to not risk bad PR.
The woke agenda
Ola’s boss Frankie is the epitome of “wokeness”, she celebrates diversity, equality and female empowerment especially when it generates clicks and capital for her online publication. In the era of social media, it is so easy to present yourself as a feminist doing the founding mother’s work on one hand whilst on the other you’re dismissing, challenging and ignoring women’s actual plight and lives.
People refer to Gen-Z as “snowflakes” but for the perpetually offended it must be exhausting and debilitating to always feel so on edge. It feels like everything now has to be an “era”, a “cause” or a “movement” all for the performance of social media. From moving home and being generally busy the last month I have spent very little time on my phone scrolling social media and I can only say that it has given me fresh eyes to see the crap that you become accustomed to everyday on this platforms.
Modern life
A major theme throughout the book is how online hate and controversary is inescapable as it spews from your phone. When you think of young school kids and the dangers of online bullying it is actually petrifying the risks that are present today. From deep fake technology to a constant stream of potentially harmful and toxic content. Ola and Michael read what’s being said about them publicly in forums, their lives are reduced to a series of emojis and hashtags celebrating their demise.
In the book we see how online hatred can cause death and once the person is gone, the hate turns to “thoughts and prayers” or #BeKind. The #BeKind movement are a different breed - it’s those people who are such active commenters that must offer opinions on everything, good or bad, that turn evangelistic when their victim finally surrenders.
I am still trying to workout how I think and feel about the themes addressed in The List, it is such a morally grey book which is what makes it so essential to be read by young audiences. Unfortunately, this is our modern world and navigating it is something we need to become accustomed to despite how difficult it may be.