Fake Accounts: Unceasingly cynical and compulsively readable
Book review: Lauren Oyler is unafraid in her exploration of social media and literary form
Lauren Oyler, author of Fake Accounts.
“There were so many people in bad moods at any given time, all we had to do was find each other,” says the unnamed narrator of Fake Accounts. She is speaking, of course, about Twitter, a platform synonymous with anger, call-outs and simplistic political arguments. Lauren Oyler’s novel spouts tired cliches of the evils of social media, but also provides insightful analysis into the ways it encourages impossible forms of disclosure about who we are and where those desires to disclose might lead us astray.
The narrator is a woman in her late 20s who works for a website and is dating a man who remains slightly aloof and distant from her. To satiate and further provoke her feelings of insecurity, the woman decides to sneak a look at his phone, discovering that he runs an account on Instagram that popularises a wide range of conspiracy theories.