The Hatred of Women on the Internet with Taylor Lorenz

Does the Internet fundamentally hate women?

Social media platforms can be a battleground, often subjecting women to harsh criticism and verbal violence. And no one knows that better than tech reporter, author and general Internet bad ass Taylor Lorenz. Taylor has been called a lot of things online.

She has been lauded as one of the nation’s preeminent tech reporters for places like the New York Times and the Washington Post. She has also been called the scum of the Earth. Told she was ugly. Told she was stupid. She once received a comment that said. "I hope you cry yourself to sleep every night. I hope you take your own life. I hope you live all your days in fear. You are the scum of the Earth. Why are you still breathing?”

This kind of online harassment is not unique to Taylor. Women are constantly subjected to it online. Female influencers, female journalists, any woman who dares to have an opinion about just about anything.

The Internet is a nasty and toxic place to be a woman. It is even nastier if you are a person who is extremely online, which is the title of Taylor’s latest book. Extremely Online in which she chronicles the rise of social media’s power and influence and doesn’t shy away from the dark places it has taken all of us.

I got to chat with Taylor about what it is like being a woman who is extremely online and covering communities that are extremely online. We dove into all of it from her public feud with Fox News' former resident woman hater Tucker Carlson to Gamer-gate to why TikTok isn’t going anywhere any time soon.