"Tiffany is at the height of her powers when she is describing, with touching specificity, why it might make sense for a person to invest serious time and money into a bunch of cute boys singing silly love songs . . . On the internet, fandom can be a route toward cyberbullying a baby, or it can be a way of figuring some things out about yourself. Sometimes, it can even forge a writer as funny and perceptive as Kaitlyn Tiffany.” —Amanda Hess, The New York Times
"Wistful, winning, and unexpectedly funny . . . Being a fan, for Tiffany, is achingly personal. I loved her musings on why and how people pledge themselves to a piece of culture, and whether that commitment changes them . . . Her book evokes the intimacy of the fan-artist relationship: how your chosen mania can become the lens through which you process the world." —Katy Waldman, The New Yorker
“Tiffany provides nuanced analysis of an often-overlooked force in internet history, one dominated by the kind of young women whom the rest of the world dismissed as little more than brainless teenyboppers.” —Rebecca Jennings, Vox
“Sharp and very funny . . . Writing as a Directioner reintegrated into civil society, moving artfully between reportage and memoir, fanspeak and critical analysis, Tiffany avoids the default condescension to which fangirls are often subjected and takes their exploits seriously, teasing out the relationship of fandom to both individual identity and online community.” —Jake Nevins, Gawker
"[Everything I Get I Need from You is] on the one hand, elegantly written, evidence-based, and rational, and on the other, off-kilter, animated by a profound and consuming, almost manic, loneliness . . . Any niche has its cranks and tricksters, its conspiracy theorists, its dilettantes, its day ones. They’re all here—fragile and wounded and seeking something semi-seriously—and Tiffany portrays them with sensitivity and humor. I have no choice but to stan." —Erin Somers, Bookforum
"From dissecting digital trends to diving into conspiracy theories, Tiffany creates a compelling picture of the people responsible for shaping the way we communicate and interact online." —Mahita Gajanan, TIME
“What [Everything I Need I Get from You] illuminate[s] is the way a fan’s love often ignites during crises of identity . . . What you get is a reason to dance on a rooftop, and a friend who knew that was what you needed. Theirs is a fandom that almost—almost—doesn’t need a band or a movie or a TV show around which to organize.” —Laura Miller, Slate
"The book’s balance of first-person experience and scholarly analysis, humor and rigor, makes it an irresistible read." —Pitchfork
“There are two types of people: those who know what it is to be an utter, soul-level fangirl, and those who cannot comprehend the lifestyle, and both groups should read Kaitlyn Tiffany’s propulsive, entertaining study of contemporary female fan culture.” —Jenny Singer, Glamour
"[A] wonderfully fresh take on fandom . . . uses her love of One Direction ingeniously to trace how online culture came to feel." —Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune
"An alluring mixture of personal anecdotes, conspiracy theory investigations, and interviews with preeminent fangirls of all stripes." —Sophie Lee, Interview
"[Tiffany] is, like an experienced anthropologist, a participant observer in this retelling of how fangirls shaped Internet culture . . . Everything I Need I Get From You‘s narratives of the history of both fandom and the Internet are thorough and readable." —Linda Levitt, Pop Matters
“It’s a rare book that can transfix me examining a topic I have almost no prior knowledge of nor any particular affection for. [Everything I Need I Get from You] takes a fascinating look at 1D’s fandom, showing paths into music appreciation I had never before considered.” —Isabelle Popp, Book Riot
“A smart, empathetic work of nonfiction that examines young women and the ways they have innovated digital spaces. With a focus on the One Direction fandom, of which she herself was a part, Atlantic writer Kaitlyn Tiffany upends our biases about fangirls and shows them as the creative, tongue-in-cheek, freethinking individuals that they are.” —Mara Sandroff, New City Lit
“An insightful, personal, and important testament to the power of fandom, and to the ways it has shaped Millennial lives and the new world of the Internet.” —Julie Phillips, Liber
"Immensely entertaining . . . Well-versed in this subsect of internet culture thanks to her own passion for One Direction . . . Tiffany remains archly self-aware throughout, assuming an alternately waggish and reverential tone that perfectly captures the absurd genius of this influential army of women. Stans will want an encore." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A heartfelt memoir wrapped in an ethnographic analysis . . . Despite its focus on One Direction, the text buzzes with broader relevance that should appeal to readers interested in the ‘unlimited chaotic energy’ of life online. A finely balanced pop-culture investigation.” —Kirkus
"With her insider-outsider perspective, patience, and wit, Kaitlyn Tiffany does remarkable justice to the complexity of online culture. Everything I Need I Get From You will fascinate aficionados, but even for someone who’s never so much as logged on, it makes a rich and heartfelt explainer on the feelings and phenomena that thrive on the internet." —Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing
"How often the world forgets that the things of girls populate the intellect just as thickly and freely as the things of boys. Kaitlyn Tiffany’s Everything I Need I Get From You is a brilliant demonstration of the joy, power, technological innovation and world-changing shifts that happen when girls turn on their love." —Samantha Hunt, author of The Unwritten Book
"Just when I can’t bear to read another thing about the boys who built or wrecked the Internet, Everything I Need I Get from You comes along. Kaitlyn Tiffany's book is a fresh and often funny experiment in finding forms fit to archive the websites where we became ourselves—and full, like them, of joy and awkward tenderness. As cultural history, it casts the most familiar developments in a new light. As criticism meets memoir meets performance art, it won me over like a great fan will—through sheer commitment to the bit." —Moira Weigel, author of Labor of Love
"Kaitlyn Tiffany’s Everything I Need I Get From You is a headlong plunge into fandom, which, as she deftly illustrates, is the single force that drives today’s Internet more than anything else. Tiffany shows that fandom isn’t just about consumption: It’s an all-consuming creative passion, a drive to remake culture for yourself. Tiffany is a sociologist of online niches as well as a brilliant recounter of the kind of obsessiveness that fandom thrives on, precisely because she knows the fervor herself. Everything I Need I Get From You is a perfect document of the peculiarly fruitful form of Internet-enabled obsession." —Kyle Chayka, author of The Longing for Less
2022-03-01
An insider’s look at obsessive fandom in the internet age.
Using “the first internet boy band” One Direction as a foundation, Atlantic staff writer Tiffany’s entertaining debut explores how digital hyperconnectivity can transform personal passions into complicated and communal online lifestyles. She tracks One Direction’s early fame from episodes of The X Factor to sold-out arenas around the world and deftly articulates the perfect storm of social media, hysteria, and mythmaking that made such a success possible. A superfan herself, the author invites readers into the trenches of Tumblr and Twitter to chronicle his discussions with significant players in a diverse swath of fan scenes. Throughout her study, she embraces online slang, unabashedly detailing the nuances between stanning and shipping among a lexicon of new, evolving terminology. Discussing the popular trend of circulating niche, nearly incomprehensible One Direction memes, Tiffany coyly explains how their viral success was engineered because “we have talked so much about these people that we no longer have anything left to say that isn’t totally absurd.” This sentiment rings throughout the book, which later shifts into an enthralling study of how some fans try to create juicy lore out of nothing, often with problematic results. Dreaming up celebrity couples (and combining their names into a snappy portmanteau) is a common pastime for many fans, but some fantasies, such as the idea that band members Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson might secretly be an item, have barreled aggressively into the realm of conspiracy theories. Personal anecdotes elevate Tiffany’s book into a heartfelt memoir wrapped in an ethnographic analysis, as the author insightfully examines contemporary loneliness and our growing need to feel like we’re a part of something. Despite its focus on One Direction, the text buzzes with broader relevance that should appeal to readers interested in the “unlimited chaotic energy” of life online.
A finely balanced pop-culture investigation.