Genre/s:	Fiction
Worthwhile?	Yes
Overall Rating:	10/10
Borrowed, would buy
Goodreads

it made me feel utterly insane. i had a whole lot of in depth thoughts while reading it and examinations of various social phenomenon regarding sex and the internet. the only part that i felt didnt really provide much was the ad section in the middle of the book, but i think it was moreso because it was stylistically different.

i probably spent the whole week after i finished this book just thinking about it and how ridicuious but real it was? the concept of a group of people becoming obsessed with a prostitute to the point they want to destroy him in literally every way doesnt seem far fetched to me at all, the line between sex and violence is far too thin esp if you add the assumed safety/anonymity of an old internet forum.

! ---------- spoilers beyond this point ---------- !

firsts things first, it is probably easy for a lot of people to write off the posts of the forum users as being ridiculous and over the top, or maybe even so depraved that its unrealistic. i dont agree with those thoughts at all, i know shit like giggly goon (HUGE tws for grooming and discussions about cp for that video) happens for real online, people get so comfortable in communities that they will literally say and do anything because they think nothing can happen to them, and they think the internet adds a layer of safety due to anonymity and everything on here being 'just words'. i also know bad things happen to people irl; true crime can give you an endless well of examples, and often shows that the line between sex and violence is incredibly thin and easily blurred. this is what initially drew me into the book, i was honestly incredibly fascinated and caught up on that detail and how blatantly it was displayed in posts and discussions of various brad encounters. brads status as a male prostitute only added to the blurring of that line, and as he gained notoriety through the forum posts it only blurred more and more. people want to do INSANE things to even the most minor of celebrities, stalker/obsessive one sided relationships unfortunately arent rare, doubly so for sex workers.

i wouldve been content with the book just being insane in that form, it was already making me think about a lot of things, including how fucked some peoples relationships to sex are and how depraved and legitimately twisted some people are. there was also a factor of it i cant put my finger on still, relating to how it was all gay relationships, that highlighted a certain form of the depravity to me? (might/probably going to be discussed in the FRISK post) male on male (sexual) violence is a completely different animal than its male on female counterpart, and made the entire ordeal feel dialed up to 11 in certain ways idk how to fully explain.

but the book completely pulls the rug out from under you. some of the posts get completely out of hand, and then conflicting info starts appearing, and then people who claim to know brad come out of the woodwork to say its all fake, but they are lying also and get called out - and this is where the book made me feel completely insane. by the end of the book i legit was questioning if anything at all was ever true, even stuff that was "confirmed" by multiple posters or even the webmaster. im not new to the internet at all so i know that people lie, and people catfish, and people do completely insane things, usually for attention. but jesus christ ? the whole saga after the initial posts being a snowballed lie started by a dude with multiple sockpuppet accounts, picked up by other uninvolved people who then got sucked into the excitement of the whole thing, snowballed further by the original dude again, picked up yet again. it made me honestly question everything i had just read, (which also, i think the fact it was a book made me want to trust what was happening more, i know unreliable narrators and such are a thing but. idk i wasnt expecting the WHOLE book to be a lie). made me absolutely bananas

(read dec 2022, posted oct 2023)