Read time: 4 minutes
🎧 Listened in audio
📢 Narrated by Gretchen McCulloch
⏱ Duration: 8 hours
🏷️ Publisher: Books on Tape / Riverhead Books
📚 Genre: Nonfiction | Linguistics | Technology
Book Blurb:
A fresh, witty exploration of how the internet reshaped the English language. Gretchen McCulloch, a linguistic expert, unpacks how social media changed the way we write, talk, and express emotions online. She traces everything from “LOL” to “lol,” the rise of emojis and memes, and the generational patterns behind our texting habits. “Because Internet” turns online chatter into a fascinating study of how human connection adapts to digital spaces, proving that our language is alive, playful, and more communal than ever.
Let’s talk about the book:
“Because Internet” is one of those rare nonfiction listens that makes you nod along every few minutes. Gretchen McCulloch beautifully explains how online language evolved by excavating the instincts you’ve already been acting on for decades and handing them back to you, labeled and lit up, and suddenly you see the whole thing in a brand new light. From early chatroom days to TikTok linguistics, she connects the dots between our key-smashing, emoji-studded messages and the deeper human need to express tone, rhythm, and emotion in a text-based world.
The argument is deceptively simple. Human communication has always been a full-body experience. We talk with our hands, our faces, our eyebrows, the tilt of our heads. The moment we moved to text, we lost all of that, and then, emojis evolved to give it back to us. That’s why the most used emojis are faces and hands. We weren’t decorating our messages. We were restoring our bodies to our words. Not only this, the book also demystifies linguistic trends without condescension, showing how creativity drives our everyday online speech. Along with the emojis evolution, I also loved her explanation on how GIFs and memes evolved for us to quirkily express ourselves more with pictures than with words, adding tone in an otherwise toneless world of alphabet.
The fact that McCulloch narrates her own book is beautiful. There’s no distance between the researcher and her ideas. She’s enthusiastic and warm and a little nerdy in the best way, like being tutored by someone who is genuinely thrilled that you asked. As someone who’s watched the internet grow from dial-up days to DMs, this book hit a nostalgic and insightful sweet spot. This is the kind of book that makes you look at 🙏 and think: that’s a bow, a high five, and a prayer all at once, and we all just… agreed on that. Informally. Together. On the Internet.
Would I recommend it?
OBSESSED. Completely, embarrassingly obsessed. I’ve been narrating emoji meanings at people who did not ask. I reread my old texts looking for linguistic patterns. I used the phrase “restoring our bodies to our writing” in an actual conversation and meant it. Because Internet is one of the most quietly mind-expanding books I’ve encountered, the kind that doesn’t just teach you something new, it changes how you see something you already knew. Essential listening.
If you liked Because Internet, try these:
- Wordslut by Amanda Montell — Feminist linguistics with the same accessible, punchy energy; if McCulloch made you love language, Montell will make you furious and fascinated in equal measure.
Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | OpenLibrary | Litsy - The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr — The anxious counterpoint to McCulloch’s optimism; read both and hold the tension.
Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | OpenLibrary | Litsy - Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer — For when you want to keep loving language but with more Oxford commas and delicious snark.
Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | OpenLibrary | Litsy - Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-racist, Nonbinary Field Guide for Graphic Designers by Ellen Lupton — Explores how visual language, typography, and design communicate meaning; a perfect companion to the emoji/gesture rabbit hole.
Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | OpenLibrary | Litsy - Talk on the Wild Side by Lane Greene — Language is gloriously chaotic and always has been; Greene makes the same joyful argument McCulloch does, from a different angle.
Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Hardcover | OpenLibrary | Litsy
Your Emojis Are Talking, But What Are They Actually Saying? 🤚😭🙏
Because after this book, I cannot look at a 🙏 the same way. Are you using emojis as punctuation? As tone? As a whole entire sentence? Drop your most-used emoji in the comments and let’s decode what your digital body language is really saying. I’m genuinely asking. For science. 👀
Book Links:
Want to purchase this or any of your favourite books while supporting a local bookstore? Consider purchasing using the sites below. These sites work with independent local bookstore owners to fulfill your book orders. #SupportLocal
Indiebookstores.ca | Bookshop.org
Goodreads | StoryGraph | Pagebound | Fable | Hardcover | OpenLibrary | Litsy
Follow Gretchen McCulloch for the latest on technology’s impact on linguistics
Check out more books from Books on Tape and Riverhead Books
Discover more from Views She Writes
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
