Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

You've seen it all before. A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political sideshow derails the national news cycle and destroys a candidate. Some product or celebrity zooms from total obscurity to viral sensation. What you don't know is that someone is responsible for all this. Usually, someone like me. I'm a media manipulator. In a world where blogs control and distort the news, my job is to control blogs-as much as any one person can. IN TODAY'S CULTURE... Blogs like Gawker, BuzzFeed, and The Huffington Post drive the media agenda. Bloggers are slaves to money, technology, and deadlines. Manipulators wield these levers to shape everything you read, see, and hear- online and off.Why am I giving away these secrets? Because I'm tired of a world where blogs take indirect bribes, marketers help write the news, reckless journalists spread lies, and no one is accountable for any of it. I'm going to explain exactly how the media really works. What you choose to do with this information is up to you. %%%You've seen it all before. A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political sideshow derails the national news cycle and destroys a candidate. Some product or celebrity zooms from total obscurity to viral sensation. What you don't know is that someone is responsible for all this. Usually, someone like me.

I'm a media manipulator. In a world where blogs control and distort the news, my job is to control blogs-as much as any one person can.

IN TODAY'S CULTURE... Blogs like Gawker, BuzzFeed, and The Huffington Post drive the media agenda. Bloggers are slaves to money, technology, and deadlines. Manipulators wield these levers to shape everything you read, see, and hear- online and off.Why am I giving away these secrets? Because I'm tired of a world where blogs take indirect bribes, marketers help write the news, reckless journalists spread lies, and no one is accountable for any of it. I'm going to explain exactly how the media really works. What you choose to do with this information is up to you.

“"Holiday is part Machiavelli, part Ogilvy, and all results...this whiz kid is the secret weapon you've never heard of." --Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek ”

"Holiday effectively maps the news media landscape. . . . Media students and bloggers would do well to heed Holiday's informative, timely, and provocative advice." -- Publishers Weekly

"This book will make online media giants very, very uncomfortable." -- Drew Curtis, founder, Fark.com "Ryan Holiday's brilliant expos of the unreality of the Internet should be required reading for every thinker in America." -- Edward Jay Epstein, author of How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft

"[Like] Upton Sinclair on the blogosphere." -- Tyler Cowen, MarginalRevolution.com, author of Average Is Over

"Ryan Holiday is the internet's sociopathic id." -- Dan Mitchell, SF Weekly

"Ryan Holiday is a media genius who promotes, inflates, and hacks some of the biggest names and brands in the world." -- Chase Jarvis, founder and CEO, CreativeLive

"Ryan has a truly unique perspective on the seedy underbelly of digital culture." -- Matt Mason, former director of marketing, BitTorrent

"While the observation that the internet favors speed over accuracy is hardly new, Holiday lays out how easily it is to twist it toward any end. . . . Trust Me, I'm Lying provides valuable food for thought regarding how we receive-- and perceive-- information." -- New York Post

Ryan Holiday is a media strategist for notorious clients such as Tucker Max and Dov Charney. After dropping out of college at nineteen to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, he went on to advise many bestselling authors and multiplatinum musicians. He is currently the director of marketing at American Apparel, where his work is internationally known. His campaigns have been used as case studies by Twitter, YouTube, and Google and written about in AdAge, the New York Times, Gawker, and Fast Company. He currently lives in New Orleans.

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