#rp26 speaker Taylor Lorenz

Internet culture has helped to dismantle traditional barriers and create entirely new economic sectors – from early “blogger moms” monetizing personal brands to young Tik Tok creators who are changing our notion of fame and work. As a tech columnist, author and podcast host, Taylor Lorenz regularly discusses these changes. In her debut book ”Extremely Online – The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet”, which was published in 2023, she offers a comprehensive description of how creators and online communities – as well as the platforms behind them – alter our expectations of connection, consumption, and power. Due to her influential investigations and year-long commentary, she has even been called the “The Bob Woodward of the Tik Tok generation”.

Taylor Lorenz is the founder of the independent Substack publication User Mag, discussing tech and online culture and the host of the podcast Power User. She is a former columnist at The Washington Post covering technology and online culture, and before that was a technology reporter for The New York Times and The Atlantic. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, and other major outlets. She often appears on NBC, CBS, and the BBC to discuss online culture. She was a 2019 Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where her research focused on Instagram and news consumption. She is also a former affiliate at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.