'AN ODD BUT HAPPY MARRIAGE OF SOCIOLOGICAL OBSERVATION ANS GONZO STYLE ADVENTURE.' WIRED Every day we are distracted by a culture that rings our doorbell and runs away. Stories spread wildly and die out in days, only to be replaced by still more stories with ever-shorter life spans. and Then There's This is journalist and new media provocateur Bill Wasik's journey into the unexplored frontier of our churning and rambunctious viral culture. Part field report, part memoir, part manifesto, part deconstruction of a decade, it reveals how culture is now created from the ground up, enabling anyone with a computer to ser a small ripple of a story that can turn into a tsunami. an entertaining and eye-popping look at the new frontier of idea-making, Wasik brilliantly captures the dizzying ways technology is transforming our culture. 'A nimbly guided tour.' THE WALL STREET JOURNAL '[A] compact and whip-smart chronicle.' SEED MAGAZINE 'An exceptionally smart, witty, subtle, enlightening book . . . Wasik plunges headlong into the twenty-first-century media funhouse, yet manages to keep his moral compass in good working order.' KURT ANDERSON, author of Heyday and host of NPR's Studio 360 'I'd love to give one to every graduating high school senior in American.' THE BUFFALO NEWS