When I started reading David Shapiro, I had no idea who he was. Maybe I still don’t. 

Back then, the anonymity was by design: He was writing a Tumblr called Pitchfork Reviews Reviews, which used Pitchfork’s make-or-break music criticism to slingshot into lengthy disquisitions on the ways in which art invades or influences what we like to call “real life.” It quickly attracted more than 100,000 followers and landed its author in the New York Times.

Shapiro closely guarded his identity at this time, hoping to keep a clerical day job where he composed his essays via BlackBerry. With plans to attend law school, he also feared for his digital footprint. This privacy makes You’re Not Much Use to Anyone, a memoiristic novel that traces the rise and fall of his big-hearted blog, that much more confounding, though it manages to subvert more than one expectation. Welcome to Internet microfame, where status and satisfaction never quite align. 

The Internet becomes a novel in ‘You’re Not Much Use to Anyone’

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