Ryan Holiday: Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

The “dark handbook” of media manipulation published by Portfolio Hardcover was authored by “digital native” public relations specialist, marketer, and media strategist Ryan Holiday. Born on 16 June 1987, in Sacramento, California, Holiday – the inspiring symbol of living life on your own terms and making a living out of it – began his professional career at the age of 19, after dropping out of high school. Trust Me, I’m Lying (2012) is the fi rst of his four practical books published so far: The Obstacle Is the Way (2014), Ego Is the Enemy (2016), and The Daily Stoic (2016). The fi rst edition was published on 19 July 2012 in New York and soon became a bestseller mentioned by the Wall Street Journal, The Huffi ngton Post, AdAge, The Columbia Journalism Review, Forbes, The New York Times, TechCrunch, The Times-Picayune, Fast Company, The Next Web, and Boing Boing. The second edition2 that is being reviewed here was released in 2015 and provides case studies to support the authors’ arguments outlined in the book. This contemporary genius and thought-provoking book about the dawn of online publishing is a “must read” for all media and public relations students and practising professionals. “When intelligent people read, they ask themselves a simple question: What do I plan to do with this information? Most readers have abandoned even pretending to consider this” (2015: 234). Due to its simple language and explicit vocabulary, basically anyone can understand its content that is split into bite-sized portions that can be read “on the go”: “Infl uence is ultimately the goal of most blogs and blog publishers, because that infl uence can be sold to a larger media company” (2015: 38). While working for American Apparel and Tucker Max, the young hustler and later “whistleblower” observed the working of the mass-media system affected