her standing on the street. Adeline starts walking. As a Google Bus passes her, her phone buzzes with a death threat on Twitter. Characters Themes Race and Gentrification I Hate the Internet contains a single central theme: the Internet is the enemy of the intellect. The novel mentions the popularity of Twitter among the black community, which Kobek states is ironic because Twitter was responsible for “revitalizing” (gentrifying) a poor, primarily black neighborhood to house their headquarters. I Hate The Internet defines gentrification as “...what happened to a city when people with an excess capital wanted their capital to produce more capital while not attributing any value to labor.” As the use of Twitter, specifically in the black community, increased, Twitter's advertising revenue rose. Kobek explains the intellectual property of the “Black Twitter” users was profitable to a social media network that does not support the black community. In Chapter 32, J. Karacehennem discusses the perceived maliciousness of the Internet, and how protesting on the Internet is not going to be successful. The social media sites people use to protest are only making money for the sites. Jack Kirby Jack Kirby was the original creator of many notable Marvel characters and series, including The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, and Dr. Doom. Kirby is described as being “...the individual most screwed by the American comic book industry. Kobek describes the American comic book industry as “the perfect distillation of all the corrupt and venal behavior inherent in unregulated capitalism.” He worked-for-hire for Marvel Comics. In the novel work-for-hire was described as “one of the many bad deals that businesses offered to creative people ... we pay you enough to eat and we keep everything you create.” While working for Marvel, Kirby created Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the original X-Men, the Avengers, Thor, Loki, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, and Ant-Man. Critical reception I Hate the Internet has received generally positive reviews, including from both The New York Times and The Guardian. Dwight Garner of The New York Times offered his take on the book as well, “My advice? Log-off Twitter for a day. Pick this up instead." Steven Poole of The Guardian described the novel as an “enraged comedy” full of one-liners. References External links Literary Hub Full-Stop Review Novels about social media Novels set in San Francisco 2016 American novels 2016 LGBT-related literary works Novels with transgender themes