Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

You’ve seen it all before. A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political sideshow derails the national news cycle and destroys a candidate. Some product or celebrity zooms from total obscurity to viral sensation. What you don’t know is that someone is responsible for all this. Usually, someone like me.

I’m a media manipulator. In a world where blogs control and distort the news, my job is to control blogs—as much as any one person can.

In today’s culture… 1) Blogs like Gawker, Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post drive the media agenda.2) Bloggers are slaves to money, technology, and deadlines.3) Manipulators wield these levers to shape everything you read, see and watch—online and off.

Why am I giving away these secrets?  Because I'm tired of a world where blogs take indirect bribes, marketers help write the news, reckless journalists spread lies, and no one is accountable for any of it. I'm pulling back the curtain because I don't want anyone else to get blindsided.

I’m going to explain exactly how the media really works. What you choose to do with this information is up to you.

Review“Holiday is part Machiavelli, part Ogilvy, and all results…this whiz kid is the secret weapon you’ve never heard of.”

—Tim Ferriss, author of *The 4-Hour Workweek*

 

“Essential reading.”

—Andrew Keen

“Ryan Holiday's brilliant exposé of the unreality of the Internet should be required reading for every thinker in America.”

— Edward Jay Epstein, author of *The Big Picture*

“The strategies Ryan created to exploit blogs drove sales of millions of my books and made me an internationally known name.”

—Tucker Max

“Behind my reputation as marketing genius there is Ryan Holiday, whom I consult often and has done more for my business than just about anyone.”

—Dov Charney, CEO and founder, American Apparel

“Holiday has written more than a dyspeptic diatribe, as his precise prose and reference to the scholarship of others add weight to his claims. A sharp and disturbing look into the world of online reality.”

—*Kirkus Reviews*

“His focus is prescient and his schemes compelling. Media students and bloggers would do well to heed Holiday’s informative, timely, and provocative advice.”

—*Publishers Weekly*

“While the observation that the Internet favors speed over accuracy is hardly new, Holiday lays out how easily it is to twist it toward any end… Trust Me, I’m Lying provides valuable food for thought regarding how we receive — and perceive — information.”

—*New York Post

*“This is an astonishing book. Holiday has worked for several years as a self-proclaimed media manipulator, running campaigns for companies such as American Apparel. He is now intent on revealing the tricks that his kind use to influence us. Many of these stories are chilling.”

—Gillian Tett, *Financial Times*

About the AuthorRYAN HOLIDAY is a media strategist for notorious clients such as Tucker Max and Dov Charney. After dropping out of college at 19 to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, he went on to advise many bestselling authors and multiplatinum musicians. He is currently the director of marketing at American Apparel. He lives in New Orleans.

Visit www.ryanholiday.net