“The Internet is a place where ideas compete, and bad ideas in particular get shared.”

So anyone on the Internet knows who George Takei is; sure he was the original Sulu but anyone under 40 knows him primarily as the Internet’s gay Asian uncle. This is primarily a memoir about Takei’s time as an Internet phenomena including his early days on Twitter and current successes on Facebook. Nearly all of his web content is crowd sourced, which he acknowledges, and he reprints some of his most popular posts.

In fact, my Webmaster told me the other day that my page often rises to hold the title of second most popular “personal” page on Facebook. “Well, what’s the first?” I heard my Asian parents asking in my head. Turns out it’s something called “Jesus Daily”- a collection of affirmatory and inspirational posts that, you guessed it, come out daily about our savior.  I suppose I’m just fine playing second fiddle to Jesus.

Unfortunately, I learned way more about the innerworkings of running a successful Facebook page than I learned about Takei the man. He devotes an entire chapter to Facebook’s “EdgeRank” system and how he feels like his posts no longer hit as many fans as before. He does say that, because he does this for fun, he doesn’t believe in paying for Promoted Posts but he still devotes a lot of time on how to make sure your settings will give you the most Takei on your timeline as possible. It seems very self serving and why pander? The people reading this book are already following your social media accounts!

Your mileage on this one will vary based on your interests in the Internet as a platform for promotion and its various social media corners. His trademark sharp wit and conversational writing style does make this an easy read.