Trust Me, I'm Lying

Trust Me, I'm Lying was billed as an exposé of the online journalism system that rose to prominence in the decade before the book's 2012 publication.

Holiday is the former Director of Marketing for American Apparel, where he created controversial campaigns that garnered widespread publicity.Travis, Chase. [http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2012/06/trust-me-im-lying-ryan-holiday-on-chase-jarvis-live/ Trust Me, I'm Lying: How To Make & Promote Content That Turns Heads – Hacking the System with Media Genius Ryan Holiday on chasejarvis Live ]. ChaseTravis.com. June 27, 2012.Chaudhuri, Saabira. [http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/saabira-chaudhuri/itinerant-mind/nipples-nudity-and-small-striptease-american-apparels-new-ad-c Nipples, Nudity and a Small Striptease: American Apparel's New Ad Campaign]. Fast Company. November 21, 2008.Morrissey, Brian. [http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/american-apparel-grabs-youtubes-long-tail-101150 American Apparel Grabs YouTube's Long Tail]. Ad Week. December 18, 2009.Vega, Tanzina, [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/business/media/from-zappos-an-unadorned-pitch-in-selling-clothes.html?_r=2 From Zappos, an Unadorned Approach]. The New York Times. July 10, 2011. Holiday has also done publicity work for Tucker Max, including marketing for the film adaptation of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell and a media stunt about Max's failed attempt to donate $500,000 to Planned Parenthood.Marcus, Stephanie; Bassett, Laura. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/planned-parenthood-tucker-max-donation_n_1399396.html Planned Parenthood Turns Down $500,000 From Tucker Max]. The Huffington Post. April 3, 2012.Maier, Jenny. [http://crushable.com/entertainment/tucker-max-pay-celebrities-to-tweet-213/ Tucker Max Proves You Can Pay Celebrities To Tweet Whatever You Want]. Crushable.com. February 9, 2012.Yarrow, Allison. [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/03/is-planned-parenthood-reject-tucker-max-pro-women.html Is Planned Parenthood Reject Tucker Max Pro-Women?] The Daily Beast. April 3, 2012.

The book is split into two parts: the first explains why blogs matter, how they drive the news, and how they can be manipulated, while the second shows what happens when this is done, how it backfires, and the consequences of the current media system.Losowsky, Andrew. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/29/ryan-holiday-trust-me-im-lying_n_1638080.html Ryan Holiday, Author Of 'Trust Me, I'm Lying', Wants To Break The Media]. The Huffington Post. June 29, 2012.

As an example of his argument that blogs shape the news, Holiday outlines how the political blog Politico dedicated significant coverage to the campaign of Tim Pawlenty two years before the 2012 elections in order to generate pageviews for advertisers.{{cite book|last=Holiday|first=Ryan|title=Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator|year=2012|publisher=Portfolio|isbn=978-1591845539|pages=288}} Although Pawlenty did not yet have an official campaign, this kickstarted the media cycle which painted Pawlenty as a serious presidential candidate. As an example of the pageview-intensive blogosphere, Holiday uses the example of Jezebel writer Irin Carmon's attack on Jon Stewart and The Daily Show with misleading claims of "The Daily Show's Woman Problem."Frauenfelder, Mark. [http://boingboing.net/2012/07/19/gweek-061-trust-me-im-lyin.html Gweek 061: Trust Me, I'm Lying]. BoingBoing.net. July 19, 2012. The book is also the source of a marketing and media concept now referred to as "trading up the chain", in which news is broken on small blogs and passed to successively larger and more influential media outlets.

In 2011, it was reported that Holiday received a $500,000 advance for a tell-all exposé about these clients and the modern media system from Portfolio, a subsidiary of Penguin Books.{{cite web|url=http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/24-year-old-marketing-director-lands-major-book-deal_b42516 |title=24 year old Marketing Director Lands Major Book Deal |publisher=Media Bistro |date=Nov 17, 2011 |accessdate=2012-02-06}}{{cite web |url=http://laist.com/2011/11/18/dov_charneys_marketing_director_lan.php |title=Dov Charney's Marketing Director Lands 500K Book Deal |publisher=LAist.com |date=Nov 17, 2011 |accessdate=2012-02-06 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171106005523/http://laist.com/2011/11/18/dov_charneys_marketing_director_lan.php |archivedate=2017-11-06 }}Boog, Jason. [http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/ryan-holiday-did-not-dupe-galleycat_b42609 Ryan Holiday Did Not Dupe GalleyCat]. Mediabistro.November 18, 2011. However, some outlets later accused the advance of being a strategic marketing stunt engineered by Holiday, which he eventually confirmed as true in a later interview.Witt, Emily. [http://observer.com/2011/11/the-tell-all-of-dov-charney-and-tucker-max-all-part-of-ryan-holidays-media-strategy/ The Tell-All of Dov Charney and Tucker Max? All Part of Ryan Holiday's Media Strategy]. The New York Observer. November 18, 2011.Boog, Jason. [http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/ryan-holiday-did-not-dupe-galleycat_b42609 Ryan Holiday Did Not Dupe GalleyCat]. Galleycat. November 18, 2011.{{Citation |title=Jocko Podcast 394: Lessons from the Stoics. Discipline, Leadership, Life. With Ryan Holiday. |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIkgFnuZoOw |access-date=2023-07-16 |language=en}}

Trust Me, I'm Lying debuted on The Wall Street Journal bestseller list.[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443437504577546911997773668 Best-Selling Books, Week Ended July 22 ]. The Wall Street Journal. July 22, 2012. Publishers Weekly stated that "Media students and bloggers would do well to heed Holiday's informative, timely, and provocative advice."[http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59184-553-9 Nonfiction review of Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator]. Publishers Weekly. July 16, 2012. Kirkus Reviews called Trust Me, I'm Lying "[a] sharp and disturbing look into the world of online reality."[https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ryan-holiday/trust-me-lying/ Trust Me, I'm Lying]. Kirkus Reviews. June 15, 2012.

In anticipation of the book's release, Holiday infiltrated the public relations service Help a Reporter Out and posed as an "expert" on various issues to show that journalists will print statements without fact checking.Thier, David. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/02/07/tucker-maxs-rejected-twitter-campaign-and-stab-at-celebrity-endorsement/ Tucker Max's Rejected Twitter Campaign and Stab at Celebrity Endorsement]. Forbes. February 7, 2012.{{better source needed|date=September 2021}} Holiday made decoy claims to prove the point; some of those were subsequently quoted in articles about subjects ranging from boating upkeep to insomnia to vinyl records in outlets such as The New York Times, MSNBC, and ABC, and the story was profiled in Forbes and Yahoo! News.Stableford, Dylan. [https://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/source-lied-york-times-holiday-forbes-185831470.html 'Media manipulator' admits he lied as a source for the Times, ABC, CBS]. Yahoo.com. July 19, 2012.

In 2013, The Edmonton Journal named Trust Me, I'm Lying one of their "favourite books of the year."{{cite web|title=Edmonton Journal staff pick favourite books of the year|url=https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/Edmonton+Journal+staff+pick+favourite+books+year/9288968/story.html|publisher=Edmonton Journal|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140311200908/http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Edmonton+Journal+staff+pick+favourite+books+year/9288968/story.html|archivedate=2014-03-11}}

{{reflist|2}}

• [http://trustmeimlying.com/ Trust Me, I'm Lying Website]
• [http://www.ryanholiday.net/ RyanHoliday.net]

Category:2012 non-fiction books

Category:American non-fiction books

Category:Non-fiction books about public relations

Category:Portfolio (publisher) books

Category:Profile Books books