Justine Ezarik has written a book. In writing this review, it became clear that I have 2 reviews to provide. The first being a proper review of her book as an insider and someone who has known Justine since 2001. The second, a funny realization that Justine\u2019s story is mine in a lot of ways. Our story until about 4 years ago was pretty similar. Replace a few words and I feel like she\u2019s reading my story. I\u2019m not sure part 2 will be published but it was a nice book to read. Actually, I listened to her Audible book that she read herself. It was nice to hear the book from Justine\u2019s own voice as it added a layer of realness to it.<\/p>\n
The book is short (about 5.5 hours in audio form) and details Justine\u2019s life from middle school to present day. Her life growing up as a geek in Pennsylvania and discovery of video games, computers, her creative side of building websites, making videos and the pursuit of this dream which led her to where she is now, an Internet celebrity living in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Her story had to be told. This book has to be written.<\/p>\n
3-4 years ago, I stopped watching Justine\u2019s videos and reading her Tweets and following her. I may have sent her a few SMS messages but really I stopped being a follower. The reason wasn\u2019t her lack of creativity or entertainment value. It\u2019s the way the majority of her fans perceive her and follow her. One of her top videos, \u201cI just want a cheeseburger\u201d is only highly viewed because she\u2019s wearing a thin strapped tank top showing cleavage. The comments reflect this. Her video game play videos contain this drama from \u201creal gamers\u201d who judge her for not being a nerd, for being a poser and jumping on the bandwagon of gaming videos. They call her a blonde bimbo, an idiot and other foul languages. She\u2019s judged constantly by sexists who simply don\u2019t know her.<\/p>\n
As a digital hoarder I have everything on my NAS in the basement, 18 terabytes of data from when I got my first computer 17 years ago and I have about 5 gigabytes of Justine\u2019s early work from 2001-2008. I don\u2019t have stuff only she has produced. I have every Apple commercial up until 2010 and videos from all over the place. I went through and looked at a few of her original videos and pictures. She has always been a zany technophile that loves games and creating digital content with a unique and addictive style. Justine in 2001 is exactly as she is in 2015. I think she\u2019s told me a few times to delete the stuff I\u2019ve stored but, like my 3rd grade paper on what I did during summer vacation, I\u2019ll never delete anything on my drives.<\/p>\n
My point to this statement is that the online community that knew Justine 5 years ago or less doesn\u2019t really understand her journey and evolution and approach to hard work while staying true to herself.<\/p>\n
On the subject of her relationships, partnerships and life outside of the web (and how she brings those offline relationships online) was spot on. She spoke so much to the relationships made that we often didn\u2019t see on camera. I wish more was said about Desiree and Karen and their time with Justine over the years. Daily Random Photo wasn\u2019t spoken about enough and obviously, people on my level of friendship with Justine (outliers mostly) weren\u2019t mentioned despite a few people I know who have helped Justine over the years that were written out but honestly, there just wasn\u2019t enough time I guess to fit everything in, especially those of us who were in and out of her life at random.<\/p>\n
File this one under \u201cnone of your business\u201d but the biggest absence from Justine\u2019s quarter-life memoir was her relationships with men. I wasn\u2019t expecting anything but now that I\u2019m writing this review, it\u2019s something I\u2019ve always wondered in passing. How\u2019s her relationship with her parents and how is she balancing online versus offline relationships these days? I\u2019ve always had a transparent style in putting my relationships online until just recently and Justine has kept most of that private. In fact, when her sisters became prominently featured in many of her videos, I wondered why the sudden change? She hid her family and boyfriends from the online profile for years and suddenly her sisters were in every video I saw.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s truly none of my business but would have been nice to see featured.<\/p>\n
Overall, the book does a really great job. It told so many stories that I was aware of but many people weren\u2019t. Maybe a little more scandal would have been nice because I\u2019m certain there has been some more juicy parts of her life worth telling. It\u2019s sort of why the quarter-life memoirs don\u2019t work. By the time I\u2019m 90, there\u2019s more \u201ctell-all\u201d in my book then there would be in a book i wrote at age 30 because the people who would probably care about what I had to say would be long-gone or simply not care anymore. Justine wasn\u2019t ready to tell some of the stories because she\u2019s still very much in the industry, etc.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t consider my review to be a critique. I enjoyed it very much. I\u2019m very glad she wrote it now and it\u2019s unfortunate that the haters and trolls who spend hours a month sending her hate mail took that same time to read this book and know more about the person behind the celebrity. Justine is a role model for a lot of people and a testament to the age of the Internet where hard work does pay off. You should buy a copy of her book and give it a read!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justine Ezarik has written a book. 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It was pretty darn good.\u00a0 Really impressive stuff\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Culinary"","block_context":{"text":"Culinary","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/culinary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Pizza Hut iJustine Pizza","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7384\/15909065153_53fd9031c7_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4435,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2015\/01\/19\/linked-justine-sacco-is-good-at-her-job-and-how-i-came-to-peace-with-her\/","url_meta":{"origin":4761,"position":1},"title":"Linked: “Justine Sacco Is Good at Her Job, and How I Came To Peace With Her”","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"via Gawker and Sam Biddle: And, as it turned out, Justine Sacco is not a racist monster. She is a kind and canny woman who threw back cocktails, ate delicately, and spoke expertly about software. 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