'Will have you in stitches' The Irish Times 'He's almost certainly not the hero you ordered, but he's the hero we need right now' Dave Gorman 'I nearly stopped breathing twice as I was laughing so much. Glorious." Dom Joly 'Probably the funniest thing I've read this year' Rufus Hound Get ready for the online adventures of one man who just wants to make friends And one very annoyed world Based on the ingenious Sir Michael Twitter account, How to (Almost) Make Friends on the Internet is the funniest book you'll read this year. Whether it's offering his services as a Karate Lawyer or Funeral DJ, devising the world's worst plan to get a free haircut, or trying to buy a blue bucket that may or may not be for sale, Michael just wants to connect with people. The only problem is that people are slightly less enthusiastic about connecting with him and the results are utterly hilarious. Warning: you'll never think about adding someone called Michael to a group chat the same way ever again. 'Finally, someone has worked out a good use for social media and it's brilliantly, painfully funny' Iain Morris, Co-creator of The Inbetweeners 'Michael is the funniest human on the internet, bar none. Read his book, you cowards' James Felton, author of 52 Times Britain was a Bellend

'Will have you in stitches' The Irish Times 'He's almost certainly not the hero you ordered, but he's the hero we need right now' Dave Gorman 'I nearly stopped breathing twice as I was laughing so much. Glorious." Dom Joly 'Probably the funniest thing I've read this year' Rufus Hound Get ready for the online adventures of one man who just wants to make friends And one very annoyed world Based on the ingenious Sir Michael Twitter account, How to (Almost) Make Friends on the Internet is the funniest book you'll read this year. Whether it's offering his services as a Karate Lawyer or Funeral DJ, devising the world's worst plan to get a free haircut, or trying to buy a blue bucket that may or may not be for sale, Michael just wants to connect with people. The only problem is that people are slightly less enthusiastic about connecting with him and the results are utterly hilarious. Warning: you'll never think about adding someone called Michael to a group chat the same way ever again. 'Finally, someone has worked out a good use for social media and it's brilliantly, painfully funny' Iain Morris, Co-creator of The Inbetweeners 'Michael is the funniest human on the internet, bar none. Read his book, you cowards' James Felton, author of 52 Times Britain was a Bellend

The Internet isn't all cat videos. There's also Felicia Day -- violinist, filmmaker, Internet entrepreneur, compulsive gamer, hoagie specialist, and former lonely homeschooled girl who overcame her isolated childhood to become the ruler of a new world ... or at least semi-influential in the world of Internet Geeks and Goodreads book clubs. After growing up in the south where she was "homeschooled for hippie reasons", Felicia moved to Hollywood to pursue her dream of becoming an actress and was immediately typecast as a crazy cat-lady secretary. But Felicia's misadventures in Hollywood led her to produce her own web series, own her own production company, and become an Internet star. Felicia's short-ish life and her rags-to-riches rise to Internet fame launched her career as one of the most influential creators in new media. Now Felicia's strange world is filled with thoughts on creativity, video games, and a dash of mild feminist activism -- just like her memoir. Felicia's story demonstrates that everyone should embrace what makes them different and be brave enough to share it with the world, because anything is possible now -- even for a digital misfit.

This essential go-to guide reveals how women can enhance their lives by creating valuable friendships in today’s busy, mobile world, from nationally recognized friendship expert and CEO of GirlFriendCircles.com. Every woman is searching for a happier, healthier, more fulfilling life. Many realize the significant role that an intimate, tightly knit circle of friends plays in creating a more fulfilling life, but with hectic schedules, frequent moves, and life changes, it’s more important than ever for women to establish natural, meaningful friendships that will contribute to their overall wellbeing. In Friendships Don’t Just Happen!, Shasta Nelson, friendship expert and CEO of GirlFriendCircles.com, reveals the most important proven steps, processes, and secrets vital to establishing the five different levels of friendships, or Circles of Connectedness, that women—no matter their age or relationship status—are longing for in today’s stressful and mobile culture. This revolutionary, engaging guide will also benefit women who already feel rooted to fabulous friends, with insightful principles that will help them maintain and enhance their current friendships. Full of practical how-to tips, fun activities, guiding questions, and step-by-step instructions, Friendships Don’t Just Happen! highlights several areas of developing lasting friendships, teaching women how to: Evaluate their current circle of friends Recognize what types of friends they are seeking based on career, interests, location, and relationship status Create a prioritized friendship action plan Find extraordinary friends—where to look and how to approach them Take initiative to jumpstart friendships and face fears of rejection Establish “frientimacy,” trust, and happiness through conversation and activities Maintain meaningful friendships and determine which ones are worthwhile Excerpt from Friendships Don't Just Happen: There is a lie out there that real friendship just happens. When I was new to San Francisco eight years ago, I remember standing at a café window on Polk Street watching a group of women inside, huddled around a table laughing. Like the puppy dog at the pound, I looked through the glass, wishing someone would pick me to be theirs. I had a phone full of far-flung friends’ phone numbers, but I didn’t yet know anyone I could just sit and laugh with in a café. It hit me how very hard the friendship process is. I’m an outgoing, socially comfortable woman with a long line of good friendships behind me. And yet I stood there feeling very lonely. And insecure. And exhausted at just the idea of how far I was from that reality. I knew I couldn’t just walk in there and introduce myself to them. “Hi! You look like fun women, can I join you?” I would have been met with stares of pity. No one wants to seem desperate, even if we are. We don’t have platonic pick-up lines memorized. Flirting for friends seems creepy. Asking for her phone number like we’re going to call her up for a Saturday night date is just plain weird. All the batting of my eyelashes wasn’t going to send the right signals. And so I turned away from the scene of laughter and walked away. No, unfortunately, friendships don’t just happen. We Value Belonging Friendships may not happen automatically, but what we crave about them sure seems to! We all want to belong—that need to be connected to others is an inherent desire. We live our entire lives trying to fit in, be known, attract acceptance, and experience intimacy. We desperately want to have others care about us. This book is about that hunger. And more pointedly, it is about listening to it and learning how to fulfill it.

Part memoir and part guidebook, Share Your Stuff. I'll Go First. is the invitation you've been waiting for to show up with your whole self and discover the intimate, meaningful friendships you long for. In spite of the hyper-connected culture we live in today, women still feel shamed for oversharing and being publicly vulnerable. And no matter how many friends we seem to have, many of us are still desperately lonely. Laura Tremaine, blogger and podcaster behind 10 Things To Tell You, says it's time for something better. Openness and vulnerability are the foundation for human growth and healthy relationships, and it all starts when we share our stuff, the nitty-gritty daily details about ourselves with others. Laura has led the way in her personal life with her popular blog and podcast, and now with lighthearted self-awareness, a sensitivity to the important things in life, and compelling storytelling, Laura gives you the tools to build and deepen the conversations happening in your life. Laura's stories about her childhood, her complicated shifts in faith and friendships, and her marriage to a Hollywood movie director will prompt you to identify the beautiful narrative and pivotal milestones of your own life. Each chapter offers intriguing and reflective questions that will reveal unique details and stories you've never thought to tell and will guide you into cultivating the authentic connection with others that only comes from sharing yourself. So let’s get started! Share Your Stuff. I'll Go First.

The Instant-Series Presents "Instant Friendship" How to Make Friends Instantly! It's the weekend...finally! You've made it! You've been working long and hard all week, and now you're ready to unwind. Just as you're about to enjoy yourself, that feeling of accomplishment turns into disappointment almost immediately as you get depressed. Why is that? It's because you have no friends! You have no friends to call up on. You have no friends to go out with or want to hang out with YOU. How come? It could be because you never really were the extroverted social type growing up with the opportunity to develop your social skills; you and your friends have grown apart due to time or new life priorities; or perhaps you have just relocated without knowing anybody and have to rebuild your social circle from scratch. As much as you would still like to go out, you're afraid to go out by yourself feeling the dreaded social anxiety and from not knowing how to meet and make friends! So rather than going out - you stay in being glued to Netflix, wasting time on Facebook looking at all the posted images of the wonderful nights others are having, and wishing you could be a part of that! Thus, the real questions we should be asking: Are you feeling sick and tired of being lonely not having anybody to hang out with? Are you jealous of other people who always seem to have fun when they're out? Are you secretly envious of the folks who always have exciting things to do with their friends? If you ARE, you can develop instant friendships now! Within "Instant Friendship": * How to determine your current friendability level in order to calibrate your social interaction in making friends. * How to meet new people and where to meet them with all the friendly tricks of the trade that you'll need. * How to cold approach random strangers and go from first meeting to progressing into a real friendship step-by-step. * How to be the social butterfly you always wanted to be to explode your social life exponentially to the next level. * How to maintain your friendships once they're established so all the effort put into them don't go to waste. * Plus, custom practical "how-to" strategies, techniques, applications and exercises on how to get friends. ...and much more. Now it's the time to STOP feeling like you're missing out on life, trapped indoor to your loneliness while everybody else is out being social, enjoying life, and having memorable great times with their friends. Experience that now! Reclaim and live the good life now! Time for you to make new friends!

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!! Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Amazon, and The Washington Post A Wired Must-Read Book of Summer “Gretchen McCulloch is the internet’s favorite linguist, and this book is essential reading. Reading her work is like suddenly being able to see the matrix.” —Jonny Sun, author of everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are. Language is humanity's most spectacular open-source project, and the internet is making our language change faster and in more interesting ways than ever before. Internet conversations are structured by the shape of our apps and platforms, from the grammar of status updates to the protocols of comments and @replies. Linguistically inventive online communities spread new slang and jargon with dizzying speed. What's more, social media is a vast laboratory of unedited, unfiltered words where we can watch language evolve in real time. Even the most absurd-looking slang has genuine patterns behind it. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explores the deep forces that shape human language and influence the way we communicate with one another. She explains how your first social internet experience influences whether you prefer "LOL" or "lol," why ~sparkly tildes~ succeeded where centuries of proposals for irony punctuation had failed, what emoji have in common with physical gestures, and how the artfully disarrayed language of animal memes like lolcats and doggo made them more likely to spread.