The Attention Merchants

The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads

By: Tim Wu

Narrated by: Marc Cashman

From Tim Wu, author of the award-winning The Master Switch ( a New Yorker and Fortune Book of the Year) and who coined the term "net neutrality”—a revelatory, ambitious and urgent account of how the capture and re-sale of human attention became the defining industry of our time.

Feeling attention challenged? Even assaulted? American business depends on it. In nearly every moment of our waking lives, we face a barrage of messaging, advertising enticements, branding, sponsored social media, and other efforts to harvest our attention. Few moments or spaces of our day remain uncultivated by the "attention merchants," contributing to the distracted, unfocused tenor of our times. Tim Wu argues that this condition is not simply the byproduct of recent technological innovations but the result of more than a century's growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention. From the pre-Madison Avenue birth of advertising to the explosion of the mobile web; from AOL and the invention of email to the attention monopolies of Google and Facebook; from Ed Sullivan to celebrity power brands like Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump, the basic business model of "attention merchants" has never changed: free diversion in exchange for a moment of your consideration, sold in turn to the highest-bidding advertiser. Wu describes the revolts that have risen against the relentless siege of our awareness, from the remote control to the creation of public broadcasting to Apple's ad-blocking OS. But he makes clear that attention merchants are always growing new heads, even as their means of getting inside our heads are changing our very nature--cognitive, social, political and otherwise--in ways unimaginable even a generation ago.

“A startling and sweeping examination of the increasingly ubiquitous commercial effort to capture and commodify our attention…We’ve become the consumers, the producers, and the content. We are selling ourselves to ourselves.”
—Tom Vanderbilt, The New Republic

“An erudite, energizing, outraging, funny and thorough history…A devastating critique of ad tech as it stands today, transforming "don't be evil" into the surveillance business model in just a few short years. It connects the dots between the sale of advertising inventory in schools to the bizarre ecosystem of trackers, analyzers and machine-learning models that allow the things you look at on the web to look back at you…This stuff is my daily beat, and I learned a lot from Attention Merchants.”
—Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

“Illuminating.”
—Jacob Weisberg, The New York Review of Books

Thought provoking

When I purchased this audio book I had hoped the author would elucidate what is going on with the rampant pillaging of personal private information. I fear nefarious use of such data. I was not expecting the author's deep, thoughtful historical analysis of the issues around advertising. Where he went, he went carefully and fearlessly.
I am not clear if cloud storage of data existed at the time of his writing. The level of cohersion to force individuals to use such data storage services is something I find dangerous and personally appalling.
I am an author and TV show host. Without my consent all my shows and the still photos I use to enrich the studio footage were uploaded to the cloud. I was then informed I had to pay monthly rent for the undesired storage or have the episodes removed from my home computer. Much data was mysteriously deleted from not only the mainframe but also my backup drive.
I rebelled and was able to reclaim my ownership of my own intellectual property, at least for a short while. Lately I faced a more subtle upload requirement of unpublished text and perfectly functioning portable storage drives are now malfunctioning. I heard the term ransomware. I would love to hear this author's opinions about that and it's impact on intellectual expression and ultimately freedom of speech. If someone you do not know can delete your thoughts and words at will, how safe are you as a creative?

This history of the impact of advertising

What did you love best about The Attention Merchants?

Another reviewer called this the history of advertising. I think it would be more accurate to call it a history of the impact of advertising on us as a society. The Professor does a wonderful job of exploring what the ramifications of advertising have been over the years.

A good example was how advertising for Newport cigarettes in the early part of the 20th century wound up making the same shade of green used in Newport packaging one of the hot fashion colors at the time.

What did you like best about this story?

The author makes clear that advertising is a form of propaganda, and goes on to explain what propaganda is and how it works. Today we think of propaganda as something evil, a way to send a subversive message. Professor Wu helped me understand that at one time the word propaganda had neither a positive or negative connotation, but was instead a method for swaying public opinion.

Have you listened to any of Marc Cashman’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have, this one is equally as good as his others. Some narrators seem to get in the way of the story, but Mr Cashman does a good job of making the story be the star, the mark of a good narrator.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I enjoyed hearing about Edward Bernays and the impact he had on the world of propaganda and advertising. I'd heard of him before (most notably on the podcast 'Stuff They Don't Want You to Know'), but learned many new things about Mr Bernays from this book.

Any additional comments?

I think I enjoyed Professor Wu's work "The Master Switch" a tad more, but that I believe is due to my interest and work in the tech world. (If you haven't read it yet I highly suggest making it the next book you get.)

When I saw this work though I immediately bought it and don't in the least regret it. I learned many new things, and it gave me pause to think about what impact advertising (propaganda) has had on me.

Attention Merchants is a Revelation

Detailed, Clear, and magnificently laid out of how consumer attention became the most sought after commodity of all.

Understanding what and who motivates our buying

Here is an educational opportunity to know why and who you are supporting with your buying habits and purchases. I enjoy the connection between the option to think of choice rather then impulse.

Worth the read

Learn about the history of propaganda and advertising from a wonderful story teller and thorough researcher. Excellent narration by Marc Cashman. You will not be disappointed by this book.