The death of authenticity amid the pursuit of clicks and popularity is at the heart of What a Time To Be Alive, a dark and sometimes satirical social commentary.
When her childhood friend Alex dies, Lola Treasure Gold’s moment of heartbreak and vulnerability is captured on video. Overnight, the broke and broken 31-year-old is launched into social media stardom as a spiritual self-help speaker. Though hesitant at first to assume this persona, Lola is quickly enticed by the attention and praise, and the influx of money to pay off her debts. As Lola embraces her admirers and wrestles with critics who say she has made a sham of her friendship with Alex by exploiting his death, she must discover for herself the point at which authenticity becomes performance, and what this role truly costs her.
Examining the motivation and sincerity of influencer culture is a timely and compelling endeavor. Chang weaves poignant observations on grief and mortality into her descriptions of a generation that lives their lives in public. The behind-the-scenes glimpses of influencer strategies, such as Lola studying the posts of others to discover what makes someone popular, are engaging and ring true. However, while Chang’s prose is often immersive, at times Lola’s stream of consciousness weighs down the narrative or verges on moralizing. The aspect of Lola’s backstory involving China’s one-child policy and its impact on Lola and her mother also feels undeveloped.
Still, What a Time To Be Alive casts a keen eye on the frenzy of social media and the disingenuous and addictive world of influencers and the influenced.