WE HAD TO REMOVE THIS POST

Scathing, darkly humorous exploration of the impact of VR, IRL.

Up until 16 months ago, Kayleigh was a content moderator at Hexa, a company contracted by an unnamed social media platform to review user posts for inappropriate content. Kayleigh and her co-workers must view hundreds of disturbing posts and videos per day and accurately categorize and flag videos for removal according to company guidelines. The guidelines are often counterintuitive, with more attention to preventing litigation than preventing harm. As Kayleigh and her co-workers begin to internalize the horrors they see each day, the line between the virtual and the physical world, truth and bot chatter, grows fuzzy. Co-workers mistake a roof repairman for a jumper, try to contact users who livestream self-harm, and join flat-earther cults. In this twist on the workplace drama, Bervoets masterfully captures our contemporary moment without devolving into national politics or soapbox rhetoric. Think Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation but with characters who have aged a few years and started full-time jobs. The psychological toll inherent to today’s workforce, big tech ethics, and viral misinformation—each are examined in turn by Kayleigh’s wonderfully snarky, unreliable narration and Bervoets’ intimate portrayals of a well-imagined and diverse cast of characters. Look out for a sucker-punch ending as Kayleigh searches for one of her flagged influencers in person. At first it’s infuriating—over-the-top, out of character, and abrupt. But on further consideration, this controversial conclusion has the reader experience Kayleigh's emotional process after reviewing each post: shocked back into reality and left to wonder how to live with what she's seen.

Bervoets just gets it. This is, unironically, a novel for our time.