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I'm Judging You summary

Name: I'm Judging You
Rating: 3 (19 reviews)
Author: Luvvie Ajayi

Luvvie Ajayi

The Do-Better Manual

3 (19 ratings)

25 mins

Brief summary

I'm Judging You by Luvvie Ajayi is a humorous and thought-provoking guidebook for living in a world that can be ridiculous. The author uses a mix of personal anecdotes and social commentary to encourage readers to be more aware and critical of their own behavior and the world around them.

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Table of Contents

I'm Judging You
Summary of 10 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Get some free advice from a popular voice in pop culture.

Nigerian-born Luvvie Ajayi has been making waves as a pop-culture and humor writer for a number of years. Her weekly recaps of the television show Scandal were even appreciated by Shonda Rhimes, the show’s creator. But as her first book makes clear, Ajayi has more on her mind than just binge-worthy television.

Ajayi is full of humorous yet truthful insights on a whole range of today’s most pressing subjects, including racism and the dangerous effects of social media. As an early adopter of Facebook and Twitter, she’s seen these platforms go from small curiosities to major factors in US election campaigns. And as a woman of color in America, she’s keenly aware of how the issues of racial and gender discrimination continue to plague the nation.

So take a tour of modern America through the eyes of a fearless commentator to learn about how things stand and what we can do to improve them.

In these blinks you’ll find out

the difference between a friend who’s a Lannister and one who’s a Frenemy;
the various facepalming ways that people misuse hashtags; and
why you need to retire your Hotmail account.

There are three kinds of dinner scrooges to beware of.

Let’s be clear about one thing: no one’s perfect. While the author is quick to point out when someone’s behaving terribly, she also knows her own faults can sometimes make her part of the problem.

For example, Ajayi is chronically late to just about anything you might invite her to – something that’s certainly brought her a fair amount of shame in the past, like the time she fell flat on her face while sprinting to catch a plane.

Now, while Ajayi might show up late to a scheduled dinner, there are other folks who should also feel ashamed of their behavior, and they’re called dinner scrooges.

Dinner scrooges come in three varieties: The first being the kind of person to devour massive amounts of food and then proposes splitting the check evenly. Or, if they don’t eat it all, they’ll order more so that they can take it home. It’s like they want others to subsidize their next couple of meals!

The second dinner scrooge is the annoying person who busts out the calculator to figure out exactly how much they owe. They’ll often stress how much less they ate than everyone else and be a cheapskate when it comes to tipping.

Then there’s the one who’ll come up with a reason to vanish early and “forget” to leave any money for the bill. If this happens once, you can give them the benefit of the doubt. But if it happens twice, you definitely have a dinner scrooge in your midst.

Dinner scrooges can make dining out with friends a very frustrating experience, and Ajayi would prefer it if future dinners were prix fixe menus and everyone paid cash. After all, there are shows in her Netflix queue waiting to be watched, and she doesn’t have time to spend an hour figuring out the bill for yet another overpriced, bland dinner.

There are nine types of bad friends who can challenge us with their terrible behavior.

Difficult dinner companions are just one unfortunate aspect of having a social life. There are also nine types of friends that can really test our patience.

At number one is the Competitor, the kind of friend who’s always trying to outdo you and make any bit of good news in your life about them. Got a new job? They got promoted. Got a new boyfriend? They just got engaged. Eventually, you’ll wonder if this friend wishes you well at all!

Think before you get plastic surgery or follow society’s unhealthy beauty standards.

Two words serve as a clear sign that we’ve taken cosmetic surgery too far: anal bleaching. That this procedure exists is proof there are no limits to how superficial we can be.

The sad truth is that skin-lightening procedures of all kinds can be found around the world, as our idea of beauty is tied to light skin tones. Just do an image search for the word “beauty” and see how white the results are.

Being racist doesn’t require malicious intent.

Sexist, racist, homophobic and hypocritical people – these are the shitty human beings that Ajayi has no end of judgments for.

We tend to think of racists as those horrible, tiki-torch-carrying people at the Charlottesville rally in 2017. But the truth is, you don’t need to be carrying a torch or wearing a white robe to be racist. You can be a very well-intentioned person and still have straight-up racist tendencies.

Men need to be more aware of today’s rape culture, and white women need to be more inclusive around feminism.

Here’s something every man should know: women don’t appreciate being yelled at as they’re walking down the street. What some men fail to realize is that there’s a very serious culture of sexual violence in the US, causing many women to feel vulnerable. The last thing they need is an aggressive stranger yelling at them.

There’s still a general attitude that women are not equal to men – that they’re sex objects whose primary purpose is to service men. It doesn’t help that the political system is dominated by men that want to regulate what women can and can’t do with their bodies, furthering the sense of oppression and the idea that women must bend to the will of men.

Don’t use religion as a tool for homophobia, sexism or hate.

Luvvie Ajayi has long been a faithful Christian, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t felt strongly judgemental about organized religion, especially in the way it was used as a tool of oppression.

Sure, there were deadly wars waged by religious leaders in centuries past, but religion is still being used today to oppress the gay community and prop up racist ideas. The hypocrisy has got to stop!

We need to be better at how we use social media.

Few things on social media can get Ajayi’s blood boiling like hashtag abuse.

Sure, hashtags can be useful in collecting posts related to important movements like #MeToo, but there are far too many people online who are either clueless or purposefully wrongheaded in their use of hashtags.

There are five pitfalls to avoid to be a successful communicator online.

A lot of online entrepreneurs can easily prove themselves to be clueless by making some simple mistakes. The first, of course, is the use of Comic Sans. That has got to stop ASAP.

The second is the continued use of a Hotmail or AOL email address.

Internet fame is dubious, and it’s produced seven different kinds of questionable personality types.

Shakespeare once wrote that all the world’s a stage, and we’re just the players, but even he would be amazed at how appropriate those words are now. With everyone carrying around a camera in their pocket, we can all post episodes of our own reality show every day.

This has led to some people becoming internet personalities by receiving endorsement deals and a certain level of fame and money. For others, it’s led to desperate measures to try and attain this dubious level of fame.

The 2016 election has shown how we need to do better.

Luvvie Ajayi wrote the bulk of this book before the 2016 US election, so her comments on racism, feminism and fake news turned out to be remarkably relevant when the book was released.

But the election and its aftermath showed just how crucial it is that we pay attention to these issues.

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What is I'm Judging You about?

I’m Judging You (2016) provides a uniquely humorous take on all the ways modern society can produce annoying, absurd and downright terrible people. Whether it’s misusing hashtags on social media or being an unbearable sexist monster, author Luvvie Ajayi is ready to call out their awfulness and provide readers with some pointers on how to avoid her judgemental wrath.

Who should read I'm Judging You?

Anyone looking to get more woke
People fed up with racism and sexism
Readers who want a humorous take on American society

About the Author

Luvvie Ajayi is a writer of pop-culture criticism and sought-after public speaker who doesn’t shy away from calling out injustices when she sees them. She’s also an activist, digital strategist and executive director of HIV/AIDS organization The Red Pump Project. You can find more of her writing at awesomelyluvvie.com.

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