How Oversharing Became a Product in a Digital World

Trauma Industrial Complex

The standout, authentic voice of a generation

McGarvey is a rarity: a working-class writer who has fought to make the middle-class world hear what he has to say

Darren McGarvey grew up in Pollok, Glasgow. He is a writer, hip-hop artist, broadcaster and campaigner. His bestselling and acclaimed first book Poverty Safari was awarded the Orwell Prize for political writing in 2018.

Today, trauma is everywhere, and it seems like everybody has it. Trauma shapes public debates on education, criminal justice and healthcare. It’s cited as a root cause of addiction, mental health issues, and relationship breakdowns. It permeates media, from music and television to films and books – my own included. 
 
While the increasing openness is welcome, I’ve observed that this rise has been accompanied by a parallel explosion of disinformation. We now have a poorly regulated marketplace – powered by social media's financial incentives – filled with confusing and sometimes harmful guidance about how to deal with personal trauma. 
 
Every day, trauma-related content drives billions of views online. Across the Western world, millions are adopting narratives of their own fragility based on ideas they’ve acquired from under-informed content creators. 
 
As trauma is rapidly commodified, I’ve seen our stories of lived experience become largely dislocated from their original social and political value: to defend the vulnerable and leverage for social change. Now, trauma stories are less about spotlighting injustice, and more about monetising self-help for affluent people. 
 
How did we get here? Are the stories we are telling ourselves liberating us or keeping us trapped? 
 
In this revealing and deeply personal book, I’ll pull back the curtain on the trauma industrial complex, tipping the sacred cows of lived experience and sharing the hard-won wisdom I’ve gained from the calamitous events brought on by telling my own story.

Darren McGarvey

This is McGarvey at his best, asking discomfiting questions of many-most?-of his readers and also pointing out that class inequality is endlessly reproduced by people who either do well out of it or are too institutionalised to see what is in front of them. The quality of McGarvey's reporting and storytelling is first-rate... he makes no end of astute points

An Orwell for today's poor... By the end readers will be left in no doubt about the fact that our society is still riven by class inequality

Vital and indispensable. Documents how we succeeded in creating a 21st century ruling class who - in their complacency, their lack of engagement, their blinkered ideology and dead-hand managerialism - are themselves, now, the principal source of the social problems they so confidently locate elsewhere, and which they therefore cannot even begin to solve

An essential read for every politician, civil servant, councillor, charity worker, police officer and teacher. [An] angry, but controlled, expose of the wide gap between Britain's decision-makers and those most affected by their thoughtless, stupid or selfish actions.

How Remote Politics Wrecked Britain

*A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK* 
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION* 
*LONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE* 
 
'An Orwell for today's poor' - The Times 
'The standout, authentic voice of a generation' Herald 
'McGarvey is a rarity: a working-class writer who has fought to make the middle-class world hear what he has to say' Nick Cohen, Guardian 
 
Why are the rich getting richer while the poor only get poorer? How is it possible that in a wealthy, civilised democracy cruelty and inequality are perpetuated by our own public services? And how come, if all the best people are in all the top jobs, Britain is such an unmitigated bin fire? 
 
Join Darren McGarvey on a journey through a divided Britain in search of answers. Here, our latter-day Orwell exposes the true scale of Britain's social ills and reveals why our current political class, those tasked with bringing solutions, are so distanced from our lived experience that they are the last people you'd want fighting your corner. 
 
Praise for Darren McGarvey: 
 
'Utterly compelling' Ian Rankin, New Statesman 
 
'Brilliant' Russell Brand 
 
'An absolutely fascinating individual' Owen Jones 
 
'Offer[s] an antidote to populist anger that transcends left and right... articulate and emotional' Financial Times

Darren McGarvey

Praise for The Social Distance Between Us

This is McGarvey at his best, asking discomfiting questions of many-most?-of his readers and also pointing out that class inequality is endlessly reproduced by people who either do well out of it or are too institut ...

An Orwell for today's poor... By the end readers will be left in no doubt about the fact that our society is still riven by class inequality

Breaks your heart and boils your blood

This is McGarvey at his best, asking discomfiting questions of many-most?-of his readers and also pointing out that class inequality is endlessly reproduced by people who either do well out of it or are too institut ...

An Orwell for today's poor... By the end readers will be left in no doubt about the fact that our society is still riven by class inequality

Breaks your heart and boils your blood

This is McGarvey at his best, asking discomfiting questions of many-most?-of his readers and also pointing out that class inequality is endlessly reproduced by people who either do well out of it or are too institut ...

An Orwell for today's poor... By the end readers will be left in no doubt about the fact that our society is still riven by class inequality

Breaks your heart and boils your blood

Books by Darren McGarvey

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