Elon Musk fumbling around with the platform formerly known as Twitter is just the latest example in a long line of tech executives who didn’t know what to do with their social-media platforms. The founders of YouTube intended for it to work as a dating site. Mark Zuckerberg and Kevin Systrom were initially wary of content creators and influencers, who are now the bread and butter of Facebook and Instagram. In her new book, Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet, Washington Post tech columnist Taylor Lorenz traces the beginnings of social media not just through the missteps of its founders, but through the users and content creators who made these platforms valuable. “The influencer industry was pioneered by women,†Lorenz says. It was the much-maligned cohort of mommy bloggers who talked about postpartum depression while also building personal brands they could monetize. “Venture capitalists act like Mr. Beast invented it all,†says Lorenz. “It was mothers, women, marginalized people, LGBTQ people. It was people that were shut out of traditional funding and institutions.†Subscribe below and listen to the full episode of Into It to hear more about the history of social media and what it’s been like for Lorenz herself to be part of the cycle of online outrage.