The List: A Novel

“Thank you to all who submitted. We created this account as official channels continue to fail survivors of abuse in the media and entertainment industries. We have no choice but to do something ourselves.”

The pinned tweet on The List’s Twitter account bolsters the theme of Justice and the #MeToo Movement. This passage asserts that because survivors of sexual assault cannot count on “official channels” to punish predators, women must create new forms of justice. The tweet therefore sets the stage for the complex backlash that Michael and Ola will soon have to navigate.

“But she had dedicated the best part of a decade to rallying against patriarchy, rape culture, and toxic masculinity […] She wasn’t the type of person to miss the red flags and make the mistake of being with someone capable of that behavior.”

In this passage, it becomes clear that Ola’s personal life, professional life, and activism are blurring together. Her feminist stance informs her work, and both her political views and her occupation carry over into her personal life, leaving her to question her judgment and whether she missed a “red flag” concerning Michael.

“[Ruth’s] eyes were usually heavy with lashes from her line ‘Cashmere Lash Doll.’ She bought synthetic ones from Chinese vendors, repackaged them in luxe black and gold-bowed boxes marked ‘Siberian mink,’ hiked up the prices by 400 percent, and thanked her customers kindly for doing their bit to support Black business.”

At key moments, Adegoke’s novel serves as a parody of the demand to pair activism with capitalism. With Ruth’s eyelashes, Adegoke skewers the fact that people often fetishize Black businesses. Ruth’s business is not progressive, but the narrative implies that people mindlessly think that they’re engaging in an iteration of consumerism due to her skin color.

“She was a good Black woman™ and he a good Black man™ and it was undoubtedly a good thing they had found each other.”

With the ironic inclusion of the trademark symbols, Adegoke parodies the idea that internet visibility turns people into commodities. Ola and Michael are not people but products—the “good Black woman” and “good Black man.” The repetition of the word “good” reveals the degree to which people sentimentalize them. In reality, they are not that good because they have human flaws even if they don’t promote them on social media.

“[Kiran] put her money where her feminist morals were: volunteering at women’s shelters on weekends and donating a large portion of the money she made from a popular Patreon.”

The emphasis on Kiran’s charity and volunteer work suggests that not all feminists practice the activities that they market online. As Kiran puts “her money where feminist morals [are],” the narrative implies that Kiran’s values are substantial, not superficial forms of marketing.

“Ousting their only Black employee months after a corporate race scandal was a bad look. But on the other hand, so was housing an alleged abuser.”

The fraught situation between CuRated and Michael lampoons the tendency of online culture to reduce people to symbols. By hiring Michael, CuRated turns him into a mascot to implicitly promote the assertion that the platform is not inherently racist. However, when The List turns Michael into a symbol for an “alleged abuser,” this development damages Michael’s public relations value, as he can no longer symbolize progressive anti-racism.

“Once you fed something to the internet, it was never truly yours again.”

The stark, bleak tone of this statement highlights the lack of control that Ola and Michael have over their lives due to their dependence on the volatile rhythms of social media. Once Ola posts personal information on the internet, she surrenders all control over how that information is interpreted or used, and the innumerable comments and feedback take over and determine her experience.

“How could a minority of people be talking about The List and yet it seemed as though the whole world was whispering about him? In a way it was a world, his world.”

Michael’s world is his reality, and his reality is inseparable from The List and the spaces on the internet that keep discussing it. This aspect of the novel implies that the perception of reality is subjective, as Michael’s internal anguish is based on his ongoing rumination about how his public reputation is being ruined.

“She writes about toy penises, at that sex shop, yes? And multicolored condoms.”

In this scene, the author uses the overexaggerated misconceptions of Michael’s mother to lampoon Ola’s job. This humorous portrayal of Ola’s position both emphasizes the fact that Michael’s mother is out of touch with the online world and recasts Ola as a trivial content creator who focuses on garish sexual commodities, completely ignoring her status as an activist and journalist who is battling toxic masculinity.

“That doesn’t make you stupid. That makes you human. Imagine the choices we’d make without love fucking up our faculties? Life would be perfect. Except we wouldn’t have got Lemonade. Or Ctrl.”

In this passage, Ola’s sister acknowledges that Ola is “human” and asserts that humans are not perfect and therefore do not always make the best choices. However, her whimsical final line also implies that human flaws can produce powerful art, as with Beyonce’s album Lemonade (2016) or SZA’s album Ctrl (2017).

“[A]busive? Nah, son. [But] I’ve used some language I shouldn’t have. Called people names during fights. Like most blokes my age. But I’m also gay, which probably makes things a bit less straightforward.”

Lewis Hale claims that his sexual orientation makes the accusations of anti-gay bias “less straightforward,” but his attitude overlooks the fact that a gay person can be equally capable of holding anti-gay biases. Thus, the author indirectly critiques this stance, implying that belonging to a historically marginalized group does not automatically excuse, explain, or complicate predatory behavior.

“I proper loved off Ol@’s writing. Used to follow CumTheFckThru and was so happy to see her shining at Womxxxn. But I am sooo disappointed in her, omds! She has to speak up.”

The online comments about Ola reinforce the lack of boundaries between her personal life, activism, and career. This particular commenter connects Ola’s writing to her feminist values, and because neither aspect aligns with her choice to stick with Michael, Ola “disappoints” the user. For Ola to preserve a positive online reputation, she cannot reveal any deviation between her actions, her beliefs, and her choice of a romantic partner.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

In this scene, Armani reads from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 in an attempt to publicly “troll” Ola at her own wedding and remind her that love is a painstaking commitment. The implication is that Ola is allowing people on the internet to interfere with her love for Michael and ruin a deep, meaningful relationship.

“Ola tried to avoid spiraling by reminding herself of the facts. She had married the love of her life. There was no evidence he’d done anything wrong. She was starting a new chapter.”

In the novel, reality is not synonymous with truth, and this passage indicates that Ola is trying to regain control of her world by remembering “the facts.” However, the truth does not change her experience or her feelings about marrying Michael. This section of the novel highlights the complexities of The Real-World Impact of Online Activity.

“‘Don’t you care? About anything other than clicks and traffic and views?’ ‘I’m running a business, Ola. And I’ve never once pretended to be doing anything else.’”

The dialogue between Frankie and Ola stresses the commodification of activist issues. Frankie wants Ola to write about her experience because people will read and circulate it. Because there is a demand for visceral feminist content, Frankie is determined to supply it and has no consideration for Ola’s scruples on this point. This scene marks a critical turning point in which Ola rejects the commodification of her own life, and the concluding scenes of the novel show her eschewing this dynamic entirely.

“Since the group was made up of Black men who had been listed, the first members had named it in reference to ‘The Central Park Five,’ which only made Michael more uncomfortable. Largely because lots of them were guilty without question.”

The name of the group chat inverts the experience of the historical Central Park Five, who were innocent of the allegations against them and suffered from invisibility in society. By contrast, the Black men in the chat are famous to a degree, and many of them are guilty of the accusations leveled against them.

“[He] knew that disappearing offline was like being on the run. It didn’t mean the police weren’t still looking for you. You could never relax. You only waited for them to catch up.”

In this passage, Michael uses a simile to illustrate the idea that pulling away from social media and the internet is like being a criminal who is keen to avoid the law. The comparison demonstrates the power that the internet has over Michael’s reality. He cannot distance himself from the digital world any more than he can remove himself from the material world.

“Ola wondered if this was how Celie saw her too; like Sophie, a dye-job millennial caricature who was more than ready to sharpen her pixelated pitchfork until it pointed back at her.”

Through diction, Ola notes the cartoonish elements of predominantly online activism. She wonders if Celie views her as “millennial caricature” with a “pixelated pitchfork” instead of as a serious person bestowing justice.

“See how they try to do Bill Cosby? […] Even with R. Kelly…I don’t give a fuck, any time a Black man is successful, reaches a certain level, you know they ain’t gonna let him stay there.”

By referencing the comedian Bill Cosby and the R&B singer R. Kelly, the man with the beanie hat argues that “successful” Black men are the victims of racism. However, the narrative emphasizes that these two famous men lost their reputations not because of racism but because of their choices to abuse and sexually assault women.

“[H]er body looked like a plastic surgeon’s boastful ‘after’ pic of a Brazilian Butt Lift procedure. All au naturel however, which Jackie was quick to remind her followers of via various hashtags.”

The reference to the “Brazilian Butt Lift” creates a distinct, concrete image of Jackie’s appearance and emphasizes society’s fixation on women’s physical attributes. While many women undergo this popular procedure to appear more voluptuous, Jackie is naturally curvaceous, and this trait is framed in such a way as to imply that her appearance holds a higher value in her eyes than those who actively altered their bodies.

“We just can’t afford to be thought of as sexists as well as racists.”

Beth’s comment is ironic given the fact that CuRated hired Michael in order to promote its own image as a platform that actively opposes racism. However, due to The List, the move makes the platform appear hostile to women’s issues. Throughout the novel, CuRated reduces Michael to a mascot and a label. Initially, he is the Black man representing diversity, but now he is perceived as embodying toxic masculinity.

“[Michael] was sickened by the sudden outpouring of empathy for Lewis, empathy he had needed so desperately while alive.”

Lewis’s death demonstrates how powerfully demand can drive opinions. When Lewis was alive and on The List, people wanted to read negative content about him, but after his death by suicide, people are more open to reading sympathetic posts. This dramatic shift demonstrates the treacherous volatility of public opinion in the online world.

“For so long, Jackie Asare had been an onscreen assailant, the final boss in a video game. And there she was, in the flesh, flanked by a brood of kids like a fertility goddess.”

The boundaries between the online world and the material world collapse as Ola spots Jackie in the park. Because the author does not reveal Jackie in the physical world until the end of the novel, her various online comments make her appear to be an elusive “onscreen assailant.” In this scene, her tangible appearance and Ola’s reaction to it highlight The Real-World Impact of Online Activity.