In My First Recession, Geert Lovink maps the transition of critical Internet culture from the mid-1990s Internet craze to the dot-com crash, the subsequent meltdown of the global financial markets, and 9/11. In his discussion of the dot-com boom and bust cycle, he lays out the challenges faced by critical Internet culture today. In a series of case studies, Loovink meticulously describes the ambivalent attitude that artists and activists take as they veer back and forth between euphoria and skepticism. As part of this process, Lovink examines the internal dynamics of virtual communities through an analysis of the use of moderation and "collaborative filtering" on mailing lists and weblogs. He also confronts the practical and theoretical problems that appear as artists join the growing number of new media educational programs. Delving into the unexplored gold mines of list archives and blogs, Lovink reveals a world that is largely unknown to both the general public and the Internet visionaries.