Whenever I have been asked by friends, ‘so what are the effects of “you” in the end?’, I have answered that (1) we need to agree on the scope of reference for each ‘you’ encountered; (2) see what it linguistically collocates with; (3) highlight the overall pragmatic objectives; (4) consider the genre of the text along with the narratological framework – who speaks to whom, through whom and on behalf of whom; (5) take into account the author’s personal history and the socio-cultural context of the narrative’s emergence; and, lastly, (6) acknowledge the potential difference in acts of reading depending on readers’ dispositions, histories and backgrounds. By that point, I had lost all my listeners expecting a simple answer.