I also feel like slow reading is being looked down upon and reading is being treated as a competition or some race. Especially with the rise in booktok and bookstagram, the more the person reads the more their content is craved. Reading is a developed taste which is acquired with a lot of trial and error on our own. I do not enjoy a few genres but on the other hand feed onto some other type of genre. It took me my whole teenage to figure what i like. Reading is not a game. And lately it is being treated as a game.
yes! a competition on who has the most reads in a year. the rise of a few reading apps like storygraph and fable gamifying this as well, giving you graphical represnetation of how you've done over time. I honestly don't know how to feel about it. It's fun on the one hand, but it just fuels the urgency to consume more, I think.
@@Booksociopath In January, i set my goal at 20. It's dec. 1 and i've only read about 8. I feel so strange seeing people read 20-50 books per month. I feel like i should be reading more, but i have a life
I became a professional skimmer in college when I had multiple courses and assignments and a job to juggle. I graduated several years ago now, and since then I've been revisiting some of the books I was assigned in college and have been really taking my time with them. When I was a student (I majored in American History), I didn't always see why we were assigned a book or what made it valuable, but these slow re-reads have shown me why my professors believe these books are worthwhile and important. Slow reading has also proven to be an excellent form of free talk therapy, and I've come to appreciate the value of slowing down and smelling the flowers, so to speak. Knowing how to move through a text quickly and gathering important ideas, themes, and arguments is a useful skill, but one doesn't fully appreciate the art until one slows down and takes some time to appreciate all the little details that compose the big picture.
I felt this on a personal level. For me, high school was what got me started on the skimming route. In one AP English course-can’t remember what-the teacher actually recommended skimming when presented with super long passages so we can at least get an answer down. Now, in college, I’m having to unlearn all of that, because I’ve realized how little joy I’m getting from the actual writing of the book. It’s lowkey a little tough to break that habit, but it feels a lot more fulfilling to just sit with a book for a while.
Love that explanation. I am the same. Through uni and graduate school, I just skimmed and highlighted key components and would read enough to help me memorize and regurgitate when needed (tests, exams, projects, etc) but I didn’t take time to really read it. Now as an adult, when reading different genres and lengths of books, im truly taking my time and note-taking. Because there isn’t a rush or high stakes on finishing it, I have more time to enjoy and really dissect each book. Some books I can finish in a day, other books may take weeks, it just depends on how much you’re getting from it. Thanks for your perspective
The mass panic over Gen Z not being able to read feels odd as a Millennial who remembers the mass panic over my generation reading the "wrong" books, ie Twilight.
I'm a writer and slow reader; this hurts. Collage did burn me out and hit my reading habit hard, but I blame teck for training us to expecting things faster and getting things more immediately. One reason I hate TikTok and shorts and prefer RUclips long content.
That's why I get so annoyed by RUclips shoving short form content at me. I completely agree w all of this- I think there is value in slow media. I think part of the reason I like literature is that no one really... gets to have an opinion. I'm not doing it for anyone other than me. I'll likely never receive an income from it and that's GOOD
As someone who reads a lot of genres and also romantasy and spicy books I have been trying to clear my youtube algorythm from commentary channels that are just "booktok and spicy books are ruinning literature"... I'm just tired of the same speech and this witch hunt... It reminds of the same "the internet is frying your brain", "modern music is ruinnung the youth"... I once saw a girl respond to someone like "I can assure you that whatever is wrong with me was there long before I started reading romantasy" made me laugh but I mean yeah music, books or any media is not running anything its just the reflextion of what people like? what people enjoy? i dont see anything wrong with it
Same!!!! I’m doing the same thing because it all feels so fake. They know being negative about a community that is already polarizing will get the clicks so they make those videos. Don’t get me started on the “dark romance is the worst thing to ever happen to reading.” I’m just like 🤦🏽♀️ do they think dark romance is this new thing? Leave people to read and write what they want. It’s this superiority complex that just gives me the ick and I can see through the whole act that they’re trying to play that they care so much when it’s just to go viral and cause rage bait. I’m staying far far away.
i love your takes because they are nuanced and not just a regurgitation of what everyone else has already said. i haven't heard anyone else bring up how being a book influencer affects their reading. i mean i do think it's sad that being a book influencer has lead to people reading less to make us believe that they're reading more but there's nothing i can do 🤷🏾♀️
The Atlantic's editor-in-chief has always liked that "the sky is falling" brand of journalism, even before the rise of social media. His old coverage of global politics was already like that.
I was a subscriber to The Atlantic for many years. I quit about 2010 or so. The writers I liked were all gone and the content was so petulant I couldn't take it.
While I rlly dislike the idea of skimming books, every time I read any contemporary romance book, the dialogue is always much stronger than the descriptions so I can't really blame romance readers for their habits. In many romance novels, you can still understand the entire story without looking into internal dialogue, while the same thing wouldn't work in other genres. People who almost exclusively read romance approach these books for entertainment (this is not a diss, it's the entire point of the genre) but because of that mindset, they often do not know how to tackle different books.
Not true. Romance isn’t simply for entertainment. There is a lot of intellectual value to romance novels especially if you pick up Jane Austen, The Bronte sisters or now Sally Rooney. Love is such a complex emotion that deserves to be looked at just as intellectually:( It saddens me how it’s become so watered down now..
@@sameenmehdi2671 Bronte sisters or Sally Rooney books are not romance. They have a romantic plot but that does not make them romance. The Bronte sisters wrote a gothic. I know that in English there is no good reference to the genre but SR writes high literature (I hate that in English it is simply fiction). if every author who has a romantic plot in their books is a romance writer, then suddenly we should be calling every author a romance writer
The dialogue is definitely stronger, because romance is very character focused. The explanatory details don't matter because we're here for how the characters are going to interact and ultimately fall in love. I'm excluding romantic subgenres like romantasy and the like.. Also there's nothing wrong with saying books are there for entertainment value. Just because something is entertaining doesn't mean it's not valuable or meaningful.
You are right but this also applies to every book from any genre. Im mostly a thriller reader & sometimes writers like to ramble too much and add no value to the plot. It’s not taboo to criticize that or to skim the irrelevancy.
I give them the benefit of the doubt. I think theyre just picking bad books. Theres so many books being mass produced for money only. That has an impact on how enjoyable they are. Combining this booktok situation with the study about college students is kinda silly bc college students have slacked on reading since the dawning of college.
I don’t think it’s silly at all. I’ve had people in college [think entire courses] complaining that professors assigned books instead of short-term content, arguing they can’t get through it. There used to be a few in each course but the numbers have gotten bigger over the years and to say it’s “kind of silly” goes against the first-hand experience of many professors from different parts of the world, not just the US 😅 this is combined with worsening school standards in terms of matching students’ [not accessibility reasons] lowering reading comprehension, and for some schools teaching the alphabet in a way that makes students guess the words and not understanding the phonetics well [I forgot the name of this] So it’s a lot of factors together
@@Horrorbabe4 Looking back at my comment I just want to clarify something: I’m not saying booktok is the source of all evil, like the creator of this video I agree that this is part of a bigger problem like I said when it comes to education policies
@@noidentification25 yeah i understand your opinion. i don't agree with it. i don't really agree with her opinions in the video but i respect that she's trying to think about and philosophize about the world/society.
But honestly, why tf someone HAS TO say for whom they are voting? It’s ridiculous how the anyone who is minimally “famous” on the internet now is expected to comment every single event that happens in the world. If they were economists, political scientists or any other type of specialists in the field then on. But most of them are as far as possible of being knowledgeable of these topics.
I don't think there's anything wrong with skimming in certain context. But imo it's weird as hell that someone picks up a book they like for recreational purposes, then they just ignore 60% of it. At that point just watch a show, but hey you do you idgaf
Naw this is bonkers. I've said similar things about people who hate prologues, but why do they hate having more book in their books????? "There's so many words." That's the whole thing, babe. You bought the book yourself. Like ?????? "I only read dialgoue." Then read a comic. I turly don't understand people who don't care about the little things either. That's the story. It matters. And I myself was a book hater until Jr. Year of highschool because reading was difficult for me. And it's still hard. But I love stories, and if I'm picking up a book I'm fully aware that it's just words and won't have pictures. And I feel like these folks would genuinely be better off with a visual medium, but I feel there's this level of superiority that comes with books as a medium. Like they don't have the vibes off "ugh, I don't have the energy," they have the vibe of "this work is beneath me."
That's what I was thinking. If you don't care about anything other than the dialogue in a book, you either want to read plays or comics/manga, or you actually want to watch a movie/TV show, like 😂
I seem to recall a 9 page description of a particular Parisian street, and a 60+ page dissertation on the battle of Waterloo - and thinking that only the last couple pages of that Waterloo chapter had any relevance to the story.
I don't know if it counts as skimming a page, but often when I'm so hooked into the story I catch myself looking at the bottom of a page and accidentally spoiling myself, to the point I have to cover the rest of the page with my hand 😅
This is not skimming, in fact I would consider this to be the exact opposite. This is a sign that you truly are absorbing the book and are fiending for more. Its like taking huge gulps of a milkshake so you can truly be immersed into the milkshake and absorb the flavor.
I have skimmed books but it’s mainly skipping through the “spicy/smutty” parts. I’m getting bored of them and I just want to get back to the plot. Sometimes there’s too many chapters that are spicy 🤷♀️. It gets repetitive and doesn’t really bring anything to the plot so I skip it sometimes.
I skip the smutty parts when I've picked up a book I didn't know was smutty and now I'm invested with the story. Wish the authors could be more transparent without amazon surpressing them
I got really curious about the rise of 'smut' and tried to speak to people who primarily read this type of writing (like romances with a lot of hot scenes) and I have made some observations. Of course, I may be wrong but I feel a lot of people lack carnal passion and satisfaction in day to day life, and reading about it allows them to feel some of it in a kind of 'safe' setting of their head. Also, I think many people are lonely and crave some type of relationship, reading about a hot bad boy with a golden heart that only has eyes for one woman also may help to feel some of this 'love' and fill that void. It can skew our perception of what to expect from real people but certainly helps to escape from reality. I should know, I'm a massive rom-com aficionado and my expectations from men are unrealistic 😂 on the other hand, I don't really like too much smut, slow burn and one believable intimate scene is enough, especially if it feels realistic and earned. I've read SJ Maas and love making scenes on every other page in the sky, with wings, with massively endowed fairies hot men were just too much, actually funny after a while 😅
Booktokers not wanting to talk about their political beliefs is okay and it’s weird that people are/were trying to pressure them into making political statements. No matter who you voted for, saying it publicly will loose you a section of your audience. And when your content isn’t about politics (I know, books are art and art is inherently political Blabla), then why would you suddenly make political posts and potentially loose a part of your audience? Also it’s just weird to care that much about the political beliefs of those creators. Do also people research the political beliefs of authors prior to buying their books? It’s all just this weird America-brained thing where you treat people who vote differently as members of an enemy tribe that you can’t ever interact with.
Yeah, I agree. In Argentina it isn't permitted to say who you're voting during the day of, it is called "voto cantado" and it annuls your vote immediately. This is because of our history of people being incarcerated or persecuted for their beliefs, so I don't understand why they want to make these influencers say who they're going to vote for.
While I agree with most of your thoughts, I just wanted to add a few things. Wanting fewer words on a page is not necessarily bad, with ADHD (this could be the case for other forms of neurodivergence as well, like dyslexia) I find it extremely hard to focus on text that is too small, but that doesn't affect the amount of words I would read or the length of the book. This is most likely not what those booktokers are saying, but just thought I'd bring this up, because that might actually be the case for some people! I can enjoy books way more when I can adjust the font size on my kindle, for example. I've also skimmed through boring parts of books before in order to finish a book I don't like, but I should adopt a mindset of just giving up on books I don't like, but I tend to think that maybe some parts could get better
Personally, I dont think a book influencer needs to comment on politics. If they want to, I'm totally fine with it. But if they don't want to I'm not sure why there is this pressure for them to do so. I personally like to consume content on Instagram that doesn't discuss politics because I like to scroll and view content for escapism. I have my podcasts I listen to and news that I read for political commentary. I don't need every facet of my online consumption to address political issues (though I do understand that there are people who feel its important to follow creators that align with their values and that's ok too).
Wait, why are you expecting from totally random people sharing their political beliefs with strangers? It's a private thing, like medical record or how much you have in your bank account. Some people will be okay with sharing, others not, but requesting this from people who are just reviewing books it's wild for me.
I agree with basically everything you said except when you spoke about politics. It is absolutely not the responsibility of book content creators to talk about politics in any capacity. It doesn’t matter if they read romance, historical fiction, or the biography’s of politicians. They do not have to mention who they voted for or bring up anything political if they don’t want to.
They can read visual stories instead, like manga or comic books. A good option if you just wanna read dialogue no? ETA: Reading visual novels won't take away from the experience because in the end it's reading with a splash of seeing the art drawn and getting exactly how the author imagined his/her scenes. As an artist I enjoy that medium. I also enjoy "non-visuals" but I tend to go to the non fiction route. Reading textbooks hasn't been enjoyable for everyone for as long as schools were a thing. I just wish silly comparisons aren't generalized and seen as the norm so much these days.
It would be great for private reading, but many romance/romantasy fans enjoy taking their books to a coffee shop or park bench and reading in public spaces. Publishers have made their covers less overtly smutty in recent years, and there's a market for inconspicuous dust covers used to hide raunchy cover art. It's much harder to get away with reading a romantic or erotic graphic novel in public, and it may even get you in trouble in some places, the same way watching porn in public can get you in trouble. There's a reason bookstores shrink-wrap their spicy Manga books.
Sure but maybe they don’t want a comic maybe they want a novel or short story. There doesn’t have to be just one kind of book out there in the universe.
I think everyone took the skimgate so personally because the people who admitted to skipping most of the book are the same ones who routinely brag about reading 300 books a year. I'm sure a lot of people wanted to give their favorite creators the benefit of the doubt and not just immediately assume they're lying/inflating the numbers and as a result, u had so many people feeling like shit cause they only manage 5 books a month if lucky... And now they're hearing that all this insecurity was useless cause it is not, in fact, possible o read 300 books a year (in full) and maintain any sort of regular life with a job, social life and responsibilities unless you've got some real specific situation that allows you extra reading time. It absolutely shouldn't be personal but I'm sure for a lot of people it was. Not being able to read a lot in these circles givees you major FOMO and u just kinda feel inadequate tbh, like you don't belong with those people.
Absolutely and I do not blame anyone for that because it’s very easy for people to jump on the hate train and try and cancel you based on those said opinions 😅
the tiktoker who said 'i dont care what everyone looks like and what are they wearing,' maybe she is just reading the wrong kinds of books. maybe that particular author is just not for her and she needs to find someone with a different writing style
I love the commentary on The Atlantic article. Most media output these days is one-sided probably just for the click-bait/polarizing response. It's a sad state as there is not much journalistic integrity anymore.
I also think that as much as books have always been political, i think that we do wrong by moralising them to the degree that we think we have an idea about the reader who partakes. I think that there is an element here of "look at young women not able to think for themselves" as if they are not actually complex beings. These women probably are able to be introspective. I dunno i feel like it’s a bit more "just a girl" type talk where girl = simple
I do RUclips book reviews and am a slow reader (with three kids and little time) so I sometimes feel behind! This is so validating because I love reading but have never been a “fast reader.
i have definitely skimmed books before, when i was forced to read and finish them for school and sometimes when i am super immersed in a book i tend to accidentally skim/skip paragraphs cause i desperately want to see what happens next but if that happens and i notice i always go back and read it again
In regard to reading stamina, these people that have a hard time reading might benefit from trying audiobooks instead. At least with that format, when a book starts to drag you can change the speed of the audio and get through the boring parts a bit faster
Completely agree on the "Making fun of Booktok for easy engagement" thing. At this point it just sours my views on any "essayist" who decides to post yet another "reading THE WORST booktok book so you don't have to" video, regurgitating the same talking points that you could hear from an Alpha bro about "female book bad". I also think that many viewers don't really understand the difference between book influencers and readers with social media, and end up developing these parasocial relationships were they fully trust their opinion on every book they come across without realising their job is to sell books. OBVIOUSLY they can't read a book a day, OF COURSE they don't care about the plot or the characters or the backstories, they don't even have a choice on which books they read! Heck, at least they try to read them, which is not something that can be said of every book influencer...
I really loved your point about issues with reading stamina and reading in general having roots in national education and other factors besides BookTok.
I have been making an effort to be more intentional with my reading, so I haven't been trying to read as fast as I can, but instead taking time to read what I can. It's just more fun. Now don't quote me, but a guy who has made a name for himself by being one of the fastest readers on Earth (in both speed and comprehension) said that when he reads for pleasure he doesn't speed through the book because what's the point of reading if you just want to get to the end as soon as possible?
"Have you never skimmed a page?" Honestly, I have not. If I don’t like the book, I’ll just stop reading it and read something else. No one is forcing booktok girlies to read books they don’t like. And yes, I read the books I was supposed to in school, too, but I majored in business so who would I be cheating if I skimmed through the material.. only myself. Also, I’m autistic, I tend to do things "the correct way".
The problem here isn't that they're reading what they like how they like. The problem is that they make brands around it, and prop themselves up as these accomplished readers when they in fact don't even read full books.
Exactly, they make a brand out of their reading, make money out of it and influence people with their opinions, and then proceed to lie about said reading and non-existing opinions. Just another day in influencer land, really 😂
Hi Alina, I wanted to let you know that I really adore your channel! I love how you approach all your topics with such clarity in mind. I deleted my TikTok account a while ago, but I love to still sometimes see some ridiculous booktokers through your channel. I really appreciate how you use that content to speak on the greater issues at hand. Keep up the great work!
Not wanting to talk about your personal political preference is not the same as saying books shouldn't be political. Berating women for not openly wearing their party affiliation on their sleeve is ridiculous, and feels like you just want to know if they have the correct social media beliefs or not so you can decide if they should be cancelled or not.
Exactly. When I was young where I'm from, it was frowned upon to ask someone how much they make or who they vote for. These days you get hatred for not replying with the correct answer. Also, books can be political, but if they only read (or skim...) simple romantic fluff, I highly doubt that.
@Jdoe-gf5oz Oh no the consequence of my actions ! Why do you feel like people need to support people whose MORALS don’t align w their own? Vote w yr dollar is constantly shoved down our throats and esp during the DT presidency many women don’t want to support people who don’t believe in they deserve the same rights
Used to be a Instagram book influencer. It literally became so political during 2020, IG. became insufferable. Cancelling authors, content about social issues, constant bullying ppl who didn't share same views. I tuned out. Books are political ...but creating content about fictional books shouldn't need to lead to politics.
In a lot of these romance books every sentence isn’t valuable, there’s not much to gain aside from just the main plot so I don’t see a problem with skimming through them to get the only thing the book has to offer. I’m not on booktok but I believe these people recommend books to make money? Skimming through a light read is probably enough to make a recommendation “if you like x couple you’ll like y couple”. People might as well get upset at someone for recommending the latest Netflix romcom after watching it on 2x speed. And I hard disagree that all influencers should be political. Books can be political, that shouldn’t mean that someone can’t talk about Colleen Hoover without also commenting on real live politics. There is a massive difference between forming a political opinion that one is confident enough in to vote, and forming a political opinion that one is confident enough in to broadcast to possibly millions of people. If an influencer isn’t very informed/educated when it comes to politics, they shouldn’t be a politics influencer. Influencers spreading misinformation, commenting on very serious, complex topics with nothing but surface level knowledge is a massive problem. And demanding that people lay open everything about themselves, their life and believes if they dare post something online is just weirdo behaviour.
Omg. I left essentially the same comment just now, but longer and worse, before finally scrolling down to see someone represent my opinion so well. Exactly! LMAO. BookTok discourse is so reductive these days, all I wanna do is play devil's advocate.
i do wonder how sustainable it is to create content in booktok and on tiktok in general. I've been consuming booktok for years but lately I keep feeling like I keep watching the same four videos on a loop, it bores me to death. there's not really much space to be actually creative and original and engaging when you're fighting with the algorithm to keep you relevant.
Not only the algorithm, but the timer. From a quick google search it seems they increased the length from 60 seconds to 60 minutes, which is good, but let's be real, a well editied but extensive review or video essay on a book or author could easily clock in at much more than that. My favorite video on the site, the pathologic video by hbomb, goes at a decent pace with not too many reiterations of the exact same point, and it's over twice the length. You just couldn't do that video on tiktok, not while maintaining the context for the absolute fantastic ending.
I really appreciate this video. I remember the first time I saw a weekly reading list for just one of my classes in grad school. I was nearly in tears. There was literally no way I could read that many books and essays for just one class, let alone three in one semester. I asked one of my professors if she could recommend a strategy that might help me read everything that I needed to read that week. She laughed at me, and said, "My dear, you are not meant to read all of those books. You are supposed to skim them." I knew how to skim academic articles and non-fiction books but not novels. How do you know what to skip? That professor was like an aunt to me, so she showed me how to skim through a novel. Grad school killed my love for reading for almost four years because it focused so much on a reading a group of different novels in a certain style, like stream of consciousness, or a reading a group of novels with a certain theme, instead of just taking one book that illustrates a style or theme and really deep diving into that work, which I would have enjoyed. Anyway, I always appreciate your videos because you approach topics with nuance, instead of courting views with rage-filled rants. I got my twin sister to subscribe to your channel, too.
I can’t help but to think this all circles back & is related to our culture of overconsumption as well. Faster you go through a book, sooner you can buy more & move onto another book. Who cares about the writing? Just get to a point so I can move onto another book. These book influencers are just another means to reach out to ppl to buy more whether they are doing it willingly or not.
Thanks Alina, I loved this. What is sad is that setting reading goals, as in numbers of books, deprives the reader of the joy in reading. Even non-book influencers set quantifiable goals, of fifty books a year for instance, instead of qualifiable goals which might mean re-reading favourite books, or the books on their tbr piles, or carving out time every day for reading. It might even mean dnf-ing books they're not enjoying. What is the point otherwise?
During uni I didn't read for fun just for assignments and just skimmed because the workload per week was too high. So now I have to relearn how to read slower and for fun, which isn't really talked about.
Really love you video! Personally, I'm quite a fast reader. I did reading speed tests and I'm apparently in the top 2.5%, so that's cool. In general, being a fast reader isn't a bad thing, the bad thing is skimming through the whole thing. Skimming is used when you're trying to grab certain tidbits from the text, not when you're just reading for fun. The way how I think of it, is that the author of the book sat down and wrote, with love (supposedly), each word, sentence, and paragraph, so not reading each sentence isn't really appreciating the author's work (as you're not getting the full 100% of it! So, thanks! Learned a lot!
Completely agree. There is nothing wrong with reading romance. Romance is not a 'lesser genre' many of the great works of literature are romance or have romantic elements: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Hights, Midsummer Night's Dream, Rebecca. Romance has been a genre that has pushed the boundaries of literature. Dracula, The Monk, Pamela, Cecilia, A Scicilian Romance, Camilla. Great art has long been made to immortalize romance. With that, bad art too. Both are important parts of literature. Now, my problem with booktok is how its existence has PUSHED the idea of Romance as cheap literature. Romance books used to be well written at least. Look at the 60-90s harlequin romances. They have plots, are moderatley well researched, ect. But Booktok has promoted, to put it simply, badly written trash, to the forefront. That is the expectation for what romance is: simple sentences, grammar errors, spelling mistakes, no editing. I love fanfiction. I like reading thenromance stories people publish for free online to be consumed thoughtlessly because they are fun. Some of them are so well written they should be published! But those are free, those dont have an editor or a publisher behined them. Then theybpromote anti intellectualism by saying it is morally wrong to criticize literature. That things purchased with hard earned money should just be thoughtlessly consumed. Smile nicelessly while we pour gasoline down your throat instead of champagne. Isnt it nice? No. Booktok is being criticized more because they refuse dialogue. Let them burn in the spotlight they set upon themselves.
The take here is people are sharing what they are reading (or not reading) and how. A person does not represent everyone. A like and/or comment on a video doesn't always imply agreement. Let people read whatever they want to, however they want to. All the booktok, bookstagram, booktube stuff is ugc. It is not a literature class. It is user generated content. There will obviously be a major difference. Most hardcore serious reader aren't creating and consuming videos of this sort. (joke) - They are huddled in their book-caves.
Although I agree with many points you raise in the video, I do not agree in the slightest with your critique about politics. You speak as if discussing politics in inherently non-political spaces (such a reviewing novel-of-the-month romance) is a given. Not everything has to be politicized, and these "content creators" do not have to disclose their political affiliations to anybody. I do not give a damn what the author of my little sci-fi book has to say about trade or immigration.
I feel like the only read dialogue thing is an extension of a lot of online film criticism where if a shot doesn't advance the plot it's bad. Sex scene discourse is the biggest example but early 2010s youtubers loved bashing the shit out of Terrence Malick for this.
There is nothing wrong with not sharing political views on the internet.. In fact, it’s smart.. The political voices on the internet are amongst the most cancerous, vile and despicable people out there.. Trying to force someone to share their political views is a bully tactic that never has true discourse in mind.. Not sharing views with thousands of people looking for a fight on the internet is the way to go.. This doesn’t mean that they’re not having meaningful conversations outside of that though.. It could mean that they’re having conversations with people that matter to them irl.. As far as reading goes, skimming means you didn’t read the entire book.. Listening to an audiobook is not “reading” the book.. It’s still totally great and a valid way to consume media, but words have meanings.. Reading trashy books is nothing new, they’ve always been super popular with women generally speaking.. Men have plenty of trashy type media they love too, generally speaking.
I agree with the book Tokers not wanting to talk about politics in their videos. Yes, books are political, but that differs from who the content creator thinks should be the next president of the USA. Unless the creator has a channel where he/she also shares things about his/her personal life ,political discussions should stay out of the book videos he/she is making.
In defense of skimming- it has a niche. I read a lot of non-fiction history. I'm not going to read 1000+ full pages when it's not connected to what information I'm after. Like I'm interested in early church history (mostly first 3-4 centuries) and the restoration movement. I'm not reading in depth on Henry VIII's church of england mess or the random groups/heresies that schismed. I've already spent years reading everything in sight for that king and his wives- I have a good grasp on what he did. I need to know how/why the church split and what it impacted longterm, but I don't need an in depth view of the split-off group's theology. I will do that later when I have more time and more dedicated resources. Plus sometimes I just don't like how an author handles a topic. I like my history unbiased and I'm going to skim a topic if the author feels the need to pick a side on it. I do skim for school though. I'm in nursing school and we have a LOT to read. Not all of it is actually relevant to what we will be doing. Some, it's illegal for us to make the choice it impacts. Others, we've just already done it before and I'm confident I grasp the material. While I love pathophysiology and have studied some on my own, I know it will not be on my exams and the exact technicalities it impacts are beyond what I can do. I'll go back and relearn it- hoping to make it to med school someday- but right now, learning what I can legally do and how not to accidentally kill my patient is priority.
Voting is supposed to be anonymous. That's the whole point of the voting process. If the influencer wants to keep their voting choice private then that's their prerogative, it ain't got nothing to do with you so stop trying to make it so. This ain't Starling's Soviet Union. You no right to know who anybody voted for if they choose not to make it public.
Just like any and every other trend videos on any social media do not fall for anyone’s view and opinions on anything. Be more discerning and do your own research and come to an informed decision and then just do that. Who cares what an influencer has to say? You have your own mind to decide for yourselves.
I love that this video is so nuanced. It's one of the more balanced takes I've seen. However, I'm one of those romance writers who is one of those people who has trouble reading, yet somehow I have a master's in a social science/humanities field. I have a huge problem with anti-intellecualism criticism. My reasons for having difficulties with reading are disabilities due to attention issues, executive dysfunction, procrastination (which is a trauma response), and most importantly, being dissociated a lot of the time (having DID). A lot of these arguments are ableist, pure and simple. I appreciate that you sort of touched on this. I will also defend the tomance genre and smut. Have these people who are criticizing even read romance or smut? Like any other genre, there are "good" and "bad" examples. People don’t read romance for intellectual pursuits; they read for escape and entertainment and there is absolutely nothing to judge there. And what a lot of people miss, too, is that writing and reading smut can be extremely helpful in dealing with trauma from SA and emotional abuse. It's a safe space for people to explore what ifs, to get closure where there is none otherwise. We all know how few SA cases get resolved. And if it occurred in childhood? Forget about it. Romance and smut saves lives, at least metaphorically. And while readers consume it like candy (which, as a writer, I'm more than ok with) doesn't mean its not actually very well written content produced from a lot of hard work. I'm not saying there aren't stereotypes or things to criticize, but I think a lot of those people don’t understand that when someone says romance, they're referring to a plot structure and not "romance" per se. If they want to criticize romance for being formulaic, why don't they criticize mystery novels or action movies for the same thing? In fact, most writing structure guides don’t even work for romance structures. That suggests every other genre may be more formulaic than all the others which fit the same mold covered by these books. So, anyone feel free to criticize romance, but please keep all that in mind next time you do. That being said, i hope people read every sentence I write, but if they want to get on tiktok and say whatever, I'll just be happy to be mentioned. I don't think most people take comments about having too many words seriously. And there are still plenty of very thoughtful and influential reviewers out there with big followings who say intelligent things. As for anti-intellectualism...I think we're focusing on the wrong things. How about let's address mental health and acknowledge how significant an affect trauma had on so many people's lives. (Not trying to put that on the women in the tiktok videos, but I think it's largely missing from the overall discussion).
I once watched a RUclips video where a booktube girl said she counts a book as "read," once she hits 1/3 of the book. IIRC she claimed she "read," something insane like 200+ books in a year.
I was literally just watching someone else’s “”””hot take”””” on booktok yesterday here on yt and thinking “alina is the only creator who’s ever had a properly articulated nuanced take on this topic apparently ever”
I'm sorry, but why on earth are people being criticized for not wanting to talk about who they're voting for on a booktok channel? They're right... why do we have to bring politics into everything? Sure, books can often be political, to a degree, but not every book is political, first of all. And secondly, talking about books and talking about politics are not the same things. I don't have any interest in listening to my favorite booktubers talk about who they're voting for and what their political views are. I watch them to hear them talk about books. Obviously, that is going to occasionally lead to them talking about their beliefs and moral values, which influence politics. But why do people feel the need to make their favorite booktokers tell them who they're voting for? That's just weird. And it's very weird to refer to that as booktok "refusing to talk about politics." Booktok channels saying "I'm here to talk about books, not politics," is super normal...
when i was a kid it was considered extremely rude to ask someone who they voted for and i’m only 23. the internet has made people way too comfortable asking strangers polarizing questions. tik tok girls are not wrong for not answering. the girl is probably reading silly romance novels, not political non-fiction.
@bliss Reading is inherently political, that's why Republicans are working so hard to ban books. Also asking someone who they voted for is absolutely valid so you know if you want to follow them or not. I wouldn't want to follow a content creator who supports Trump.
@ i never said books don’t have political undertones. also, it doesn’t matter if you want to know the information of who voted for who, that’s private and you are not entitled to that. if you get vibes from a creator that you don’t like, unfollow them. just don’t expect people to take kindly to your prying questions.
Wow, I never been able to catch a video so early! Just came to see what you had on the channel after watching Jared's video I'm not sure if I got your point about "choosing not to talk about the politics is worse". My other hobby, gaming, has been massively oversaturated with political content. "This game is good, because it pisses off nationalists" or "This game is bad because it's woke" and nobody talks about the the outside the narrow political lens, it's like those content creators forgot how to enjoy games or look for something else rather than affirmation of their political views. Politics and fostering hate is low-hanging fruit to get clicks on youtube (I don't know about tiktok). I know booktubers who are open about their politics, of course, but it's not what I'm personally looking for and I guess many other people too. Sometimes it is interesting to look at the books from political lens, but sometimes it's nice to just tune it out and romance/romantasy readers are looking for escapism (duh)
I don’t think that everything has to be political. Every person has the right to keep their business or whatever non-political and refuse to engage with it. Pushing people to give a statement is wrong in my opinion.
agreed. most people have political opinions, but there is a time and a place for it, and forcing ppl into conversations aint cool. as ive said to many people, "i dont mind talking about political issues, but i mind talking about it with you, bc you cant keep your shit together and have a polite conversation" 🤷♀️ there is also the fact that many people are overwhelmed by their own lives and might not have the capacity to orient themselves to a point where they are comfortable speaking publicly on it. bc theyre not just asking for ur hot take, theyre asking for a public statement 👀
Thank you for bringing up the fact that the university course load isn't just 'finish multiple books a semester' its usually finish multiple books (much denser than a lot of mainstream fiction) a week. Of course you skim and don't finish things, unless you're going back for an essay. I can finish multiple books a semester no problem. Uni + personal reading I've read about 87 books this year, and all the personal reading isn't skimming. A lot of it is rereads, or books that are just quicker, especially since I'm a fast reader. Me skimming on some text by Foucault that I won't really understand until I have the context of the class after to look at it with new eyes if I have to write something about it has nothing to do with 'not being able to finish multiple books a semester'
I definitely agree that a lot of people are just shitting on TikTok-Creators because that's the cool thing to do. Concerning the discussion about reading more diverse books: I think that should be left to everyone to decide for themselves. I started learning to read in German, as that was the language we learn first in my home country, and I read a lot with my mom, which led to me reading a lot of fairytales and afterwards childrens fantasy books when I was younger. I didn't read romances for a long time, until I found one I liked one day, and now I basically only read romances. I try to get more into books in my mothertongue, which is luxemburgish, but there aren't a lot of romances / fantasy books, so I just read what I can find, but I don't force myself to read something I don't like, I don't think that's really productive, but I could be wrong
This 'skipping procedure' I only do in a 'case of emergency', when I am close to quitting on the book. To give the book a last chance and to get to the ending still, I also skip a lot and it's a good compromise for me, to not lose all my patience with a story, that is not made for me. But all in all, when I fall in love with a story - which I do very often - I fly through all the pages and enjoy all the little details so much. Seems strange to me, that some people don't really seem to like those details anymore.
I am interested to know if there are any book influencers out there who specialize in indie and self-published books. It's been a while since I was blown away by a traditionally published book, especially in fiction. I read a wide variety of genres and maybe I'm getting older and my brain in becoming more selective, but rarely am I enthralled by a novel these days. Even many Booker and Pulitzer prize winners leave me wanting. I have taken to digging through the wonderful world of self-published content. While there are mountains of drivel (that continues to grow every day), there are also some gems, creative, boundary pushing content and new, engaging takes on old tropes. I have even found a few books that can pull off deep thought within the romance genre. Unfortunately, they are buried in the algorithm.
I’m a slow reader, as well I’ve only read for 3 years now… the book of Enoch got me into reading I’m still exploring what I like and dislike, from checking out colleeen Hoover to dark romance books I truly didn’t know what to read until I came across TikTok books, I personally also don’t have an issue with the section of the app, I also don’t completely like booktok. It’s helped authors, helped readers find new books or go out of their comfort zones, but I do wish books wouldn’t always be the same tropes.. and now RUclipsrs are attacking mask/biker tok which I dislike
I so, so agree with this. It almost makes me wanna play devil's advocate a lot of the time for skim-reading when people make these absolutist proclamations after they fall for ragebait or just engage with an uncommonly stupid person (in the case of the "I don't read paragraphs" kind of TikTokers, I don't care what their intentions are; we can't know them; and I do not think we should be commenting on them as if they represent this large swath of modern readers, though). And when it comes to the "books are inherently political" conversation, I also don't think there's anything wrong with what people are generally saying. Yeah, all art is political, but this is such a basic conversation to be having as loudly as we've been having it lately; it gets redundant. And if we ignored the cowardly or just uninformed people* who wanna say "When did books get so political?" we could move onto more critical and insightful topics of discourse. *Also don't wanna assume their intentions as to why they don't wanna make content on the intersection between books and politics. I think people who invite the conversation of "I wanna move past politics and just talk about books" deserve varying levels of criticism, totally depending on what they say and how they say it. There are times when staying tightlipped about certain issues can clearly demonstrate some sort of bias or hypocrisy which a creator might be refusing to grow from, in the context of their online history. But I also think people are allowed to have reasonable boundaries of what they won't talk about in the content they make for other people's consumption; it doesn't make you spineless to just feel like you personally are not fit to be a mouthpiece for the beliefs you hold. I think the pressure to always say the right thing, the right way in today's social media age might make some people more hesitant to express their deeply-held values for fear of being misinterpreted, perhaps even maliciously. Outrage culture is real. And a person has every right to keep their online content within the limits of low-stakes book opinions, if that's what you want. If you are someone who makes content about fluffy romances and your audience is calling on you to talk about global injustices, I can sympathize with the reluctance, even resentment, of thinking "Why would anyone ever expect ME to have to do this?" Someone who says "books aren't political" is worth correcting; someone who simply doesn't want to focus on the political nature of literature in the niche that they carved out for themselves, is just a person. They may not want the pressure of speaking about more consequential and sensitive subjects, which I can sympathize with, as someone who would never wish to be a public figure in the first place. When the conversation becomes "DUMB BOOKTOKERS DON'T WANNA ENGAGE WITH POLITICS," it becomes this black-and-white conversation between (dare I say, academic) politically-engaged literary and cultural critique, and dumb stupid shut-off-my-brain readers who just want to talk about exciting plots and interesting characters. Frankly, it's almost elitist and snobbish. So-called "apolitical" book content still has a place in the literary world, and especially in the online space where people go to escape the pressures of everyday life. There shouldn't be this war between these supposedly enlightened, socially engaged, thirsting-for-knowledge-and-truth snobbish readers and the dumb mouth-breathing fucks of the depraved, ignorant BookTok. That's how both of these discourses have seemed to me lately; they boil people down to the bare essential types of reading styles: most and least worthy of calling themselves 'smart' or 'real' readers. It reinforces this binary of readers and reading culture on the two extremes, when all kinds of reading, from the rigorously intellectual to the passive and comfortable, deserve their time and place. I think this just serves to make people feel inadequate about themselves if they don't find themselves reading the 'right' way that these opposing teams represent. But the elitist side perhaps bothers me more, because of how much I in principle do agree with them. Their messaging can often come across as discouraging to people who don't feel 'good enough' for their lofty philosophies of the grand significance of literature. We should be a more welcoming community than that.
Perhaps I am naive, but I hope many Booktok readers, especially the younger ones, will get bored of reading so many books of the same genre and eventually find themselves drawn to more middle-brow, challenging novels. If the bookmarklet is savvy enough, it will offer them such titles and market them correctly. Really, Booktok is developing reading stamina for a demographic that most elite readers assumed was hopeless.
I've sometimes skimmed books before when they were boring and I was either sure I was going to dnf them or almost done and just finishing them to finish them.
This feels to me a little more than just the things you noted in the video. I get really strong sexist vibes. Everyone talking bad about book tok which is a female dominated area, also dominated by romance and smut. Which is widely regarded as women’s reading material. Come on guys everyone loves a good romance. It feels like the movement of noble women reading in France and how at first it was deeply frowned upon. Then these noble women had the audacity to start meeting with each other and talking about what they read. It feels like a piece of the past has cropped back up.
I'm not on booktok, but I've seen a few shorts here on youtube, and I am more surprised by people being surprised at that, than I'm surprised at the fact that some are only pretend to read the books they talk about. Now I'm probably one of the older members of the book-* community, and the interesting thing is that I don't even doubt that people can read 300 books a year, because there have been times in my live were I read 500-600 pages per day without breaking any sweat and without skimming. What I kinda doubt is that those people would still have the time to do high-quality videos with indepth talk about what they just read, and most of my experiences here on booktube rather confirm my suspicions. It's pretty easy to distinguish the people with a high degree of literacy and an education enabling them to talk about books in an interesting way, and the people who talk about books from a more superficial point of view. And I'm not one to judge, because even people skipping huge parts of a book are probably better off than people who don't read at all. Caveat being, that if (general) you do so, don't pretend otherwise because I'll see through you and I won't waste my time with dishonesty. And I certainly won't ascribe any value to your opinion if you don't even have read the book you want to give a review about.
I was having these thoughts the other day - I opened up my RUclips to look for some bookish content and it was all people dunking on BookTok. 🙄 it just seems like BookTube is turning into BookTok commentary rather commentary on books. As someone who uses both apps, it’s soooo boring!
"The writing is so tiny' is a valid point. Also, I wonder if those two videos would have gotten such outrage if it had been men saying it. But maybe that's a whole other video topic in and of itself.
There is no excuse for skimming a book outside of a mandatory obligation to read it (i.e. for school/work). That’s simply not reading and as a writer, this hurts to even hear. Just DNF the book and give that author valuable feedback that something in the text isn’t working. Or (more likely) the subject matter, genre, writing level, etc just isn’t for you. Put the book down! And if you truly *just* like dialogue - read plays or comics. They are both wonderful sources of literature and expansive art forms in their own right.
I have no TikTok or an active social media presence in general. Catching up with trends from someone whose opinions have deliberate layers and accessibility is a fresh breath of air. Even when I disagree with you, I can say "I can see where she comes from and that is a valid point of view." Your body language is also subtle and reinforces the tone of your commentaries. Another good video, wish you the best.
I'm not on tiktok but a lot of content sips through to RUclips shorts so I kind of grasp what the issue is. I think there have always been literature pieces considered 'low' level. This is of course a whole another debate what's considered what, what criteria to apply, what time period are we looking at etc. But let's be honest, one can clearly see a distinction between works of Dostoevsky or Shakespeare and harlequin romances. People are allowed to enjoy all of them and I see no issue here, however the issue, to me, arises when we cannot apply critical thinking to analysing and appraising the literature as a spectrum and further when we don't even attempt to have those conversations. I read quite a lot of books, anything from chick flicks to absolute classics, I am able to objectively distinguish works that are solid pieces of writing from those which aren't. It doesn't mean I enjoy reading 'high literature ' more than books which plot is obvious from first page. On the contrary, there are a lot of books, that aren't epic in any shape or form, I absolutely adore and would gladly re-read and some absolute masterpieces that I despise with passion. But this is guided by feelings only. What is lacking is absence of in-depth discussion on books which isn't surprising if people don't actually read them. This is why I personally only follow people who review books in its entirety i.e. discuss the plot, comment on writing, relationships, characters, explain how the book made them feel etc. Pretty much only people who I believe actually read books they're talking about. People who skim through books or only talk about smut are definitely contributing nothing to the 'intellectual' debate but on the other hand, are they claiming they are? Again, it's not something I'm interested in or something I consider necessarily a 'positive movement ' but I will be a little bit of a devil's advocate here. I consider reading a hobby, unless it's something you do professionally as either an artist or scholar, and people are allowed to have different tastes. Many people will opt for stuff that are purely a form of escapism and will guide their reading choices by what feels good or perhaps what fills a certain void or need (my personal take on people craving romance/smut etc is because a lot of us lack closeness with another person, many lack s*xual satisfaction, passion, it's ok and only human, of course, some glorified relationships in books are nothing short of problematic but it's another debate altogether). I do think the problem also stems from educational system, we should get our knowledge of literature primarily from school and then use other media to explore further but if schools don't teach children to appreciate and appraise written works appropriately then how are they supposed to know any better. Similarly, if parents don't encourage reading vast array of genres then it will be that much harder to convince kids to read anything but what feels cool according to tiktok. So the problem I guess is multifaceted. On the other hand, intellectual debate about reading has never been and never will be a mainstream thing. It is more of a niche interest, often reserved for those who do it professionally or those with great passion and sharp mind. It's like with any other art, popular music is typically not a masterpiece but many people enjoy it because it's catchy and feels good, same with films, sports and so many other categories. What I am trying to say is that I do indeed regret that people on social do not have more interesting debate about literature, I do find reviews of books that haven't been read properly annoying and waste of time, I am constantly worried that many amazing books never get the recognition they deserve and that I do worry that lack of wide scale of encouragement to read critically and try a number of different genres and authors may contribute to making us all a bit more ignorant. BUT! On the other hand, I am not surprised and I also don't think this phenomenon is anything new. A lot good things could come out of social media being used to spread knowledge about 'good' literature but I think escapism and what moves the masses will always win in popularity contest. Creating spaces where more intellectual takes can be discussed is definitely a good way to contribute to combating this but alas I think it will mostly be for those who seek it.
I have a lot of issues with the people criticizing the woman talking about how many words there are per page. I don’t know exactly what she was thinking, but the format of books is a major issue for me due to some minor visual impairments and ADHD. My issue is NOT with the number of words in the book. It’s with the number of words on a single page. There are many books (especially nonfiction and classics) that do not meet the minimum standard text size in most accessibility guidelines for print materials (12 pt). When text is small and close together, it is less accessible for many people, but that has not historically been a large priority for publishers or non-disabled readers. I almost never see anyone in online book communities talking about how some fonts are much less accessible than others… Large print books exist, but not all books get large print editions, and those editions are also much more expensive. My local library has few large print options and are only willing to order so many. My only option for some books is using an ebook, which is not how I prefer to read. I have a magnifying glass for some books because the publisher (even a lot of big publishers!) decided to put some classic in 10.5 pt font. Sorry for the rant, but that video could have been a great jumping off point for talking about how publishers could easily make books more accessible for many readers but simply choose not to. Meeting basic accessibility guidelines should be something we push publishers on. It’s sad that isn’t the norm.
Hmm a video discussing the topic you know will get views is also a sponsored video. Everyone knows the game and everyone plays the game. As you said, you want to get paid, and you will for this sponsored video with the clicks and views. No one is above the game.
I fell into book Twitter and booktok which reignited my love for reading. Yetttt it felt like if you don't read at least 20 books a year and review them deeply, you are a fake reader. I have gone from 10 books a year to now 13 and it wasn't worth it. I read so many TikTok reccommendations and hated them but felt like I had to continue because my reading goal would be set back. Needless to say I will be reading less books next year but hopefully more books that I actually like
I've tried like five times to get through these kinds of videos but as a writer it just upsets me lol. Like not even a minute in and I want to throw myself off a cliff lol.
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I also feel like slow reading is being looked down upon and reading is being treated as a competition or some race. Especially with the rise in booktok and bookstagram, the more the person reads the more their content is craved. Reading is a developed taste which is acquired with a lot of trial and error on our own. I do not enjoy a few genres but on the other hand feed onto some other type of genre. It took me my whole teenage to figure what i like. Reading is not a game. And lately it is being treated as a game.
yes! a competition on who has the most reads in a year. the rise of a few reading apps like storygraph and fable gamifying this as well, giving you graphical represnetation of how you've done over time. I honestly don't know how to feel about it. It's fun on the one hand, but it just fuels the urgency to consume more, I think.
True I am a slow reader and I think I am not good enough when I see other people reading goals
@@eevieeeTHIS!!!
@@Booksociopath real omg 😭😭😭
@@Booksociopath In January, i set my goal at 20. It's dec. 1 and i've only read about 8. I feel so strange seeing people read 20-50 books per month. I feel like i should be reading more, but i have a life
I became a professional skimmer in college when I had multiple courses and assignments and a job to juggle. I graduated several years ago now, and since then I've been revisiting some of the books I was assigned in college and have been really taking my time with them. When I was a student (I majored in American History), I didn't always see why we were assigned a book or what made it valuable, but these slow re-reads have shown me why my professors believe these books are worthwhile and important. Slow reading has also proven to be an excellent form of free talk therapy, and I've come to appreciate the value of slowing down and smelling the flowers, so to speak. Knowing how to move through a text quickly and gathering important ideas, themes, and arguments is a useful skill, but one doesn't fully appreciate the art until one slows down and takes some time to appreciate all the little details that compose the big picture.
Slow reading 📚 actually makes you insert that book in your personality
@@ville-c4u me
I felt this on a personal level. For me, high school was what got me started on the skimming route. In one AP English course-can’t remember what-the teacher actually recommended skimming when presented with super long passages so we can at least get an answer down. Now, in college, I’m having to unlearn all of that, because I’ve realized how little joy I’m getting from the actual writing of the book. It’s lowkey a little tough to break that habit, but it feels a lot more fulfilling to just sit with a book for a while.
@@Booksociopath now why did you have to call me out 😭
Love that explanation. I am the same. Through uni and graduate school, I just skimmed and highlighted key components and would read enough to help me memorize and regurgitate when needed (tests, exams, projects, etc) but I didn’t take time to really read it. Now as an adult, when reading different genres and lengths of books, im truly taking my time and note-taking. Because there isn’t a rush or high stakes on finishing it, I have more time to enjoy and really dissect each book. Some books I can finish in a day, other books may take weeks, it just depends on how much you’re getting from it. Thanks for your perspective
The mass panic over Gen Z not being able to read feels odd as a Millennial who remembers the mass panic over my generation reading the "wrong" books, ie Twilight.
I'm a writer and slow reader; this hurts. Collage did burn me out and hit my reading habit hard, but I blame teck for training us to expecting things faster and getting things more immediately. One reason I hate TikTok and shorts and prefer RUclips long content.
Collage or college
That's why I get so annoyed by RUclips shoving short form content at me. I completely agree w all of this- I think there is value in slow media. I think part of the reason I like literature is that no one really... gets to have an opinion. I'm not doing it for anyone other than me. I'll likely never receive an income from it and that's GOOD
Damn there are some cunts in this comment section. Don't mind them
@@katsmith8263 Dyslexia kicks me every time with that one.
As someone who reads a lot of genres and also romantasy and spicy books I have been trying to clear my youtube algorythm from commentary channels that are just "booktok and spicy books are ruinning literature"... I'm just tired of the same speech and this witch hunt... It reminds of the same "the internet is frying your brain", "modern music is ruinnung the youth"... I once saw a girl respond to someone like "I can assure you that whatever is wrong with me was there long before I started reading romantasy" made me laugh but I mean yeah music, books or any media is not running anything its just the reflextion of what people like? what people enjoy? i dont see anything wrong with it
Same!!!! I’m doing the same thing because it all feels so fake. They know being negative about a community that is already polarizing will get the clicks so they make those videos. Don’t get me started on the “dark romance is the worst thing to ever happen to reading.” I’m just like 🤦🏽♀️ do they think dark romance is this new thing? Leave people to read and write what they want. It’s this superiority complex that just gives me the ick and I can see through the whole act that they’re trying to play that they care so much when it’s just to go viral and cause rage bait. I’m staying far far away.
i love your takes because they are nuanced and not just a regurgitation of what everyone else has already said. i haven't heard anyone else bring up how being a book influencer affects their reading. i mean i do think it's sad that being a book influencer has lead to people reading less to make us believe that they're reading more but there's nothing i can do 🤷🏾♀️
Agreed
That’s a pretty common talking point actually
The Atlantic's editor-in-chief has always liked that "the sky is falling" brand of journalism, even before the rise of social media. His old coverage of global politics was already like that.
that’s so interesting, thank you for sharing ❤
I was a subscriber to The Atlantic for many years. I quit about 2010 or so. The writers I liked were all gone and the content was so petulant I couldn't take it.
While I rlly dislike the idea of skimming books, every time I read any contemporary romance book, the dialogue is always much stronger than the descriptions so I can't really blame romance readers for their habits. In many romance novels, you can still understand the entire story without looking into internal dialogue, while the same thing wouldn't work in other genres. People who almost exclusively read romance approach these books for entertainment (this is not a diss, it's the entire point of the genre) but because of that mindset, they often do not know how to tackle different books.
Not true. Romance isn’t simply for entertainment. There is a lot of intellectual value to romance novels especially if you pick up Jane Austen, The Bronte sisters or now Sally Rooney. Love is such a complex emotion that deserves to be looked at just as intellectually:( It saddens me how it’s become so watered down now..
@@sameenmehdi2671 Bronte sisters or Sally Rooney books are not romance. They have a romantic plot but that does not make them romance. The Bronte sisters wrote a gothic. I know that in English there is no good reference to the genre but SR writes high literature (I hate that in English it is simply fiction). if every author who has a romantic plot in their books is a romance writer, then suddenly we should be calling every author a romance writer
The dialogue is definitely stronger, because romance is very character focused. The explanatory details don't matter because we're here for how the characters are going to interact and ultimately fall in love. I'm excluding romantic subgenres like romantasy and the like..
Also there's nothing wrong with saying books are there for entertainment value. Just because something is entertaining doesn't mean it's not valuable or meaningful.
@@ville-c4u bro you need to get a life instead of copy/pasting "who asked" to reply to every comment here
You are right but this also applies to every book from any genre. Im mostly a thriller reader & sometimes writers like to ramble too much and add no value to the plot. It’s not taboo to criticize that or to skim the irrelevancy.
I give them the benefit of the doubt. I think theyre just picking bad books. Theres so many books being mass produced for money only. That has an impact on how enjoyable they are. Combining this booktok situation with the study about college students is kinda silly bc college students have slacked on reading since the dawning of college.
Yes!!!
-They are picking bad books.
-All college students hit lazy-moods.
I don’t think it’s silly at all. I’ve had people in college [think entire courses] complaining that professors assigned books instead of short-term content, arguing they can’t get through it. There used to be a few in each course but the numbers have gotten bigger over the years and to say it’s “kind of silly” goes against the first-hand experience of many professors from different parts of the world, not just the US 😅 this is combined with worsening school standards in terms of matching students’ [not accessibility reasons] lowering reading comprehension, and for some schools teaching the alphabet in a way that makes students guess the words and not understanding the phonetics well [I forgot the name of this]
So it’s a lot of factors together
@@noidentification25 it's kinda silly :P
@@Horrorbabe4 Looking back at my comment I just want to clarify something: I’m not saying booktok is the source of all evil, like the creator of this video I agree that this is part of a bigger problem like I said when it comes to education policies
@@noidentification25 yeah i understand your opinion. i don't agree with it. i don't really agree with her opinions in the video but i respect that she's trying to think about and philosophize about the world/society.
for me nothing beats re-reading a page/chapter and even slowing down towards the end when reading a good book... anything so it doesn't end!!
But honestly, why tf someone HAS TO say for whom they are voting? It’s ridiculous how the anyone who is minimally “famous” on the internet now is expected to comment every single event that happens in the world. If they were economists, political scientists or any other type of specialists in the field then on. But most of them are as far as possible of being knowledgeable of these topics.
Gone are the days when people would just sit and actually enjoy a book...
I don't think there's anything wrong with skimming in certain context. But imo it's weird as hell that someone picks up a book they like for recreational purposes, then they just ignore 60% of it. At that point just watch a show, but hey you do you idgaf
Naw this is bonkers. I've said similar things about people who hate prologues, but why do they hate having more book in their books????? "There's so many words." That's the whole thing, babe. You bought the book yourself. Like ??????
"I only read dialgoue." Then read a comic.
I turly don't understand people who don't care about the little things either. That's the story. It matters. And I myself was a book hater until Jr. Year of highschool because reading was difficult for me. And it's still hard. But I love stories, and if I'm picking up a book I'm fully aware that it's just words and won't have pictures.
And I feel like these folks would genuinely be better off with a visual medium, but I feel there's this level of superiority that comes with books as a medium. Like they don't have the vibes off "ugh, I don't have the energy," they have the vibe of "this work is beneath me."
That's what I was thinking. If you don't care about anything other than the dialogue in a book, you either want to read plays or comics/manga, or you actually want to watch a movie/TV show, like 😂
Confession: I skimmed so many pages about the French sewer system in Les Miserables.
This made me giggle
I seem to recall a 9 page description of a particular Parisian street, and a 60+ page dissertation on the battle of Waterloo - and thinking that only the last couple pages of that Waterloo chapter had any relevance to the story.
I don't know if it counts as skimming a page, but often when I'm so hooked into the story I catch myself looking at the bottom of a page and accidentally spoiling myself, to the point I have to cover the rest of the page with my hand 😅
This is not skimming, in fact I would consider this to be the exact opposite. This is a sign that you truly are absorbing the book and are fiending for more. Its like taking huge gulps of a milkshake so you can truly be immersed into the milkshake and absorb the flavor.
covering the page with your hand is so REAL LMAOOAOAOAO
OMG MEEEEEE
That happens when it gets really really interesting and our mind is too curious 😅
@@ville-c4u me did
I have skimmed books but it’s mainly skipping through the “spicy/smutty” parts. I’m getting bored of them and I just want to get back to the plot. Sometimes there’s too many chapters that are spicy 🤷♀️. It gets repetitive and doesn’t really bring anything to the plot so I skip it sometimes.
I skip the smutty parts when I've picked up a book I didn't know was smutty and now I'm invested with the story. Wish the authors could be more transparent without amazon surpressing them
Yeah I’m a big smut skipper just bc I don’t care for it
I got really curious about the rise of 'smut' and tried to speak to people who primarily read this type of writing (like romances with a lot of hot scenes) and I have made some observations. Of course, I may be wrong but I feel a lot of people lack carnal passion and satisfaction in day to day life, and reading about it allows them to feel some of it in a kind of 'safe' setting of their head. Also, I think many people are lonely and crave some type of relationship, reading about a hot bad boy with a golden heart that only has eyes for one woman also may help to feel some of this 'love' and fill that void. It can skew our perception of what to expect from real people but certainly helps to escape from reality. I should know, I'm a massive rom-com aficionado and my expectations from men are unrealistic 😂 on the other hand, I don't really like too much smut, slow burn and one believable intimate scene is enough, especially if it feels realistic and earned. I've read SJ Maas and love making scenes on every other page in the sky, with wings, with massively endowed fairies hot men were just too much, actually funny after a while 😅
Booktokers not wanting to talk about their political beliefs is okay and it’s weird that people are/were trying to pressure them into making political statements.
No matter who you voted for, saying it publicly will loose you a section of your audience.
And when your content isn’t about politics (I know, books are art and art is inherently political Blabla), then why would you suddenly make political posts and potentially loose a part of your audience?
Also it’s just weird to care that much about the political beliefs of those creators.
Do also people research the political beliefs of authors prior to buying their books?
It’s all just this weird America-brained thing where you treat people who vote differently as members of an enemy tribe that you can’t ever interact with.
Yeah, I agree. In Argentina it isn't permitted to say who you're voting during the day of, it is called "voto cantado" and it annuls your vote immediately. This is because of our history of people being incarcerated or persecuted for their beliefs, so I don't understand why they want to make these influencers say who they're going to vote for.
While I agree with most of your thoughts, I just wanted to add a few things. Wanting fewer words on a page is not necessarily bad, with ADHD (this could be the case for other forms of neurodivergence as well, like dyslexia) I find it extremely hard to focus on text that is too small, but that doesn't affect the amount of words I would read or the length of the book. This is most likely not what those booktokers are saying, but just thought I'd bring this up, because that might actually be the case for some people! I can enjoy books way more when I can adjust the font size on my kindle, for example. I've also skimmed through boring parts of books before in order to finish a book I don't like, but I should adopt a mindset of just giving up on books I don't like, but I tend to think that maybe some parts could get better
Personally, I dont think a book influencer needs to comment on politics. If they want to, I'm totally fine with it. But if they don't want to I'm not sure why there is this pressure for them to do so. I personally like to consume content on Instagram that doesn't discuss politics because I like to scroll and view content for escapism. I have my podcasts I listen to and news that I read for political commentary. I don't need every facet of my online consumption to address political issues (though I do understand that there are people who feel its important to follow creators that align with their values and that's ok too).
Wait, why are you expecting from totally random people sharing their political beliefs with strangers? It's a private thing, like medical record or how much you have in your bank account. Some people will be okay with sharing, others not, but requesting this from people who are just reviewing books it's wild for me.
I agree with basically everything you said except when you spoke about politics. It is absolutely not the responsibility of book content creators to talk about politics in any capacity. It doesn’t matter if they read romance, historical fiction, or the biography’s of politicians. They do not have to mention who they voted for or bring up anything political if they don’t want to.
They can read visual stories instead, like manga or comic books. A good option if you just wanna read dialogue no?
ETA: Reading visual novels won't take away from the experience because in the end it's reading with a splash of seeing the art drawn and getting exactly how the author imagined his/her scenes. As an artist I enjoy that medium. I also enjoy "non-visuals" but I tend to go to the non fiction route.
Reading textbooks hasn't been enjoyable for everyone for as long as schools were a thing. I just wish silly comparisons aren't generalized and seen as the norm so much these days.
Or plays!! Although admittedly a lot of theatre is made to be seen on stage and not super accessible via reading
@@accordingtoalina Indeed. At this point they don't have to do that either, since being dramatic on stage is as accurate as these people are irl.
It would be great for private reading, but many romance/romantasy fans enjoy taking their books to a coffee shop or park bench and reading in public spaces. Publishers have made their covers less overtly smutty in recent years, and there's a market for inconspicuous dust covers used to hide raunchy cover art. It's much harder to get away with reading a romantic or erotic graphic novel in public, and it may even get you in trouble in some places, the same way watching porn in public can get you in trouble. There's a reason bookstores shrink-wrap their spicy Manga books.
Sure but maybe they don’t want a comic maybe they want a novel or short story. There doesn’t have to be just one kind of book out there in the universe.
I agree with you
I think everyone took the skimgate so personally because the people who admitted to skipping most of the book are the same ones who routinely brag about reading 300 books a year. I'm sure a lot of people wanted to give their favorite creators the benefit of the doubt and not just immediately assume they're lying/inflating the numbers and as a result, u had so many people feeling like shit cause they only manage 5 books a month if lucky... And now they're hearing that all this insecurity was useless cause it is not, in fact, possible o read 300 books a year (in full) and maintain any sort of regular life with a job, social life and responsibilities unless you've got some real specific situation that allows you extra reading time. It absolutely shouldn't be personal but I'm sure for a lot of people it was. Not being able to read a lot in these circles givees you major FOMO and u just kinda feel inadequate tbh, like you don't belong with those people.
No one's obliged to disclose their political leanings (regardless of their reasons).
Absolutely and I do not blame anyone for that because it’s very easy for people to jump on the hate train and try and cancel you based on those said opinions 😅
the tiktoker who said 'i dont care what everyone looks like and what are they wearing,' maybe she is just reading the wrong kinds of books. maybe that particular author is just not for her and she needs to find someone with a different writing style
Yeah, if you're reading for fun and find yourself skimming most of it, it may be worth trying something else.
I love the commentary on The Atlantic article. Most media output these days is one-sided probably just for the click-bait/polarizing response. It's a sad state as there is not much journalistic integrity anymore.
I also think that as much as books have always been political, i think that we do wrong by moralising them to the degree that we think we have an idea about the reader who partakes. I think that there is an element here of "look at young women not able to think for themselves" as if they are not actually complex beings. These women probably are able to be introspective. I dunno i feel like it’s a bit more "just a girl" type talk where girl = simple
I do RUclips book reviews and am a slow reader (with three kids and little time) so I sometimes feel behind! This is so validating because I love reading but have never been a “fast reader.
i have definitely skimmed books before, when i was forced to read and finish them for school and sometimes when i am super immersed in a book i tend to accidentally skim/skip paragraphs cause i desperately want to see what happens next but if that happens and i notice i always go back and read it again
In regard to reading stamina, these people that have a hard time reading might benefit from trying audiobooks instead. At least with that format, when a book starts to drag you can change the speed of the audio and get through the boring parts a bit faster
Good point, I've tried reading audiobooks before but never got through, I didn't consider changing the speed as I went along! I'll have to try this
Completely agree on the "Making fun of Booktok for easy engagement" thing. At this point it just sours my views on any "essayist" who decides to post yet another "reading THE WORST booktok book so you don't have to" video, regurgitating the same talking points that you could hear from an Alpha bro about "female book bad".
I also think that many viewers don't really understand the difference between book influencers and readers with social media, and end up developing these parasocial relationships were they fully trust their opinion on every book they come across without realising their job is to sell books. OBVIOUSLY they can't read a book a day, OF COURSE they don't care about the plot or the characters or the backstories, they don't even have a choice on which books they read!
Heck, at least they try to read them, which is not something that can be said of every book influencer...
I really loved your point about issues with reading stamina and reading in general having roots in national education and other factors besides BookTok.
I have been making an effort to be more intentional with my reading, so I haven't been trying to read as fast as I can, but instead taking time to read what I can. It's just more fun. Now don't quote me, but a guy who has made a name for himself by being one of the fastest readers on Earth (in both speed and comprehension) said that when he reads for pleasure he doesn't speed through the book because what's the point of reading if you just want to get to the end as soon as possible?
Yeah that quote came from one of the best videos on youtube: "Bookstores: how to read more in the golden age of content" highly recommend it
"Have you never skimmed a page?" Honestly, I have not. If I don’t like the book, I’ll just stop reading it and read something else. No one is forcing booktok girlies to read books they don’t like. And yes, I read the books I was supposed to in school, too, but I majored in business so who would I be cheating if I skimmed through the material.. only myself. Also, I’m autistic, I tend to do things "the correct way".
The problem here isn't that they're reading what they like how they like. The problem is that they make brands around it, and prop themselves up as these accomplished readers when they in fact don't even read full books.
Exactly, they make a brand out of their reading, make money out of it and influence people with their opinions, and then proceed to lie about said reading and non-existing opinions. Just another day in influencer land, really 😂
Hi Alina,
I wanted to let you know that I really adore your channel! I love how you approach all your topics with such clarity in mind. I deleted my TikTok account a while ago, but I love to still sometimes see some ridiculous booktokers through your channel. I really appreciate how you use that content to speak on the greater issues at hand. Keep up the great work!
Not wanting to talk about your personal political preference is not the same as saying books shouldn't be political. Berating women for not openly wearing their party affiliation on their sleeve is ridiculous, and feels like you just want to know if they have the correct social media beliefs or not so you can decide if they should be cancelled or not.
Exactly. When I was young where I'm from, it was frowned upon to ask someone how much they make or who they vote for. These days you get hatred for not replying with the correct answer.
Also, books can be political, but if they only read (or skim...) simple romantic fluff, I highly doubt that.
@JDoe Can we stop treating politics like they're just minor disagreements? We're talking about human rights and the fate of the planet.
@@sophitiaofhyrule So dramatic!
@Jdoe-gf5oz Oh no the consequence of my actions ! Why do you feel like people need to support people whose MORALS don’t align w their own? Vote w yr dollar is constantly shoved down our throats and esp during the DT presidency many women don’t want to support people who don’t believe in they deserve the same rights
Wow, i loved this video. it feels like so often there is a lack of nuance in a lot of content that revolves these conversations of booktok.
Used to be a Instagram book influencer. It literally became so political during 2020, IG. became insufferable. Cancelling authors, content about social issues, constant bullying ppl who didn't share same views. I tuned out. Books are political ...but creating content about fictional books shouldn't need to lead to politics.
In a lot of these romance books every sentence isn’t valuable, there’s not much to gain aside from just the main plot so I don’t see a problem with skimming through them to get the only thing the book has to offer. I’m not on booktok but I believe these people recommend books to make money? Skimming through a light read is probably enough to make a recommendation “if you like x couple you’ll like y couple”. People might as well get upset at someone for recommending the latest Netflix romcom after watching it on 2x speed.
And I hard disagree that all influencers should be political. Books can be political, that shouldn’t mean that someone can’t talk about Colleen Hoover without also commenting on real live politics. There is a massive difference between forming a political opinion that one is confident enough in to vote, and forming a political opinion that one is confident enough in to broadcast to possibly millions of people. If an influencer isn’t very informed/educated when it comes to politics, they shouldn’t be a politics influencer. Influencers spreading misinformation, commenting on very serious, complex topics with nothing but surface level knowledge is a massive problem. And demanding that people lay open everything about themselves, their life and believes if they dare post something online is just weirdo behaviour.
Agree with ALL of this. Influencers, especially bookfluencers, are not obligated to share their voting choices, and sometimes it's worse when they do.
Omg. I left essentially the same comment just now, but longer and worse, before finally scrolling down to see someone represent my opinion so well. Exactly! LMAO. BookTok discourse is so reductive these days, all I wanna do is play devil's advocate.
I love hearing your perspective on all of this. I hope you keep it up.
i do wonder how sustainable it is to create content in booktok and on tiktok in general. I've been consuming booktok for years but lately I keep feeling like I keep watching the same four videos on a loop, it bores me to death. there's not really much space to be actually creative and original and engaging when you're fighting with the algorithm to keep you relevant.
Not only the algorithm, but the timer. From a quick google search it seems they increased the length from 60 seconds to 60 minutes, which is good, but let's be real, a well editied but extensive review or video essay on a book or author could easily clock in at much more than that. My favorite video on the site, the pathologic video by hbomb, goes at a decent pace with not too many reiterations of the exact same point, and it's over twice the length. You just couldn't do that video on tiktok, not while maintaining the context for the absolute fantastic ending.
I really appreciate this video. I remember the first time I saw a weekly reading list for just one of my classes in grad school. I was nearly in tears. There was literally no way I could read that many books and essays for just one class, let alone three in one semester. I asked one of my professors if she could recommend a strategy that might help me read everything that I needed to read that week. She laughed at me, and said, "My dear, you are not meant to read all of those books. You are supposed to skim them."
I knew how to skim academic articles and non-fiction books but not novels. How do you know what to skip? That professor was like an aunt to me, so she showed me how to skim through a novel. Grad school killed my love for reading for almost four years because it focused so much on a reading a group of different novels in a certain style, like stream of consciousness, or a reading a group of novels with a certain theme, instead of just taking one book that illustrates a style or theme and really deep diving into that work, which I would have enjoyed.
Anyway, I always appreciate your videos because you approach topics with nuance, instead of courting views with rage-filled rants. I got my twin sister to subscribe to your channel, too.
I can’t help but to think this all circles back & is related to our culture of overconsumption as well. Faster you go through a book, sooner you can buy more & move onto another book. Who cares about the writing? Just get to a point so I can move onto another book. These book influencers are just another means to reach out to ppl to buy more whether they are doing it willingly or not.
Thanks Alina, I loved this. What is sad is that setting reading goals, as in numbers of books, deprives the reader of the joy in reading. Even non-book influencers set quantifiable goals, of fifty books a year for instance, instead of qualifiable goals which might mean re-reading favourite books, or the books on their tbr piles, or carving out time every day for reading. It might even mean dnf-ing books they're not enjoying. What is the point otherwise?
During uni I didn't read for fun just for assignments and just skimmed because the workload per week was too high. So now I have to relearn how to read slower and for fun, which isn't really talked about.
guilty for skipping the preface, i've sinned, please mercy me
I do the same😅
@@marzello lowkey I have been spoiled by prefaces before so now I avoid them and then read them AFTER
@@eviesmith6761 well thank you i have to try that. Maybe authors should come up with a postface
Really love you video! Personally, I'm quite a fast reader. I did reading speed tests and I'm apparently in the top 2.5%, so that's cool. In general, being a fast reader isn't a bad thing, the bad thing is skimming through the whole thing. Skimming is used when you're trying to grab certain tidbits from the text, not when you're just reading for fun. The way how I think of it, is that the author of the book sat down and wrote, with love (supposedly), each word, sentence, and paragraph, so not reading each sentence isn't really appreciating the author's work (as you're not getting the full 100% of it! So, thanks! Learned a lot!
hhahaha lost it at the proust comment. Great vid!
I love him but did we really need to know *all* of that?
@ we certainly did not haha
i'll admit when i skim a boring part. but booktokers who don't actually read just for the aesthetic is weird.
Completely agree. There is nothing wrong with reading romance. Romance is not a 'lesser genre' many of the great works of literature are romance or have romantic elements: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Hights, Midsummer Night's Dream, Rebecca.
Romance has been a genre that has pushed the boundaries of literature.
Dracula, The Monk, Pamela, Cecilia, A Scicilian Romance, Camilla.
Great art has long been made to immortalize romance. With that, bad art too. Both are important parts of literature.
Now, my problem with booktok is how its existence has PUSHED the idea of Romance as cheap literature. Romance books used to be well written at least. Look at the 60-90s harlequin romances. They have plots, are moderatley well researched, ect.
But Booktok has promoted, to put it simply, badly written trash, to the forefront. That is the expectation for what romance is: simple sentences, grammar errors, spelling mistakes, no editing.
I love fanfiction. I like reading thenromance stories people publish for free online to be consumed thoughtlessly because they are fun. Some of them are so well written they should be published!
But those are free, those dont have an editor or a publisher behined them.
Then theybpromote anti intellectualism by saying it is morally wrong to criticize literature. That things purchased with hard earned money should just be thoughtlessly consumed. Smile nicelessly while we pour gasoline down your throat instead of champagne. Isnt it nice?
No. Booktok is being criticized more because they refuse dialogue. Let them burn in the spotlight they set upon themselves.
The take here is people are sharing what they are reading (or not reading) and how. A person does not represent everyone. A like and/or comment on a video doesn't always imply agreement. Let people read whatever they want to, however they want to. All the booktok, bookstagram, booktube stuff is ugc. It is not a literature class. It is user generated content. There will obviously be a major difference. Most hardcore serious reader aren't creating and consuming videos of this sort. (joke) - They are huddled in their book-caves.
Although I agree with many points you raise in the video, I do not agree in the slightest with your critique about politics. You speak as if discussing politics in inherently non-political spaces (such a reviewing novel-of-the-month romance) is a given. Not everything has to be politicized, and these "content creators" do not have to disclose their political affiliations to anybody. I do not give a damn what the author of my little sci-fi book has to say about trade or immigration.
I feel like the only read dialogue thing is an extension of a lot of online film criticism where if a shot doesn't advance the plot it's bad. Sex scene discourse is the biggest example but early 2010s youtubers loved bashing the shit out of Terrence Malick for this.
There is nothing wrong with not sharing political views on the internet.. In fact, it’s smart.. The political voices on the internet are amongst the most cancerous, vile and despicable people out there.. Trying to force someone to share their political views is a bully tactic that never has true discourse in mind.. Not sharing views with thousands of people looking for a fight on the internet is the way to go.. This doesn’t mean that they’re not having meaningful conversations outside of that though.. It could mean that they’re having conversations with people that matter to them irl.. As far as reading goes, skimming means you didn’t read the entire book.. Listening to an audiobook is not “reading” the book.. It’s still totally great and a valid way to consume media, but words have meanings.. Reading trashy books is nothing new, they’ve always been super popular with women generally speaking.. Men have plenty of trashy type media they love too, generally speaking.
I agree with the book Tokers not wanting to talk about politics in their videos. Yes, books are political, but that differs from who the content creator thinks should be the next president of the USA. Unless the creator has a channel where he/she also shares things about his/her personal life ,political discussions should stay out of the book videos he/she is making.
In defense of skimming- it has a niche. I read a lot of non-fiction history. I'm not going to read 1000+ full pages when it's not connected to what information I'm after. Like I'm interested in early church history (mostly first 3-4 centuries) and the restoration movement. I'm not reading in depth on Henry VIII's church of england mess or the random groups/heresies that schismed. I've already spent years reading everything in sight for that king and his wives- I have a good grasp on what he did. I need to know how/why the church split and what it impacted longterm, but I don't need an in depth view of the split-off group's theology. I will do that later when I have more time and more dedicated resources.
Plus sometimes I just don't like how an author handles a topic. I like my history unbiased and I'm going to skim a topic if the author feels the need to pick a side on it.
I do skim for school though. I'm in nursing school and we have a LOT to read. Not all of it is actually relevant to what we will be doing. Some, it's illegal for us to make the choice it impacts. Others, we've just already done it before and I'm confident I grasp the material. While I love pathophysiology and have studied some on my own, I know it will not be on my exams and the exact technicalities it impacts are beyond what I can do. I'll go back and relearn it- hoping to make it to med school someday- but right now, learning what I can legally do and how not to accidentally kill my patient is priority.
Your videos really are a breath of fresh air among the content you described in the end of this video.
My questions is how do they review and rate books ? As an author its sad
Voting is supposed to be anonymous. That's the whole point of the voting process. If the influencer wants to keep their voting choice private then that's their prerogative, it ain't got nothing to do with you so stop trying to make it so. This ain't Starling's Soviet Union. You no right to know who anybody voted for if they choose not to make it public.
Just like any and every other trend videos on any social media do not fall for anyone’s view and opinions on anything. Be more discerning and do your own research and come to an informed decision and then just do that. Who cares what an influencer has to say? You have your own mind to decide for yourselves.
I love that this video is so nuanced. It's one of the more balanced takes I've seen. However, I'm one of those romance writers who is one of those people who has trouble reading, yet somehow I have a master's in a social science/humanities field. I have a huge problem with anti-intellecualism criticism. My reasons for having difficulties with reading are disabilities due to attention issues, executive dysfunction, procrastination (which is a trauma response), and most importantly, being dissociated a lot of the time (having DID). A lot of these arguments are ableist, pure and simple. I appreciate that you sort of touched on this. I will also defend the tomance genre and smut. Have these people who are criticizing even read romance or smut? Like any other genre, there are "good" and "bad" examples. People don’t read romance for intellectual pursuits; they read for escape and entertainment and there is absolutely nothing to judge there. And what a lot of people miss, too, is that writing and reading smut can be extremely helpful in dealing with trauma from SA and emotional abuse. It's a safe space for people to explore what ifs, to get closure where there is none otherwise. We all know how few SA cases get resolved. And if it occurred in childhood? Forget about it. Romance and smut saves lives, at least metaphorically. And while readers consume it like candy (which, as a writer, I'm more than ok with) doesn't mean its not actually very well written content produced from a lot of hard work. I'm not saying there aren't stereotypes or things to criticize, but I think a lot of those people don’t understand that when someone says romance, they're referring to a plot structure and not "romance" per se. If they want to criticize romance for being formulaic, why don't they criticize mystery novels or action movies for the same thing? In fact, most writing structure guides don’t even work for romance structures. That suggests every other genre may be more formulaic than all the others which fit the same mold covered by these books. So, anyone feel free to criticize romance, but please keep all that in mind next time you do. That being said, i hope people read every sentence I write, but if they want to get on tiktok and say whatever, I'll just be happy to be mentioned. I don't think most people take comments about having too many words seriously. And there are still plenty of very thoughtful and influential reviewers out there with big followings who say intelligent things. As for anti-intellectualism...I think we're focusing on the wrong things. How about let's address mental health and acknowledge how significant an affect trauma had on so many people's lives. (Not trying to put that on the women in the tiktok videos, but I think it's largely missing from the overall discussion).
I once watched a RUclips video where a booktube girl said she counts a book as "read," once she hits 1/3 of the book.
IIRC she claimed she "read," something insane like 200+ books in a year.
Was it destiny? No hate to her she diffidently reads a lot still but I saw that and had to think for a second about how little since that made.
The rise of anti-intellectualism is happening in real life here in the US. Not just online. ☹
I was literally just watching someone else’s “”””hot take”””” on booktok yesterday here on yt and thinking “alina is the only creator who’s ever had a properly articulated nuanced take on this topic apparently ever”
I'm sorry, but why on earth are people being criticized for not wanting to talk about who they're voting for on a booktok channel? They're right... why do we have to bring politics into everything? Sure, books can often be political, to a degree, but not every book is political, first of all. And secondly, talking about books and talking about politics are not the same things.
I don't have any interest in listening to my favorite booktubers talk about who they're voting for and what their political views are. I watch them to hear them talk about books. Obviously, that is going to occasionally lead to them talking about their beliefs and moral values, which influence politics. But why do people feel the need to make their favorite booktokers tell them who they're voting for? That's just weird. And it's very weird to refer to that as booktok "refusing to talk about politics." Booktok channels saying "I'm here to talk about books, not politics," is super normal...
when i was a kid it was considered extremely rude to ask someone who they voted for and i’m only 23. the internet has made people way too comfortable asking strangers polarizing questions. tik tok girls are not wrong for not answering. the girl is probably reading silly romance novels, not political non-fiction.
@bliss Reading is inherently political, that's why Republicans are working so hard to ban books. Also asking someone who they voted for is absolutely valid so you know if you want to follow them or not. I wouldn't want to follow a content creator who supports Trump.
@ i never said books don’t have political undertones. also, it doesn’t matter if you want to know the information of who voted for who, that’s private and you are not entitled to that. if you get vibes from a creator that you don’t like, unfollow them. just don’t expect people to take kindly to your prying questions.
Your videos are pure gold ❤
Wow, I never been able to catch a video so early! Just came to see what you had on the channel after watching Jared's video
I'm not sure if I got your point about "choosing not to talk about the politics is worse". My other hobby, gaming, has been massively oversaturated with political content. "This game is good, because it pisses off nationalists" or "This game is bad because it's woke" and nobody talks about the the outside the narrow political lens, it's like those content creators forgot how to enjoy games or look for something else rather than affirmation of their political views.
Politics and fostering hate is low-hanging fruit to get clicks on youtube (I don't know about tiktok). I know booktubers who are open about their politics, of course, but it's not what I'm personally looking for and I guess many other people too. Sometimes it is interesting to look at the books from political lens, but sometimes it's nice to just tune it out and romance/romantasy readers are looking for escapism (duh)
this is surprisingly the most sober take I've seen on this topic. subscribed.
I don’t think that everything has to be political. Every person has the right to keep their business or whatever non-political and refuse to engage with it. Pushing people to give a statement is wrong in my opinion.
agreed. most people have political opinions, but there is a time and a place for it, and forcing ppl into conversations aint cool. as ive said to many people, "i dont mind talking about political issues, but i mind talking about it with you, bc you cant keep your shit together and have a polite conversation" 🤷♀️ there is also the fact that many people are overwhelmed by their own lives and might not have the capacity to orient themselves to a point where they are comfortable speaking publicly on it. bc theyre not just asking for ur hot take, theyre asking for a public statement 👀
The personal is political.
I feel like some of these videos might just be rage bait tbh
How can even people understand the entire story without reading the description?
nuanced, explanatory, heftily caveated and soaring with intelligence! Thank you for covering this febrile topic with such confident caution!
In my opinion, all this is just rage baiting and it isn’t necessarily deeper than that.
Thank you for bringing up the fact that the university course load isn't just 'finish multiple books a semester' its usually finish multiple books (much denser than a lot of mainstream fiction) a week. Of course you skim and don't finish things, unless you're going back for an essay. I can finish multiple books a semester no problem. Uni + personal reading I've read about 87 books this year, and all the personal reading isn't skimming. A lot of it is rereads, or books that are just quicker, especially since I'm a fast reader. Me skimming on some text by Foucault that I won't really understand until I have the context of the class after to look at it with new eyes if I have to write something about it has nothing to do with 'not being able to finish multiple books a semester'
I definitely agree that a lot of people are just shitting on TikTok-Creators because that's the cool thing to do. Concerning the discussion about reading more diverse books: I think that should be left to everyone to decide for themselves. I started learning to read in German, as that was the language we learn first in my home country, and I read a lot with my mom, which led to me reading a lot of fairytales and afterwards childrens fantasy books when I was younger. I didn't read romances for a long time, until I found one I liked one day, and now I basically only read romances. I try to get more into books in my mothertongue, which is luxemburgish, but there aren't a lot of romances / fantasy books, so I just read what I can find, but I don't force myself to read something I don't like, I don't think that's really productive, but I could be wrong
This 'skipping procedure' I only do in a 'case of emergency', when I am close to quitting on the book. To give the book a last chance and to get to the ending still, I also skip a lot and it's a good compromise for me, to not lose all my patience with a story, that is not made for me. But all in all, when I fall in love with a story - which I do very often - I fly through all the pages and enjoy all the little details so much. Seems strange to me, that some people don't really seem to like those details anymore.
I am interested to know if there are any book influencers out there who specialize in indie and self-published books. It's been a while since I was blown away by a traditionally published book, especially in fiction. I read a wide variety of genres and maybe I'm getting older and my brain in becoming more selective, but rarely am I enthralled by a novel these days. Even many Booker and Pulitzer prize winners leave me wanting. I have taken to digging through the wonderful world of self-published content. While there are mountains of drivel (that continues to grow every day), there are also some gems, creative, boundary pushing content and new, engaging takes on old tropes. I have even found a few books that can pull off deep thought within the romance genre. Unfortunately, they are buried in the algorithm.
Eyes on Indie is a great channel!
@@notthemostread Thanks. I will check it out.
I’m a slow reader, as well I’ve only read for 3 years now… the book of Enoch got me into reading
I’m still exploring what I like and dislike, from checking out colleeen Hoover to dark romance books I truly didn’t know what to read until I came across TikTok books, I personally also don’t have an issue with the section of the app, I also don’t completely like booktok. It’s helped authors, helped readers find new books or go out of their comfort zones, but I do wish books wouldn’t always be the same tropes.. and now RUclipsrs are attacking mask/biker tok which I dislike
I so, so agree with this. It almost makes me wanna play devil's advocate a lot of the time for skim-reading when people make these absolutist proclamations after they fall for ragebait or just engage with an uncommonly stupid person (in the case of the "I don't read paragraphs" kind of TikTokers, I don't care what their intentions are; we can't know them; and I do not think we should be commenting on them as if they represent this large swath of modern readers, though).
And when it comes to the "books are inherently political" conversation, I also don't think there's anything wrong with what people are generally saying. Yeah, all art is political, but this is such a basic conversation to be having as loudly as we've been having it lately; it gets redundant. And if we ignored the cowardly or just uninformed people* who wanna say "When did books get so political?" we could move onto more critical and insightful topics of discourse.
*Also don't wanna assume their intentions as to why they don't wanna make content on the intersection between books and politics. I think people who invite the conversation of "I wanna move past politics and just talk about books" deserve varying levels of criticism, totally depending on what they say and how they say it. There are times when staying tightlipped about certain issues can clearly demonstrate some sort of bias or hypocrisy which a creator might be refusing to grow from, in the context of their online history. But I also think people are allowed to have reasonable boundaries of what they won't talk about in the content they make for other people's consumption; it doesn't make you spineless to just feel like you personally are not fit to be a mouthpiece for the beliefs you hold. I think the pressure to always say the right thing, the right way in today's social media age might make some people more hesitant to express their deeply-held values for fear of being misinterpreted, perhaps even maliciously. Outrage culture is real. And a person has every right to keep their online content within the limits of low-stakes book opinions, if that's what you want. If you are someone who makes content about fluffy romances and your audience is calling on you to talk about global injustices, I can sympathize with the reluctance, even resentment, of thinking "Why would anyone ever expect ME to have to do this?" Someone who says "books aren't political" is worth correcting; someone who simply doesn't want to focus on the political nature of literature in the niche that they carved out for themselves, is just a person. They may not want the pressure of speaking about more consequential and sensitive subjects, which I can sympathize with, as someone who would never wish to be a public figure in the first place. When the conversation becomes "DUMB BOOKTOKERS DON'T WANNA ENGAGE WITH POLITICS," it becomes this black-and-white conversation between (dare I say, academic) politically-engaged literary and cultural critique, and dumb stupid shut-off-my-brain readers who just want to talk about exciting plots and interesting characters. Frankly, it's almost elitist and snobbish. So-called "apolitical" book content still has a place in the literary world, and especially in the online space where people go to escape the pressures of everyday life.
There shouldn't be this war between these supposedly enlightened, socially engaged, thirsting-for-knowledge-and-truth snobbish readers and the dumb mouth-breathing fucks of the depraved, ignorant BookTok. That's how both of these discourses have seemed to me lately; they boil people down to the bare essential types of reading styles: most and least worthy of calling themselves 'smart' or 'real' readers. It reinforces this binary of readers and reading culture on the two extremes, when all kinds of reading, from the rigorously intellectual to the passive and comfortable, deserve their time and place. I think this just serves to make people feel inadequate about themselves if they don't find themselves reading the 'right' way that these opposing teams represent. But the elitist side perhaps bothers me more, because of how much I in principle do agree with them. Their messaging can often come across as discouraging to people who don't feel 'good enough' for their lofty philosophies of the grand significance of literature. We should be a more welcoming community than that.
Perhaps I am naive, but I hope many Booktok readers, especially the younger ones, will get bored of reading so many books of the same genre and eventually find themselves drawn to more middle-brow, challenging novels. If the bookmarklet is savvy enough, it will offer them such titles and market them correctly. Really, Booktok is developing reading stamina for a demographic that most elite readers assumed was hopeless.
the only books i skim are books im not liking. Meaning, i dont rate them highly.
I've sometimes skimmed books before when they were boring and I was either sure I was going to dnf them or almost done and just finishing them to finish them.
This feels to me a little more than just the things you noted in the video. I get really strong sexist vibes. Everyone talking bad about book tok which is a female dominated area, also dominated by romance and smut. Which is widely regarded as women’s reading material. Come on guys everyone loves a good romance.
It feels like the movement of noble women reading in France and how at first it was deeply frowned upon. Then these noble women had the audacity to start meeting with each other and talking about what they read.
It feels like a piece of the past has cropped back up.
I'm not on booktok, but I've seen a few shorts here on youtube, and I am more surprised by people being surprised at that, than I'm surprised at the fact that some are only pretend to read the books they talk about.
Now I'm probably one of the older members of the book-* community, and the interesting thing is that I don't even doubt that people can read 300 books a year, because there have been times in my live were I read 500-600 pages per day without breaking any sweat and without skimming. What I kinda doubt is that those people would still have the time to do high-quality videos with indepth talk about what they just read, and most of my experiences here on booktube rather confirm my suspicions. It's pretty easy to distinguish the people with a high degree of literacy and an education enabling them to talk about books in an interesting way, and the people who talk about books from a more superficial point of view. And I'm not one to judge, because even people skipping huge parts of a book are probably better off than people who don't read at all. Caveat being, that if (general) you do so, don't pretend otherwise because I'll see through you and I won't waste my time with dishonesty. And I certainly won't ascribe any value to your opinion if you don't even have read the book you want to give a review about.
I was having these thoughts the other day - I opened up my RUclips to look for some bookish content and it was all people dunking on BookTok. 🙄 it just seems like BookTube is turning into BookTok commentary rather commentary on books. As someone who uses both apps, it’s soooo boring!
I really enjoyed your video and that you talked about both sides and didn’t just jumped on the hate train
"The writing is so tiny' is a valid point.
Also, I wonder if those two videos would have gotten such outrage if it had been men saying it. But maybe that's a whole other video topic in and of itself.
There is no excuse for skimming a book outside of a mandatory obligation to read it (i.e. for school/work). That’s simply not reading and as a writer, this hurts to even hear. Just DNF the book and give that author valuable feedback that something in the text isn’t working. Or (more likely) the subject matter, genre, writing level, etc just isn’t for you. Put the book down! And if you truly *just* like dialogue - read plays or comics. They are both wonderful sources of literature and expansive art forms in their own right.
I have no TikTok or an active social media presence in general. Catching up with trends from someone whose opinions have deliberate layers and accessibility is a fresh breath of air. Even when I disagree with you, I can say "I can see where she comes from and that is a valid point of view." Your body language is also subtle and reinforces the tone of your commentaries. Another good video, wish you the best.
I'm not on tiktok but a lot of content sips through to RUclips shorts so I kind of grasp what the issue is. I think there have always been literature pieces considered 'low' level. This is of course a whole another debate what's considered what, what criteria to apply, what time period are we looking at etc. But let's be honest, one can clearly see a distinction between works of Dostoevsky or Shakespeare and harlequin romances. People are allowed to enjoy all of them and I see no issue here, however the issue, to me, arises when we cannot apply critical thinking to analysing and appraising the literature as a spectrum and further when we don't even attempt to have those conversations. I read quite a lot of books, anything from chick flicks to absolute classics, I am able to objectively distinguish works that are solid pieces of writing from those which aren't. It doesn't mean I enjoy reading 'high literature ' more than books which plot is obvious from first page. On the contrary, there are a lot of books, that aren't epic in any shape or form, I absolutely adore and would gladly re-read and some absolute masterpieces that I despise with passion. But this is guided by feelings only. What is lacking is absence of in-depth discussion on books which isn't surprising if people don't actually read them. This is why I personally only follow people who review books in its entirety i.e. discuss the plot, comment on writing, relationships, characters, explain how the book made them feel etc. Pretty much only people who I believe actually read books they're talking about.
People who skim through books or only talk about smut are definitely contributing nothing to the 'intellectual' debate but on the other hand, are they claiming they are? Again, it's not something I'm interested in or something I consider necessarily a 'positive movement ' but I will be a little bit of a devil's advocate here. I consider reading a hobby, unless it's something you do professionally as either an artist or scholar, and people are allowed to have different tastes. Many people will opt for stuff that are purely a form of escapism and will guide their reading choices by what feels good or perhaps what fills a certain void or need (my personal take on people craving romance/smut etc is because a lot of us lack closeness with another person, many lack s*xual satisfaction, passion, it's ok and only human, of course, some glorified relationships in books are nothing short of problematic but it's another debate altogether). I do think the problem also stems from educational system, we should get our knowledge of literature primarily from school and then use other media to explore further but if schools don't teach children to appreciate and appraise written works appropriately then how are they supposed to know any better. Similarly, if parents don't encourage reading vast array of genres then it will be that much harder to convince kids to read anything but what feels cool according to tiktok. So the problem I guess is multifaceted. On the other hand, intellectual debate about reading has never been and never will be a mainstream thing. It is more of a niche interest, often reserved for those who do it professionally or those with great passion and sharp mind. It's like with any other art, popular music is typically not a masterpiece but many people enjoy it because it's catchy and feels good, same with films, sports and so many other categories.
What I am trying to say is that I do indeed regret that people on social do not have more interesting debate about literature, I do find reviews of books that haven't been read properly annoying and waste of time, I am constantly worried that many amazing books never get the recognition they deserve and that I do worry that lack of wide scale of encouragement to read critically and try a number of different genres and authors may contribute to making us all a bit more ignorant. BUT! On the other hand, I am not surprised and I also don't think this phenomenon is anything new. A lot good things could come out of social media being used to spread knowledge about 'good' literature but I think escapism and what moves the masses will always win in popularity contest. Creating spaces where more intellectual takes can be discussed is definitely a good way to contribute to combating this but alas I think it will mostly be for those who seek it.
I have a lot of issues with the people criticizing the woman talking about how many words there are per page. I don’t know exactly what she was thinking, but the format of books is a major issue for me due to some minor visual impairments and ADHD. My issue is NOT with the number of words in the book. It’s with the number of words on a single page. There are many books (especially nonfiction and classics) that do not meet the minimum standard text size in most accessibility guidelines for print materials (12 pt). When text is small and close together, it is less accessible for many people, but that has not historically been a large priority for publishers or non-disabled readers. I almost never see anyone in online book communities talking about how some fonts are much less accessible than others…
Large print books exist, but not all books get large print editions, and those editions are also much more expensive. My local library has few large print options and are only willing to order so many. My only option for some books is using an ebook, which is not how I prefer to read. I have a magnifying glass for some books because the publisher (even a lot of big publishers!) decided to put some classic in 10.5 pt font.
Sorry for the rant, but that video could have been a great jumping off point for talking about how publishers could easily make books more accessible for many readers but simply choose not to. Meeting basic accessibility guidelines should be something we push publishers on. It’s sad that isn’t the norm.
Fascinating video, I want to look in more detail at book stamina now.
Hmm a video discussing the topic you know will get views is also a sponsored video. Everyone knows the game and everyone plays the game. As you said, you want to get paid, and you will for this sponsored video with the clicks and views. No one is above the game.
I fell into book Twitter and booktok which reignited my love for reading. Yetttt it felt like if you don't read at least 20 books a year and review them deeply, you are a fake reader.
I have gone from 10 books a year to now 13 and it wasn't worth it. I read so many TikTok reccommendations and hated them but felt like I had to continue because my reading goal would be set back.
Needless to say I will be reading less books next year but hopefully more books that I actually like
I've tried like five times to get through these kinds of videos but as a writer it just upsets me lol. Like not even a minute in and I want to throw myself off a cliff lol.
Great video!