Man, really needed to hear this, makes me feel slightly more sane. Watched good quantity of binging Donaghue in not good mental health states, you are not exaggerating. Fascinating, but lord have mercy had some surreal moments in retrospect, caught up in cult of personality almost. I could spew out tons of specific odd things, but not tryna be negative, but one If I'm not mistaken in one of his episodes of hobo-ING the earth with a pack of stray dogs took place in Saudi Arabia-ain't no way. Ain't no way that happened lol.
Yeah. I do think Steve Donoghue was a nice enough eccentric guy for the most part, but he's got this odd position in booktube where he's respected and seemingly taken at face value despite him making absurd claims all the time. The point when it stopped being funny and became offensive for me was when he started portraying other people as violent psychopaths. He treats all Republicans/Conservatives as if they're basically neo-nazis and pushes insane conspiracy ideas of what will happen if Trump wins the election, (as if he wasn't already president for 4 years, and a secret Gestapo didn't sweep across USA shooting people in the head). He's got worse now, claiming all influencers are crazy narcissists who would have their bodyguards kill you if you dare to talk to them, and other bitter crap. He's become a vicious hateful misanthrope, particularly in the last year and I don't know why others ignore it. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I'm half hoping Steve is just exaggerating and playing it all up for a laugh. Either way, I'll be here to call out the craziness and hopefully encourage a little more tolerance on the highly politically skewed place we call booktube.
me and Steve have an odd history, me and him used to talk and interact but one day he just unfollowed me I have no clue why. on booktube this is why I pulled away from it and the stuff that want down with some people and knowing they would be nice to me and then talk about me behind my back, or being told to pay people to give me a shout-out. I'm very much right of centre I'm very much the outsider on booktube. ive been trolled by some well known people on bookube too
I have a similar experience with Booktube. There are a few Booktubers that started around the same time as me, that I was on friendly terms with. I don't hear from them at all now. I'll freely admit, sometimes its hard to keep in touch. There's so many people and so much content out there. Some people can just slip through and before you know it, it's been two months since you last spoke. That happens, and I try not to assume malice there. I think for me, it was especially annoying because I was kicked out of the club before some of them even spoke to me. I was banned from the Shelf Space and Media Death Cult discord servers within mere hours of joining, and without breaking a single rule. Steve is still a big question mark for me. I suspect after this video he'll be a little more frosty with me, and that's not undeserved... but it'll be him cutting ties with me, not the other way. Everyone is welcome here, even my biggest detractors. I feel your exile from Booktube was both before my time and seems largely senseless. I can't see any evidence of wrongdoing, even subjective wrongdoing. They just seemed to one day decide they didn't like your face... and that is confusing as hell. Well, you're always welcome here anyway.
@@TornadoCreator booktube is very much Like high school sadly. It was the same for me too I started making videos and everyone just vanished. some drama over a booktube meet up and being told point post my videos I don't fit what they was trying to do and so much more. I was in a discord adult book tubers but it was hell and I may of well not be there. I don't know why he unfollowed me me and him did chat it was strange. sorry about the layout of this comment im on a train on my phone
I can't think of any other channel where I willingly sit through 20 mins of effectively white noise, to get 10 mins of weird ranting. And feel happy to do so. It's like talk-radio in a way, you can just have Steve on in the background... and yes, the moment are gold.
Very interesting; thank you. As someone new to Booktube, I appreciated the way you delineated the three main parts of Booktube. I get what you mean about the YA crowd. I don't understand the "shelf space" part. I've watched half a dozen sf/fantasy-oriented channels, and none have seemed politically or ideologically driven. Maybe I'll see more of that in time. ... As for Steve Donoghue, I initially found him entertaining and erudite, but I quickly noticed that he was very obsessive. Driven, hyper-intellectual, constantly spinning in his head, moralistic... I found his claims to read 350 pages an hour hard to believe. I can "read" that fast, too, but I'm not really sinking into the prose, allowing myself to be immersed in the world, empathizing with the characters, or reflecting about what I'm reading. I'm just skimming, blowing through it. He also posts three times a day, which is ridiculous. I felt like I was getting spammed. ... Thanks again for the overview of Booktube. I'm sorry you didn't find a place in it. As I say, I'm new to it, and I'm not aware of the "who's in, who's out" gatekeeping. Sounds like high school. You'd hope for something better, among a group of people devoted to reading. You'd think they would be more enlightened, not just a carbon copy of what's wrong with social media generally. I hope you find your spot.
Yeah, on the surface booktube doesn't seem political at first, but it is, sickeningly so. If you aren't a social justice obsessed, woke, Californian style US Democrat; you're not welcome. Doesn't matter is you're not even American. I am still immediately pegged as a "far right Trump supporter and bigot", because I criticised things like BLM and the trans movement, (because urban terrorists and kiddy fiddlers are easy to criticise; regardless of the politics they hide behind), and apparently that makes me a neo-nazi... despite being openly left wing, in a country where being left actually means something. Doesn't matter. It doesn't take much either. Just say on one of those discord channels that you "don't see why JK Rowling gets all this hate", and thats it you're done. Insta-blocked on everything. I have no issue with politics. I run online D&D games with socialist atheist environmentalists from mainland Europe playing alongside gun-loving Republican military conservative Christians. I mix with different cultures, nationalities, and religions; but only Woke Americans act so entitled, indignant, and intolerant. Most places on booktube ban political discussions, while openly doing reading challenges where they only read queer books, or authors of colour, or keep praising "representation". Their reading is dripping in political virtue signalling but any topic they dislike is silenced while their own politics is deemed, "not politics, it's just being a decent human being". It's pathetic, childish, and authoritarian to an extreme. Anyway. Thank you for the comment, I'm glad you enjoyed the video and I hope to see you again for future vids.
I just discovered your channel. The title of the video caught my attention. I agree with everything your said about Steve. The thing that bothers me about him is that if he dislikes someone, he will just make things up. His comments, for instance on Bob Dylan are completely crazy.
Glad you enjoyed the video. Steve is very much an enigma, I can't decide if he's just delusional or harbours bad intentions. He doesn't seem hateful, but perhaps I just haven't seen it.
Wow, I never heard anyone explain so well what adults get out of middlegrade/ya! When I'm stressed and overwhelmed it is super nice to reset. Also my inner child sometimes just wants to read a book I couldn't get my hands on in my childhood. That said since I got in my mid twenties I read less and less of that. I just get more out of adult historical, classics, literary or romance novels. I'm thinking of giving away a lot of the younger aimed books to people I know with kids that like to read. (One box already gone) It's I think what you said, for developing a reading mind you can't just stick to kids book. I would recommend to those people adult magical realisme since it has the magic and whimsicalness. But it's more adult and more literary.
I'm glad I was able to vocalise that for you. I know my perception of what I call the "teeny-bopper" booktubers is a little unfair in places. There's no real harm in them wanting to read middle-grade and YA; but I do feel you should read appropriate for you age to develop correctly.
Honestly, I wish booktube wasn't focused on politics. And I say this as an independent who's tired of it all. The Steve Donahue side is okay (not my favorite but it exists). But at least he doesn't give me the vibe of constantly telling me my bookshelf is racist, sexist and homophobic like he's channeling in his inner Anita Sarkessian. I don't know what category of Booktube Better Than Food Book Reviews is but I do like his content.
Yeah, Steve is easier to handle... unless you're a Republican in which case he will openly call you a fascist white supremacist who supports a tyrant who tried to overthrow the government. I could easily see someone finding Steve just as intolerable. Being called a fascist and a nazi repeatedly, ironically sounds a lot like the SJW left.
I agree with you. Modern sci-fi and fantasy are amazing, the classics are quite outdated but are fun to read, however when it comes to horror I find that the classics are the best. Modern horror is fun but the classics are amazing and have been used over and over again in the modern era. Dracula is the ultimate. So many novels have been based on the Dracula classics
See, I didn't like Dracula at all. I found the Epistemological style of writing really hard to get into. It's the same problem I have with Frankenstein. While I appreciate the style and tone, I much prefer adaptations and transformative works that build upon what they did.
Hipsters are usually politically progressive. He seems to be virulently anti-trans and obsessed with "cancel culture" (which sane, rational people just call "being held accountable when you act like a piece of shit"), which are two things I associated with conservatives as a group, despite his obvious disdain for American Republicans.
I can’t stand Steve. He is so condescending I can’t take it. I also agree with a lot of things he says but so much of the rest of what he says is ridiculous.
I agree he can be condescending, but for me its the constant lies that bug me. He recently did a "desert island discs" style video for someone else's channel, and he picked books in Latin, Ancient Greek, and more and I'm just not convinced he can speak any of these languages. He talks about his travels and his dogs and the stories are so farfetched. Then there's his reading amount... 150 pages an hour, yeah right, and I'm magic. Then there's his regular repeated sayings, "...in the 15 or 16 genres I read in", after I'd said that 3 times, I'd have counted how many fucking genres.
@@TornadoCreator I also can’t understand how he thinks filming 4 videos a day is not debasing but creators monetizing their channels is. As if rambling at the camera about the weather for 10 mins and talking about how you “vigorously” walk your dog multiple times a day for hours isn’t an absolute lie for a person with his stature. No shade on his stature, just more lies. The monetization thing is just hypocrisy. Especially considering his patreon he has that he makes fun of. Equating creators that monetize their channel to bowing and scraping for pennies and couch change. Not to mention that a lot of the people he belittles on his channel have way bigger followings than him. Jack in the Books who I’ve seen him regularly make fun of has a huge following of 340,000 subs. And get this; Steve says there is no way that Jack reads as many books as he does. Is that not the height of hypocrisy? Unrelated but in another video you said their weren’t many big BookTube channels. There are some really big Portuguese and Spanish speaking BookTube channels with over 1mill subs. The west spends a lot of time indoors on screens so the amount of people that read are a lot lower than other cultures perhaps.
I wasn't aware of the non-English side of booktube. To be entirely honest, I'm functionally monolingual anyway so I wouldn't be able to take part; but it's good to hear that there's a wider audience of readers out there.
@@TornadoCreator I don't doubt he can speak latin or greek, for somebody of his age / education level it doesn't seem too farfetched. Latin & Greek were taught in Jesuit schools, which he went to.
@@JasperAntonelli An academic point: no one "speaks" Latin or Greek anymore (Classical or Koine Greek, not contemporary Greek). They read them. But Steve doesn't even do that. It doesn't strike you as the least bit peculiar that he's never once - not a SINGLE time - done a reading in a foreign language, let alone shown a foreign language edition of one of his favorite books? I'm not counting Loeb Classics, since they contain English translations as well. I've never seen him hold up a Russian version of Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy, or a Spanish language version of Borges or Marquez. And I know why he doesn't. Because he's blowing smoke up everyone's ass when he claims to read these languages. He's a bullshit artist. To quote the partner of a friend I know who thinks just as little of him, "Steve: the man, the myth ... the myth." The only place he's a legend is in his own mind.
I just can’t take the lies Donahue spews. I don’t believe he reads all the books he claims. Have personally caught him in his lies. If you comment on a book during a livestream,you can see from his body language and his eyes, the furious attempt to placate and state a generic comment.
I've spotted the same thing. He'll het flustered, say that "off course he's read X" and then give bland generic opinions that could easily be based on reading the blurb. I just wonder why? Why does he want people to think he's read all the books? What does that even achieve?
Yeah, you're probably right there... and it's a shame because I think if he dropped the weird bravado he'd be a nice guy I could get along with. If he stopped the compulsive lying and just talked books we'd be good. He clearly is passionate about books, and he has an undeniable charisma that gives him an on camera presence. I just wish his videos didn't devolve into him claiming he's read every book ever, visited "every inch" of every place ever, speaks every language ever, and has sexually molested every dog or dog-like creature he's ever met, which is all of them. It's bizarre and rather creepy.
Not sure about the “undeniable charisma.” I do think he has an engaging quality and speaks well. I don’t think I have ever heard him say “um” or “you know.”( a pet peeve of mine.) I attempted to watch a Stacy Schiff program with a retrospective of her work and the number of times she said “um” was maddening. I am always flabbergasted that their PR agents do not bring this to writers attention. If you are engaging in speaking events to promote your book, please learn how to speak! Stephen Kotkin on the flip side excels at speaking. Every word is well thought out and flows,regardless of whether you agree with his viewpoint.
I think the fact that Steve has an audience of thousands listening to him give pretty banal surface-level discussions on books, the weather, his dog, interior design magazines, and how much he hates Trump... that shows that he at least has confidence, a strong force of personality, and can be interesting and engaging. That's charisma. Steve has problems, huge ones; but for unedited old man rambling videos, you must admit, he gets far more views and is way easier to watch than you'd expect.
OMG! I couldn’t stop laughing while listening about Steve! 🤣🤣🤣 I used to be subscribed to his channel, but I unsubscribed because of all those rants about Trump and white supremacy, blah/blah/blah… I’m here because I wanna talk about books! Thanks for the laughs! 😆
He's got worse. He casually calls all Republicans neo-nazis in almost every video now. The man is insane and it's stopping being quirky and starting to become deeply insulting. Still, glad you enjoyed the video. I can't say I read as many as I'd like, but this channel is certainly primarily about the books.
Based on your breakdown of booktube, my son and I don't have any place on it. =/ The US politics have also become insane. OH my we are going to de insane just about covers it. If you don't believe and kowtow to the current regime, meaning if you question what the current regime is doing, you are considered far right. Even politicians who are centrists are now considered far right extremists. The atmosphere is the followers are so far left that they've gone off the edge of common sense. that's very interesting about that channel you mentioned. that math of the missiles sounds like common core. LOL There are people on bookube who think the American debt is a myth, their logic is that the gov is run differently than a household. smh debt is debt and printing monopoly money exacerbates the problem creating the inflation we are now in. sigh If that booktuber wants to sell military equipment to give money to the American people, there are LOTS of things in Afghanistan that can be requisitioned and bam, there you. LOL If I had to guess why you have so many conservative and Christian followers is because you are level headed and discuss like a reasonable person. that is very rare today.
Thanks, I appreciate that. For a long time I was very angry at conservatives because they opposed or argued against issues that are very important for me; but I learned to share perspectives. Actually looking at things from other peoples POV is hard and it took until my 30s for me to get good at it. Sadly it seems a lot of people don't even try.
@@TornadoCreator That's true. A lot of people don't want to try. A lot of people in the U.S don't have the skills to talk about it. and they resort to name calling, screaming or worse, physical violence.
Steve is endlessly fascinating and entertaining, but the more I watch him the more his lies and hypocrisy become apparent, which is a shame. I still think there's a decent guy under all those neuroses.
@@TornadoCreator I lived in Boston for 12 years. I left 14 years ago. I used to hang around and support a radical bookstore/infoshop called the Lucy Parsons Center. I wonder what Steve thinks of that place. It used to be located in the South End but moved to Jamaica Plain after I left town. Jamaica Plain is kind of the hip part of town, lot's of funky ethnics, gays, hipsters and artists. I have a very negative reaction to Donoghue but maybe that's just a personal thing.
@@sidclark1953 It's not a personal thing. Anyone with two ears to hear and two eyes to see can tell you that someone who reads for 12 hours a day, every single day, doesn't just have issues. He has the whole damn subscription.
If all he did was read 12 hours per day, I wouldn't have a problem with him. It's the pathological lying and hypocrisy that bothers me, that and his repeated political radicalism. The fact that he's anti-woke but still refers to all Trump supporters and most Republicans as white supremacists and fascists.
Understand where you’re coming from, man. I’ve yet to find a single booktuber, aside from you of course, who doesn’t use phrases or words like “diversity,” or “POC,” or “queer,” and terms like that that just get under my skin. Frankly, and as someone who is gay myself, I can’t stand the word “queer” when applied to a gay person and/or character. That word has completely overtaken anyone who falls under the LGBT umbrella and almost serves as an all encompassing word for that group. I feel that most people who use that as an identifier are doing so either for the attention, or because it confuses some people and that’s what they get off on. Not all, but most. But anyways, yeah, I really can’t stomach booktube much at all and I completely get you moving away from it. It’s really nothing more than a giant hug box of one-sided opinions and takes, and it’s quite frustrating. Though I have to admit, it would be amusing if I were to somehow blow up on booktube and have my center right opinions, and then when certain booktubers go after me for being a “straight, white male,” I can completely throw them off course by telling them, “actually, I’m gay. But carry on.” Because I’ve been told a few times that I could easily pass for being straight as I’m not effeminate or anything like that in slightest, nor in the way that I dress.
Also, off topic, but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the comments that James Patterson made about white male authors and how in today’s current age, it’s sort of a struggle for them for a variety of reasons, more or less. Now I’m not a fan of Patterson in the slightest, but I did find his comments to be interesting, and I’m sure they have a good portion of booktube absolutely livid, given how most of them are identity politics obsessed leftists.
Yeah, I'm bisexual myself and that seems to annoy the identitarian crowd. When they say "queer" what they mean is "non-straight", when they say "POC", what they mean is "non-white", and when they say "diverse", what they mean is "non-male". It's just their way of excluding specifically straight white men, which is weird given that on Earth there are 7.75 BILLION people, and only about 600 Million straight white men... but remember, that 7.15 BILLION, they're the oppressed minorities.
Man, really needed to hear this, makes me feel slightly more sane. Watched good quantity of binging Donaghue in not good mental health states, you are not exaggerating. Fascinating, but lord have mercy had some surreal moments in retrospect, caught up in cult of personality almost. I could spew out tons of specific odd things, but not tryna be negative, but one If I'm not mistaken in one of his episodes of hobo-ING the earth with a pack of stray dogs took place in Saudi Arabia-ain't no way. Ain't no way that happened lol.
Yeah. I do think Steve Donoghue was a nice enough eccentric guy for the most part, but he's got this odd position in booktube where he's respected and seemingly taken at face value despite him making absurd claims all the time.
The point when it stopped being funny and became offensive for me was when he started portraying other people as violent psychopaths. He treats all Republicans/Conservatives as if they're basically neo-nazis and pushes insane conspiracy ideas of what will happen if Trump wins the election, (as if he wasn't already president for 4 years, and a secret Gestapo didn't sweep across USA shooting people in the head). He's got worse now, claiming all influencers are crazy narcissists who would have their bodyguards kill you if you dare to talk to them, and other bitter crap. He's become a vicious hateful misanthrope, particularly in the last year and I don't know why others ignore it.
Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I'm half hoping Steve is just exaggerating and playing it all up for a laugh. Either way, I'll be here to call out the craziness and hopefully encourage a little more tolerance on the highly politically skewed place we call booktube.
me and Steve have an odd history, me and him used to talk and interact but one day he just unfollowed me I have no clue why. on booktube this is why I pulled away from it and the stuff that want down with some people and knowing they would be nice to me and then talk about me behind my back, or being told to pay people to give me a shout-out. I'm very much right of centre I'm very much the outsider on booktube. ive been trolled by some well known people on bookube too
I have a similar experience with Booktube. There are a few Booktubers that started around the same time as me, that I was on friendly terms with. I don't hear from them at all now.
I'll freely admit, sometimes its hard to keep in touch. There's so many people and so much content out there. Some people can just slip through and before you know it, it's been two months since you last spoke. That happens, and I try not to assume malice there.
I think for me, it was especially annoying because I was kicked out of the club before some of them even spoke to me. I was banned from the Shelf Space and Media Death Cult discord servers within mere hours of joining, and without breaking a single rule.
Steve is still a big question mark for me. I suspect after this video he'll be a little more frosty with me, and that's not undeserved... but it'll be him cutting ties with me, not the other way. Everyone is welcome here, even my biggest detractors.
I feel your exile from Booktube was both before my time and seems largely senseless. I can't see any evidence of wrongdoing, even subjective wrongdoing. They just seemed to one day decide they didn't like your face... and that is confusing as hell. Well, you're always welcome here anyway.
@@TornadoCreator booktube is very much Like high school sadly. It was the same for me too I started making videos and everyone just vanished. some drama over a booktube meet up and being told point post my videos I don't fit what they was trying to do and so much more. I was in a discord adult book tubers but it was hell and I may of well not be there. I don't know why he unfollowed me me and him did chat it was strange. sorry about the layout of this comment im on a train on my phone
Steve is probably the best gift book tube has given us. And the moments when the rants start, it's pure gold.
I can't think of any other channel where I willingly sit through 20 mins of effectively white noise, to get 10 mins of weird ranting. And feel happy to do so. It's like talk-radio in a way, you can just have Steve on in the background... and yes, the moment are gold.
Very interesting; thank you. As someone new to Booktube, I appreciated the way you delineated the three main parts of Booktube. I get what you mean about the YA crowd. I don't understand the "shelf space" part. I've watched half a dozen sf/fantasy-oriented channels, and none have seemed politically or ideologically driven. Maybe I'll see more of that in time.
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As for Steve Donoghue, I initially found him entertaining and erudite, but I quickly noticed that he was very obsessive. Driven, hyper-intellectual, constantly spinning in his head, moralistic... I found his claims to read 350 pages an hour hard to believe. I can "read" that fast, too, but I'm not really sinking into the prose, allowing myself to be immersed in the world, empathizing with the characters, or reflecting about what I'm reading. I'm just skimming, blowing through it. He also posts three times a day, which is ridiculous. I felt like I was getting spammed.
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Thanks again for the overview of Booktube. I'm sorry you didn't find a place in it. As I say, I'm new to it, and I'm not aware of the "who's in, who's out" gatekeeping. Sounds like high school. You'd hope for something better, among a group of people devoted to reading. You'd think they would be more enlightened, not just a carbon copy of what's wrong with social media generally. I hope you find your spot.
Yeah, on the surface booktube doesn't seem political at first, but it is, sickeningly so. If you aren't a social justice obsessed, woke, Californian style US Democrat; you're not welcome. Doesn't matter is you're not even American. I am still immediately pegged as a "far right Trump supporter and bigot", because I criticised things like BLM and the trans movement, (because urban terrorists and kiddy fiddlers are easy to criticise; regardless of the politics they hide behind), and apparently that makes me a neo-nazi... despite being openly left wing, in a country where being left actually means something. Doesn't matter. It doesn't take much either. Just say on one of those discord channels that you "don't see why JK Rowling gets all this hate", and thats it you're done. Insta-blocked on everything.
I have no issue with politics. I run online D&D games with socialist atheist environmentalists from mainland Europe playing alongside gun-loving Republican military conservative Christians. I mix with different cultures, nationalities, and religions; but only Woke Americans act so entitled, indignant, and intolerant. Most places on booktube ban political discussions, while openly doing reading challenges where they only read queer books, or authors of colour, or keep praising "representation". Their reading is dripping in political virtue signalling but any topic they dislike is silenced while their own politics is deemed, "not politics, it's just being a decent human being". It's pathetic, childish, and authoritarian to an extreme.
Anyway. Thank you for the comment, I'm glad you enjoyed the video and I hope to see you again for future vids.
I just discovered your channel. The title of the video caught my attention. I agree with everything your said about Steve. The thing that bothers me about him is that if he dislikes someone, he will just make things up. His comments, for instance on Bob Dylan are completely crazy.
Glad you enjoyed the video. Steve is very much an enigma, I can't decide if he's just delusional or harbours bad intentions. He doesn't seem hateful, but perhaps I just haven't seen it.
I vaguely recall him saying something about Bob Dylan and it pissing me off. I still find him very entertaining though.
Wow, I never heard anyone explain so well what adults get out of middlegrade/ya! When I'm stressed and overwhelmed it is super nice to reset. Also my inner child sometimes just wants to read a book I couldn't get my hands on in my childhood. That said since I got in my mid twenties I read less and less of that. I just get more out of adult historical, classics, literary or romance novels. I'm thinking of giving away a lot of the younger aimed books to people I know with kids that like to read. (One box already gone) It's I think what you said, for developing a reading mind you can't just stick to kids book. I would recommend to those people adult magical realisme since it has the magic and whimsicalness. But it's more adult and more literary.
I'm glad I was able to vocalise that for you. I know my perception of what I call the "teeny-bopper" booktubers is a little unfair in places. There's no real harm in them wanting to read middle-grade and YA; but I do feel you should read appropriate for you age to develop correctly.
Honestly, I wish booktube wasn't focused on politics. And I say this as an independent who's tired of it all.
The Steve Donahue side is okay (not my favorite but it exists). But at least he doesn't give me the vibe of constantly telling me my bookshelf is racist, sexist and homophobic like he's channeling in his inner Anita Sarkessian.
I don't know what category of Booktube Better Than Food Book Reviews is but I do like his content.
Yeah, Steve is easier to handle... unless you're a Republican in which case he will openly call you a fascist white supremacist who supports a tyrant who tried to overthrow the government. I could easily see someone finding Steve just as intolerable. Being called a fascist and a nazi repeatedly, ironically sounds a lot like the SJW left.
@@TornadoCreator
True. If I was a Republican. I would kick Steve out of my car if he started that.
I agree with you. Modern sci-fi and fantasy are amazing, the classics are quite outdated but are fun to read, however when it comes to horror I find that the classics are the best. Modern horror is fun but the classics are amazing and have been used over and over again in the modern era. Dracula is the ultimate. So many novels have been based on the Dracula classics
See, I didn't like Dracula at all. I found the Epistemological style of writing really hard to get into. It's the same problem I have with Frankenstein. While I appreciate the style and tone, I much prefer adaptations and transformative works that build upon what they did.
@@TornadoCreator The word you're looking for here is "epistolary," not epistemological.
@@i_perpetuated_a_white_savi344 right you are. I'm a little surprised with myself that I made such an error; thanks for pointing that out.
He's a typical Boston hipster.
Hipsters are usually politically progressive. He seems to be virulently anti-trans and obsessed with "cancel culture" (which sane, rational people just call "being held accountable when you act like a piece of shit"), which are two things I associated with conservatives as a group, despite his obvious disdain for American Republicans.
I can’t stand Steve. He is so condescending I can’t take it. I also agree with a lot of things he says but so much of the rest of what he says is ridiculous.
I agree he can be condescending, but for me its the constant lies that bug me. He recently did a "desert island discs" style video for someone else's channel, and he picked books in Latin, Ancient Greek, and more and I'm just not convinced he can speak any of these languages. He talks about his travels and his dogs and the stories are so farfetched. Then there's his reading amount... 150 pages an hour, yeah right, and I'm magic. Then there's his regular repeated sayings, "...in the 15 or 16 genres I read in", after I'd said that 3 times, I'd have counted how many fucking genres.
@@TornadoCreator I also can’t understand how he thinks filming 4 videos a day is not debasing but creators monetizing their channels is. As if rambling at the camera about the weather for 10 mins and talking about how you “vigorously” walk your dog multiple times a day for hours isn’t an absolute lie for a person with his stature. No shade on his stature, just more lies. The monetization thing is just hypocrisy. Especially considering his patreon he has that he makes fun of. Equating creators that monetize their channel to bowing and scraping for pennies and couch change. Not to mention that a lot of the people he belittles on his channel have way bigger followings than him. Jack in the Books who I’ve seen him regularly make fun of has a huge following of 340,000 subs. And get this; Steve says there is no way that Jack reads as many books as he does. Is that not the height of hypocrisy?
Unrelated but in another video you said their weren’t many big BookTube channels. There are some really big Portuguese and Spanish speaking BookTube channels with over 1mill subs. The west spends a lot of time indoors on screens so the amount of people that read are a lot lower than other cultures perhaps.
I wasn't aware of the non-English side of booktube. To be entirely honest, I'm functionally monolingual anyway so I wouldn't be able to take part; but it's good to hear that there's a wider audience of readers out there.
@@TornadoCreator I don't doubt he can speak latin or greek, for somebody of his age / education level it doesn't seem too farfetched. Latin & Greek were taught in Jesuit schools, which he went to.
@@JasperAntonelli An academic point: no one "speaks" Latin or Greek anymore (Classical or Koine Greek, not contemporary Greek). They read them. But Steve doesn't even do that. It doesn't strike you as the least bit peculiar that he's never once - not a SINGLE time - done a reading in a foreign language, let alone shown a foreign language edition of one of his favorite books? I'm not counting Loeb Classics, since they contain English translations as well. I've never seen him hold up a Russian version of Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy, or a Spanish language version of Borges or Marquez. And I know why he doesn't. Because he's blowing smoke up everyone's ass when he claims to read these languages. He's a bullshit artist. To quote the partner of a friend I know who thinks just as little of him, "Steve: the man, the myth ... the myth." The only place he's a legend is in his own mind.
I just can’t take the lies Donahue spews. I don’t believe he reads all the books he claims. Have personally caught him in his lies. If you comment on a book during a livestream,you can see from his body language and his eyes, the furious attempt to placate and state a generic comment.
I've spotted the same thing. He'll het flustered, say that "off course he's read X" and then give bland generic opinions that could easily be based on reading the blurb. I just wonder why? Why does he want people to think he's read all the books? What does that even achieve?
I’d say it points to a substantial inferiority complex on his part.
Yeah, you're probably right there... and it's a shame because I think if he dropped the weird bravado he'd be a nice guy I could get along with. If he stopped the compulsive lying and just talked books we'd be good. He clearly is passionate about books, and he has an undeniable charisma that gives him an on camera presence. I just wish his videos didn't devolve into him claiming he's read every book ever, visited "every inch" of every place ever, speaks every language ever, and has sexually molested every dog or dog-like creature he's ever met, which is all of them. It's bizarre and rather creepy.
Not sure about the “undeniable charisma.” I do think he has an engaging quality and speaks well. I don’t think I have ever heard him say “um” or “you know.”( a pet peeve of mine.) I attempted to watch a Stacy Schiff program with a retrospective of her work and the number of times she said “um” was maddening. I am always flabbergasted that their PR agents do not bring this to writers attention. If you are engaging in speaking events to promote your book, please learn how to speak! Stephen Kotkin on the flip side excels at speaking. Every word is well thought out and flows,regardless of whether you agree with his viewpoint.
I think the fact that Steve has an audience of thousands listening to him give pretty banal surface-level discussions on books, the weather, his dog, interior design magazines, and how much he hates Trump... that shows that he at least has confidence, a strong force of personality, and can be interesting and engaging. That's charisma. Steve has problems, huge ones; but for unedited old man rambling videos, you must admit, he gets far more views and is way easier to watch than you'd expect.
OMG! I couldn’t stop laughing while listening about Steve! 🤣🤣🤣 I used to be subscribed to his channel, but I unsubscribed because of all those rants about Trump and white supremacy, blah/blah/blah… I’m here because I wanna talk about books! Thanks for the laughs! 😆
He's got worse. He casually calls all Republicans neo-nazis in almost every video now. The man is insane and it's stopping being quirky and starting to become deeply insulting.
Still, glad you enjoyed the video. I can't say I read as many as I'd like, but this channel is certainly primarily about the books.
Based on your breakdown of booktube, my son and I don't have any place on it. =/ The US politics have also become insane. OH my we are going to de insane just about covers it. If you don't believe and kowtow to the current regime, meaning if you question what the current regime is doing, you are considered far right. Even politicians who are centrists are now considered far right extremists. The atmosphere is the followers are so far left that they've gone off the edge of common sense. that's very interesting about that channel you mentioned. that math of the missiles sounds like common core. LOL There are people on bookube who think the American debt is a myth, their logic is that the gov is run differently than a household. smh debt is debt and printing monopoly money exacerbates the problem creating the inflation we are now in. sigh If that booktuber wants to sell military equipment to give money to the American people, there are LOTS of things in Afghanistan that can be requisitioned and bam, there you. LOL If I had to guess why you have so many conservative and Christian followers is because you are level headed and discuss like a reasonable person. that is very rare today.
Thanks, I appreciate that. For a long time I was very angry at conservatives because they opposed or argued against issues that are very important for me; but I learned to share perspectives. Actually looking at things from other peoples POV is hard and it took until my 30s for me to get good at it. Sadly it seems a lot of people don't even try.
@@TornadoCreator That's true. A lot of people don't want to try. A lot of people in the U.S don't have the skills to talk about it. and they resort to name calling, screaming or worse, physical violence.
Star Trek has had some good stuff.
Star Trek is fantastic.
Steve Donoghue has a real mystique. I think a lot of it is his perpetual smile.
Steve is endlessly fascinating and entertaining, but the more I watch him the more his lies and hypocrisy become apparent, which is a shame. I still think there's a decent guy under all those neuroses.
@@TornadoCreator I lived in Boston for 12 years. I left 14 years ago. I used to hang around and support a radical bookstore/infoshop called the Lucy Parsons Center. I wonder what Steve thinks of that place. It used to be located in the South End but moved to Jamaica Plain after I left town. Jamaica Plain is kind of the hip part of town, lot's of funky ethnics, gays, hipsters and artists. I have a very negative reaction to Donoghue but maybe that's just a personal thing.
@@sidclark1953 It's not a personal thing. Anyone with two ears to hear and two eyes to see can tell you that someone who reads for 12 hours a day, every single day, doesn't just have issues. He has the whole damn subscription.
If all he did was read 12 hours per day, I wouldn't have a problem with him. It's the pathological lying and hypocrisy that bothers me, that and his repeated political radicalism. The fact that he's anti-woke but still refers to all Trump supporters and most Republicans as white supremacists and fascists.
Understand where you’re coming from, man. I’ve yet to find a single booktuber, aside from you of course, who doesn’t use phrases or words like “diversity,” or “POC,” or “queer,” and terms like that that just get under my skin. Frankly, and as someone who is gay myself, I can’t stand the word “queer” when applied to a gay person and/or character. That word has completely overtaken anyone who falls under the LGBT umbrella and almost serves as an all encompassing word for that group. I feel that most people who use that as an identifier are doing so either for the attention, or because it confuses some people and that’s what they get off on. Not all, but most.
But anyways, yeah, I really can’t stomach booktube much at all and I completely get you moving away from it. It’s really nothing more than a giant hug box of one-sided opinions and takes, and it’s quite frustrating. Though I have to admit, it would be amusing if I were to somehow blow up on booktube and have my center right opinions, and then when certain booktubers go after me for being a “straight, white male,” I can completely throw them off course by telling them, “actually, I’m gay. But carry on.” Because I’ve been told a few times that I could easily pass for being straight as I’m not effeminate or anything like that in slightest, nor in the way that I dress.
Also, off topic, but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the comments that James Patterson made about white male authors and how in today’s current age, it’s sort of a struggle for them for a variety of reasons, more or less. Now I’m not a fan of Patterson in the slightest, but I did find his comments to be interesting, and I’m sure they have a good portion of booktube absolutely livid, given how most of them are identity politics obsessed leftists.
Yeah, I'm bisexual myself and that seems to annoy the identitarian crowd. When they say "queer" what they mean is "non-straight", when they say "POC", what they mean is "non-white", and when they say "diverse", what they mean is "non-male". It's just their way of excluding specifically straight white men, which is weird given that on Earth there are 7.75 BILLION people, and only about 600 Million straight white men... but remember, that 7.15 BILLION, they're the oppressed minorities.
@@stevetrowbridge7425 I'll have to look up those James Patterson quotes so I can form a proper opinion and get back to you.