Just got to the end...about AI....its already here 😮...genre publishers are already using platforms like Sudowrite and then paying authors pennies to give them a quick edit. I know because ive been offered this work on more than one occasion as a ghostwriter. I turned it down but ..its hard to do when you have bills to pay and kids to feed. It is a separate phenomenon from Booktok, AI is coming whether we like it or not 😢 but i think youre right to be concerned that Booktokkers will end up unknowingly pushing AI books. The issue for me is we need to stop focusing on Booktokkers themselves who as ive said often are just ordinary often marginalised people, and focus on where the blame lies...big social media corps, big business and millionaire AI investors. Booktube is no less controlled by these things.
Booktok _is_ a nightmare. They keep pushing the same books because those books are trending so they get more views. It's only about views. It gets very boring and very dull very quickly.
Thank you for talking about this. BookTok has larger impact than people could imagine. Let me give you an example. I am from India and since India has a huge English speaking population, here people are now only reading English Fiction since this is what Bookstagram has been pushing. My sister has written her first book in our native language and no publisher is interested in Publishing books in Hindi. She has been mailing to major publishing houses in the country to atleast give her a chance to submit some sample chapters but since people are reading white people literature here, local literature is being pushed away. It’s sad to see that everytime we walk into a Bookstore, its always same books on best seller shelves.
Just so you know, if you help your sister rewrite that book in english, there is a huge market of people who would love to read a book by an Indian author in english... And once it gets popular it'll get popular in your own country... You could also add Easter eggs that are different in the Hindi versus the english translation and that would be really cool.. Maybe even include your struggles with Hindi VS english publishing in the introduction of the book, which would be just enough drama, to not hurt anyone's feelings, but also to push the book more! But a lot of us do not read any of the books on TikTok, we see those kind of like the you know those cheap sappy romance books that are sold in pharmacies and airports, that's how a lot of people see booktok books.. Especially with how easy it is to manipulate an algorithm, or to just buy a certain number of your own blocks, to make look better selling, and then make it go artificially viral with a cute cover.. Like what happened recently with the Sci-Fi Hugo awards drama and all that books are getting way weird
Ditto. 52, GenX.. I'll stick with TH-cam and wonderful people like Willow. Plus isn't the goal on TikTok to cry energetically? I want joy (or horror) in my life. 🧛♀️
I'm only 23 and I honestly feel the same way 😅 I deleted the app at the beginning of the year after watching content on it for a while. My attention span finally returned to where it once was
I do think this is interesting! But it’s by no means a Tiktok-centric phenomenon! I’m a librarian, and women have been reading really lowbrow romance novels since forever. Harlequin paperbacks were the romantasy of today, and most women 50+ that come in have been reading them since they were young. The added internet brainrot of Tiktok concerns me, but the same plot of finding abusive men hot has been appealing to women for decades. (My theory is that it helps in coping with how most men IRL are, but.) If Booktok existed in the 60s/70s, I think it’d be about the same.
Also, the Brandon Sanderson and Stephen King read 😭 I think men are just as bad at reading the same things over and over, AKA bland macho fantasy, but get less shit for it because it’s Masculine Reading, and thus better.
But were lowbrow romance always pushed forward in everything, yes it alwys was a big mrket, and i think genre fiction can be , very as well. but that was always a big sucessful market, and romance most of the time is, some wish fulfillment or trashy. But since whem did it hd to take over fantasy (while there wqa alwys trashy erotic charged , it wasnt that hamogonous)
Agree! I've always loved historical fiction/gothic and classics mainly, and when I was younger (I'm middle age now) and people would see me reading or having a book they'd always say, "Oh I'll bet you love romance don't you?!" Umm, negative lol. I actually despise romance generally, but it's kinda funny and kinda sad that people just assume women readers all immediately gravitate towards romance. As you mentioned, there is a fairly substantial basis for this assumption though, as loads of female readers do indeed pick up romance at a young age and stick with it. Back in the 90's, paranormal romance was a big thing in YA, and I did enjoy some of it (mainly for the paranormal aspects haha), but I can't imagine reading books now that are full of insta love and melodramatic scenes and dialogue. Those made sense when I was a tween/teen bc LIFE was full of insta love and melodrama, but not as a 45y/o 😅
as someone who works in a bookstore, what scares me more than romantasy is how fast the dark romance genre is gaining popularity. It might be more hyped in german speaking countries, but the amount of teenagers (as young as 12) buying these books is alarming. These books often romanticize abuse, r*pe, s*xual slavery, highly toxic relationships, etc. and I haven't seen much critical discourse around it. If it's adults, that hopefully can differentiate better between healthy relationships in real life and the stories in these books, I have less of a problem with it, but would hope for more (open) discussions about the difference between sexual fantasies, kinks, etc in the medias we consume and what relationships should look in real life (and how kink can be engaged with safely). Especially as these kinds of stories have always been and will be around. But it doesn't feel like children (and also some adults) have been given the tools to engage with these books and topics critically. But at the same time it's no wonder these kinds of stories are popular, if we look at the way we were socialized and how toxic behaviour and relationships have been romantizied in media and society our whole lives (ex.pressing someone against the wall and kissing them without prior understanding being seen as sooo romantic). btw the term "dark romance" is a misnomer in my opinion but i also agree with your points, and how sad it is that hyped books often lack diversity and often mostly the same and that scares me in regards to the future of the publishing industry But there is also a lot of good books coming out and I also understand the need to sometimes read "easy" books, that I can fall into without having to think
I just realized, since living in Germany I never saw any books content rating systems on the German, US/UK books! At the same time it's existing for video games, films. The books' rating system could be seen as information control (censorship) in my post soviet country (Belarus). But I will disagree. We are obligated to put clearly the age category on the book cover: 0+: Books for very young children that do not contain scenes of violence, strong language, or other elements inappropriate for children. 6+: Literature for young school-aged children. May contain light adventure and fantasy elements. 12+: Books for teenagers. Include more complex themes but without excessive violence or explicit scenes. 16+: Literature for older teenagers (~ young adults). May contain more serious themes, including romance and social issues. 18+: Books for adults. Include all possible themes and genres, including those that may be inappropriate for younger audiences. This way as parent you are informed about the content and 0/6/12+ categories help to navigate in non-school books variety. Probably it is not that bad idea to have age ranking system for books in other countries near with video games, films etc.
I don't know if its the same in Germany, but at least in Austria it differs depending on if there is graphic (in the sense of visual/drawn or photographic) depections of Sex or if it's "only" written. so while there are no age recommendations or restrictions for books, if there are images of sexual scenes (ex manga) it is counted as pornographic and is restricted under a youth protection law As far as I know the same doesn't exist for violence, even If there are Sometimes recommendations (at least for Manga), but I could be mistaken on this last point
@@lera9reenI’m an American bookseller and there is no maturity rating system here. It’s appalling how many oblivious parents buy their daughters’ these sexually explicit and toxic depictions of “romance”. But… the popularity of these books enables stores like mine to stay open
This genre freaks me out, honestly. It's always been around, but is growing exponentially due to social media. There's nothing wrong with smut or BDSM, I've both written and read both, but...CONSENT people. Some of the male characters were supposed to find 'hot' are literal abusers and as an abuse survivor I find this so triggering. At least many of these books do have content warnings, which is a GOOD trend. But yh...I have a 19 year old daughter and I would hate her to be reading these.
As a straight white American woman, I've watched people like me scream over all sorts of popular stuff since childhood. I've never understood it. I love how you describe this behavior as obsessive and boring. I'll add scary and bewildering. You know, I grew up with a very Puritanical mindset. I couldn't imagine a healthy relationship due to the teachings i was raised with. I still can't. I think you're right in saying that the women of booktok are gravitating to unhealthy romances because they've just discovered the freedom to have their own romantic fantasies and they have no idea how to handle that responsibility. They're not self aware about their struggle, and they're playing it out in public.
theyre not self aware about their struggle... exactly... theyre taking shots in the dark. its a failing of a society. im not straight or white, but i remember being someone who used unhealthy relationships in fiction to deflect from my real world unhealthy relationships. "its not as bad as [insert dubious fictional couple]" was a sentiment that ruled my mindset, and it led to me accepting circumstances i would have otherwise tried to escape sooner. im worried about booktok.
The publishing industry has always been super trendy, I worked in a bookstore for 18 years and I saw the "everything is Twilight" phase, and the "everything is Fifty Shades" phase, and the "everything is Harry Potter" phase, etc., etc., etc. But that didn't stop Thomas Pynchon and Toni Morrison and Richard Powers from being published. In fact, the publishing industry needs ACOTAR in order to publish Sally Rooney and Rebecca Makkai and to be able to bring translated fiction to the shelves. Every lit fic book owes at least a little bit to romantasy, cozy mysteries, and space operas for its existence.
On the topic of critical thinking, I really like the way you review books and analyse them, you don't just talk about them for 30 seconds then move on. Some booktubers that I watch read a lot of books, most of them very good books, but only say "it was a nice fun read" and then go on to talk about the other 29 books they read this month for 15 minutes, whereas in your videos you actually talk about different aspects of the book, what makes it engaging or unique, and I really appreciate that.
I like how booktok made reading cool again and makes more people interested in books. But at the same time I hate the "tropification" thats happenings and it's really hard to find actually good recommendations. Personally i think the comparison with fast fashion isn't that wrong... And tbh I've read so many of the viral booktok booka and basically they're all the same. The ultimate blueprint was Acotar and the worst that ever happened was 4th wing. I deleted Tiktok a few months ago and focused more on youtube to find people recommending books and it works better for me because you have more control over the content you actually want to see and i like recommendations to contain more than just listing the tropes.
I agree completely, especially about "tropification!" I don't think there's anything wrong with people enjoying the tropes we like, but I wish we didn't market published novels as a laundry list of tropes! They shouldn't exist as a list to fill out when writing something, nor as the selling point in publishing!
Totally agree, except I love fourth wing! The main character has the same disability as I do and it's very well portrayed, and I've never seen EDS in a book before, so imo it deserves credit for that at least.
I’m a cis straight white American woman, and I hope that the problem is that the ACOTAR women don’t know any better. I’m a literature teacher, and I tried the series but couldn’t make it past the third chapter. Maybe it will burn itself out like Twilight and all the sparkling vampire clones did. I think the real readers will keep looking and maybe stumble their way into better books. That is my hope, anyway. Dracula is my favorite classic book, and I found your channel by searching TH-cam for gothic literature. I’m so thankful that I did! I’m currently devouring Bury Your Gays because you introduced me to Tingle with Camp Damascus, and you also introduced me to John Scalzi, whom I adore! I’ve read more queer and translated fiction in the past year than I ever have in my life, and it’s been a joyous experience! Thank you so much for that, Willow!
I asked a booktok obsessed coworker what exactly she likes about reading, like what about the experience of reading she likes NOT the specific book boyfriends she likes, and she just said, “it’s not that deep.” um…… oh uhm…. yeah ok 👍🏽 i’m happy for you…? I don’t even know what to say to a person who thinks and feels like that, it’s off-putting. I’d love for everyone who “turned their brain off” to read ACOTAR could please quickly very quickly TURN THEM BACK ON!!!! please!
This is definitely a problem, though I do think it’s a little unfair to assume all these women are straight unless they lead with that or something. Aside from that, yeah, booktok has a chokehold on book marketing right now and I think it’s had negative impacts across the board. There’s always been a sense of bandwagoning in media (i.e., thing gets popular, let’s publish a thousand more things with superficial similarities to that), but things feel more homogenized than ever. I was talking with my mom about books last time she visited and I mentioned how romances in popular fantasy books are always the same and she IMMEDIATELY knew what I was talking about without me having to elaborate. Now we’re getting “tropes first” marketing, to the point where people write to popular tropes instead of writing a story and then analyzing the tropes used in it, and there’s a real sense of commodification of art there. Like yes I know it’s a business and always has been capitalism is a disease etc. but more and more there’s this push to fit your work into certain buzzwords and also NOBODY ON BOOKTOK KNOWS WHAT ENEMIES TO LOVERS IS!! Yeah, it’s frustrating and, as you said, so so boring. It is bad because it directly impacts what gets published and pushed to audiences, but it’s not really the booktokers’ fault, it’s that publishing is using it as a cash cow and as with all things late-stage capitalism, it amplifies all other existing hierarchies like racism. Oh yikes, that’s a big paragraph of ranting. Sorry about that, I just have a lot of feelings!!
I think the real question is how you solve this as a problem. There's a very interesting video by Abby Cox that goes over the history of the dime novel to show that what's happening on Booktok isn't actually a new phenomenon, but something she doesn't mention is that the heyday of the dime novel was in the American Gilded Age and even then it seemed to take the emergence of film as a medium to finally make it go away. To me this suggests the problem is capitalist consumerism killing art (in fact, a very good example of how it does just that).
The dime novel, like the Penny Bloods in the UK, allowed a newly literate working class to be able to afford to read. And I would imagine when you're working down mines and the like, ppl just wanted escapist fiction, not something more literary. ❤
Your description of smut in romantasy books as “prude” provoked a thought. Although you were joking, I really do believe that many of these people are discovering sex for the first time (or at least corn) due to the lack of corn for female audiences (especially young women). Smut in romantasy books also allows for a safe and ironically “intellectual” space for women to build community around while embracing their sexuality. Completely agree with your thoughts and love your nuance!
I found booktok a couple of years ago. At that time, I was interested in seeing what others were reading/recommending. I realised within a couple of weeks that it was always the same books…over and over again. I struggled to find anything that was appealing, interesting or any content that had substance to it. (Like you said, everybody loving the book but absolutely nobody saying why). I’m not interested in “spice”, I’m not interested in American sports romance (which comes up a lot). Don’t get me wrong, I’m so pleased to see people picking up a book, reading and enjoying it. But because I never see anyone actually reviewing the books, I do wonder sometimes if they’ve just jumped on a trend. Bought the book for a video only and can show they love it, by just making faces at the camera. It makes it hard to trust and take any of their recommendations as serious. I also noticed that if a content creator dares to say they dislike a popular book, and they DO give valid reasons and reviews, the comment section then fills up with hundreds of abusive posts saying they’re wrong/ they’re stupid/ they just don’t get it etc….trying to beat down someone because they have a different opinion. So almost as soon as I found booktok, I immediately went off it. If I see a book on repeat now, I absolutely know not to waste my money on it. I’m happy with TH-cam for book recs. I also love going into an actual bookshop and browsing the shelves. Looking for those gems that I’ve never heard of, but I already know will be far better than anything coming from Booktok. I saw the same video as you a few days ago and just wanted to applaud her! She really put everything I’d thought together in a far more eloquent and succinct way than I could have. I’ll stick to TH-cam without a doubt.
I recently saw someone claim that the issue with booktok is not that people read brain-off books and enjoy some things that are just kind of bad, but more that they only ever read brain-off books and so never critically engage with any of their reading. If you're reading unintellectual books sometimes it can be fun and doesn't hurt at all. But if that's all you read you're not getting much out of the experience. I suppose it's still better than not reading at all since you're exercising your brain by practising the physical skill of reading, but otherwise there's not much you're getting out of it that you wouldn't get from a brain-off TV show or movie. I agree with your points as well though!
I keep hearing that "reduced to a trope" is a thing that makes contemporary literature bad now, but I didn’t really get it. My first thought was, "What’s everyone reading that the concept of recognizable tropes are a bad thing?" But now I understand that it's less WHAT people are reading and perhaps more HOW readers are discussing it (maybe.) Because I came of age during a trend of High Fantasy Mentor Dies, and I guess that got predictable and annoying…and when somebody says “love triangle” then I think I already know what they mean and so I want to get as far away from that story as possible (because I have not read that done creatively since maybe around the Arthurian era…?) But I don’t know what the stale tropes of today are. Fake Dating To Real Romance, Enemies To Lovers, Only One Horse…? But I think if it gets popular enough to be annoying than it can say something about where most people’s vibes are at...and that’s not always bad, mind you, that’s just information. For example, the pervasiveness of the High Fantasy Mentor Dies trope might symbolize most people growing into a mentality in which they now have to do difficult and scary things all alone without guidance. Another example - Love Triangles might belong to a generation in which there wasn’t a lot of clarity regarding whether what they (the reader who loves that trope) truly wanted was the same as "the right thing" to want. Fake Dating might resonate with the struggle of how even what we pretend to be will say something about what we’re truly like, or how performing our obligations can have us re-discover the real feelings behind why we bother...? I keep hearing that Enemies To Lovers is popular because it’s the fantasy of having shown one’s worst side to another person who can still know and love that, whereas “healthier” relationships between characters who were never enemies can have an off-putting tinge of "one bad year and your relationship will implode from your unexamined worst sides coming out; good luck, babes" to enjoyers of Enemies To Lovers exclusively. Only One Horse can perish as a trope. That poor animal. Mainly I think that even cash-grabby, transparently manipulative and boring uses of a trope can provoke thought about why it’s there in the story-or why it’s popular, successful, ubiquitous in many fiction stories, and thank goodness it is confined and contained in fiction where it can be examined critically... right? But it's that last bit that would be the sticking point. 14:23 Some people shout 'I like it!' and then other people shout 'I like it!' Then anybody asking why-WHY do you all like it?-gets hit by a verbal shower of defensive projectile quills, because that question MUST BE coming from a place of condemnation or snobbishness or concern-trolling instead of authentic curiosity.
I appreciate your channel because you always introduce me to books I've never heard of. Everyone on all the other channels I follow always seem to be reading the same "viral" books for the most part. Just finished Aftershock, 5 stars!
I like the longer format Booktube allows, but I still need to be critical of who to subscribe to. Some of the popular authors sound like fast food - lots of empty calories, lacking in nutrients. Don't get me wrong... I eat fast food occasionally, but it's not the foundation of my diet. Time is a finite resource. I don't want to waste it on mediocre mush. Recently I stumbled on a creator, Page Turners with Katja, who reviews quite a bit of Japanese and Korean literature in translation, and found out about cozy fiction trending in Korea. Last night she live-streamed a conversation with Singaporean literary translator Shanna Tan and Katja mentioned how she'd discovered some books through Willow's reviews. So, the conclusion I come to is this: There are creators who present more diverse content. We just have to look for them and ignore the ones that aren't worth our time and attention.
My theory about romantasy, as someone who reads fantasy but not romantasy, has always been that it should really actually be considered a subgenre of romance instead. When looked at that way, the focus on these tropes makes more sense. I mean, it's still got the same issues you talked about, just I think it fits into the puzzle of fiction better looked at as a romance subgenre instead of fantasy. I am reluctant to blame tiktok for publisher behavior, though--but only because I think the publishers should be responsible for their own mistakes. I am always up for blaming big companies whenever possible, hehe.
I do remember back in the early 2000s ppl recomending books as romantic fantasy as in ' romance set in a fantasy world'... This type of book had a lot of overlap with paranormal romance, even if the setting was more like urban fantasy, but the romance aspect was more important so that's what connected them... Now I don't mind the romantasy label if it's good to ppl track what they want to read it, i think it's absolutely a marketing thing bc these books have been written since forever but the idea of a "new" genre makes more appealing in a capitalist sense so there's more and more titles being written...
@@19Rena96 I agree with this, but that's often not how it's marketed or treated. The first example that comes to mind (even if this is kind of a silly one) is how romantasy books were placed in the fantasy section of the Goodreads Choice awards until they got their own section. Similarly, you'll find the books in the fantasy section of at least the bookstores I've been to, and not the romance. It can cause confusion as to what the audience is meant to be.
I've trained my Booktok to serve up content from creators who are diverse and/or read diversely. It can be done. Some of my favorite creators here are my favorite creators there.
same, but i will say it sucks that it can take like a week for tiktok to stop recommending whitewashed, cisheteronormative content. it def makes a difference esp since most people dont curate their feed like that
@@aricheec7722 You're absolutely right. The systems in place are always going to serve up what is expected to succeed and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one can read a book they don't know exists, support an author they're unaware of, or follow a creator they've never seen. At this point in time, we have to make the effort because it won't be made for us. Searching booktok without being specific about what content you want will default to the usual. Then, I have to go to B&N and see a Booktok table with the usual suspects. But the same was true for me with Booktube, too. Without naming names, very few of the people I started watching are still in the rotation because I moved on to creators that reliably talked about the genres I liked and the authors I liked, and their recommendations meant/mean something to me. Book communities are big enough for everyone who is respectful and so there should be a place for books that aren't for me, but we'd only be made stronger by readers having clear paths to figure out their genuine tastes and that comes down to a varied initial algorithm while it figure out the user. I look forward to the day when the Booktok table actually introduces more people to a variety of books because Booktok will be a place where more voices are heard. The SMP boycott that was strongest on Booktok has been settled because enough creators held the line and got enough of their demands met. That tells me that we can make a difference if we all rally behind our own list of books.
A lot of what i see in romantasy is why i have started writing a cozy fantasy with queer neurodivergent characters. Once Upon a Broken Heart was the last straw for me
YESSS omg thank you for the warning about Once Upon a Broken Heart, I was gonna buy it 😭 not anymoreee lol. I need more books like this, only ones I can think of are Legends and Lattes and the author’s other book in the franchise also. I love the casual unexpected hint of a maybe sapphic relationship too in that book, it’s not heavy handed or anything. We need more books like this, the only book I kind of enjoyed that had a BookTok moment was The Secret History because it low-key shocked me in a way that made me think a lot 😭
@@googoogaga7986 Have you heard about The Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee? It's about a department store humans and animals can only enter in our sleep to buy dreams, the people who work there, and the dream makers who create the dreams.
Your content is amazing Willow!! Thanks for dissecting this topic for all of us who are observing, concerned, but find it difficult to articulate what, exactly, is so concerning ✨✨💕 keep being awesome!
I really dislike people describing any community as if it’s a monolith. My feed is lovely, I barely see those people anymore. The algorithm is definitely god awful though if you go by tags or just first signing in. But if you’re really looking and finding people with your same taste, I’ve been really successful with finding tons of unique people with unique tastes. I feel that assigning these bland boring people as ALL of booktok (not saying willow just what I see often) is giving them too much credit. The algo is definitely racist and straight tho it’s a real problem
That’s why I was very careful to say they dominate but do not fully populate it. I knew the criticisms that would come my way before I made the video, and tried to address them in advance as best I could
@@WillowTalksBooks oh yes sorry I worded that horribly I didn’t mean you specifically! I loved the video :-) I was just commenting on the people who constantly say “booktok” like it’s just one thing! There are some very very valid criticisms out there and here! 🫶 I tried to add that I didn’t mean u specifically in there but I’m not so great at words haha
Well the AI and publishing things are terrifying potentials. I got into booktube and became an avid reader in 2015 - at 26 years old. And reading diversely is important to me for so many reasons. And I genuinely can't understand why some people never want to branch out. There's amazing stories of all kinds, by so many people. I was born physically disabled. Also neurodivergent but didn't learn that until my 30s. Thought I was a sapphic woman for nearly 2 decades only to realize i'm a straight [ trans ] man in my 30s. Growing up I felt like an alien and like I never saw myself anywhere. That and being naturally curious, I want to read all kinds of stories, from all different people. The world is beautifully diverse. I will never read diverse enough to satisfy myself, but i'll sure have fun trying. That said, it is wonderful to see people reading. But that AI... that terrifies me. I recently deleted my tiktok. I didn't like the app to begin with actually. I prefer TH-cam. Seem to actually see more of the content I want to see and can find people talking more in depth and diversely about books. And it feels more personal to me. I'm also working on writing the books I wish existed more. I'm currently writing a queer YA fantasy novel and a trans and disabled short horror story collection.
Just wanna chime in with the "people never want to branch out thing" -- tbf, that was me til not so long ago. I'm autistic and I was so into fanfics of ONE specific fandom that I barely ever read anything else for a decade. And I feel like I have so much stuff to catch up on now. But I get why people wouldn't want to read another genre : to me, it's possibly a comfort thing. The world is confusing and scary for some (most?) people and reading the same stuff in slightly different settings over and over can be comforting I guess. But I do acknowledge how much people can miss out on stuff, myself included. and that's not even getting into the wildly problematic settings lol. i've read some wild shit that I took as normality.
I AGREE!!! As a Amercian Woman of Color. Booktok is scary. It is so hard to find diversity especially in the fantasy genre and its sub genres! I have found eclectic booktokers but it took time! Thank you for talking about this!
I’ve sort of found that the best way to diversify is to search specific books or genres and comment and like and share and you start getting more than just ACOTAR and similar stuff. But you have to specifically search it out and cultivate it. It’s annoying as someone who’s trying to expand her reading to new genres and types of books.
I feel Booktube is heading in the Same direction... Even our bookshops in Germany feel like they are catering to the booktalk community. Recently I love my local library. They have so many fantasy books I have never heard of. A lot of them are older, but I don't care. I would love top see more diversity in my local bookshops again.
It’s same in India. Bookstores have lost its charm now. The condition is so bad that we don’t even see our own literature written in local languages in Bookstores.
Oh yes, agree for Germany. Chains like Thalia are mainly displaying "new adult" booktok favorites. However, I still enjoy going to independent bookstores (and public libraries), there's a bigger variety and I always find gems I'd never heard of before 😊
I dont even have TikTok anymore, I found it to be a lot more toxic at times. Im happier to stay in the booktube community and creaters I know who read a diverse range of books 😅
Romance and smut in books is fine. I love the smut in the anthology Let Petites Morts (published by Ghost Orchid Press, please read that someday, Hailey Piper has a story in it and she's wonderful). Although as someone who's aroace it's nice to find books that are not about f*cking and falling in love. So it seems TikTok is absolutely not the right space for me for finding books that'll interest me. Also watching short videos for several hours is bad for my ADHD brain. 😔
I don’t find a lot of good recommendations on that platform. It is kind of a wasteland. It’s just promoting modern versions of Harlequin Romances. The book, A Little Rot had a lot of Sex and diversity. It was also the furthest thing from a Spicy Romance. It didn’t do well on Book Tok. Someone called it a little rotten. So books I like don’t get featured or they get bad reviews. I don’t even bother with that platform anymore.
The Booktok algorithm gives you what you put put into it. My Booktok algorithm is primarily Non-white and queer creators talking about amazing diverse books. And there are a few folks who also talk about classics and literary works. Now, it is a small group, but thankfully, I rarely see any of the Vast Heaving Majority of Booktok, which is good. It did take time to train the algorithm, though.
Also, I do want to say that the most recent of my book reviews on TT that got the most hits were Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Talents, Cixin Lou’s Death’s End, and Percival Everett’s James, so don’t fret for the future of the human race! There are still people on TT who are hungry for original books with great writing and diverse voices!
OMG thank you for this video😭😭😭 I thought I was the only one feeling this way. Every time I go to the bookstore now, everything seems to be around the poorly written romance with the same tropes and problematic characters, just ridiculous
I swear some people have never read a book and then picked up ACOTAR and are screaming like its a new book or something?? even though booktube has been talking about it for yearrrsss. I agree w a lot of ur thoughts, great video:))
I'm currently reading a series by Lydia Hawk called The Crone Wars. As I understand it, she had to self publish it because her main protagonist is a 60 yo grandmother and publishers don't want fantasy books that don't feature teenager girls hooking up with 500 yo fairies.
I think the tropification maybe the result of people not having the vocabulary to "properly" articulate their feeling about the book. Like, it is a problem, but I don't think calling people "anti-intelectual" just because they use tropes in their review of the book is gonna solve the issue. Like to call back to the Celine's tiktok, just because somebody called and recommended the poppy war as the book with strong FMC doesn't mean that the person doing it didn't understood the nuance of the character. Also I think that the panic around people (mostly women) liking "the wrong kind of books" (I don't want to defend straight people too much here, as most of popular romantasy books are imo trash, but still) and that would bringing the era of anti-intelectuallism is just the another incarnation of moral panic similar to the one that was around Twilight. Ofc, I don't want to oversimplify as there are issues with booktok, as you said the lack of diversity especially when it comes to books written by PoC and people just recommending the same 5 or 6 books.
One more thing…people jump on trends. It’s natural. When I was your age, no one has “arm sleeve” tattoos, but now they do. You have them because it’s a “thing” people do now. It’s a trend. You’re following a trend. Understanding that about yourself might help you understand these straight white women following a trend.
I’m far from being a prude but I hate smut in books, at least the type being written nowadays. Same goes with romance books, can’t stand the genre but don’t mind a good classic book with romance in it.
9:22 - lol, literally me reading the first book of The Song of Ice and Fire being like: soo, women get abused left right and center, and kids get killed like it's nothing, I thought this was fantasy but ok ig. I've started my bookstagram to talk into the abyss about the books I consume. While there are trendy books that I like, it's mostly pass for me - no ACOTAR, no Greek re-tellings, just some stuff I pick up in bookstores or at bookfests in English and Ukrainian. Aaand yep, my platform is basically non-existent, which was to be expected😅 I'm really grateful to just have a place to vent, but if I was to make a career out of this it would've been rough as heck because the issue of homogeneity and lack of depth is by no means secluded to TikTok. I'm glad to see people are talking about this though.
There is an impact of BookTok on translations too. I read mainly in English (I'm a Polish/American cultural hybrid having lived in both countries and being fluent in both). And translations into Polish within the last 5 years or so started retaining their English titles, meaning the titles aren't translated into Polish. And this seems to be a trend for books popular on BookTok pretty much exclusively. It's so that they can be easily recognized as that book from BookTok and marketed as such (and of course for hashtags too). Worldwide influence of BookTok is really massive.
TikTok in general has a much higher garbage to quality ratio. I haven’t found, in general, much reason to be on there. Too much digging to find anything worthwhile.
It is sad this is what the face of booktok is when there are so many beautiful diverse creators. I’ve gotten my algorithm to show me creators with diverse reading. If I see a shelf covered in romances I just click the little function that says “Not interested” Also coincidence I just got Perdido Street Station by China Mieville in the mail yesterday ❤
Perdido Street Station!!! Probably the only book I've ever read that both made me cry and made me physically nauseous at different points, I need to reread that one sometime soon.
The thing I hate most about booktok is the way people recommend books based on fan fiction trope instead of highlighting the actual plot and the lack of critical analysis when it comes to the book review side of it as well
Idk, I have complicated feelings about this. I feel like this same conversation happens over and over anytime something that women enjoy becomes popular. It happened with Twilight, 50 shades, the YA boom, and so on. And that was before booktok. Every time, silly young women are ruining publishing and literature1! Except since Twilight or those other examples, so.many.amazing books have been published and became hits! More books (and more diverse books) than ever are getting published and finding a readership. It's almost like critics were just being catastrophic for no reason, who knew! This happens with movies and music too. But great artists keep working and putting out work. Not everything is going to have "mass appeal" but so what? Is that why they make art? They'll still find a real readership or viewership or listenership(?) and that's how it's alwasy been, and it's part of what makes art awesome. It doesn't need to go viral on tiktok. *Also, it says absolutely nothing about you if you enjoy "smutty", "badly written" fiction. No one is "better" for reading some type of book. And you're certainly not ever "problematic" for reading. *I'm also not implying you made any of these generalizations in this video btw. *And sorry if this comment came off ranty 😅
As an older (60’s), white, American, woman, I have never felt the urge to get into TikTok, and now I’m sure I won’t. Thank you. I have been attempting to diversify my reading, especially in support of my bisexual, non-binary child. I recently read a book that I would love to hear your thoughts on called “An Unkindness of Ghosts.” I listened to this as an audiobook and loved it so much I had to buy a physical copy. I hope that someday you will do a review as I really enjoy your insights.
I think it’d great that you’re diversifying your reading to support your kid! Reading is such a powerful portal into lives and experiences other than our own :)
@@lorplorplorp I hope-e it continues to be an opening for conversation with them. We talk well, but as a young adult themselves (18), I’m really hoping to keep it strong.
The greatest problem with booktok in my opinion is the lack of diversity in the books that come out of it, which is a great shame because I think it could be a fantastic tool to uplift literature by marginalised authors. There's a bit of this, sure, but not nearly enough (especially with the reach that booktok has)
Sadly, that's just how their algorithm works. Which is a problem not only for the booktok part but tiktok in general. We are way too uncritical about that app and the company behind it in general.
Yes, there is lack of demographic diversity, but of course, I could recommend a book by a straight white woman like Betty Smith (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), and nobody on booktok would be able to comprehend a work of that artistry, depth and emotional complexity. They want basically the same thing fed to them in the same way over and over again, the blander the better.
I work in a corporate chain bookstore in america (sometimes it's very yikes) and we've always had a "booktok" table and I would try and include more diverse books that were getting some booktok interest (like priory of an orange tree) but recently corporate just told us it should be exclusively "spicy romance" and while part of me is upset that corporate views booktok that way (bc there are niches in booktok with more diverse interest) it also is definitely... a reflection of "booktok" as a whole and the effect it has on publishing and it scares me haha.
Whoa, your point about AI fiction is chilling. And I agree, I think the scariest part of booktok's dominance is the effect it could have on publishing trends.
One thing sort of related to this: I have an Illumicrate subscription for my "fun" reads. These can be a bit hit or miss, but I like to read them between heavier books. Lately they've been doing a really good job with diversity, featuring LGBTQ+ and non-white stories (though there's definitely room for improvement!). I've seen complaints on their social media about them featuring too many queer stories and like...literally almost every other place is catered to straight people?? Why do you only want to read from one perspective anyways?? I think it's part of a larger problem where people in dominant social groups other people from marginalized groups and don't take their perspectives seriously.
what I really hate --- when books are only listed by letters --example ACOTAR for A court of Thornes and Roses. Since I somehow managed to miss the Sarah Maas frenzy, I don't immediately recognize the books mentioned. This is done for several other books as well. If you like a book, at least have enough respect to share the actual title.
And I mean it's not only Booktok... just look at the NY Times 100 best books of the 21 century, it's a list of mostly white male authors born in english speaking countries 🤣 the worst part is that the Reader's pick is much about the same when it comes to diversity 😅 it's horrible. Like, that list shows what the majority reads, intellectuals or not, people mostly read books/lit from english speaking countries and men. Latinamerica has for example a super rich literature scene which social media pretty much reduces it to 100 years of solitude and that list to Roberto Bolaño 2666 🙃 If I try to be optimistic, I think the more chances a person picks "a" book, even a trendy shitty book, the more chances they will at some point wanna pick something better and explore more genres/authors? I don't know... 🙈🙈😄😅
I've never traversed booktok but a lot of them reupload to shorts and it's so bizarre when I see "best books I've read" and its ACOTAR and Caraval and Colleen Hoover... 😅
I am so glad the algorithm overlords recommended your channel to me! And I so want to read more about sci fi/ fantasy in the future so I look forward to hearing your thoughts and recommendations. Thank you for creating good book content 🖤
I'm not on TikTok (I'm old, lol, so I'm more of a Bookstragm and Booktube user), but I find that whenever someone I follow shows a book that they got because of TikTok, it is never a book I would read.
I don't have TikTok, so obviously my information is second hand, but from what you describe the issue is capitalism again, but with algortihmically directed markets. We've seen it before, like how every novel in the Victorian era had to be three volumes and serialised, or how pulp fiction in the 20s and 30s was mostly the same detective stories over and over again. Of course, with TikTok and AI generation, the issues are intensified, but the underlying cause remains the economics of publishing under capitalism.
I follow a few book reviewers on TikTok (notably Tim Blackett, Cody Vest and Max) and they don’t focus on cheesy fantasy (and they’re all men). So I guess it depends what you’re looking for. Good content is out there.
I don't think it matters much - The people who are hooked on TikTok probably aren't reading much anyway. I've always felt that there are readers and there are non-readers. Non-readers certainly read, but it is the bestsellers and dross that ends up being pushed to appeal to the most people. Readers are curious and insatiable and hopefully TikTok isn't powerful enough to change that. (Although TH-cam has certainly reduced my reading)
I think I’ve slowly cultivated my book related fyp to be fairly diverse as of late. I found a but recommended a lot of translated works, a lot of Asian bistro influenced stuff, more queer stuff. I’ve been working on expanding what I read, so I’m happy for it. But also, thanks to that, I ended up reading a book about … the butt? 😂 I learned more stuff about butt health than I’ll ever need to know. Also Priory of the Orange Tree is soooo good. I listened to it at work and just fell in love with it.
These girlies have some serious unpacking to do. Can someone get these women counselling? Authors also need to stop sexualising abusive behaviour. Sexualising abuse is problematic to say the least and extremely harmful. I feel like booktok had devolved into quick dopamine/controversal reads that lack depth and are easily forgotten. I feel like these books are saturating the market and as a result we'll have lower quality books, with problematic tropes and deeper reads will be a rarity. We need more diversity, so many talented authors and their works should get far more spotlight than this abusive drivel.
I agree that BookTok is homogenous and kinda boring, however I think you've got it backwards. It isn't booktok influencing publishing, but instead publishing influencing booktok. By sending out free books, paying for reviews (positive or negative, all publicity is good publicity), and establishing relationships with book influencers.
I'd think that people who are on BookTok would be reading the same silly romantasy stuff anyway and wouldn't look for diverse ideas whether BookTok was the way it is now or not. They just found a perfect platform and creators to suit their interests. And even if you put other works in front of them, they probably wouldn't engage with them. And I think people who like to read more diversely just don't go to BookTok for book content or recommendations. We gravitate towards specific platforms and creators that resonate with us, we find our 'tribe' and what the algorithms serve us becomes more and more homogeneous, but is it on the platform to try to diversify what we consume, or on us to be more mindful? In short, platforms serve who they serve and I think if you want to find something different, you absolutely can, but it's up to you to make the effort.
My only brush with what might be classified as romantasy were the Parasol Protectorate and the Custard Protocol series by Gail Carriger. (Better known as Steampunk Fantasy) at the time. I adored these books, but I could always feel that my local librarian was silently judging me. 😂 These books were filed in the library in the Romance section.
I've recently read toni Morrison and Lorraine Hansberry....and I realised british literature made me fall in love with literature but american literature shook me to the core for what writers could do with an ordinary thing called a pen....wonder if booktok could just understand reading should give a person a reason to contemplate why, and how and what the author has written than just enjoying a over hyped piece of writing
On one hand, I think people reading what they like is great. Like you said, it encourages reading, and it gets people talking about reading and books; but on the other hand, my biggest problem is exactly what your problem is-- the lack of meaningful diversity. It reminds me a lot of my decades of fandom experience. Everyone preaches for diversity but only cling to the thin, white characters. IDK! And I've even enjoyed a few of the booktok-popular books. I don't think theyre all bad necessarily. I just wish people read... other things alongside these books. Also, I wasn't expecting a shoutout to the New Weird genre when i clicked this video🙌🙌 scifi/horror/weird/new weird are my favorite genres and I love seeing people approaching certain tropes and such in the new weird genre that subvert the genre's origins!
The whole obsession with the word "demure" had me thinking about how BookTok had a huge influence on it. I don't think it's at all unfair to say that the most popular books on BookTok do nothing to grow a reader's vocabulary, and many 20- and 30-somethings who speak English as a first language were hearing it for the first time. I'm sure the original creator behind the phrase wasn't expecting it to blow up the way it did as well. And now someone else has filed the original creator's phrase for trademark! Weird times.
I sometimes checked booktok... until Fourth wing shit happened. Everyone there screamed about it like it's the best book written this century. A masterpiece. Yeah... no. Also, i'm not interested in thousand videos recomending me the same SJM book series or Hunting Adeline. If other people enjoy it - good for them. I just want something else. I kinda decided to wonder back to youtube. Yes, the same overhyped books i see here too, but here i can find a lot more content creators who recomend different books, not just the same 5 or 10 which you can see EVERYWHERE (sometimes even books i've never heard of and that is cool - i can discover new books for my TBR) and when they talk about books, it's more than just ''read this because they fuck a lot and he has wings''.
I guess I'll have to try Pillory of the Orange Tree again at some point but I've tried reading it twice and just had to stop relatively early because it does the (to me absolutely horrible) epic fantasy trope of spewing twenty Capitalized Nouns (tm) and twice that many made up names in the first couple of pages without explaining or giving context to barely any of it. I just can't stand that stuff if it is poorly done, which, to me, it was in that case. I can go with the flow to some degree if the name dump is part of an abstract that is promised to be explained later or if the Capitalized Nouns (tm) only regard one place and/or pov but here you instantly had multiple pov characters in multiple cultures with nothing but vibes to hold on to.
For me, TikTok as a whole is just not for me. I don’t like the “dark romance” stuff when it’s done poorly, and prefer it when books lean into the fact that the things happening in the story would be scary and weird. It can still be romantic, but don’t just completely gloss over that, say, your “hot hitman guy meets humble coffee shop owner woman” is about a guy who commits crimes for money and the power imbalance is huge and so on. Had to drop a book by author Alex de Campi because it got too dark without ever dealing with that darkness inherent in the premise (oh, and also being a fanfic with the names replaced).
I can't stand tick tock for that very reason- it's just memes about reading and buying books. And like you say, no discussion or actual diversity of the books recommended. I am actually finding Instagram similar, although not as bad. I want reviews and recommendations, not people creating memes. TH-cam is the only place I can really find much actual discussion about decent books. I don't have a problem with people liking these books however. If people want to read them and enjoy them fine. I haven't tried A court of thorn and roses, yet (I want to, as like you I want to see what the fuss was about and join the discussion) but I couldn't stand fourth wing- it was terrible. Bad writing, no depth, abusive men, and didn't find it romantic at all. No real world building either. I do wonder though if they'll all burn themselves out. Reading has become 'popular' recently. Like you, I'm fed up of seeing it all and worry that publishing is focusing on it. But surely there is only so much of this content they can consume? It's all the same, the plots (if there!) are none existent or stimulating, and there's no real discussion to be had. Will it all be as 'popular' in a few years?
I can understand teens or very young adults reading and enjoying these types of novels, but it's always confusing to me how anyone over the age of, say, 25, can relate to it. As a 40 something y/o, I want to read stories that go deeper than the surface level shallow characters that populate these popular romantasy books. I want to read about women with depth and try to relate and understand their choices so as better to understand my own. Insta love and melodramatic romance scenarios typically don't have a place in most adults' lives after the teen years (note, I say most lol), so I'm hard pressed to understand the fascination with reading about it. Even if I had not been a voracious and wide reader throughout my life, I still don't think I could find much enjoyment in these simple stories and cardboard characters. As I mentioned in a previous comment, reading about women written with depth and finding empathy with them and their fictional choices/lives, helps me to better relate and understand my own real life. There will always be mass market books for the, well, masses, but I certainly hope it doesn't keep publishers from printing amazing writers and stories that are less run of the mill popular!
Honestly, I've found a wonderful list of diverse authors through you and some other non-American or non-white creators. Confessions, Strega, I have Minor Detail on my borrow shelf, Audition, The Ballad of Black Tom (loved this one), and many more.
While I wholeheartedly agree with most of what you say in this video, I really do my best to try and take solace in the fact that for as long as there has been a publishing industry, people have been losing their minds over what women and young people are reading. And let us not forget about the moral panic about poor people being able to read. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't make it past the first chapter of ACOTR, but when I hear discussions of this all I can think of is the paradigm shift I had in my Pop Culture and Romance class in uni. Not everyone's gonna like or be interested in ~literature~ and that's okay. That said, I'm ~very~ concerned for straight women and I only grow even more concerned in my rare interactions with them, they deserve better than fantasy ~~mormon smut~~ *cough* abuse from non-human men The thing I want to bring up though is this - for decades I have heard and participated in so much complaining about the publishing industry. It sucks ass, and I wanna know WHY I've yet to hear anything about authors creating something like a publishing co-op? If there is one and I just haven't heard of it _please_ let me know, but I am so tired of hearing people complain about the publishing industry. They don't give a shit about marginalized groups and I don't see it getting any better. However, I'd throw some money I have at a Queer and POC publishing co-op. If I was well enough and/or didn't have to worry about a strict timeline I'd throw my hat in to do some translating work. There are some incredible books being written and published, and I'd much rather we put our energies into making something for us than putting our precious energy into people who are so much more privileged than us and don't give a shit about us, about literature, or about social critique
There’s a scary anti intellectual movement happening globally which needs to stop. I’m of the 2 minds that if you’re just getting into reading, whatever encourages you to pick up a book is good doesn’t matter the book. But I think TH-cam is a better place for long form videos encouraging thought and more intellectual discussions than TikTok. I left TikTok because it’s an absolute hellscape and constant call out culture and very American centric So I think yes we should be promoting more intellectual reads and discussions while simultaneously providing books to encourage others to start reading 🤷🏻♀️
I watch you for ideas about something different because I have become bored with so many books. I read every minute that I have the time. I'm reading two different books at this time, and I'm not very thrilled with either of them. I just don't like to not finish a book.
I am going to throw something into this argument, I see the current state of booktok as the state of the American women who obsess over reality TV. I see it as the dumbing down of Americans, though it is not just white American women it is also here across the pond and in the EU. If you have a distracted electorate, maybe you can slip things in that does not really help the society as a whole. Like DK getting rid of one day of national holiday after the last election. I come from a family of teachers, and a few teachers aids for Individual Plans for some students. I’ve been told by a brother about accepting late homework and text speech is now acceptable in papers, such as wtf, lol, etc. So am I book snob? No far from it, sometimes I enjoy a simple read, but I also get bored quickly and want something to challenge my mind. Like 1 year to read War & Peace, because it has 365 chapters, though I will probably finish before then. Want a good read, Tommy Orange ‘There, There.’ Is my most recent contemporary fiction, and I loved it. Though I am Native American who lives in a small city, who comes from a restored terminated tribe in the PNW. Furthermore, the follow up novel, both sequel and prequel at the same time, is long listed for this years Booker Prize. Some of the booktubers I have watched that are BIPOC, they have degrees in literature, but have dumbed down their reading for viewers and subscribers. It makes me sad.
I tried and failed to get into acotar too willow , I listened to all the hype and then said right I need to read this because if everyone is raving so much about it , it must be amazing … well I started reading the first few pages and I just couldn’t do it … I don’t know what it was about it and because of that I’m now afraid to dip my toe into the romantasy genre at all .. as weird as it sounds ,i haven’t read much at all from that genre to date, so now it feels like it’s put me off other books 👀 I keep telling myself well u didn’t give it a fair shot now did you, just because you couldn’t get into it doesn’t mean you won’t be able with others but I think you may have spoiled me with your recommendations!! And now that it doesn’t have your seal of approval it’s cemented that maybe it’s not just me 😂 but I swear it was like it created a weird romantasy phobia- sounds so silly I know ! every single book I’ve ever delved into that you have recommended I’ve absolutely loved so maybe I shouldn’t be so fearful and just stick to your recs from now on because they’re tried and trusted by me lol I never heard this about Brandon Sanderson but then all I read from him was tress which was also very hyped (it was ok , I found it alright) never read any of his other work so can’t have an opinion on it. Something made me remember this comment recently so I had to come back to edit it , because I realised I should have said romantasy instead of fantasy but yeah I’ll stand by it .. I’m afraid to go into ROMANTIC fantasy …. I own forth wing … will I ever get to reading it , I dunno… I’ll sit on it, at least it’s on my kindle and I didn’t buy a paper back 😂
Can't even go into the Works anymore without seeing a whole book case dedicated to the same cringey YA romance novels that feature the same heterosexual couples just with boys with different hair colours.
You say that there is someone responsible for the fact that only a particular group of people are mostly expressing themselves on TIKTOK? If there is someone responsible, would they have an intention? Who would be the one who has such an intention? I seem to notice two different themes. Books are written that reflect reality (abusive relationships of a certain type) and on a particular social network, the videos that comment on them are more successful. I get the impression that you are surprised that there are so many books where the writers avoid producing fantasies that counterbalance reality, in this regard. And that, in addition, the comments on these books are more popular when they are expressed by a certain ethnic or social group.
𝘤𝘶𝘪 𝘣𝘰𝘯𝘰? (who benefits?) - i think this is the question. i get the impression the thumbnail will instigate too much of an inflammatory response: so people on booktok will find it hard to overcome the pain to read this video. and more-so, just as ironic is the contrast: people who hate booktok will find it very easy to succumb to the quick pain outlet of dunking on the booktok. the algorithm holds no secrets: it captures (our attempt to see it as a whole) into but (a mere part in the machine) that is used to maximise the engagement: thus: the algorithmic recommendation engine maximises attachment, and by doing so maximises view time. as such: i disliked this video. to reflect to consider the pleasure element inherent in the very pain of succumbing to the other. such is the action reality of the audience of criticism. such is the object of craft of the critic of the universe. the critic who doesn't realise the whole structure of pain and pleasure is no better than the hedonistic consumers they critique. they cease to become critics: they become brash, rowdy: the audience mindlessly engages in brawls and laughter, seeing themselves the superior one, with no need for reflection. i deliberately overextend this expansion of this emotion of disagreement to demonstrate the debilitating effects of an inflammatory response: one that short-circuits the reader's capacity to reflect. Amen.
That's so interesting - I had no idea! Booktube isn't like that - I have found all sorts of creators, talking about many different types of books. I guess i'm in the right place@
3:59 .. I’m listening on the go and can’t leave a proper comment at the moment.. BUT.. I felt compelled to say in response to your observation of booktok being a load of straight white American women gushing over vapid handful of books.. ..I’m basically old now, I started reading wayyyy back in the 80s.. before the internet etc.. I just can’t think of a better representation of exactly what the loss of quality education has done, and how the endless screen times has exacerbated it so completely.. And.. it’s also a pretty good representation of the population overall unfortunately.. I’m so so glad I grew up somewhere with loads of immigrants and 30+ spoken languages in my schools.. the utter blindness on quite literally every aspect of life that afflicts the majority of the social population online .. it’s astounding and depressing.. and why I deleted all the other apps besides YT.. Ok times up.. ATB! 😅
9:02 .. I’m afraid that you’re giving a lot of booktok readers and a lot of us in general more credit than you should.. a LOT of these books are exactly what they’re designed for, escapism and fantasy of the other kinds.. I do it too depending on what life’s going on for me.. that’s why I stepped away and come back to these.. I read when I’m genuinely trying to learn something.. and then.. when I’m burnt out.. I spend a good while reading nothing that requires actual thought 😁😁 there is a bunch of “readers” who only read these vapid, shallow self insert books.. why that is, is probably up for debate.. but.. saying that we read to gain empathy and understanding, that it’d generate interest in other things.. maybe for some., but.. definitely definitely not for a lot of what you can find on social media.. but I’m old now and can’t tolerate tik whatsoever 😂😂 I’m biased lol
This is so so so so false. I moved from Booktube to booktok and found a lot more diversity, my reading quality increased dramatically and I have met incredible people from all over the world and read super diversely now. It was on Booktube that I saw always the same books and always the same “good vibes only” reviews.
For example, I don’t like My Brilliant Friend and I found Bunny really mid. Good luck finding anyone who didn’t like those 2 books on Booktube. But on Booktok I could find them in a second. We built a great community and are constantly doing diverse challenges, plus you see content from all over the world, which TH-cam never showed me (I now watch booktok Italy, booktok Malaysia and booktok Singapore for example)
Rather than it being false, it could be that my experiences (as I said: hours upon hours of scrolling booktok) simply differ from your own. But maybe two people having different experiences is an insane idea 🤷🏻♀️
The thing is scrolling the booktok hashtag doesn’t work cause that will give you generic content, but if you use the search and engage with creators you’ll get an amazing experience. It’s annoying to always see this type of criticism which is not fair IMO! Many many international creators have amazing booktok accounts!
That’s why I said, very purposefully, at the beginning of this video, and again more than once afterwards, because I knew that comments like yours would come my way, that the generic and homogenised booktok accounts that are having a negative effect on the publishing industry are the ones that dominate but do not wholly populate the booktok space. As a niche creator myself, I am very aware that niche and smaller creators do good work. I named several in the video. My point is that the ones who dominate the space have a monopoly, are uninspiring, have a homogenising effect, and damage the publishing industry. I swear, I couldn’t have made this clearer. And yet, despite all my efforts to see this from different angles, to argue with myself, to defend booktok as best I could, and to clarify that this isn’t how the entire space operates, I STILL get told that this is “so so so so false” 🙄
Ok, IDK if this is too weird, but you actually squealed! That’s next level voice feminization. 😁 💗 And OMG you’re one of the few people I watch who loves Priory, which I really enjoyed. Do you have a review of it? I’d love to hear your analysis.
Just got to the end...about AI....its already here 😮...genre publishers are already using platforms like Sudowrite and then paying authors pennies to give them a quick edit. I know because ive been offered this work on more than one occasion as a ghostwriter. I turned it down but ..its hard to do when you have bills to pay and kids to feed. It is a separate phenomenon from Booktok, AI is coming whether we like it or not 😢 but i think youre right to be concerned that Booktokkers will end up unknowingly pushing AI books. The issue for me is we need to stop focusing on Booktokkers themselves who as ive said often are just ordinary often marginalised people, and focus on where the blame lies...big social media corps, big business and millionaire AI investors. Booktube is no less controlled by these things.
Aw, thank you for the pin Willow 💕
That's fucking terrifying 😢
Booktok _is_ a nightmare. They keep pushing the same books because those books are trending so they get more views. It's only about views. It gets very boring and very dull very quickly.
Thank you for talking about this.
BookTok has larger impact than people could imagine. Let me give you an example. I am from India and since India has a huge English speaking population, here people are now only reading English Fiction since this is what Bookstagram has been pushing. My sister has written her first book in our native language and no publisher is interested in Publishing books in Hindi. She has been mailing to major publishing houses in the country to atleast give her a chance to submit some sample chapters but since people are reading white people literature here, local literature is being pushed away.
It’s sad to see that everytime we walk into a Bookstore, its always same books on best seller shelves.
I'm sorry for your sister's dismal experience. I hope she keeps pushing.
Just so you know, if you help your sister rewrite that book in english, there is a huge market of people who would love to read a book by an Indian author in english... And once it gets popular it'll get popular in your own country...
You could also add Easter eggs that are different in the Hindi versus the english translation and that would be really cool..
Maybe even include your struggles with Hindi VS english publishing in the introduction of the book, which would be just enough drama, to not hurt anyone's feelings, but also to push the book more!
But a lot of us do not read any of the books on TikTok, we see those kind of like the you know those cheap sappy romance books that are sold in pharmacies and airports, that's how a lot of people see booktok books..
Especially with how easy it is to manipulate an algorithm, or to just buy a certain number of your own blocks, to make look better selling, and then make it go artificially viral with a cute cover..
Like what happened recently with the Sci-Fi Hugo awards drama and all that books are getting way weird
This is why I'm glad I decided I'm too old for tiktok and steered clear. It feels like it isn't a space for me
Ditto. 52, GenX.. I'll stick with TH-cam and wonderful people like Willow. Plus isn't the goal on TikTok to cry energetically? I want joy (or horror) in my life. 🧛♀️
I'm only 23 and I honestly feel the same way 😅 I deleted the app at the beginning of the year after watching content on it for a while. My attention span finally returned to where it once was
The very IDEA of calling you a "prude" when you once snapped a ball gag on screen.😂❤
LMAO I FORGOT I DID THAT
I do think this is interesting! But it’s by no means a Tiktok-centric phenomenon! I’m a librarian, and women have been reading really lowbrow romance novels since forever. Harlequin paperbacks were the romantasy of today, and most women 50+ that come in have been reading them since they were young. The added internet brainrot of Tiktok concerns me, but the same plot of finding abusive men hot has been appealing to women for decades. (My theory is that it helps in coping with how most men IRL are, but.) If Booktok existed in the 60s/70s, I think it’d be about the same.
Also, the Brandon Sanderson and Stephen King read 😭 I think men are just as bad at reading the same things over and over, AKA bland macho fantasy, but get less shit for it because it’s Masculine Reading, and thus better.
God, this is such an obvious point that I just didn’t consider. You’re so right!
But were lowbrow romance always pushed forward in everything,
yes it alwys was a big mrket, and i think genre fiction can be , very as well. but that was always a big sucessful market, and romance most of the time is, some wish fulfillment or trashy.
But since whem did it hd to take over fantasy (while there wqa alwys trashy erotic charged , it wasnt that hamogonous)
Agree! I've always loved historical fiction/gothic and classics mainly, and when I was younger (I'm middle age now) and people would see me reading or having a book they'd always say, "Oh I'll bet you love romance don't you?!" Umm, negative lol. I actually despise romance generally, but it's kinda funny and kinda sad that people just assume women readers all immediately gravitate towards romance. As you mentioned, there is a fairly substantial basis for this assumption though, as loads of female readers do indeed pick up romance at a young age and stick with it. Back in the 90's, paranormal romance was a big thing in YA, and I did enjoy some of it (mainly for the paranormal aspects haha), but I can't imagine reading books now that are full of insta love and melodramatic scenes and dialogue. Those made sense when I was a tween/teen bc LIFE was full of insta love and melodrama, but not as a 45y/o 😅
How to forget Fabio 😂😂
as someone who works in a bookstore, what scares me more than romantasy is how fast the dark romance genre is gaining popularity. It might be more hyped in german speaking countries, but the amount of teenagers (as young as 12) buying these books is alarming. These books often romanticize abuse, r*pe, s*xual slavery, highly toxic relationships, etc. and I haven't seen much critical discourse around it. If it's adults, that hopefully can differentiate better between healthy relationships in real life and the stories in these books, I have less of a problem with it, but would hope for more (open) discussions about the difference between sexual fantasies, kinks, etc in the medias we consume and what relationships should look in real life (and how kink can be engaged with safely). Especially as these kinds of stories have always been and will be around. But it doesn't feel like children (and also some adults) have been given the tools to engage with these books and topics critically.
But at the same time it's no wonder these kinds of stories are popular, if we look at the way we were socialized and how toxic behaviour and relationships have been romantizied in media and society our whole lives (ex.pressing someone against the wall and kissing them without prior understanding being seen as sooo romantic).
btw the term "dark romance" is a misnomer in my opinion
but i also agree with your points, and how sad it is that hyped books often lack diversity and often mostly the same and that scares me in regards to the future of the publishing industry
But there is also a lot of good books coming out and I also understand the need to sometimes read "easy" books, that I can fall into without having to think
I just realized, since living in Germany I never saw any books content rating systems on the German, US/UK books!
At the same time it's existing for video games, films. The books' rating system could be seen as information control (censorship) in my post soviet country (Belarus). But I will disagree. We are obligated to put clearly the age category on the book cover:
0+: Books for very young children that do not contain scenes of violence, strong language, or other elements inappropriate for children.
6+: Literature for young school-aged children. May contain light adventure and fantasy elements.
12+: Books for teenagers. Include more complex themes but without excessive violence or explicit scenes.
16+: Literature for older teenagers (~ young adults). May contain more serious themes, including romance and social issues.
18+: Books for adults. Include all possible themes and genres, including those that may be inappropriate for younger audiences.
This way as parent you are informed about the content and 0/6/12+ categories help to navigate in non-school books variety. Probably it is not that bad idea to have age ranking system for books in other countries near with video games, films etc.
I don't know if its the same in Germany, but at least in Austria it differs depending on if there is graphic (in the sense of visual/drawn or photographic) depections of Sex or if it's "only" written. so while there are no age recommendations or restrictions for books, if there are images of sexual scenes (ex manga) it is counted as pornographic and is restricted under a youth protection law
As far as I know the same doesn't exist for violence, even If there are Sometimes recommendations (at least for Manga), but I could be mistaken on this last point
@@lera9reenI’m an American bookseller and there is no maturity rating system here. It’s appalling how many oblivious parents buy their daughters’ these sexually explicit and toxic depictions of “romance”.
But… the popularity of these books enables stores like mine to stay open
This genre freaks me out, honestly. It's always been around, but is growing exponentially due to social media. There's nothing wrong with smut or BDSM, I've both written and read both, but...CONSENT people. Some of the male characters were supposed to find 'hot' are literal abusers and as an abuse survivor I find this so triggering. At least many of these books do have content warnings, which is a GOOD trend. But yh...I have a 19 year old daughter and I would hate her to be reading these.
As a straight white American woman, I've watched people like me scream over all sorts of popular stuff since childhood. I've never understood it. I love how you describe this behavior as obsessive and boring. I'll add scary and bewildering. You know, I grew up with a very Puritanical mindset. I couldn't imagine a healthy relationship due to the teachings i was raised with. I still can't. I think you're right in saying that the women of booktok are gravitating to unhealthy romances because they've just discovered the freedom to have their own romantic fantasies and they have no idea how to handle that responsibility. They're not self aware about their struggle, and they're playing it out in public.
That's what I have felt too. Good luck looking for solid relationship news of any kind for this demographic. Thanks for that.
theyre not self aware about their struggle... exactly... theyre taking shots in the dark. its a failing of a society. im not straight or white, but i remember being someone who used unhealthy relationships in fiction to deflect from my real world unhealthy relationships. "its not as bad as [insert dubious fictional couple]" was a sentiment that ruled my mindset, and it led to me accepting circumstances i would have otherwise tried to escape sooner. im worried about booktok.
The publishing industry has always been super trendy, I worked in a bookstore for 18 years and I saw the "everything is Twilight" phase, and the "everything is Fifty Shades" phase, and the "everything is Harry Potter" phase, etc., etc., etc. But that didn't stop Thomas Pynchon and Toni Morrison and Richard Powers from being published. In fact, the publishing industry needs ACOTAR in order to publish Sally Rooney and Rebecca Makkai and to be able to bring translated fiction to the shelves. Every lit fic book owes at least a little bit to romantasy, cozy mysteries, and space operas for its existence.
You make a great point!
I agree 100%
Yes! I'm always saying this to people.
On the topic of critical thinking, I really like the way you review books and analyse them, you don't just talk about them for 30 seconds then move on. Some booktubers that I watch read a lot of books, most of them very good books, but only say "it was a nice fun read" and then go on to talk about the other 29 books they read this month for 15 minutes, whereas in your videos you actually talk about different aspects of the book, what makes it engaging or unique, and I really appreciate that.
Thank you so much! I always wanted to be a critic first and a “booktuber” second
I like how booktok made reading cool again and makes more people interested in books. But at the same time I hate the "tropification" thats happenings and it's really hard to find actually good recommendations. Personally i think the comparison with fast fashion isn't that wrong... And tbh I've read so many of the viral booktok booka and basically they're all the same. The ultimate blueprint was Acotar and the worst that ever happened was 4th wing.
I deleted Tiktok a few months ago and focused more on youtube to find people recommending books and it works better for me because you have more control over the content you actually want to see and i like recommendations to contain more than just listing the tropes.
I agree completely, especially about "tropification!" I don't think there's anything wrong with people enjoying the tropes we like, but I wish we didn't market published novels as a laundry list of tropes! They shouldn't exist as a list to fill out when writing something, nor as the selling point in publishing!
Totally agree, except I love fourth wing! The main character has the same disability as I do and it's very well portrayed, and I've never seen EDS in a book before, so imo it deserves credit for that at least.
I’m a cis straight white American woman, and I hope that the problem is that the ACOTAR women don’t know any better. I’m a literature teacher, and I tried the series but couldn’t make it past the third chapter. Maybe it will burn itself out like Twilight and all the sparkling vampire clones did. I think the real readers will keep looking and maybe stumble their way into better books. That is my hope, anyway. Dracula is my favorite classic book, and I found your channel by searching TH-cam for gothic literature. I’m so thankful that I did! I’m currently devouring Bury Your Gays because you introduced me to Tingle with Camp Damascus, and you also introduced me to John Scalzi, whom I adore! I’ve read more queer and translated fiction in the past year than I ever have in my life, and it’s been a joyous experience! Thank you so much for that, Willow!
I asked a booktok obsessed coworker what exactly she likes about reading, like what about the experience of reading she likes NOT the specific book boyfriends she likes, and she just said, “it’s not that deep.” um…… oh uhm…. yeah ok 👍🏽 i’m happy for you…? I don’t even know what to say to a person who thinks and feels like that, it’s off-putting. I’d love for everyone who “turned their brain off” to read ACOTAR could please quickly very quickly TURN THEM BACK ON!!!! please!
This is definitely a problem, though I do think it’s a little unfair to assume all these women are straight unless they lead with that or something. Aside from that, yeah, booktok has a chokehold on book marketing right now and I think it’s had negative impacts across the board. There’s always been a sense of bandwagoning in media (i.e., thing gets popular, let’s publish a thousand more things with superficial similarities to that), but things feel more homogenized than ever. I was talking with my mom about books last time she visited and I mentioned how romances in popular fantasy books are always the same and she IMMEDIATELY knew what I was talking about without me having to elaborate. Now we’re getting “tropes first” marketing, to the point where people write to popular tropes instead of writing a story and then analyzing the tropes used in it, and there’s a real sense of commodification of art there. Like yes I know it’s a business and always has been capitalism is a disease etc. but more and more there’s this push to fit your work into certain buzzwords and also NOBODY ON BOOKTOK KNOWS WHAT ENEMIES TO LOVERS IS!! Yeah, it’s frustrating and, as you said, so so boring. It is bad because it directly impacts what gets published and pushed to audiences, but it’s not really the booktokers’ fault, it’s that publishing is using it as a cash cow and as with all things late-stage capitalism, it amplifies all other existing hierarchies like racism.
Oh yikes, that’s a big paragraph of ranting. Sorry about that, I just have a lot of feelings!!
I think the real question is how you solve this as a problem. There's a very interesting video by Abby Cox that goes over the history of the dime novel to show that what's happening on Booktok isn't actually a new phenomenon, but something she doesn't mention is that the heyday of the dime novel was in the American Gilded Age and even then it seemed to take the emergence of film as a medium to finally make it go away. To me this suggests the problem is capitalist consumerism killing art (in fact, a very good example of how it does just that).
The dime novel, like the Penny Bloods in the UK, allowed a newly literate working class to be able to afford to read. And I would imagine when you're working down mines and the like, ppl just wanted escapist fiction, not something more literary. ❤
Your description of smut in romantasy books as “prude” provoked a thought. Although you were joking, I really do believe that many of these people are discovering sex for the first time (or at least corn) due to the lack of corn for female audiences (especially young women). Smut in romantasy books also allows for a safe and ironically “intellectual” space for women to build community around while embracing their sexuality. Completely agree with your thoughts and love your nuance!
Yes, these books are prude and vanilla. But that's the fault of how patriarchal corn is, you're right. And not the fault of women.
I ended up reading The Saint of Steel series by T. Kingfisher as a result of a tik tok suggesting books that “booktok won’t suggest but should”
Oh she’s wonderful; one of my absolute heroes
YES saint of steel is SO good!!
I found booktok a couple of years ago. At that time, I was interested in seeing what others were reading/recommending. I realised within a couple of weeks that it was always the same books…over and over again.
I struggled to find anything that was appealing, interesting or any content that had substance to it. (Like you said, everybody loving the book but absolutely nobody saying why).
I’m not interested in “spice”, I’m not interested in American sports romance (which comes up a lot).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m so pleased to see people picking up a book, reading and enjoying it. But because I never see anyone actually reviewing the books, I do wonder sometimes if they’ve just jumped on a trend. Bought the book for a video only and can show they love it, by just making faces at the camera. It makes it hard to trust and take any of their recommendations as serious.
I also noticed that if a content creator dares to say they dislike a popular book, and they DO give valid reasons and reviews, the comment section then fills up with hundreds of abusive posts saying they’re wrong/ they’re stupid/ they just don’t get it etc….trying to beat down someone because they have a different opinion.
So almost as soon as I found booktok, I immediately went off it. If I see a book on repeat now, I absolutely know not to waste my money on it.
I’m happy with TH-cam for book recs. I also love going into an actual bookshop and browsing the shelves. Looking for those gems that I’ve never heard of, but I already know will be far better than anything coming from Booktok.
I saw the same video as you a few days ago and just wanted to applaud her! She really put everything I’d thought together in a far more eloquent and succinct way than I could have.
I’ll stick to TH-cam without a doubt.
I recently saw someone claim that the issue with booktok is not that people read brain-off books and enjoy some things that are just kind of bad, but more that they only ever read brain-off books and so never critically engage with any of their reading. If you're reading unintellectual books sometimes it can be fun and doesn't hurt at all. But if that's all you read you're not getting much out of the experience. I suppose it's still better than not reading at all since you're exercising your brain by practising the physical skill of reading, but otherwise there's not much you're getting out of it that you wouldn't get from a brain-off TV show or movie. I agree with your points as well though!
I keep hearing that "reduced to a trope" is a thing that makes contemporary literature bad now, but I didn’t really get it. My first thought was, "What’s everyone reading that the concept of recognizable tropes are a bad thing?" But now I understand that it's less WHAT people are reading and perhaps more HOW readers are discussing it (maybe.)
Because I came of age during a trend of High Fantasy Mentor Dies, and I guess that got predictable and annoying…and when somebody says “love triangle” then I think I already know what they mean and so I want to get as far away from that story as possible (because I have not read that done creatively since maybe around the Arthurian era…?) But I don’t know what the stale tropes of today are. Fake Dating To Real Romance, Enemies To Lovers, Only One Horse…?
But I think if it gets popular enough to be annoying than it can say something about where most people’s vibes are at...and that’s not always bad, mind you, that’s just information.
For example, the pervasiveness of the High Fantasy Mentor Dies trope might symbolize most people growing into a mentality in which they now have to do difficult and scary things all alone without guidance.
Another example - Love Triangles might belong to a generation in which there wasn’t a lot of clarity regarding whether what they (the reader who loves that trope) truly wanted was the same as "the right thing" to want.
Fake Dating might resonate with the struggle of how even what we pretend to be will say something about what we’re truly like, or how performing our obligations can have us re-discover the real feelings behind why we bother...?
I keep hearing that Enemies To Lovers is popular because it’s the fantasy of having shown one’s worst side to another person who can still know and love that, whereas “healthier” relationships between characters who were never enemies can have an off-putting tinge of "one bad year and your relationship will implode from your unexamined worst sides coming out; good luck, babes" to enjoyers of Enemies To Lovers exclusively.
Only One Horse can perish as a trope. That poor animal.
Mainly I think that even cash-grabby, transparently manipulative and boring uses of a trope can provoke thought about why it’s there in the story-or why it’s popular, successful, ubiquitous in many fiction stories, and thank goodness it is confined and contained in fiction where it can be examined critically... right?
But it's that last bit that would be the sticking point. 14:23 Some people shout 'I like it!' and then other people shout 'I like it!'
Then anybody asking why-WHY do you all like it?-gets hit by a verbal shower of defensive projectile quills, because that question MUST BE coming from a place of condemnation or snobbishness or concern-trolling instead of authentic curiosity.
I appreciate your channel because you always introduce me to books I've never heard of. Everyone on all the other channels I follow always seem to be reading the same "viral" books for the most part. Just finished Aftershock, 5 stars!
Yay Aftershock!
I like the longer format Booktube allows, but I still need to be critical of who to subscribe to. Some of the popular authors sound like fast food - lots of empty calories, lacking in nutrients. Don't get me wrong... I eat fast food occasionally, but it's not the foundation of my diet. Time is a finite resource. I don't want to waste it on mediocre mush.
Recently I stumbled on a creator, Page Turners with Katja, who reviews quite a bit of Japanese and Korean literature in translation, and found out about cozy fiction trending in Korea. Last night she live-streamed a conversation with Singaporean literary translator Shanna Tan and Katja mentioned how she'd discovered some books through Willow's reviews. So, the conclusion I come to is this: There are creators who present more diverse content. We just have to look for them and ignore the ones that aren't worth our time and attention.
My theory about romantasy, as someone who reads fantasy but not romantasy, has always been that it should really actually be considered a subgenre of romance instead. When looked at that way, the focus on these tropes makes more sense. I mean, it's still got the same issues you talked about, just I think it fits into the puzzle of fiction better looked at as a romance subgenre instead of fantasy.
I am reluctant to blame tiktok for publisher behavior, though--but only because I think the publishers should be responsible for their own mistakes. I am always up for blaming big companies whenever possible, hehe.
I do remember back in the early 2000s ppl recomending books as romantic fantasy as in ' romance set in a fantasy world'... This type of book had a lot of overlap with paranormal romance, even if the setting was more like urban fantasy, but the romance aspect was more important so that's what connected them... Now I don't mind the romantasy label if it's good to ppl track what they want to read it, i think it's absolutely a marketing thing bc these books have been written since forever but the idea of a "new" genre makes more appealing in a capitalist sense so there's more and more titles being written...
but that's literally the definiton of romantasy? Like it is romance in a fantasy world and not a fantasy book with a romance subplot.
@@19Rena96 I agree with this, but that's often not how it's marketed or treated. The first example that comes to mind (even if this is kind of a silly one) is how romantasy books were placed in the fantasy section of the Goodreads Choice awards until they got their own section. Similarly, you'll find the books in the fantasy section of at least the bookstores I've been to, and not the romance. It can cause confusion as to what the audience is meant to be.
Love that you’re doing this almost video essay style video. Please keep it up!! would love to see some more Philosophy Tube esque content from you!!!
I've trained my Booktok to serve up content from creators who are diverse and/or read diversely. It can be done. Some of my favorite creators here are my favorite creators there.
Same here, I haven't seen anyone hold up acotar in months lol
@@ramalam98 Victory!
same, but i will say it sucks that it can take like a week for tiktok to stop recommending whitewashed, cisheteronormative content. it def makes a difference esp since most people dont curate their feed like that
@@aricheec7722 You're absolutely right. The systems in place are always going to serve up what is expected to succeed and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one can read a book they don't know exists, support an author they're unaware of, or follow a creator they've never seen.
At this point in time, we have to make the effort because it won't be made for us. Searching booktok without being specific about what content you want will default to the usual. Then, I have to go to B&N and see a Booktok table with the usual suspects.
But the same was true for me with Booktube, too. Without naming names, very few of the people I started watching are still in the rotation because I moved on to creators that reliably talked about the genres I liked and the authors I liked, and their recommendations meant/mean something to me.
Book communities are big enough for everyone who is respectful and so there should be a place for books that aren't for me, but we'd only be made stronger by readers having clear paths to figure out their genuine tastes and that comes down to a varied initial algorithm while it figure out the user.
I look forward to the day when the Booktok table actually introduces more people to a variety of books because Booktok will be a place where more voices are heard.
The SMP boycott that was strongest on Booktok has been settled because enough creators held the line and got enough of their demands met. That tells me that we can make a difference if we all rally behind our own list of books.
A lot of what i see in romantasy is why i have started writing a cozy fantasy with queer neurodivergent characters. Once Upon a Broken Heart was the last straw for me
Your book sounds interesting!
Oh god Stephanie Garber is terrible 😭😭 Your book sounds amazing!! As a neurodivergent lesbian, I need it nowww 🥰
Yesssssss love this!!
YESSS omg thank you for the warning about Once Upon a Broken Heart, I was gonna buy it 😭 not anymoreee lol. I need more books like this, only ones I can think of are Legends and Lattes and the author’s other book in the franchise also. I love the casual unexpected hint of a maybe sapphic relationship too in that book, it’s not heavy handed or anything. We need more books like this, the only book I kind of enjoyed that had a BookTok moment was The Secret History because it low-key shocked me in a way that made me think a lot 😭
@@googoogaga7986 Have you heard about The Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee? It's about a department store humans and animals can only enter in our sleep to buy dreams, the people who work there, and the dream makers who create the dreams.
Your content is amazing Willow!! Thanks for dissecting this topic for all of us who are observing, concerned, but find it difficult to articulate what, exactly, is so concerning ✨✨💕 keep being awesome!
I really dislike people describing any community as if it’s a monolith. My feed is lovely, I barely see those people anymore. The algorithm is definitely god awful though if you go by tags or just first signing in. But if you’re really looking and finding people with your same taste, I’ve been really successful with finding tons of unique people with unique tastes. I feel that assigning these bland boring people as ALL of booktok (not saying willow just what I see often) is giving them too much credit. The algo is definitely racist and straight tho it’s a real problem
That’s why I was very careful to say they dominate but do not fully populate it. I knew the criticisms that would come my way before I made the video, and tried to address them in advance as best I could
@@WillowTalksBooks oh yes sorry I worded that horribly I didn’t mean you specifically! I loved the video :-) I was just commenting on the people who constantly say “booktok” like it’s just one thing! There are some very very valid criticisms out there and here! 🫶 I tried to add that I didn’t mean u specifically in there but I’m not so great at words haha
This
Well the AI and publishing things are terrifying potentials.
I got into booktube and became an avid reader in 2015 - at 26 years old. And reading diversely is important to me for so many reasons. And I genuinely can't understand why some people never want to branch out. There's amazing stories of all kinds, by so many people.
I was born physically disabled. Also neurodivergent but didn't learn that until my 30s. Thought I was a sapphic woman for nearly 2 decades only to realize i'm a straight [ trans ] man in my 30s.
Growing up I felt like an alien and like I never saw myself anywhere. That and being naturally curious, I want to read all kinds of stories, from all different people. The world is beautifully diverse. I will never read diverse enough to satisfy myself, but i'll sure have fun trying.
That said, it is wonderful to see people reading. But that AI... that terrifies me.
I recently deleted my tiktok. I didn't like the app to begin with actually. I prefer TH-cam. Seem to actually see more of the content I want to see and can find people talking more in depth and diversely about books. And it feels more personal to me.
I'm also working on writing the books I wish existed more. I'm currently writing a queer YA fantasy novel and a trans and disabled short horror story collection.
Just wanna chime in with the "people never want to branch out thing" -- tbf, that was me til not so long ago. I'm autistic and I was so into fanfics of ONE specific fandom that I barely ever read anything else for a decade. And I feel like I have so much stuff to catch up on now. But I get why people wouldn't want to read another genre : to me, it's possibly a comfort thing. The world is confusing and scary for some (most?) people and reading the same stuff in slightly different settings over and over can be comforting I guess. But I do acknowledge how much people can miss out on stuff, myself included. and that's not even getting into the wildly problematic settings lol. i've read some wild shit that I took as normality.
I AGREE!!! As a Amercian Woman of Color. Booktok is scary. It is so hard to find diversity especially in the fantasy genre and its sub genres! I have found eclectic booktokers but it took time! Thank you for talking about this!
I’ve sort of found that the best way to diversify is to search specific books or genres and comment and like and share and you start getting more than just ACOTAR and similar stuff. But you have to specifically search it out and cultivate it. It’s annoying as someone who’s trying to expand her reading to new genres and types of books.
I feel Booktube is heading in the Same direction... Even our bookshops in Germany feel like they are catering to the booktalk community. Recently I love my local library. They have so many fantasy books I have never heard of. A lot of them are older, but I don't care. I would love top see more diversity in my local bookshops again.
It’s same in India. Bookstores have lost its charm now. The condition is so bad that we don’t even see our own literature written in local languages in Bookstores.
Same in Poland. The books on display in mainstream bookshops seem the same
Oh yes, agree for Germany. Chains like Thalia are mainly displaying "new adult" booktok favorites. However, I still enjoy going to independent bookstores (and public libraries), there's a bigger variety and I always find gems I'd never heard of before 😊
So right about “ no critical thinking going on “ that is why I like You Tube so much more
I dont even have TikTok anymore, I found it to be a lot more toxic at times. Im happier to stay in the booktube community and creaters I know who read a diverse range of books 😅
I just can't with booktok😭
Romance and smut in books is fine. I love the smut in the anthology Let Petites Morts (published by Ghost Orchid Press, please read that someday, Hailey Piper has a story in it and she's wonderful). Although as someone who's aroace it's nice to find books that are not about f*cking and falling in love. So it seems TikTok is absolutely not the right space for me for finding books that'll interest me. Also watching short videos for several hours is bad for my ADHD brain. 😔
OMG Are straight people all right is the exact question. No, not even slightly!
I don’t find a lot of good recommendations on that platform. It is kind of a wasteland. It’s just promoting modern versions of Harlequin Romances. The book, A Little Rot had a lot of Sex and diversity. It was also the furthest thing from a Spicy Romance. It didn’t do well on Book Tok.
Someone called it a little rotten. So books I like don’t get featured or they get bad reviews.
I don’t even bother with that platform anymore.
The Booktok algorithm gives you what you put put into it. My Booktok algorithm is primarily Non-white and queer creators talking about amazing diverse books. And there are a few folks who also talk about classics and literary works. Now, it is a small group, but thankfully, I rarely see any of the Vast Heaving Majority of Booktok, which is good. It did take time to train the algorithm, though.
Also, I do want to say that the most recent of my book reviews on TT that got the most hits were Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Talents, Cixin Lou’s Death’s End, and Percival Everett’s James, so don’t fret for the future of the human race! There are still people on TT who are hungry for original books with great writing and diverse voices!
Yeah I think a huge part of the issue is corporate publishing (coming from someone in publishing) 😅 It’s a big money making machine
OMG thank you for this video😭😭😭 I thought I was the only one feeling this way. Every time I go to the bookstore now, everything seems to be around the poorly written romance with the same tropes and problematic characters, just ridiculous
I swear some people have never read a book and then picked up ACOTAR and are screaming like its a new book or something?? even though booktube has been talking about it for yearrrsss. I agree w a lot of ur thoughts, great video:))
I'm currently reading a series by Lydia Hawk called The Crone Wars. As I understand it, she had to self publish it because her main protagonist is a 60 yo grandmother and publishers don't want fantasy books that don't feature teenager girls hooking up with 500 yo fairies.
I think the tropification maybe the result of people not having the vocabulary to "properly" articulate their feeling about the book. Like, it is a problem, but I don't think calling people "anti-intelectual" just because they use tropes in their review of the book is gonna solve the issue. Like to call back to the Celine's tiktok, just because somebody called and recommended the poppy war as the book with strong FMC doesn't mean that the person doing it didn't understood the nuance of the character.
Also I think that the panic around people (mostly women) liking "the wrong kind of books" (I don't want to defend straight people too much here, as most of popular romantasy books are imo trash, but still) and that would bringing the era of anti-intelectuallism is just the another incarnation of moral panic similar to the one that was around Twilight. Ofc, I don't want to oversimplify as there are issues with booktok, as you said the lack of diversity especially when it comes to books written by PoC and people just recommending the same 5 or 6 books.
I agree with you!
Better decision that I made for my mental health this year? Delete this app from my phone
One more thing…people jump on trends. It’s natural. When I was your age, no one has “arm sleeve” tattoos, but now they do. You have them because it’s a “thing” people do now. It’s a trend. You’re following a trend. Understanding that about yourself might help you understand these straight white women following a trend.
I’m far from being a prude but I hate smut in books, at least the type being written nowadays. Same goes with romance books, can’t stand the genre but don’t mind a good classic book with romance in it.
Yes. Media literacy is at an all-time low. Good thing there's people like you to point this out and make a difference :)
9:22 - lol, literally me reading the first book of The Song of Ice and Fire being like: soo, women get abused left right and center, and kids get killed like it's nothing, I thought this was fantasy but ok ig. I've started my bookstagram to talk into the abyss about the books I consume. While there are trendy books that I like, it's mostly pass for me - no ACOTAR, no Greek re-tellings, just some stuff I pick up in bookstores or at bookfests in English and Ukrainian. Aaand yep, my platform is basically non-existent, which was to be expected😅 I'm really grateful to just have a place to vent, but if I was to make a career out of this it would've been rough as heck because the issue of homogeneity and lack of depth is by no means secluded to TikTok. I'm glad to see people are talking about this though.
There is an impact of BookTok on translations too. I read mainly in English (I'm a Polish/American cultural hybrid having lived in both countries and being fluent in both). And translations into Polish within the last 5 years or so started retaining their English titles, meaning the titles aren't translated into Polish. And this seems to be a trend for books popular on BookTok pretty much exclusively. It's so that they can be easily recognized as that book from BookTok and marketed as such (and of course for hashtags too). Worldwide influence of BookTok is really massive.
I sometimes wonder if we made a mistake making everyone literate
TikTok in general has a much higher garbage to quality ratio. I haven’t found, in general, much reason to be on there. Too much digging to find anything worthwhile.
It is sad this is what the face of booktok is when there are so many beautiful diverse creators. I’ve gotten my algorithm to show me creators with diverse reading. If I see a shelf covered in romances I just click the little function that says “Not interested”
Also coincidence I just got Perdido Street Station by China Mieville in the mail yesterday ❤
Perdido Street Station!!! Probably the only book I've ever read that both made me cry and made me physically nauseous at different points, I need to reread that one sometime soon.
@@scal2025 both those things sound like the kind of book I’m looking for 😂 I’ve never heard anyone talk about it and now I’m getting more hyped
The thing I hate most about booktok is the way people recommend books based on fan fiction trope instead of highlighting the actual plot and the lack of critical analysis when it comes to the book review side of it as well
Idk, I have complicated feelings about this. I feel like this same conversation happens over and over anytime something that women enjoy becomes popular. It happened with Twilight, 50 shades, the YA boom, and so on. And that was before booktok. Every time, silly young women are ruining publishing and literature1!
Except since Twilight or those other examples, so.many.amazing books have been published and became hits! More books (and more diverse books) than ever are getting published and finding a readership. It's almost like critics were just being catastrophic for no reason, who knew!
This happens with movies and music too. But great artists keep working and putting out work. Not everything is going to have "mass appeal" but so what? Is that why they make art? They'll still find a real readership or viewership or listenership(?) and that's how it's alwasy been, and it's part of what makes art awesome. It doesn't need to go viral on tiktok.
*Also, it says absolutely nothing about you if you enjoy "smutty", "badly written" fiction. No one is "better" for reading some type of book. And you're certainly not ever "problematic" for reading.
*I'm also not implying you made any of these generalizations in this video btw.
*And sorry if this comment came off ranty 😅
As an older (60’s), white, American, woman, I have never felt the urge to get into TikTok, and now I’m sure I won’t. Thank you. I have been attempting to diversify my reading, especially in support of my bisexual, non-binary child. I recently read a book that I would love to hear your thoughts on called “An Unkindness of Ghosts.” I listened to this as an audiobook and loved it so much I had to buy a physical copy. I hope that someday you will do a review as I really enjoy your insights.
I think it’d great that you’re diversifying your reading to support your kid! Reading is such a powerful portal into lives and experiences other than our own :)
@@lorplorplorp I hope-e it continues to be an opening for conversation with them. We talk well, but as a young adult themselves (18), I’m really hoping to keep it strong.
This phenomenon of books, clearly not even being edited blows my mind!!!
The greatest problem with booktok in my opinion is the lack of diversity in the books that come out of it, which is a great shame because I think it could be a fantastic tool to uplift literature by marginalised authors. There's a bit of this, sure, but not nearly enough (especially with the reach that booktok has)
Sadly, that's just how their algorithm works. Which is a problem not only for the booktok part but tiktok in general. We are way too uncritical about that app and the company behind it in general.
Yes, there is lack of demographic diversity, but of course, I could recommend a book by a straight white woman like Betty Smith (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), and nobody on booktok would be able to comprehend a work of that artistry, depth and emotional complexity. They want basically the same thing fed to them in the same way over and over again, the blander the better.
I work in a corporate chain bookstore in america (sometimes it's very yikes) and we've always had a "booktok" table and I would try and include more diverse books that were getting some booktok interest (like priory of an orange tree) but recently corporate just told us it should be exclusively "spicy romance" and while part of me is upset that corporate views booktok that way (bc there are niches in booktok with more diverse interest) it also is definitely... a reflection of "booktok" as a whole and the effect it has on publishing and it scares me haha.
Whoa, your point about AI fiction is chilling. And I agree, I think the scariest part of booktok's dominance is the effect it could have on publishing trends.
One thing sort of related to this: I have an Illumicrate subscription for my "fun" reads. These can be a bit hit or miss, but I like to read them between heavier books.
Lately they've been doing a really good job with diversity, featuring LGBTQ+ and non-white stories (though there's definitely room for improvement!). I've seen complaints on their social media about them featuring too many queer stories and like...literally almost every other place is catered to straight people?? Why do you only want to read from one perspective anyways?? I think it's part of a larger problem where people in dominant social groups other people from marginalized groups and don't take their perspectives seriously.
what I really hate --- when books are only listed by letters --example ACOTAR for A court of Thornes and Roses. Since I somehow managed to miss the Sarah Maas frenzy, I don't immediately recognize the books mentioned. This is done for several other books as well. If you like a book, at least have enough respect to share the actual title.
And I mean it's not only Booktok... just look at the NY Times 100 best books of the 21 century, it's a list of mostly white male authors born in english speaking countries 🤣 the worst part is that the Reader's pick is much about the same when it comes to diversity 😅 it's horrible. Like, that list shows what the majority reads, intellectuals or not, people mostly read books/lit from english speaking countries and men. Latinamerica has for example a super rich literature scene which social media pretty much reduces it to 100 years of solitude and that list to Roberto Bolaño 2666 🙃
If I try to be optimistic, I think the more chances a person picks "a" book, even a trendy shitty book, the more chances they will at some point wanna pick something better and explore more genres/authors? I don't know... 🙈🙈😄😅
I've never traversed booktok but a lot of them reupload to shorts and it's so bizarre when I see "best books I've read" and its ACOTAR and Caraval and Colleen Hoover... 😅
I am so glad the algorithm overlords recommended your channel to me! And I so want to read more about sci fi/ fantasy in the future so I look forward to hearing your thoughts and recommendations. Thank you for creating good book content 🖤
You’re so kind, thank you!
I'm not on TikTok (I'm old, lol, so I'm more of a Bookstragm and Booktube user), but I find that whenever someone I follow shows a book that they got because of TikTok, it is never a book I would read.
I don't have TikTok, so obviously my information is second hand, but from what you describe the issue is capitalism again, but with algortihmically directed markets. We've seen it before, like how every novel in the Victorian era had to be three volumes and serialised, or how pulp fiction in the 20s and 30s was mostly the same detective stories over and over again.
Of course, with TikTok and AI generation, the issues are intensified, but the underlying cause remains the economics of publishing under capitalism.
I follow a few book reviewers on TikTok (notably Tim Blackett, Cody Vest and Max) and they don’t focus on cheesy fantasy (and they’re all men). So I guess it depends what you’re looking for. Good content is out there.
I don't think it matters much - The people who are hooked on TikTok probably aren't reading much anyway. I've always felt that there are readers and there are non-readers. Non-readers certainly read, but it is the bestsellers and dross that ends up being pushed to appeal to the most people. Readers are curious and insatiable and hopefully TikTok isn't powerful enough to change that. (Although TH-cam has certainly reduced my reading)
I think I’ve slowly cultivated my book related fyp to be fairly diverse as of late. I found a but recommended a lot of translated works, a lot of Asian bistro influenced stuff, more queer stuff. I’ve been working on expanding what I read, so I’m happy for it.
But also, thanks to that, I ended up reading a book about … the butt? 😂 I learned more stuff about butt health than I’ll ever need to know.
Also Priory of the Orange Tree is soooo good. I listened to it at work and just fell in love with it.
These girlies have some serious unpacking to do. Can someone get these women counselling? Authors also need to stop sexualising abusive behaviour.
Sexualising abuse is problematic to say the least and extremely harmful.
I feel like booktok had devolved into quick dopamine/controversal reads that lack depth and are easily forgotten.
I feel like these books are saturating the market and as a result we'll have lower quality books, with problematic tropes and deeper reads will be a rarity.
We need more diversity, so many talented authors and their works should get far more spotlight than this abusive drivel.
I agree that BookTok is homogenous and kinda boring, however I think you've got it backwards. It isn't booktok influencing publishing, but instead publishing influencing booktok. By sending out free books, paying for reviews (positive or negative, all publicity is good publicity), and establishing relationships with book influencers.
Publishers pay for reviews? Wow, I’ve been reviewing books professionally for like seven years; no publisher has ever paid me off before!
I'd think that people who are on BookTok would be reading the same silly romantasy stuff anyway and wouldn't look for diverse ideas whether BookTok was the way it is now or not. They just found a perfect platform and creators to suit their interests. And even if you put other works in front of them, they probably wouldn't engage with them. And I think people who like to read more diversely just don't go to BookTok for book content or recommendations. We gravitate towards specific platforms and creators that resonate with us, we find our 'tribe' and what the algorithms serve us becomes more and more homogeneous, but is it on the platform to try to diversify what we consume, or on us to be more mindful?
In short, platforms serve who they serve and I think if you want to find something different, you absolutely can, but it's up to you to make the effort.
You might have a point!
My only brush with what might be classified as romantasy were the Parasol Protectorate and the Custard Protocol series by Gail Carriger. (Better known as Steampunk Fantasy) at the time. I adored these books, but I could always feel that my local librarian was silently judging me. 😂 These books were filed in the library in the Romance section.
I've recently read toni Morrison and Lorraine Hansberry....and I realised british literature made me fall in love with literature but american literature shook me to the core for what writers could do with an ordinary thing called a pen....wonder if booktok could just understand reading should give a person a reason to contemplate why, and how and what the author has written than just enjoying a over hyped piece of writing
Great video! I so agree! I think also that a lot of these fantasy novels sell because some buyers like sparkly book covers.
On one hand, I think people reading what they like is great. Like you said, it encourages reading, and it gets people talking about reading and books; but on the other hand, my biggest problem is exactly what your problem is-- the lack of meaningful diversity. It reminds me a lot of my decades of fandom experience. Everyone preaches for diversity but only cling to the thin, white characters. IDK! And I've even enjoyed a few of the booktok-popular books. I don't think theyre all bad necessarily. I just wish people read... other things alongside these books.
Also, I wasn't expecting a shoutout to the New Weird genre when i clicked this video🙌🙌 scifi/horror/weird/new weird are my favorite genres and I love seeing people approaching certain tropes and such in the new weird genre that subvert the genre's origins!
Thank you for talking about BookTok.
The whole obsession with the word "demure" had me thinking about how BookTok had a huge influence on it. I don't think it's at all unfair to say that the most popular books on BookTok do nothing to grow a reader's vocabulary, and many 20- and 30-somethings who speak English as a first language were hearing it for the first time. I'm sure the original creator behind the phrase wasn't expecting it to blow up the way it did as well. And now someone else has filed the original creator's phrase for trademark! Weird times.
I sometimes checked booktok... until Fourth wing shit happened. Everyone there screamed about it like it's the best book written this century. A masterpiece. Yeah... no. Also, i'm not interested in thousand videos recomending me the same SJM book series or Hunting Adeline. If other people enjoy it - good for them. I just want something else.
I kinda decided to wonder back to youtube. Yes, the same overhyped books i see here too, but here i can find a lot more content creators who recomend different books, not just the same 5 or 10 which you can see EVERYWHERE (sometimes even books i've never heard of and that is cool - i can discover new books for my TBR) and when they talk about books, it's more than just ''read this because they fuck a lot and he has wings''.
Thanks for the Carter Kalchik rec. I went to his channel and found his videos really interesting.
I guess I'll have to try Pillory of the Orange Tree again at some point but I've tried reading it twice and just had to stop relatively early because it does the (to me absolutely horrible) epic fantasy trope of spewing twenty Capitalized Nouns (tm) and twice that many made up names in the first couple of pages without explaining or giving context to barely any of it. I just can't stand that stuff if it is poorly done, which, to me, it was in that case. I can go with the flow to some degree if the name dump is part of an abstract that is promised to be explained later or if the Capitalized Nouns (tm) only regard one place and/or pov but here you instantly had multiple pov characters in multiple cultures with nothing but vibes to hold on to.
For me, TikTok as a whole is just not for me. I don’t like the “dark romance” stuff when it’s done poorly, and prefer it when books lean into the fact that the things happening in the story would be scary and weird. It can still be romantic, but don’t just completely gloss over that, say, your “hot hitman guy meets humble coffee shop owner woman” is about a guy who commits crimes for money and the power imbalance is huge and so on. Had to drop a book by author Alex de Campi because it got too dark without ever dealing with that darkness inherent in the premise (oh, and also being a fanfic with the names replaced).
I can't stand tick tock for that very reason- it's just memes about reading and buying books. And like you say, no discussion or actual diversity of the books recommended. I am actually finding Instagram similar, although not as bad. I want reviews and recommendations, not people creating memes. TH-cam is the only place I can really find much actual discussion about decent books.
I don't have a problem with people liking these books however. If people want to read them and enjoy them fine. I haven't tried A court of thorn and roses, yet (I want to, as like you I want to see what the fuss was about and join the discussion) but I couldn't stand fourth wing- it was terrible. Bad writing, no depth, abusive men, and didn't find it romantic at all. No real world building either.
I do wonder though if they'll all burn themselves out. Reading has become 'popular' recently. Like you, I'm fed up of seeing it all and worry that publishing is focusing on it. But surely there is only so much of this content they can consume? It's all the same, the plots (if there!) are none existent or stimulating, and there's no real discussion to be had. Will it all be as 'popular' in a few years?
I can understand teens or very young adults reading and enjoying these types of novels, but it's always confusing to me how anyone over the age of, say, 25, can relate to it. As a 40 something y/o, I want to read stories that go deeper than the surface level shallow characters that populate these popular romantasy books. I want to read about women with depth and try to relate and understand their choices so as better to understand my own. Insta love and melodramatic romance scenarios typically don't have a place in most adults' lives after the teen years (note, I say most lol), so I'm hard pressed to understand the fascination with reading about it. Even if I had not been a voracious and wide reader throughout my life, I still don't think I could find much enjoyment in these simple stories and cardboard characters. As I mentioned in a previous comment, reading about women written with depth and finding empathy with them and their fictional choices/lives, helps me to better relate and understand my own real life. There will always be mass market books for the, well, masses, but I certainly hope it doesn't keep publishers from printing amazing writers and stories that are less run of the mill popular!
Honestly, I've found a wonderful list of diverse authors through you and some other non-American or non-white creators. Confessions, Strega, I have Minor Detail on my borrow shelf, Audition, The Ballad of Black Tom (loved this one), and many more.
A hamster wheel, perfectly said
While I wholeheartedly agree with most of what you say in this video, I really do my best to try and take solace in the fact that for as long as there has been a publishing industry, people have been losing their minds over what women and young people are reading. And let us not forget about the moral panic about poor people being able to read. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't make it past the first chapter of ACOTR, but when I hear discussions of this all I can think of is the paradigm shift I had in my Pop Culture and Romance class in uni. Not everyone's gonna like or be interested in ~literature~ and that's okay. That said, I'm ~very~ concerned for straight women and I only grow even more concerned in my rare interactions with them, they deserve better than fantasy ~~mormon smut~~ *cough* abuse from non-human men
The thing I want to bring up though is this - for decades I have heard and participated in so much complaining about the publishing industry. It sucks ass, and I wanna know WHY I've yet to hear anything about authors creating something like a publishing co-op? If there is one and I just haven't heard of it _please_ let me know, but I am so tired of hearing people complain about the publishing industry. They don't give a shit about marginalized groups and I don't see it getting any better. However, I'd throw some money I have at a Queer and POC publishing co-op. If I was well enough and/or didn't have to worry about a strict timeline I'd throw my hat in to do some translating work. There are some incredible books being written and published, and I'd much rather we put our energies into making something for us than putting our precious energy into people who are so much more privileged than us and don't give a shit about us, about literature, or about social critique
"Like, are straight people all right? I'm actually worried about them." 🤣🤣🤣
There’s a scary anti intellectual movement happening globally which needs to stop. I’m of the 2 minds that if you’re just getting into reading, whatever encourages you to pick up a book is good doesn’t matter the book. But I think TH-cam is a better place for long form videos encouraging thought and more intellectual discussions than TikTok. I left TikTok because it’s an absolute hellscape and constant call out culture and very American centric
So I think yes we should be promoting more intellectual reads and discussions while simultaneously providing books to encourage others to start reading 🤷🏻♀️
I watch you for ideas about something different because I have become bored with so many books. I read every minute that I have the time. I'm reading two different books at this time, and I'm not very thrilled with either of them. I just don't like to not finish a book.
I am going to throw something into this argument, I see the current state of booktok as the state of the American women who obsess over reality TV. I see it as the dumbing down of Americans, though it is not just white American women it is also here across the pond and in the EU. If you have a distracted electorate, maybe you can slip things in that does not really help the society as a whole. Like DK getting rid of one day of national holiday after the last election. I come from a family of teachers, and a few teachers aids for Individual Plans for some students. I’ve been told by a brother about accepting late homework and text speech is now acceptable in papers, such as wtf, lol, etc. So am I book snob? No far from it, sometimes I enjoy a simple read, but I also get bored quickly and want something to challenge my mind. Like 1 year to read War & Peace, because it has 365 chapters, though I will probably finish before then.
Want a good read, Tommy Orange ‘There, There.’ Is my most recent contemporary fiction, and I loved it. Though I am Native American who lives in a small city, who comes from a restored terminated tribe in the PNW. Furthermore, the follow up novel, both sequel and prequel at the same time, is long listed for this years Booker Prize.
Some of the booktubers I have watched that are BIPOC, they have degrees in literature, but have dumbed down their reading for viewers and subscribers. It makes me sad.
I tried and failed to get into acotar too willow , I listened to all the hype and then said right I need to read this because if everyone is raving so much about it , it must be amazing … well I started reading the first few pages and I just couldn’t do it … I don’t know what it was about it and because of that I’m now afraid to dip my toe into the romantasy genre at all .. as weird as it sounds ,i haven’t read much at all from that genre to date, so now it feels like it’s put me off other books 👀
I keep telling myself well u didn’t give it a fair shot now did you, just because you couldn’t get into it doesn’t mean you won’t be able with others but I think you may have spoiled me with your recommendations!! And now that it doesn’t have your seal of approval it’s cemented that maybe it’s not just me 😂 but I swear it was like it created a weird romantasy phobia- sounds so silly I know !
every single book I’ve ever delved into that you have recommended I’ve absolutely loved so maybe I shouldn’t be so fearful and just stick to your recs from now on because they’re tried and trusted by me lol
I never heard this about Brandon Sanderson but then all I read from him was tress which was also very hyped (it was ok , I found it alright) never read any of his other work so can’t have an opinion on it.
Something made me remember this comment recently so I had to come back to edit it , because I realised I should have said romantasy instead of fantasy but yeah I’ll stand by it .. I’m afraid to go into ROMANTIC fantasy …. I own forth wing … will I ever get to reading it , I dunno… I’ll sit on it, at least it’s on my kindle and I didn’t buy a paper back 😂
Can't even go into the Works anymore without seeing a whole book case dedicated to the same cringey YA romance novels that feature the same heterosexual couples just with boys with different hair colours.
Literally 😭 I have to be wildly uncomfortable in there to get cheaper paperbacks and craft supplies 😭
You say that there is someone responsible for the fact that only a particular group of people are mostly expressing themselves on TIKTOK?
If there is someone responsible, would they have an intention? Who would be the one who has such an intention?
I seem to notice two different themes. Books are written that reflect reality (abusive relationships of a certain type) and on a particular social network, the videos that comment on them are more successful.
I get the impression that you are surprised that there are so many books where the writers avoid producing fantasies that counterbalance reality, in this regard. And that, in addition, the comments on these books are more popular when they are expressed by a certain ethnic or social group.
I can’t follow this, I’m sorry
@@WillowTalksBooks No problem! It must be my bad English. Sorry.
𝘤𝘶𝘪 𝘣𝘰𝘯𝘰? (who benefits?) - i think this is the question.
i get the impression the thumbnail will instigate too much of an inflammatory response: so people on booktok will find it hard to overcome the pain to read this video.
and more-so, just as ironic is the contrast: people who hate booktok will find it very easy to succumb to the quick pain outlet of dunking on the booktok.
the algorithm holds no secrets: it captures (our attempt to see it as a whole) into but (a mere part in the machine) that is used to maximise the engagement:
thus: the algorithmic recommendation engine maximises attachment, and by doing so maximises view time.
as such: i disliked this video. to reflect to consider the pleasure element inherent in the very pain of succumbing to the other.
such is the action reality of the audience of criticism.
such is the object of craft of the critic of the universe.
the critic who doesn't realise the whole structure of pain and pleasure is no better than the hedonistic consumers they critique.
they cease to become critics: they become brash, rowdy: the audience mindlessly engages in brawls and laughter, seeing themselves the superior one, with no need for reflection.
i deliberately overextend this expansion of this emotion of disagreement to demonstrate the debilitating effects of an inflammatory response: one that short-circuits the reader's capacity to reflect.
Amen.
*to reflect is to consider (omg typo) (wait not yet posted the original @w@ )
That's so interesting - I had no idea! Booktube isn't like that - I have found all sorts of creators, talking about many different types of books. I guess i'm in the right place@
And Walmart doesn't promote couture.
I went to a Walmart in New York once, I think, looking for a plug adapter. Not entirely sure what they sell :)
3:59 .. I’m listening on the go and can’t leave a proper comment at the moment.. BUT..
I felt compelled to say in response to your observation of booktok being a load of straight white American women gushing over vapid handful of books..
..I’m basically old now, I started reading wayyyy back in the 80s.. before the internet etc..
I just can’t think of a better representation of exactly what the loss of quality education has done, and how the endless screen times has exacerbated it so completely..
And.. it’s also a pretty good representation of the population overall unfortunately..
I’m so so glad I grew up somewhere with loads of immigrants and 30+ spoken languages in my schools..
the utter blindness on quite literally every aspect of life that afflicts the majority of the social population online .. it’s astounding and depressing.. and why I deleted all the other apps besides YT..
Ok times up..
ATB! 😅
9:02 .. I’m afraid that you’re giving a lot of booktok readers and a lot of us in general more credit than you should.. a LOT of these books are exactly what they’re designed for, escapism and fantasy of the other kinds..
I do it too depending on what life’s going on for me.. that’s why I stepped away and come back to these.. I read when I’m genuinely trying to learn something.. and then.. when I’m burnt out.. I spend a good while reading nothing that requires actual thought 😁😁 there is a bunch of “readers” who only read these vapid, shallow self insert books.. why that is, is probably up for debate.. but.. saying that we read to gain empathy and understanding, that it’d generate interest in other things.. maybe for some., but.. definitely definitely not for a lot of what you can find on social media..
but I’m old now and can’t tolerate tik whatsoever 😂😂 I’m biased lol
This is so so so so false. I moved from Booktube to booktok and found a lot more diversity, my reading quality increased dramatically and I have met incredible people from all over the world and read super diversely now. It was on Booktube that I saw always the same books and always the same “good vibes only” reviews.
For example, I don’t like My Brilliant Friend and I found Bunny really mid. Good luck finding anyone who didn’t like those 2 books on Booktube. But on Booktok I could find them in a second. We built a great community and are constantly doing diverse challenges, plus you see content from all over the world, which TH-cam never showed me (I now watch booktok Italy, booktok Malaysia and booktok Singapore for example)
Rather than it being false, it could be that my experiences (as I said: hours upon hours of scrolling booktok) simply differ from your own. But maybe two people having different experiences is an insane idea 🤷🏻♀️
The thing is scrolling the booktok hashtag doesn’t work cause that will give you generic content, but if you use the search and engage with creators you’ll get an amazing experience. It’s annoying to always see this type of criticism which is not fair IMO! Many many international creators have amazing booktok accounts!
That’s why I said, very purposefully, at the beginning of this video, and again more than once afterwards, because I knew that comments like yours would come my way, that the generic and homogenised booktok accounts that are having a negative effect on the publishing industry are the ones that dominate but do not wholly populate the booktok space. As a niche creator myself, I am very aware that niche and smaller creators do good work. I named several in the video. My point is that the ones who dominate the space have a monopoly, are uninspiring, have a homogenising effect, and damage the publishing industry. I swear, I couldn’t have made this clearer. And yet, despite all my efforts to see this from different angles, to argue with myself, to defend booktok as best I could, and to clarify that this isn’t how the entire space operates, I STILL get told that this is “so so so so false” 🙄
Ok, IDK if this is too weird, but you actually squealed! That’s next level voice feminization. 😁 💗
And OMG you’re one of the few people I watch who loves Priory, which I really enjoyed. Do you have a review of it? I’d love to hear your analysis.
😳
@@WillowTalksBooks too weird, huh? Whoopsie. 🤦🏼♀️
Haha no, not at all, I’m just giddy :)