The READING AESTHETIC is ruining literature (apparently)

I read *that* GQ article and it left me thinking that maybe we should let women and girls do whatever they like every now and then.
The discourse around the online book community is relatively vast, so there are things that I don't touch upon in this video - the impact on the publishing industry or the use of book influencers by publishing houses is one example - but feel free to sound off in the comments.
Also, if you don't agree with my position on this that's absolutely fine. As they say in Italy il mondo è bello perché è vario.

Anywaaay subscribe, see you later, excuse the abrupt ending, my battery died. Literally and figuratively.

Other videos by me:

The two "aesthetics" videos I referred to:

Tiktokers I cited:
michelletrachtenberg
leighstein
quinthebooks

Chapters:
00:01 Intro
1:40 a brief history of the online book community
5:10 criticism: consumerism and objectification of literature
6:36 what is an aesthetic?
7:27 dark academia
7:59 reading as aesthetic
9:10 the dangers
11:12 the misogyny
15:16 leave women alone - and SUBSCRIBEEEEE

#booktok #reading #commentary

[dangmefinnish]

Sooo. We have two kinds of book girls: Louis and Lestat.

[staceyc]

One thing I've learnt in my 24 years as a woman is that if a big group of young women find enjoyment or community in a certain thing it's going to be absolutley shat on

[alija]

as a bookseller i am really glad that book influencers are a thing. people don’t realize how much influencers help keeping bookshops alive. i don’t like colleen hoover but the amount of profit we make from her books is insane and i‘ve talked to so many customers about how they used to never read but thanks to booktok they do. reading is something beautiful and no matter what someone is reading we shouldn’t gatekeep something so beautiful

[boba]

I feel like at least reading books is being promoted. To me the opposite is far worse. I prefer to live in a world where *some* social media users/ content creators use books as a persona or aesthetics and most ARE truly readers. That way young people can look up to these book-fluencers and get inspired to read as opposed to loving books & reading being seen as only for “nerds” (by nerds I mean academically inclined or excelling people, not in a derogatory way in the least). I choose to look at the positives. Great video ❤

[Angelsntreal]

''kids don't read enough'' *kids decide to make reading fun in their own way* ''OH MY GOD HOW DARE THEY READ THE WRONG WAY''

[OliviaKarschner]

My only problem with booktok and the journey of reading becoming popular again is terrible books becoming popular. Terrible books are getting great reviews on goodreads and winning awards that NEVER would have three years ago. I don't think that a book that's easy to read is necessarily a good book; in that same vein, I don't think that books that are hard to read are necessarily good books either. But if anyone recommends books like The Silent Patient as a must-read, I discount all of their bookish opinions. Sorry, but that book was awful! I love that reading is more popular, but many book influencers conflate books that are easy to read with books that are good.

[robertocatrone]

Frankly, I'm very happy to see the younger generation are reading again.

[hridd]

Heaven forbid people, especially young women, derive authentic joy from a hobby and choose to share their joy with the world. Cynical people can't help but try to suck the fun out of things.

[ipilotaneva]

You pick up a book. You love the book. Reading is a joy everyone will have. I don't care what gets people to read books

[jztybkg]

While I do agree that caring about the aesthetics is not an indicator of how intelligent or well read a person is, it's a fact that too many influencers on booktok and youtube seem more preoccupied with reading as many books as possible rather than actually carefully choosing good books and enjoying them, and i completely agree with that tweet you posted in the beginning, I wish you had spoken more about that. It's the consumerism that actually bothers me, and the fact that now it's so easy to publish a book that a lot of them are actually trash (some are even full of typos). Literature is now being consumed like fast food and fast fashion, and that's honestly the major issue in my opinion, not the pretty pictures

[amyg.]

As a retired librarian I am just happy that people are reading and promoting books - especially because I am always horrified when I see statistics that the vast majority of people never even read ONE book per year.

[spntageous]

As someone who used to read a lot and very fast in school (i used to read multiple books a week) to now barely reading anymore, i love it when slow readers comment on those book-influencers' "how I read 90532805 books this year" posts because after all it's not important how many books youve read but to simply enjoy reading

[KRayEpiale]

Honestly the massive booktok movement is partly responsible for getting me back into reading. I'm not even on tiktok, but seeing so much genuine enthusiasm for books bleed out into the rest of the internet reminded me how much I used to love reading, and inspired me to carve out time to start reading again. It's really nice actually! And it isn't just trendy books, honestly most of what I read is obscure at best, or science non-fiction, but the love of the hobby is infectious.

It really does just reek of people being angy young women are enjoying something. You know if some dorky looking guy was posting his giant color coded library other nerds would be talking about how cool it is, but when a woman does it she MUST be vapid and faking her hobby for attention.
🙄

[NubbyNubbster]

"Isn't it strange that we rarely accuse men of being performative... except about feminism." Damn, that's a good one lol I honestly don't care much of BookTok or Book Girls. It's whatever to me, it's cool, the feminine side of book or lit culture tends to be more positive than the masculine side. Meaning, when I see a fellow mate flexing his book reads I tend to roll my eyes. But the other side is cool since I know it's coming from a genuine place of fandom and interest. It's like how in the skateboarding community guys tend to trash on girl skaters and even "posers" for learning of the lifestyle, culture and most importantly just to have fun. Idk just let it be, they enjoy it and reading books is better than other things they can be doing. Great video!

[solidsnake]

I think there is nothing wrong with romanticizing reading, but it worries me how fetishized the book as an object has become. I read primarly on my e-reader because digital books are more accessible to me and time and time again I have people telling me I'm not really reading (??). I swear you can't enter that space for 5 minutes as someone who mostly reads ebooks without someone asking you BUT WHAT ABOUT THE SMELL OF BOOKS???!!! I don't care about the smell of paper, I care about the content of the book. Not to mention the never-ending audiobook debate. Is listening to an audiobook really reading? This community really needs to unclench and understand that some people are disabled or don't have any space in their homes for a rainbow bookshelf with +200 unread books.

[blackwaltz]

The only thing that truly bothers me is the major FOMO influencers create and hyper consumerism they promote. Videos like "how I read 7 books a week, " or "my 15 favorite books from this month, " or "how to meet your (ridiculous) reading goals, " etc. The people who consume this content feel pressure to "keep up" with the influencer, to consume, consume, move quickly from one book to the next, read absolute garbage but hey it's one book closer to my "reading goal, " must keep up with all the trendy books, must not make my own reading choices but rather allow influencers to advertise new releases to me in a constant stream, must take all the joy out of reading for pleasure and turn it into work for the sake of keeping up appearances.

[isabellag]

I used to hate reading… I got into booktok one day by accident and now I have read 22 books in 5 months. This is truly something big for someone who couldn’t enjoy and didn’t find the fun in reading. As most social media things I think a lot of them are fake but I’m so glad I got to find my love for books in them.

[caricanread]

thanks to the youtube algorithm for bringing me here. I really loved this discussion and the way you structured it!

[SashaFilmsUnlimited]

I think this kind of way of thinking is simply ingrained in a lot of people.

My mother was complaining about young people not reading enough these days. I explained that there is actually a growing community of readers online, who read and discuss books. Her instant response was: “Well obviously they just SAY that they read them!” Like it’s crazy to her that anyone ‘young’ I guess? Can legitimately read books as a hobby.

[daveryan]

Such a great video! Haters gonna hate. Readers gonna read. As a 45-year-old Gen X white guy who engaged in more than a little book posturing with my (deep sigh) Hemingway and Jean-Paul Sartre books in high school in the 90s, I nevertheless became a lifelong passionate reader of a variety of authors later in life, mostly due to having so many books physically surrounding me in my unread collection. If there had a been a BookTok or BookTube in my youth, I would have had a lot more fun, felt more connected, and read better books. All these people criticizing young readers are total hypocrites who are more than likely just envious of people enjoying themselves.