Indeed, there are more important things to worry about than people doing
shallow things online about books. But I can see how that can be annoying,
even as the old notions of having Bestsellers on One's Coffee Table was
once the Thing To Do because it was part of a Well-Furnished Home were once
annoying. But not quite in the same league as civil-rights violations or
planetary warming due to human activity, no. And, thanks, Silvia, for the
note about the relative responsiveness of the TikTok channeling algorithms.
But to those who in other fora agreed whole-heartedly with the Penn
student's critique, I did respond thus:
I wouldn't call this a false democratization [the notion that internet
reviewing has deleteriously "leveled" the barriers for
effective book-recommendation] so much as a new establishment of hierarchy
based on vapid coolness...as opposed to the vapid clubbishness of most
older literary reviewing! But, theoretically, the older reviewers would
actually read the books, however inattentively. And, yes, sadly, this,
varying degrees of vapid "coolness" and its power to attract followers at
all levels, has been a continuing crisis throughout the worlds' political
history.
TM, always willing to open a gate, just don't expect me to build a new one
in its place...
On Mon, Jun 5, 2023 at 6:42 PM Silvia Roma <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On the subject of BookTok, I highly recommend reading this Substack
> Article
> <https://marines.substack.com/p/to-anyone-who-wants-to-write-about> written
> by old school BookTuber and current BookToker Marines
> <http://tiktok.com/@mynameismarines>. Like Lesley, Mari acknowledges that
> this same conversation comes around all the time when it comes to bookish
> and other communities:
>
> A lot of the conversations that we are having about BookTok have happened
>> before. A lot of the conversations BookTok is having about itself, BookTube
>> had about itself in its early days. Whatever comes down the line to replace
>> BookTok will likely have these same conversations. And they’ll probably
>> also face the same condescension born of bitterness and jealousy from those
>> who came before them.
>>
>
> I also get served a lot of booktok content when i'm scrolling through TT
> and I think that one of the more interesting conversations when it comes to
> platforms like these is the about the algorithm that serves us the content.
> How do our individual behaviors and viewing patterns affect not only what
> we see but what other people get served on their feeds. What about our
> viewing habits informs the algorithm what someone like me might want to
> see? The TikTok algorithm is one of the most intuitive and interesting
> algorithms I've seen in a long time. Unlike Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
> and honestly, YouTube...it actually feeds me content that I am interested
> in watching and grasps my attention.
>
> Anyhow, Mari brings up a lot of great points about the nature of reading
> communities and how they get perceived by outside observers who make
> sweeping generalizations about a community. BookTok, like any other
> community, is not a monolith.
>
> Super interesting conversation!
>
> Silvia
>
> On Mon, Jun 5, 2023 at 5:17 PM D. T. Walsh <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> Holy Mother - we have so many more important things to be alarmed about -
>> get a grip - it's fiction. Suggesting people should feel guilty about what
>> they enjoy reading is SO VERY wrong.
>>
>> Debbie
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 5, 2023 at 3:00 PM Sheila Hammond-Todd <
>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Hear, hear.
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jun 5, 2023, 12:04 p.m. Lesley K <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> There is nothing more tedious than someone explaining how someone else
>>>> is doing reading "Wrong" - unless it is someone explaining how someone else
>>>> is doing *living* "Wrong".
>>>>
>>>> Tropey romance, fanfiction, comic books, whatever - stories are what
>>>> make us human, and there is no way to human "wrong".
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jun 5, 2023 at 12:03 PM Jorgenson, Jane <
>>>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I think she has some points – but it’s also kind of not anything new?
>>>>> And not anything I’m concerned about (as a reader or a librarian). Like
>>>>> teenage girls have always gravitated to a certain kind of melodramatic/plot
>>>>> heavy book? And publishers have always tried to piggyback on successful
>>>>> ones with similar tropes. There was Lurlene McDaniel and then the Twilight
>>>>> phenom, etc. And romance readers have always talked in terms of tropes.
>>>>> Heck the All About Romance site (which has been around for many years) has
>>>>> extensive trope-based lists explicitly because romance readers like to read
>>>>> their favorites.
>>>>>
>>>>> “What’s most alarming is not having to witness conservations between
>>>>> adults and teenagers using the word “seggs,” or even to see writers
>>>>> advertising by listing tropes, it’s that the books they’re doing all of
>>>>> this for are thoroughly, catastrophically bad.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am a woman of my word, and I didn’t want to write about these books
>>>>> without giving them a fair shot, even if they’re not to my taste at all.
>>>>> There are a few main categories, outside of the “trope lists” — sports
>>>>> romance, office romance, fantasy romance and regular romance with socially
>>>>> relevant undercurrents. It has been a genuinely miserable week of my life,
>>>>> trudging through as many of the most popular books from each genre as I
>>>>> could.
>>>>>
>>>>> The last category, despite seeming the most normal on the surface, is
>>>>> the most worrisome. The subcategory has a champion, of course. Colleen
>>>>> Hoover
>>>>> <https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/books/info-2022/colleen-hoover-popularity.html>
>>>>> is to TikTok industry-generated romance as John Grisham and James Patterson
>>>>> are to airport novels. Her most popular novel, “It Ends With Us,” has sold four
>>>>> million copies
>>>>> <https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/books/colleen-hoover.html> and,
>>>>> along with being the most controversial
>>>>> <https://msmagazine.com/2022/09/07/it-ends-with-us-book-review/> of
>>>>> the books popularized by TikTok, is one of the worst books I’ve ever read.
>>>>>
>>>>> Without entering too much into the plot, it’s about domestic abuse.
>>>>> This book is meant to be a harrowing, melancholic analysis of how
>>>>> devastating violence is when it comes from someone you love. Shockingly, it
>>>>> does not manage this, instead taking what is a frequent, devastating
>>>>> experience and turning it into a soap opera.”
>>>>>
>>>>> The alarm about “bad” books being popular and ‘oh no, this is bad for
>>>>> publishing’ recycles itself every ten years or so. There was alarm with the
>>>>> rise of Goodreads and with Twitter and with YouTube.
>>>>>
>>>>> I get a lot of BookTok content in my “for you” feed on TikTok and I
>>>>> see a wide variety of books discussed by a diverse group of people (mostly
>>>>> women, but a few men). Yes, there is more fantasy and fantasy romance, then
>>>>> other, but I also see a lot of litfic and thrillers/mystery. It’s far more
>>>>> than what she talks about.
>>>>>
>>>>> If I have a concern about TT or other social media is how it affects
>>>>> attention span, but given that a lot of the booktok’ers I see are reading
>>>>> many books, and many that are chunky, that is likely more a ‘me’ thing than
>>>>> anything else.
>>>>>
>>>>> Jane
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *From:* Fiction Discussion List <
>>>>> [log in to unmask]> *On Behalf Of *Todd Mason
>>>>> *Sent:* Sunday, June 4, 2023 12:46 AM
>>>>> *To:* [log in to unmask]
>>>>> *Subject:* On "BookTok", a critique
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Caution: This email was sent from an external source. Avoid unknown
>>>>> links and attachments.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Courtesy Anna Biller, and perhaps a bit collegiate, but not
>>>>> necessarily wrong as a result...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> https://pittnews.com/article/177256/opinions/opinion-booktok-is-a-mistake/
>>>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__pittnews.com_article_177256_opinions_opinion-2Dbooktok-2Dis-2Da-2Dmistake_&d=DwMFaQ&c=byefhD2ZumMFFQYPZBagUCDuBiM9Q9twmxaBM0hCgII&r=PgZGf0msvD01DFE8NzO3oBljh-snuayCkeTfH0Xd08i8wSlPnWDvMO_VTADN55Ac&m=EMhS6-mTzvtteRwPsR5bBjmuFZ13WAd-7meFzNb1P6LXUnJ2SahVsZi53tuvP6-k&s=uKUllEtWA7qVBR3B9pTPLASeXAfkIww2oQ7r6-mUVRM&e=>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> TM
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> To unsubscribe from the FICTION_L list, click the following link:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://ccpllists.cuyahogalibrary.net/scripts/wa.exe?TICKET=NzM4NzA1IGpqb3JnZW5zb25ATUFESVNPTlBVQkxJQ0xJQlJBUlkuT1JHIEZJQ1RJT05fTKsaSqKXU8Gr&c=SIGNOFF
>>>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__ccpllists.cuyahogalibrary.net_scripts_wa.exe-3FTICKET-3DNzM4NzA1IGpqb3JnZW5zb25ATUFESVNPTlBVQkxJQ0xJQlJBUlkuT1JHIEZJQ1RJT05fTKsaSqKXU8Gr-26c-3DSIGNOFF&d=DwMFaQ&c=byefhD2ZumMFFQYPZBagUCDuBiM9Q9twmxaBM0hCgII&r=PgZGf0msvD01DFE8NzO3oBljh-snuayCkeTfH0Xd08i8wSlPnWDvMO_VTADN55Ac&m=EMhS6-mTzvtteRwPsR5bBjmuFZ13WAd-7meFzNb1P6LXUnJ2SahVsZi53tuvP6-k&s=JPhZpv0X0mfgBwbz8Q5RqFcoUThUfrQImXbP6Jl-aJ8&e=>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> To unsubscribe from the FICTION_L list, click the following link:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://ccpllists.cuyahogalibrary.net/scripts/wa.exe?TICKET=NzM4NzA2IGtsZXNsZXlrQEdNQUlMLkNPTSBGSUNUSU9OX0wgIOUT7VYXWFKA&c=SIGNOFF
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> -- Lesley Knieriem
>>>> Rogers Public Library
>>>> Rogers AR
>>>>
>>>> Nunc adeamus bibliothecam, non illam quidem multis instructam libris,
>>>> sed exquisitis. -- Erasmus
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> To unsubscribe from the FICTION_L list, click the following link:
>>>>
>>>> http://ccpllists.cuyahogalibrary.net/scripts/wa.exe?TICKET=NzM4NzA2IHNoZWlsYWhhbW1vbmR0b2RkQEdNQUlMLkNPTSBGSUNUSU9OX0wgIFQigjN27xMC&c=SIGNOFF
>>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> To unsubscribe from the FICTION_L list, click the following link:
>>>
>>> http://ccpllists.cuyahogalibrary.net/scripts/wa.exe?TICKET=NzM4NzA2IHJlYWRlcnNhZHZpc29yQEdNQUlMLkNPTSBGSUNUSU9OX0wgIMk5g07t1KeA&c=SIGNOFF
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Deborah T. Walsh
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> To unsubscribe from the FICTION_L list, click the following link:
>>
>> http://ccpllists.cuyahogalibrary.net/scripts/wa.exe?TICKET=NzM4NzA2IHNyb21hQE1JTkxJQi5ORVQgRklDVElPTl9MIM8uc8K1amgJ&c=SIGNOFF
>>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> To unsubscribe from the FICTION_L list, click the following link:
>
> http://ccpllists.cuyahogalibrary.net/scripts/wa.exe?TICKET=NzM4NzA2IGZveGJyaWNrQEdNQUlMLkNPTSBGSUNUSU9OX0wgIITr32Z4mU9V&c=SIGNOFF
>
########################################################################
To unsubscribe from the FICTION_L list, click the following link:
https://ccpllists.cuyahogalibrary.net/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=FICTION_L
|
