the booktok discourse started because this girl read six of crows and hated it. She posted a very heated review of it and because she was a romance/smut reader people really started attacking her and it led to a discussion on anti-intellectualism on booktok specifically.
I missed the main arguments but found this reddit post touching on it and another girl on tiktok discussing it
Basically some people were angry that books have been reduced to tropes and "spice level" while others believe that its more important that people are reading, regardless of the content. I hope this made sense lol!
If you go on tiktok and search "booktok anti intellectualism" a lot of the videos from August cover this drama.
i need to read more about what the Debate™ is about, I also don't follow Booktok things or read the type of books they're usually into, but I instantly am irritated by the "let people just like things" argument, especially when the actual problem is about an industry (the fact that easy to read, easy to digest booktok books dominate the market doesn't benefit literature or the publishing field, quite the opposite) or just the quality of a work.
Also not all reading is beneficial but that's a whole other rant lol
i'm not on tiktok so this passed me by, but the general trend of tropeification of things is grating to me. when books are advertised with the stickers "enemies to lovers! coffeeshop! hurt & comfort!" blah blah, like, that's not how i want to curate my reading experiences. it's perfect for fanfiction, but for actual books, it feels like putting the cart before the horse where you take a classification system of tropes that was designed to be descriptive, and build the story solely around that. it's like. everything becomes cookie cutter. just do your weird little thing that makes you happy, whatever it is. but i know that the literary market has also changed in that direction so i can't blame the authors themselves either.
I missed the main arguments but found this reddit post touching on it and another girl on tiktok discussing it
https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasyromance/comments/1f3mh9k/antiintellectualism_and_booktok/
https://www.tiktok.com/@whatemmyreads/video/7407000543995940128
Basically some people were angry that books have been reduced to tropes and "spice level" while others believe that its more important that people are reading, regardless of the content. I hope this made sense lol!
If you go on tiktok and search "booktok anti intellectualism" a lot of the videos from August cover this drama.
Reply
Also not all reading is beneficial but that's a whole other rant lol
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment