Goodreads was initially made as a type of early social media platform for readers. It lost completely its user friendly style when it was bought by Amazon. Then it became an advertising platform. But there is not such thing as a cult. Just random people who say whatever it comes to their minds for the sake of being relevant. A good number of them have not even read the books that they review! Some others rate of give reviews for books that have not even published yet without even having a copy of them and that happens because anyone can connect on Goodreads, no matter if s/he is a reader or not from any other social media platform. Some participate just for the sake of being there, I mean having an account in this particular platform among their collection of accounts on all other social media platforms. They have to say something there too, and they say random things! Amazon used to donate books back when it was first launched and even before going online. They've sent books at random addresses almost as gifts. I've received back in the 1990's several books in this style, with the suggestion "If you would like to buy the book, visit our website'! Keep in mind that I'm located in Athens Greece so receiving free books from a random American company that I didn't even know and I didn't have the means back then to access it, was something surreal! I didn't know and I still don't know where and how Amazon got my address back then! lol FYI I've never bought a single thing from Amazon. And I kept the books as I didn't have the money as a young student back then to pay the return shipping costs to US. At the end of the day I've never given my address to Bezos and never asked Amazon to send me any books. But I mention this in order to point out their selling tactics. I don't have a Goodreads account. In fact I don't have any social media account aside from this youtube one just for commenting purposes. You - the younger people- spend way too much time on social media and way too much thought and energy in order to comment on what is going on in social media. You could use all that time spend online in order to read more books. For your self education and improvement not for the sake of being relevant on these damn platforms.

I want to add something to your conclusion : I think these "well-lived" aesthetics are also trending because spending too much time on social media keeps us away from organically accumulating interesting life experiences and the things that come with them. I have read less in the past five/eight years being addicted to social media than ever before. Not only people buy books and knick-knacks as social status items, to appear well-read, but because we want to be people who actually love to finish a novel every week even if they are not that person at the moment.

Yesss I’m so tired of underconsumption core as someone who hasn’t bought new clothes for myself in 2 years out of not being able to afford it, I’m tired of being lectured about this by rich people who actually should be saying all this to themselves. Living a frugal lifestyle is a necessity for me and for many other people, the message is just lost on me

This whole thing is stupid. In the 1800's sure it's a status symbol to show you're well learned and read. But they also actually were. Now it's nothing but a symbol. None of these people open books, some of them can't even read. We can all see through the facade.

im sure you have read Virginia Woolf's essay "A Room of One's Own", but I think it really encapsulates what you're talking about here- the fusing of two experiences of gender.

She is a privileged version of Malcom in the middle.

What I really have a problem with is not the amount of books these people are buying (i'm an art historian and I do have a home library, it's around 2/3 science books I need for work and the rest is a very curated list of classics, overall a bit over 2.000 books, so I'm in no position of saying anything about book collecting), but the quality of the products themselves and the quality (or much rather: lack thereof) of content in them. Being smut is the least of their problem, many high ranking classics contain sex scenes, but these stories are extremely shallow and schematic, and most often the quality of writing is just awful. Reading hundreds and hundreds of YA crap telling the same "enemies to lovers" or some other overused trope over and over again from 20-something year old "authors" who had just got the funds to escape Wattpad DOES NOT make you well read. In twenty years most likely nobody is going to remember Iron Flame or Colleen Hoover. Most of these stories get forgotten the minute the book is closed. And most of these copies are in fact going to end up on a landfill, just as the vast majority of smut and all the weightless flicks did from the 80s and earlier. I know the dynamics of antiquariums well enough to see that literally nobody is going to be interested in this type of books, because they only have worth as long as they are FRESH. This genre has existed for almost a hundred years now. But you only see them going crazy for the absolute newest releases... So buying a copy, reading it once (at best) and then either storing it until you get clogged or trying to get rid of it at a low price is indeed a stupid thing to do and if I see your bookshelf and it's filled with this crap, I will have some thoughts about it but you being educated and well read is not going to be among them.

Booktok made me feel like I HAD to go and buy that book now because everyone was reading and recommending it. Getting a library card was the best thing I did because they get all the new books in anyway and it’s free

Can we acknowledge that these are fictional characters and being able to explain their behaviors based on their heritage and past just basically means they are written very well? And on the journalism thing - you can want to be an astronaut your “whole life” as a kid and teenager and then going to college realize it’s not it. We don’t know what life and professions are like before we have the chance to see them. There’s no way of knowing beforehand, there’s always just the idea and what people project into it. So Rory changing course at first difficulty is not unreasonable to me at all.

I only use Goodreads to track my own reading/reviews and to see some recommendations. I also use it to see if my opinion of a book matches with other people.....I occasionally see what other people in my friend group reads. I also use it for reading challenges, but i don't mind at all if i don't meet the goal because i read for fun.

E-readers are space savers. They take up the exact same amount of space in one little device, don't clutter up your home, and opens up the reader to millions of books that you can't find in Barnes & Noble. But I guess that doesn't look as good in a TikTok video. 🙄 And I heard this comment while typing this, but YES, books do end up in landfills. Daily. By the ton. Anyone who doesn't think they do is fooling themselves.

I've never thought about the age differences of those fighting in the comments, but it makes sense. Comparing what I liked reading when I was 17 vs what I like now is eye-opening enough. Some of them I can barely get through today. So we should definitely let the 14yo online enjoy what they want to.

I like when reviewers give their personal feelings, then a "i recommend this book if you are this sort of person or like this sort of book". Recognizes that not all books are for all people. Even a negative review can help a book find its audience

I don’t understand the overconsumption of books when libraries exist. I know that not everyone has a local library but many of these booktokers do. I love browsing my local library. There’s also thrifting which is my favourite way to purchase books because it’s like a treasure hunt.

I don’t understand the overconsumption of books when libraries exist. I know that not everyone has a local library but many of these booktokers do. I love browsing my local library. There’s also thrifting which is my favourite way to purchase books because it’s like a treasure hunt.

95% of the books in my house are my partners books, that i never read. Most books that i read are not even physically in our house because i usually listen to audiobooks. However, technically i read muuuuch more because i "read" audiobooks every day 🤷‍♀️ ... and who cares 😂

anytime i click on one of your videos it feels so refreshing to watch, thank you for being so down to earth <3

Writing was in real trouble long before TikTok. The main reason for it, IMO, is very difficult to fully explain but it has something to with the fact that the world's culture became too homogeneous. Sure, we can dip into Murakami to get a glimpse inside of life in modern Japan, for example. But the world has become so insidiously dystopian that most dystopian fiction has been devalued (though the opposite should be true). There is very little chance that anyone could pen nowadays something that could hold a candle to PD James' 'Children of Men' or Ishiguro's 'Never Let me Go', precisely because people's ability to be truly moved by fictional nightmares has been emptied out by the coping mechanisms they've had to employ to survive their own suffering in a world that, overall, can't quite bring itself to be outraged by very much. And that's just one genre. We could look at 'meaningful semi-autobiography', of the kind that Hemingway and Orwell used to write. It takes an enormous amount of creative love to live through upsetting episodes of history and then make something beautiful out of it. Where are the stories that put experiences of the 'pandemic' across in the same way that the aforementioned did for the Spanish Civil War? Where are the Dickenses and Dostoevskis and Solzhenitsyns of our age? The answer is probably that they are just far too demoralised to bring their projects to fruition. As another commenter below said, it's just really, really hard being an artist in a world that by and large prefers kitsch and mindless nonsense like talent shows.

i feel kinda called out in this. Although I do use a kindle, I do buy pre owned books and sell some of my books, I do often buy a few books at the time just to feel a little kick of happiness and show my friends I've bought them. i do often by book branded things too. this video was very good for me to watch. thank you