booktok and anti intellectualism

[@samuelellis9051]

this vid rocks

[@Baby.Puss.In.Boots.]

I think the main issue is how theres a huge rise on Tiktok of people trying to shut down criticism, analyzing and negative reviews of books. If you dont like a certain book or character the backlash is like you kicked a pup and spat on it. And I see a lot of people not understanding that you can like something and still be critical of it. I don't think everyone has to engage with books the same way or everyone should post negative book reviews (I know plenty of people only want to post positive things and thats fine for them to do so) but as a whole the community needs to not attack those that do things that they wouldn't do or they dont like.

[@ard4461]

Agree, a lot of times I'll see people jump at any negative criticisms of books with phrases like 'let people enjoy things!!', or accusing the critic of elitism. I feel like I can't trust a lot of book reviews, all of the books I've tried lately that were highly recommended read like cheesy fiction for tweens. Which is fine if that's what people enjoy, I just wish the reviews gave a better general idea of the content. I love to watch reality shows but I'm not gonna talk about them like they're 5 star stories on the level of Breaking Bad and the Sopranos.

[@Baby.Puss.In.Boots.]

@@ard4461 I totally understand what you mean! I have some creators I follow because our taste doesn't align at all and if they love a book and rate it a 4 or 5 stars I know it won't be for me and that's saved me a ton! I know personally in my own reviews I categorize my ratings, I have regular 5 stars and trashy 5 stars. My trashy 5 stars are like my reality TV books lol.

[@myocoree]

i agree!

[@Tessa_Ru]

Pretty much. It's ok for people to just read for entertainment, but they shouldn't be so proud of it that they put down and harass people who do enjoy more depth and critique of their literature. Demanding "smarter books" doesn't cost casual readers anything, they don't have to read anything with a critical eye if they don't want to.

[@lordtette]

You can find it not only in reader but authord too. Like the book community drama where the author got mad at 3 star good read reviews.

[@caprisbookisland]

The way you explained new readers are essentially in their “Wattpad era” was so well put and I hope more people get that and give them grace. Even if they aren’t critical readers they’ll grow

[@katrinakranzle1905]

Yes!!! It takes time to make your way over to AO3. Its great that they’re getting into reading in the first place :)

[@Tessa_Ru]

@caprisbookisland tbh though, wattpad (and other sites) still exist. It's right there for people at that level, and they don't have to waste their money on authors trying to make a quick buck on under-edited sludge. I dont entirely blame the readers for this as much as I blame publishers for chasing those corporate gains so aggressively and so easily throwing business ethics and quality down the drain.

[@pietroflamarion9620]

Wattpad and its consequences have a been a dissaster to humanity

[@anastasis-cm5hw]

Being in your Wattpad era is totally fine! In fact, reading trash is totally fine! Just be aware that it's entertainment and more thoughtful/complex books are out there.

[@mizunokioku]

But most of these women are in their 30s and reading wattpad stories like it's high art...

[@bbqbunger]

the issue you had - getting paywalled when trying to access the stories you needed to use for this video - is another root cause of anti-intellectualism. if we can only access relevant information by paying for it, there are plenty of other less-reputable news sources that happily put their articles in front of you for free. people want you to be intellectuals, only if you can afford the price. public schools and libraries are getting defunded and censored, and charter schools and kindle libraries are happy to take their place. we’re made to pay for university and textbooks, the internet archive is getting shut down - human knowledge and human stories are our inheritance and people should not be locked out of that inheritance because they can’t pay.

[@bhaktifleishman3173]

THANK YOU

[@jrojala]

I feel like that’s a manufactured complaint though because education isn’t something that is unavailable to the public- we have very well established libraries (and inter-library loans exist) and many colleges offer their courses for free online- you don’t get the paper but the education is available.

[@gn4rpz-the-c4t]

this, along with my school district's content filtering, made it nigh impossible for me to research things for assignments. what the hell is a high schooler supposed to do if they can't access valuable information because the school network decided that resource was inappropriate, and therefore blocked it? What are they supposed to do when half of the remaining resources available to them are either pay-to-view or legitimately unreliable? i couldn't rely on my school library either because most of the nonfiction books available are often pretty damn old or outdated, and teachers weren't likely to let you go to the library during class because that's what free period was for (unless you had assignments due, in which case teachers would sometimes force you to come to their class during that time to get things done, so no library then either). i'm a pretty recent high school graduate, and my yopunger siblings are having to deal with more and more of this censorship as time goes on and they keep expanding filters. you can't use entire search engines anymore (duckduckgo as a whole was completely blocked, presumably because it was the only place image filtering didn't work, which was admittedly the main reason i used it, because we'd have presentation assignments that required images and the censorship made it hard to find relevant images because 99% of everything was flagged as porn!) and, yeah, sure, just do your school work on another device at your home wifi - but there were students who *did not have* home wifi. i know that because during quarantine people had to be provided hotspots so they could attend their online classes. and that's not even thinking about the students whose school laptops were the only computer they had, so even if they did use their own wifi, they were still beholden to the school's filters. these filters were put in place because of two middle schoolers looking at porn on youtube around a decade ago. *two students*. that was enough for them to decimate the entire district's internet access. even our access to youtube was strictly limited, so much so that teachers struggled to show us the content they wanted us to watch. nobody liked it, but it never went away.

[@bbo7002]

I've definitely run into this problem too, it feels impossible to find reputable scholarly works on certain subjects without dropping money for it 😩 But in case anyone hasn't heard of this - sometimes, articles that have been locked to the public via paywall can be accessed without paying if u contact the author and ask for a copy of their article. It works most often with news articles, to be fair, but if u really need the info, it's worth a shot to reach out and ask. Some folks actually understand the benefit of ppl having more knowledge at hand rather than less, and they'll let u thru the paywall 😅 It doesn't always work, but it doesn't hurt to ask!! If they refuse, fair enough, but they certainly can't blame u for trying, especially if ur a high school student without access to money of ur own, or a college student on a tight budget.

[@SamanthaPajor]

You are SO RIGHT that everyone deserves to have their "Wattpad phase." We all go through it, by different names, and that's FINE. It takes time to develop our reading tastes.

[@blah914]

absolutely. tho I f someone is in their wattpad phase, I gently try to steer them towards A03 😂 ppl are nicer there

[@DieFarbeLila88]

@@blah914😂😂😂

[@saarania]

I’m a millennial who was a book nerd from a very young age. I don’t think it’s a parenting issue - my parents had just as little time as parents today have, and I was taught to read. I picked up books as a young teen because I had nothing else to do. I genuinely think social media is to blame. When you have something as addictive and easy to process and social media at your fingertips, it literally alters your brain’s ability to process long form information. Why read a book when you can watch 100 reels?

[@Horrorbabe4]

This is how I feel, too. I'm 30. I think the answer is very simple. The internet is rotting people's brains and it's an addiction of the masses type of situation. Internet addiction is causing people to stop learning, to stop reading, to stop socializing lol it's the WORST. the beautiful irony of us, millennials, saying this is not lost on me. We were the first generation to start becoming fully immersed into the social media world at a younger age. They call us the narcissistic generation or something because we took selfies? Now everyone is becoming narcissistic because of the internet. No age group is immune.😂😂😂

[@saarania]

@@Horrorbabe4 I would also be absolutely unsurprised if a lot the younger generations anxiety went away too if they quit social media and kept internet to a minimum. The human brain is meant to have real life interactions. Go to a library, go to events, talk to people, touch grass. And then picking up a book will feel like a joy not a chore.

[@cobblegen1204]

@@saarania It's a lot harder than it seems. A lot of people grow up without easy access to public spaces. If you live in a suburb without access to public transportation, then you won't be able to visit a library 15 miles away unless you either have a car, or someone drives you. Once you graduate college, you only really get one of two places to socialize in: work or home. There are other places to be sure, but places like malls or bars cost money. If your city isn't walkable, and you aren't fortunate enough to have easy access to places you can socialize, you effectively become trapped in your own isolated bubble. Even worse if you work from home, where you don't even have the luxury of surface level interactions with colleagues.

[@doodlejone6546]

True, I didn’t have internet access at my house and when I was really really bored, I picked up a book.

[@averysspookshowspectacular6205]

I'm also a millennial, or a zil-lennial? 1995 and grew up in a tiny town that was perpetually 10 years behind the times. My parents were definitely on the emotionally neglectful side, but like many lower-class parents, I was also just really busy. I learned to read pretty young, and that's just what I did when I couldn't get any real attention from my parents.

[@xXxAngelicKratosxXx]

Your cat purring into the mic sold me! You’re echoing what a LOT of students I meet with are also concerned with, so it’s so refreshing to hear someone echo the same thoughts.

[@myocoree]

wow omg so good to hear other people are saying the same thing! love how we’re all connected in the booksphere that even if we don’t know each other we still can relate and agree on things

[@himbosuplex]

IMO the fact that people can't do basic academic stuff is less a problem with social media, and everything to do with kids who didn't get what they needed at home during the pandemic, libraries have no money to continue running, as well as the fact that the education system has been getting massively defunded and gutted in real time over the past decade. Even when I was a kid three decades ago, I wasn't getting what I needed at school... and it's even worse now. Classes are overstuffed, underfunded, and there aren't enough teachers because teachers are paid next to nothing and treated like garbage. Whenever people point the finger at Booktok I get so annoyed because it's just a distraction from the actual issues, which is defunding education and conservative sprawl (banning books, intentionally disenfranchising Americans, etc.) I 100% agree that the reading space has a massive issue with accepting that its okay for other people to have differing opinions on books. They're very much like gamers in that way.

[@mynameisreallycool1]

Also, I'd argue that a lot of parents who raised these now college students are no help either. They're just as anti-intellectual, maybe more even. These parents think helping their children with schoolwork is "helicopter parenting" and also don't seem to encourage their children to read more or help them, even if they homeschool the kids, and they genuinely don't care. I notice a huge rise of parents who are raising teens right now who make fun of young people for not going out and partying online, or even shaming their kids for reading and being "nerdy". It's telling that rather than parents complaining about their kids not reading and studying enough, like previous generations did, they're more concerned about whining that their kids supposedly don't party or have sex enough like they supposedly did in high school. THAT'S what these parents are triggered over. What world are we living in? What does that say about their priorities? I remember my own dad telling me to stop reading so much when I was a child, because it "put me in a bad mood" supposedly. He's also the same dude who would find every excuse imaginable to not help his kids study or learn anything, acting like simply answering a question when a child needs help with anything is a horrible burden. My mom is hardly any better, and from the parents I've seen from the 2000s to now in 2024, they're not in the minority. They even pulled my siblings out of school but don't teach their kids how to read. I've had to do it for them, and even then, they shame ME for "being too hard on them" for helping them more than they're both doing, which makes it harder for my younger siblings to listen to me. I don't scream, insult, or hit them like they've done the few times they DID reluctantly help my siblings and I with schoolwork, but I'm the asshole for being persistent with them. I remember I used a white board to write words for them, finally finding a way to teach them that my siblings liked, and my dad replaced the white board with a damn TV! It felt like he was doing this shit on purpose. I had to BEG and remind my parents many times to help them learn. How sad is that?

[@averysspookshowspectacular6205]

Hard agree on the library and education problems. Where I live is an outer city district (we're a good 15 minutes drive just to get into the city proper and pretty ignored and rather...let's say, unwealthy. The opposite of what people usually think of suburbs) and we have an open lot, right on the main road, next to our (tiny) rec center and elementary school. It was proposed to use it for an updated rec center (seriously, ours is tiny and run down) or a library (you know, right next to the school and main community center rather than 20 minutes away). They made a "skate park" instead. Right next to the street, literally, the edge is four feet from the road. It's the size of a small rental house and only has the little circle divets...I don't skate, I don't know what they're called. I was so frustrated.

[@himbosuplex]

@@mynameisreallycool1 I was actually talking to my sister (who has two kids) about how much we notice Millennial parents just kind of letting their kids off leash without guidance or boundaries. I feel like Boomers and many Gen X parents were very Authoritarian in their parenting style (ours certainly were) to such a degree that their children ended up rubberbanding into the opposite direction. I hope Zoomers are able to find a much better balance in this department.

[@jellydonuts2343]

Agreed. BookTok is not the issue, it’s the modern school system. There are people going for English degrees who can’t write an essay to save their lives. This is not a problem with leisure reading habits, it’s a problem with early, middle, and high school education.

[@StormSought]

And truly, even parents who try might not know how. The young gen Xers and millenials who are parents to gen alpha were taught sight reading, which is not reading. They might have no idea what to do except make the kid guess, because they weren't taught to read properly either (phonics, sounding out).

[@shahrazede3865]

Great video, when you identified the root and the start of anti-intellectualism being people restricting and not liking negative reviews or critiques of their favourite books, I'd never thought of it that way but it made so much sense

[@vainpiers]

I remember getting pulled into pro-ship or anti-ship drama because I said I think we should examine why we glorify toxic relationships and try to avoid writing about them because it helps normalise and romanticise those relationships. This was before dark romance became a trend. I am not advocating for censorship you can write that stuff and I don't want anything to stop you. I just want people to be more critical of these romances and how it normalises abusive behaviour and reinforces the patriachy.

[@enialb]

I’m not a parent but I think the literacy crisis is more nuanced than just what happens (or doesn’t happen) at home. While that is obviously so important, what we’re seeing now is also a culmination of years of unregulated technology, social changes, and bad educational policy, just to name a few things. The move from phonics reading to memorization-based reading, for instance, hamstrung a whole generation of young readers, not to mention the disaster that was no child left behind (boomer and X policies, btw, not millennial!!) so yes I absolutely agree the habits that parents develop early can set their kids up for success, I also think it’s important to discuss the wider context and how we as a society also need to do better to create better infrastructure to support kids, especially those children from families without the resources or education to provide them those frameworks before they even make it to school.

[@StormSought]

This is THE thing imo as a librarian with some teaching training. Sight words are a crime. I told my friend this who was taught to sound out in Russian before they went to american school, and their boyfriend's been strengthening his Russian, and they were like... Is that why he can't sound out a word and just guesses and misses letters? Like. Yeah. If you can sound out you can always memorize words for speed later. It means you can read literally anything, which means you can learn anything! It was really unfounded to treat reading like speech, as anyone who's taken intro to linguistics can tell you, and I am glad it's starting to swing back toward more evidence based methods.

[@drummerofawe]

I was really hoping there'd be a comment addressing this, education policies are definitely far more damaging than any shifts in parenting style (which are almost certainly far milder and more gradual than most would think)

[@ishathakor]

@@StormSought exactly!!! this is such a huge issue. strategies like memorizing sight words and guessing the meaning based on surrounding context were devised by people who didn't understand what made good readers able to do that. if you read a lot, you'll get so used to seeing certain words that you won't have to sound them out anymore. they decided children should be able to sight read based on looking at a bunch of 7 year olds who were good at reading without realizing the reason they didn't have to sound out the most common words was BECAUSE they are so common that they had already seen them enough times that they didn't have to waste time decoding. they didn't skip over the decoding. they just got a lot of practice. same with context! like, people will naturally use context to understand words we don't know. that's literally just how language acquisition works. even babies do it. but that's not a replacement for learning to read. that's what you do to learn new words once you've already learnt to read. that's how kids who are glued to their books in 5th grade learn words like undulate by reading and then mispronounce them for 5 years. the schools using these unscientific methods reported good success early on because when you're just learning to read and all the words are short and simple and everything has 50 explanatory pictures, it's easy for kids to memorize a relatively short list of words and look at the pictures when you're confused. but then you get to the point where you can't simply memorize every single word that exists in the english language and all the pictures vanish and that's when the kids who did well with the alternative methods start failing. it wasn't a 100% disaster because there's at least some percentage of children who will just teach themselves to read given enough storytimes and reading materials. but most kids weren't able to do that. i'm glad these strategies are being phased out and replaced with actually effective reading instruction but i'm irate on the behalf of all the students who were failed by this system.

[@StormSought]

@@ishathakor Right, and the actual letters of the word ARE context, because, especially in english, how something is spelled helps you be able to guess etymology and therefore possible meaning as well, consciously or not. I'm pretty dyslexic, and I suspect I HAVE just memorized the shape of basically every word, even though I was taught phonics, but there's no way that's an efficient way to read for 99.99% of people. 💀 And yeah, I did it by sounding out first.

[@las8883]

@@ishathakor I'm not sure if you've listened to it but there's an excellent podcast series called Sold a Story that addresses everything you've mentioned in your comment.

[@somewhatdiscrete]

re: older adults who don’t read honestly I have the most sympathy for these people. if a love of reading isn’t something you fostered during the time in your life where you were most exposed to it, had the most time to do it, and were the most open minded and moldable you will probably ever be, I’m not sure where you would suddenly develop that desire later in life? consider that, at least in america, reading is not regarded as a fundamental component of daily life. humanities in general are kind of derided. outside of daytime talk show book clubs, I don’t know anywhere where reading is encouraged to the general public in adult life. combine this with other priorities like holding a job, raising a family, keeping your head above water within late stage capitalism, and the prioritization of reading seems nonexistent in such an exhausting life. without understanding the cognitive benefits of reading, a lot of adults are looking for less daunting, more passive things to do in their leisure time. I don’t think adults who never learned to enjoy reading or cultivate a reading practice are at fault. just like in children, a desire to read must come from somewhere.

[@kylekillgannon]

Reading doesn't make you a good person. You know that right?

[@metalgearsenshi]

"Sometimes I try to fight the gatekeeping demon, but it's still in me." SAME 🤣 My concern lies with people being too anti-criticism. It's like if you have anything to say that is not loving, positive, or very eggshell-tiptoeingly kind, you're now a liability to that author's health or the antichrist to the person who loves the work in question. How I feel is how I feel and it doesn't need to take from anyone's experience. I get NOTHING from a horde of reviews that just say "this was so good" in the same phrases. What's going on? How are themes handled? How many angles can I see our MC through? Your mention of growing up seeing your mom love reading reminded me of when I was growing up and would see all the books my grandma got from the library. It wasn't hard to get me interested in going to the library since I was read to often. Simply not reading was never a reality for me (not in a west indian household nuh uh) so it's good for me to remember some households don't make time for reading or introduce that into their kids lives. I feel I've taken that for granted but really do hope more people who aren't reading start or come back to it. "If you remember what Borders is..." Don't talk at me like that. I'm still trying to get over them. Closed when I started college and FINALLY had adult money. 😭😂

[@Michelle-qm6wi]

I think your comment about how these people are basically going through book puberty when all of us long time readers have already been there and done that IS THE KEY. The difference is that now people have a platform to voice all of their opinions about the shitty things they are reading AND a place to try and police how others are talking about books too. It’s also difficult for some people to see the difference between saying “I didn’t like the book” and “the book is poorly written” especially when they haven’t been operating in this space for very long. (And sometimes even when they have but they haven’t been thinking critically or don’t have the language to think critically about books).

[@DieFarbeLila88]

That is a very good point. Didn’t think about „book puberty“ 😂 but also. Why do you think that a random person saying „the book is poorly written“ is an objective statement? Things like that are obviously always based in opinion. Why do you need it mentioned?

[@Michelle-qm6wi]

@@DieFarbeLila88 I don’t really understand what you are saying. I never said either was objective or subjective. What I’m talking about is the difference between having a conversation about the technical elements of the art (in reference to the conversation about criticism in the video) vs how it made you feel. Some people cannot separate those two types of conversations emotionally. I think that contributes to how criticism is getting conflated with bullying. Just because someone says something is poorly written doesn’t mean they are saying it isn’t worth reading - but some people behave like those two statements mean the same thing. They don’t. And both types of conversations have their rightful place in discussions about books.

[@lsmmoore1]

I see the same problem with criticism of certain television shows and movies which are carefully thought out and nuanced in their telling. These people don't understand some of those things - and they do the same thing they do with the books. Case in point - using "confused morality" to describe a story where the answers were not black-and-white. I don't remember which story they were talking about, but it was either a TV show or movie.

[@Infinimata]

Great point here about how if your parents don't value something, you probably won't either. Both my parents were avid readers, and also didn't try to micromanage my reading -- they didn't freak out when they caught me with stuff like "Naked Lunch", but let me make up my own mind about it.

[@broelle4716]

the point about making up your own mind resonated with me. i grew up in a community that hated the concept of harry potter specifically and fantasy generally. my mom would have conversations with me about what other people say and ask what i thought about that. she never forced her opinion, but we did usually agree.

[@Copotency]

I don't think I'd ever seen either of my parents read. It's something I found myself. Around the age of 7, I was not interested. I could read but books didn't capture my attention. I remember someone recommended Harry Potter to me (before it was mainstream) and so I went to the library. Picked up the second book, because the first wasn't available, and couldn't get past the 1st page. It was "why should I care?" So a year later, I tried again. This time, it was with the first book, and while I found the first chapter of exposition kind of boring I kept going and ended up mildly enjoying the story. From then, I was curious about stories and the worlds that could be presented. A Wrinkle in Time, The Hobbit, Number the Stars, and books I can no longer remember the titles of captured my mind. I enjoyed immersing myself into someone else's perspective and experience of a life. All this to say I read and it wasn't due to parental influence. It was a personal push to continue to read. Both can be true- there is no absolute reason why someone starts or continues to do something, including reading.

[@ConnorStompanato]

parents having no interest in their kids lives is the worst. ive heard stories of kids starting primary school here (age 4-5) and they still dont even know how to go to the toilet cause parents think its the teachers job

[@myocoree]

THATS INSANE???

[@promisemochi]

i stayed with family for awhile and they had a young son (9) and whenever he came home from school i was always the one to ask how his day was, if he had homework, what they did in school, etc. his parents had zero interest. he could spend hours sitting in front of computer/video games without them even uttering a word to him. it was absolutely shocking.

[@ConnorStompanato]

@@promisemochi thats sad :(

[@promisemochi]

@@ConnorStompanato it really is. now that he's older he has a lot of emotioanl problems. it's wild to me. i was like 18 at the time, his parents were full grown adults. idk how it was lost on them that they actually needed to speak with and get to know their child.

[@las8883]

@@promisemochiI don’t understand why people bother to have kids if they’re gonna treat them like this? This is terrible and inexcusable

[@chariotmoon]

your cat purring at the beginning was so cute 😂

[@MY-jb2oi]

Imo a huge part of why people can’t stand criticism (also in general) about the things they like, is bc they view it as rejection. Like you said, they attach themselves to a book so much, that they make criticism into a personal attack. It’s like rejection to them, that you’re rejecting them. And also like, it’s a lot of purity culture too. “No negativity” and shit makes it so that a bunch of people don’t know how to deal with criticism or issues in their fandom spaces

[@fushiforever]

The thing about it taking time to discover your tastes is so true. I never touched horror until recent years. When I was growing up, the genre was really represented by classics (which I found boring) and like, Stephen King, who didn't interest me. But in recent years I started coming across horror by women (especially queer women) and now it's one of my favorite genres.

[@aielianna]

can you recommend some books?

[@selin6942]

second this please recommend some :)

[@fushiforever]

@@aielianna @selin6942 The first author I stumbled upon was Rachel Harrison because she was marketed as a chick lit writer (at least for Cackle) which was incorrect (or at least underselling that she's writing horror). I think Mona Awad is a similar author though I've not read her works as I went in more niche directions. Other authors: S.T. Gibson (I've not read all her works, but I believe they're all at least “gothic”) Mira Grant Alexis Henderson Ling Ling Huang Liz Kerin Jade Song Caitlin Starling Johanna van Veen My niche is more towards just general sapphic horror (and I'm still working my way through what's out there!) but there's lots of horror niches out there. You can also figure out if you like specific things like body horror, certain supernatural creatures/elements, etc. Personally, I'd like to find more ocean horror (for example). Never thought I'd love killer mermaids but Mira Grant proved me wrong.

[@pamayapaya]

@@aieliannaI would recommend works by Shirley Jackson if you haven’t already read any of her stuff, my personal favorite is her novel “We Have Always Lived In the Castle”

[@thegirlwiththetotebag9765]

Make a video about romance books please because they’re starting to irritate me as well lately……

[@VixxKong2]

Celebrity memoirs do go hard. They always have some crazy stuff inside, it's more entertaining than any fiction out there

[@LagrimaArdiente]

Maybe I just come from an especially impoverished population or something, but a frequent problem I encountered both as a kid student and now as an adult educator is that parents themselves don't always have the level of education necessary to be able to help their kids study to begin with. Add to that the hours they spend working and running errands, and it would take whatever time they have left to just chill at their homes to sit down and try to make sense of their kids' homework and material so that they can help them effectively, especially as the kids approach high school, and the time would just not be enough. I was lucky to have a teacher for a parent and be "academically gifted" or whatever, and even with those privileges, I often found myself in situations where if I didn't understand the material or could resolve it by myself, I was just straight up screwed because my parents either didn't have the availability to help me or they just couldn't wrap their heads around the material. I remember also having to help my younger siblings with homework once they reached middle school because my non-teacher parent was the only one available and they didn't fully understand poetic licenses or most algebraic formulas since they barely scraped their way through high school before marrying and having kids.

[@nekogirl2009]

not trying to defend bare minimum parenting, but the "you probably shouldnt be a parent" statement is inherently moot because the children have already been born. they are already parents. the state already cannot provide for the number of children in the system and there is no real solution to this issue when schools are understaffed and pressured to push children forward to the next grade to secure future funding, paycheck to paycheck parents who are often undereducated themselves dont have time or ability to supplement the lacking public education.

[@KamilaShakur]

Millennial parent here. I homeschooled my kids for about 7 years (they’re both good readers, my son scored in the top 3% in the district as far as reading & my daughter loves to read). I’ve been contributing to this discussion for a long time. As someone who took my children’s education into my own hands due to not trusting the American education system, I know how important parental involvement is. I just want to say the discussions about who’s failing the kids, teachers or parents is very individualistic & reductive. It ignores the systemic issues that create the conditions for so many children to be without their parents for most of the day, for parents to have been failed by the education system in their generation (it’s a privilege to have parents who are literate, if you spend enough time online you will see that many adults don’t have good reading comprehension skills, so how can they pass on to their kids what they don’t have?), it does not account for the school to prison pipeline, the mismanagement of funds in school districts, the way teachers are restricted by the district (a lot of them couldn’t teach their class an entire book if they wanted to because they are forced to prove to the district that the kids are mastering a bunch of concepts on paper even if they really aren’t understanding the material which is about the school looking good not the child actually learning), the high teacher turnover because of the lack of support they have which affects how kids learn (if their ELA teacher leaves halfway through the year & they have a substitute who isn’t really trained and engaged, their reading comprehension will suffer), lack of resources & social incentives for communities to help and educate one another. These are societal issues that are hardly ever mentioned in relation to students not reaching certain educational levels, but they create the problems everyone is trying to find a particular scapegoat for. People would love to believe it’s all the parents’ responsibility or all the schools’ responsibility but it takes a village. It is everyone’s responsibility, because we all live among these children who will grow into adults that don’t know how to think for themselves. They are the responsibility of their communities and the societies that produce them. So if they aren’t doing well, that is a reflection of the society we’re all apart of, not just their nuclear family & school. I believe this perspective is necessary to adopt because again: it IS your problem if the children in the world you live in don’t know how to think critically, if they aren’t literate, etc. So we all need to be as involved as we can be in school boards, volunteering & being community members because that’s what’s going to make a difference. It has to be community centered & everyone should start locally, where they live.

[@naenaeo]

I do agree that new readers should be allowed to start out with light books but im afraid that publishers are catering too much to such trope related easy to read light books which might put more intellectually stimulating books on the back burner. We need classics coming out even now and we need them to be popular so that new readers can slowly level up and start reading better quality books at some point. If people are going to keep dumping out hundreds of low quality smut novels with enemies to lovers, it will reduce the interest and thought process for most people to that level. i just think the community that reads literary fiction and books with more "depth" need to be louder and recommend more such books so that new readers can get out of their wattpad phase at some point. i also think this is the reason we just don't get good romance books anymore. Its been years since i've read a romance book that has brought me to tears ( a very easy feat mind you ). most of them are just oh here's a tall broad huge guy with a tiny girl and one of them is cute and sunshine-ey and the other is the grumpy and they banter and fall in love 😃 like!??!?? Where is the depth 😭 the characters are so one dimensional and the male lead only has a past because its used to justify his toxic borderline abuse behaviour. anyway, we need a modern day jane austen and we won't get one if people keep thinking the entire reading demographic is just tiktok

[@TheAlyconaria]

I think this problem will kind of take care of itself as readers can always choose to level up to classic or Nobel prize wining lit once they've built proficiency in reading easier books. That said, I think it's wrong that complex books = complex ideas, simple book = simple ideas. Something I've learned from academica is that even the 'simplest' popular book can be excellent fodder for critical analysis. Sometimes moreso than a classic. If I were to ever read CoHo, it would be to critically pull it apart!

[@RoseBaggins]

Hard agree!! I think the last time I cried over a romance was a book by Parker J. Cole. I forget the title of it now (she has published so many, and I'm working on those while working on reading other classic novels. For instance, just started Mysteries of Udolpho), but I definitely recall her book just hitting me in a way most romance books nowadays don’t ... which is I have not read very many modern romances. While Jane Austen is technically comedy, her romances really have spoiled me. 😅 Might also explain why I didn’t enjoy Wuthering Heights as much as I thought I would.

[@nessnos]

preach

[@Rene_33]

A reader can read whatever genre they prefer though? Reading is a hobby. We shouldn't be dictating what books people should read especially when it's something they do for fun. There are different kinds of romance books some are just smut/erotica others are more contemporary. Emily Henry has more depth in her plotlines and characters for example, while Tessa Bailey has almost no plot just smut and then there's Lucy Score who does both. And yes booktok will usually recommend smut books because that is the trend currently and they're trying to push content to make money, but they also recommend literary fiction books. It just depends who you follow and what genre of booktok your on. There's nonfiction booktok, literary fiction booktok and I'm sure contemporary romance booktok. Find the people who recommend books you like rather than focus on people who don't. Authors are trying to make a living as well so they do follow trends. Enemies to lovers and hockey romances are the trends currently in the romance genre. So a lot of authors will come out with those types of books. Could they be better quality like you say? Of course but these authors are trying to get the book published before the trend ends so 🤷‍♀ I'm not saying it's right, but dictating what people should read is not the way to go about this.

[@jordansiarya762]

preach

[@GoddessKry]

So many things people take it personally and it makes it so hard to critique anything. I might talk shii about others not liking my favorite thing but I just be joking, it never that serious

[@blah914]

yes absolutely this, but I'd also add that a lot of ppl don't know how to keep their critique on the level, without getting what we in my language call "usaklig" which I can't think of a good translation for, but essentially means "that might sound like ure sticking to the topic 👀 but u steered way off and is f rude borderline nasty". I'll have my moment where I talk shit 😂 but not knowing when critiquing crosses the line to no longer being critique, I have observed a lot of ppl having an issue with, and then they get pikachu when it isn't well received 😂😂

[@GoddessKry]

@@blah914 yes, they do that too and then be over familiar with people especially online

[@sodadep]

this is very tangentially related but honestly I feel like rf kuangs post poppy war books have been adapted to exist in an anti intellectualism space. yellowface and babel, in my opinion, don't really say anything new or profound to me since I was having those same conversations about microaggressions and colonialism on tumblr when I was 14. i don't think these topics being shallow are inherently bad either, but they're presented in such an obvious and non subtle way it just feels like you're being lectured to which is incredibly frustrating when you're a non white person who's lived through similar things and has had to explain it to others. I just feel like rf kuang doesn't really trust her audience, which is fair, but imo it really destroys any brilliance she has if you have experienced or critically thought about racism and colonialist themes

[@Mariam-do6jq]

Honestly people need to give classics a chance, there's a reason why they're called like that. There are so many classics and different genre of classics so I think people can definitely find their niche if they look for it. But if they really dislike them it's fine because there are so many books in the world.

[@S.P.Witchell]

I've been working on a book for three years, it's releasing on Halloween. If I hadn't reached out for critique and proper criticism for my second draft then my book would have suffered greatly for it. Without any exaggeration, the last year has been revision after revision and rewrite after rewrite. How can any author grow if people only tell them that their work is good? It's a disservice to the reading world to put anything out there without the maximum effort that readers deserve, and after my book releases I hope I'm lucky enough to get readers who are critical of my work! If I'm going to be the best author that I can become it will be because my readers invest in my writing and give me feedback. Otherwise who am I actually writing for?

[@tonyt1680]

And don't forget, as hard as you work on it, there will still be readers who don't like it, that's just life *shrugs*

[@kayvon5926]

I think this is part of why authors’ second book suck. They take years on the first but are given little time for rewrites and not enough criticism & feedback.

[@lilchinesekidchen]

So i’m a teacher in training myself. Yes, some parents don’t spend enough time with children’s literacy, but you also need to consider things like class and access to education that parents have themselves, especially in the case of immigrant parents, some parents do not know how to guide their child’s education, and we can’t just blame them. We’ve forgotten that it takes a village to raise a child. we need after school programming, we need parent guidance courses, we need “low income” jobs to pay more and work people less so parent have time to be engaged with their children. my girlfriend’s mom is a single immigrant mom who doesn’t have a high-school education. She works 10-12 hours shifts in manufacturing because she needs the Overtime. She also is not proficient in english so she doesn’t know how to guide her children’s literacy. the same goes for my parents, they had no idea how to help me read, when they were learning along me (and i often have to proofread their works). I can’t blame her for not being on top of her kids since she never got the guidance herself, and has needed to take care of the whole family once their father was gone. adding to this is the issue of proliferation of easy mass media (i.e. video games, movies, social media) that makes consumption of information and ideas a lot easier and flashier, but also simplifies a lot of that information. when you put a a book and mass media next to a kid, they’re going to choose the easier form of media to consume, and they’re going to be loosing practice time with a lot of literacy skills. I’m not saying, we ban all social media, but exposing children to that much stimuli at such a young age is going to affect their ability to critically think about it’s use, and their skill level with other media forms. New media isn’t bad in itself (i’m a film and media major), but if we don’t scaffold and guide children’s use of it (especially when all of it is driven by capitalist interest) we will have a lot of social issues on our hands. it would be like handing a kid the keys to motorcycle without any bike riding lessons.

[@theraPISSED_1]

i genuinely think that if i never gotten into booktok i would've left my abusive situation earlier

[@sleepy.timaeus.arts.]

im so sorry :(

[@swagswagimadolphin]

lol

[@juliall255]

hi! I've never been on TikTok so what does it mean when people say that?

[@dannie5156]

@@juliall255 a lot of booktok books romanticize abusive behaviors. Case in point: half of Colleen Hoover’s books. Younger readers with no experience aren’t able to tell that these things aren’t good and go on thinking that things like stalking and hyper-possessiveness are normal romance things and not insanely creepy.

[@neliswajokweni5872]

Huh?

[@chocolateoreo6489]

Also, just hearing about you talk about your reading experiences with your parents is so endearing! You parents sounds great ❤

[@maddiedoesntkno]

Purring in the mic at the beginning was A++ and we should make a thing out of that

[@sleepy.timaeus.arts.]

great video! my mom said she would read to me when i was in her stomach, and as a kid i had a lot of books. my family really encouraged it, but finding the book that changed my life (percy jackson series) kickstarted me into REALLY reading more. and then after school kinda killed my drive to read for pleasure, i finally rediscovered the love during the pandemic. slowly but surely doing better every year. wanna start making videos about some of the books i read too, cause i find even leaving reviews on goodreads to be so fun, and i love getting recommendations. also, i know for a fact that im easy to please, and im not afraid to say if something is probably not the best written piece of literature, but i at least still found enjoyment in it lol

[@Cheese_cake04]

This is such a good video! I just got a new view on annotating, "you are talking to the text" i have never thought about it that way

[@jenifergarcia327]

i wish we could normalize that sometimes we just like low quality media while being able to appreciate what makes high quality media, high quality, whethere we like that kind of media or not. (coming from a spn and say yes to the dress fan)

[@Sisi-ep3wn]

IMO a lot of criticism of booktok falls into the „teenage girls like it so it must be bad“-category . Yes, some of those books are to a degree objectively bad but I feel like bad media directed at young men and boys never get the same amount of criticism as media for girls and young women.

[@loureedpipes]

0:48 Yes!! Thank you!! - someone that's not on booktok but is very tired of people being odd about women for liking things

[@CKForestKAFireAuthor]

First off, you're so right about the romance thing! Ironic coming from me because I wrote an essay defending Wuthering Heights. But there was something I felt some readers missed about it and I wanted to give my thoughts. I think I just have a weakness for the classics to be honest. Nowadays, I'm more into the violent fantasy genre, lol. Second, I highly encourage people to read bad books. Read widely, but don't be afraid to pick up a bad book. You can still learn from them, especially what not to do with future writings. And remember that authors tend to throw their all into a story. They put a part of themselves into the art, and analyzing what they did, even if it's incorrect, can help a reader understand why they may have done it. Also, if you enjoy it, awesome! Nothing wrong with that at all. I like the Warrior Cats series despite how cheesy and toxic it is at times. I've found some decent books in that series so good stuff can still exist in works that some people don't like. Third, you and your cat are adorable! :)

[@sonderexpeditions]

Great video. Reading is almost a skill. It takes practice even if you used to read a lot it takes a while to get back in.

[@ily9402]

Reading is a skill it's something you are taught after a while of not reading it just feel hard to get back into!

[@schromai4455]

I think it can’t be just pinned on the parents. While I do agree that teachers now have way more work to do because children don’t get enough basic knowledge from home, I do think that a big problem is also that there is not enough time. Parents are now moste of the time both working, working hours get longer, pay gets less and time has become an even more precious resource. Yes parents should still be held accountable but we also need to address the other core issue which is that people are overworked and stressed and that is also impacting families who need better resources to help their children.

[@sophiaarias9341]

those types of parents should either be reinforcing their children’s education or not have kids at all but i digress

[@aielianna]

I feel like it’s going back to the old days where the rich had more time and therefore their children were more educated. Even now, the rich can still afford private schools where teachers are paid better, so the teachers are more invested. Those with less money work more and the education provided is subpar due to both parents and teachers being overworked. But I feel like it’s all by design

[@schromai4455]

@@sophiaarias9341 I don’t know. I feel that’s very classist like only rich people are allowed to have families now? I don’t think that’s right. It’s kind of shaming people for their circumstances instead of building systems that help people in need.

[@schromai4455]

@@aielianna I feel the same. Time is now the new luxury item only the rich have access to. They show how they live romanticised farm lives, cooking one elaborate dish for 14 hours. I was already on high alert when Erehwon became a thing…rich people trying to make a basic necessity like groceries a luxury good to differentiate themselves from the „poor“ and now it’s not just groceries, it’s how we clean our houses, how we organise them and how we cook for our family. It’s kind of disgusting how they cosplay as farmers or „Tradwives“ when they have a billion dollar mansion. They took the life of the everyday people from centuries ago and romanticise it and make it a trend, while the average family can’t even think about having one parent stay at home if they want to be able to pay their bills

[@emmanarotzky6565]

I think it’s also dependent on what the parents normally do for themselves. If you naturally read in your free time, then you’re going to involve your kids in that. But if you naturally watch TV, your kids will do the same thing, or you have to force yourself to read to them but since reading isn’t your normal form of recreation it will feel like work instead of just hanging out together.

[@Lee-rn9mz]

I really liked your take on this topic. My mom also used to read to me before bed when I was a kid. Though I didn’t really get into reading until high school, I would also not read classics if I wasn’t into it. I have never really liked TikTok and have recently deleted it from my phone and beside the occasional rec from Booktubers I usually figure out what I want to read by just wandering around bookstores. I have really diversified my reading because of this.

[@desireed3806]

Love your video essays and would definitely like to see the dark academia and romance videos. I also would like to add to the current convo by saying I’ve seen the r/teacher page on Reddit from time to time and there are TONS of teachers literally tormented by the fact their students can barely read and write properly but have no recourse because the schools won’t let them fail the kids or really assign any consequences. So they sit in these classrooms not caring and the teachers are fed up because there is nothing they can do to incentivize them or punish them and so they get stuck in limbo. It’s really sad.

[@lolaquafleur]

Woah. As a parent and an "intellectual," being like if you can't take the time to read to your kids maybe you shouldn't be a parent is really not it. I'm a huge reader and I read to my kids everyday but finding time when we have an impossible amount of responsibilities is difficult. How can our government and institutions support parents better so parents can parent better? American parents are some of the most unsupported people. It's not fair to be like, well some people just shouldn't be parents. We need to create better support systems for parents so that we can show up for our kids better. Many parents want to do many different things for their kids but are unable to because of various unforeseen pitfalls. Like deciding between a medical bill or sending your kid to that cool program (a real decision a working class parent had to make). There are major institutional issues. Don't make it in an individual responsibility when it's systemic.

[@revenge0lobster]

I think she’s talking about parents who do have the option/ability to do so, but have different values.

[@ShadowGirlie]

I love your videos so much!!! Please give us more video essays when you have the time/energy. I would love to see romance in the publishing industry and the history of dark academia.

[@cinycaybudgets]

Oh, your mom loves those ghetto loves?! Lol. My mom did too. I literally could not imagine my kids not knowing how to read (i only have 1 kid thats reading age, but anywho). My son is 2, and can read a few words purely off of subtitles and us singing karaoke like every night, haha. But really, you don't even need to do flash cards etc. Just. Read. To. Your. Kids.

[@myocoree]

@@cinycaybudgets THIS!!!!

[@gabbylikestoread]

I loved that you tried to read the article like I did and stopped because you didn't want to pay lol I loved the points you brought up in this book. 1. The part about parents encouraging their kids to read at home and reading what we wanted to read, i.e. basketball magazines, comic books, whatever. as long as we were reading, they were happy! IMPORTANT!! 2. Th importance of critical thinking and reviewing! 3. sharing palatable classics recommendations! also, i would say encouraging people to watch the adaptation before reading the books in some cases. 4. Talking to the text! yes, its scientific that there is a connection between what we write down and retention in the brain! i feel like annotating make the experience enjoyable! One last thought: I spoke with my mom about this article since she's been teaching high school English for over 20+ years and she said another reason is the curriculum focus on testing. That shift took the place of the Drop everything and read program and the PIZZA party reading contest.

[@Parker8752]

As for classics, I'm nearly 40 and I can only think of three that I have chosen to read (four if Lord of the Rings counts) - Dracula, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Curious Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and I honestly enjoyed all of them. Dracula in particular is one that I will happily reread from time to time.

[@greenfloatingtoad]

The article going from one student struggled to read a book a week to elite students in general can't read books to be kinda worrying too. I think that media fascination with the ""elite college student"" is also a form of anti intellectualism.

[@_tannaj]

I agree with you that people can’t take criticism on the books they like, however the anti-intellectualism take on booktok is so tired to me. One, just b/c someone isn’t interacting with a book to the level you would doesn’t mean you’re better than them and doesn’t mean they weren’t also engaged. What’s good writing and interesting to one person isn’t going to be for another because reading is subjective. If people only want to read popular books, who cares? At least they’re reading and AGAIN we have different tastes. There are quite literally hundreds of book clubs that you can join to find readers like yourself or even better people can create their own. For the people who keep pushing the anti-intellectualism take I would really like to know if you do this for all your hobbies…I can guarantee you that answer is no. Idk I personally think if we want to have a discussion about anti-intellectualism it needs to be outside of booktok b/c most of the takes people have can literally be said about any hobby. People aren’t as critical about the shows/movies they watch, the content they consume on social media, and I can go on. Booktok isn’t the problem it’s society.

[@revenge0lobster]

I think it’s less about what’s “good” or not and more about why someone is reading. Booktok stuff isn’t exactly literature, and that’s completely fine. It isn’t meant to be. I think it’s difficult to argue that it isn’t equivalent to reality tv in terms of merely meaning to be entertainment/escapism, often over the top. There’s a reason these people are reaching for these types of books and not, say, The Economist, or Nabokov.

[@_tannaj]

@@revenge0lobster I agree with most of your takes. There are a multitude of different reasons why someone picks up a book, whether that be for escapism/entertainment as you stated, or to maybe stimulate the mind on a higher level/deeply engage with the work. I think it’s ok to read for one or all those reasons. It’s been a few days since I’ve watch this video so correct me if I’m wrong, but I do recall the OP saying something along the lines of people aren’t critically thinking about what they read on the level people used to. I would have to agree, it’s the same way people don’t engage with film the same way we used to either(there are many reasons why that do and don’t have relation to booktok). I’m going to have to disagree that this isn’t equivalent to the same points that people make about how reality tv is “trash tv”. I’m not going to say all the books promoted on booktok would be comparable but a good portion are. I’ve seen the people reading these books comparing the two (“booktok books” & trash tv). And the two audiences who consume these respective forms of media are also consuming them for similar reasons. As someone who reads some of the books I would say are popular on booktok I think it’s ok that this is a hobby I don’t want to completely breakdown and analyze. I’m critically thinking all day about the other media I’m consuming, I’m critically thinking in school, I’m critically thinking at work. I would say I’m critically thinking about what I’m reading on some level (just not to the point I would for my literature class for example). When I come home at night and open my book the main purpose for me is entertainment.

[@lifewithericajean]

I love this video! My father read to me as well when I was a kid and it helped me learn comprehension and enjoy books even more!

[@Makeupvine]

My reading journey was a little backwards. I didn’t grow up with a love of reading, but I did love writing. So I decided to become an English major. Through completing that degree I really grew to love reading, and now I’d definitely call myself a reader. Everyone’s reading journey is going to look different, and that’s so cool.

[@hellomello258]

Starting in first grade, I would go in to the library on the first day and check out two books. Until the end of the year, I would read one book per day. If I finished and had time/wanted to read more, then I would start the second book. The next day I would return the finished book, check out another book, and yesterday's extra book became today's read. I started reading chapter books in 3rd grade but I know I wasn't that advanced. I remember struggling to understand Ella Enchanted in 4th grade. I started reading fanfiction at 13. My mom was concerned that it would ruin my spelling, grammar, and punctuation (which, lol, definitely not. I have a master's of Applied Linguistics now and studied/researched teaching English).

[@frankensteinlives]

My elementary school used to have reading drives where the whole school would try to hit a certain number of books in a semester in order to win an ice cream party. But for that to happen, my school had to have enough library books for all the kids, which means funding. I hate to say it, but I just don't know that schools have those kinds of resources anymore. Even in your example, high school students were only expected to read excerpts, articles or poetry. So, things that could be procured very cheaply. I'm not saying this to dunk on schools or teachers, just to observe that this war against literacy has layers to it.

[@mountainsandchapter3398]

Reading a novel a week for a college course (on top of other classes) is actually hard and doesn't show a failure in the school system or the students and isn't a sign of anti-intelectualism. I am a fast reader. The first time I read Stephen King's It, I read it in three days. I've read two 300+ page books in a day. I studied molecular biology and literature. Most of my literature classes taught five to seven books for a 14 week course, and in a Dostoevsky class I took, we only read a short story and three novels. Reading takes time, and then to read critically, taking in information you need from the book and outside sources to analyze properly, takes a lot of time. The closest I got to a book a week was a horror fiction class where we also had a movie assigned if we were scheduled two weeks to read a book, but genre fiction tends to be a faster read and the horror we were reading tended to be shorter.

[@jayjayjenni]

Every time I read one of the classics, I feel myself getting sad about booktok. Read whatever you want but literary analysis is so fun. I think people get scared of it but you don’t have to be correct. It does not matter. Whatever you think the book means, (within reason) congratulations! That’s what it means! I want more people to read the classics because they’re beautiful and brilliant and fun. I want people to experience the joy of fully immersing yourself in a book and getting your grubby little hands into the text and sorting through it, picking it apart. Once you get into the classics, you see them referenced in media all the time. Part of the joy of being a reader (for me) is the interconnectedness of literature. God, I love books.

[@bespectacledheroine7292]

Classic bashing be it with books or film makes me depressed. I find that I get more out of seeing what people used to think and feel as opposed to only ever seeing my regurgitated modern views spat back at me. I'm also big on death of the author so yeah, I noticed people's enjoyment of these was hindered by thinking there was only one interpretation possible. I always say that as long as you can back up your argument with in-text evidence, books can mean whatever you see in them. All the best friend. 😄

[@theholypopechodeii4367]

A lot of western classics are completely boring. They are not fun and enjoyable. I do not at all care about fiction that can entirely occur in real life those are boring as fuck (unless they are set in a completely different culture to mine and/or set multiple centuries ago), there has to be some sort of unreal, fictional element to it. Thankfully the west left the realism phase long ago. On the other hand, books that have 'unreal, fictional elements' are often just written poorly. You do thankfully get a '3 body problem' style of book every once in a while, but there's far more ACOTAR.

[@bespectacledheroine7292]

@@theholypopechodeii4367 What are some examples in particular you found boring? I can scarcely think of anything more exciting than classics. Learning new information about how people spoke and lived and thought and comparing/contrasting that to modern life is a thrill. It saddens me to think that appreciation is being lost.

[@jayjayjenni]

@@theholypopechodeii4367I do not understand how someone can find the writing of James Baldwin to be boring. It’s so beautiful and heartbreaking and loving. If you find western classics to be boring, perhaps read different classics. There’s more to classic literature than Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Also: Invisible Man and Their Eyes Were Watching God.

[@jayjayjenni]

@@bespectacledheroine7292This really does hurt to read. The best classics still resonate today. Jane Eyre has the most accurate depiction of ADHD in girls I’ve ever read. The book was published before Freud was born. I couldn’t help but think of my maternal lineage reading the book and how it spoke to their cultural landscape. Classic literature is humbling.

[@iheartjonghyun]

my parents and grandparents always read to me and in 2nd-3rd grade my dad would basically force me to get off the computer or stop playing toys or video games and read for the same time or more hours!! at the end of the month one time my teacher wasnt believing i was reading and completing that many chapter books so my dad brought the entire tall stack to my classroom and made me stand next to it for her 😭 i got those AR points fr!

[@AoiAnoSora788]

Saw the thumbnail and knew this was gonna be one hell of a video, as I proceed to watch~

[@myocoree]

period

[@thelittleone1984]

Omg yes I loved the Unwind series growing up! You are the first person I’ve watched that’s brought it up

[@nimishasakshi3272]

Do the vlog with the dark academia books!! Love your video essays

[@chocolateoreo6489]

Aw you are truly such a stunning human! Your look today is giving stunning intellectual student energy❤

[@myocoree]

thank you 🫶🏾🫶🏾

[@chocolateoreo6489]

@@myocoree 💜💜💜

[@GoddessKry]

I was assigned novels in college but we expected to read it in a month or two and have weekly discussions

[@GlennjaminBee]

Oooh yes make the romance video! I feel like a lot of the post-BookTok readers being in a "Wattpad" phase is a good way to put it. There really haven't been any personal bangers for me recently and if you're someone who's been reading for a long time, seeing the overall drop in quality or derivateness of a lot of the books getting popular now is so frustrating. I've been wondering if I need to read older books or try different genres, but I think this really is the crux of it. Ultimately, I read to enjoy the experience and don't annotate, but if you're someone who's been taught to think critically, that happens naturally, and I don't think it takes a super critical lens to see there's a quality control issue. I also recently left a teaching position and it's wild the way kids don't have time to just read for it's own sake in class and choose not to in their free time. Their reading tends to either be focused on specific novels (that teachers aren't allowed to deviate from) or practice passages for state testing. My kids got 15 minutes of library time once a week. All of that combined just really doesn't bode well.

[@syntaxterror9479]

Reinstate the reading to free pizza pipeline and more people will love to read again. I guarantee it.

[@NunyaBiznessss]

I have vivid memories of my dad reading story books to me as a kid, doing all sorts of voices, getting me really invested in the story. I remember my mom making a point to read almost everything that I read so that I could have someone to talk to about them. When I got older and became more of a social outcast, reading became a haven to escape to. Looking back, a lot of what I read was silly self-insert Wattpad level stuff, but then, I was in middle school. But in high school, that began to change. I tried really hard to enjoy the required readings through HS and college, and with many of them I could, but the sheer amount of books to read, and the level of analysis I was expected to keep up on a regular basis, killed much of my love for it. I couldn't do it for fun anymore; it was just work. Many years post-graduation, I've weaned myself back into it, but I can't blast through books the way I did as a kid. I don't think I ever will again. But it's something so precious to me, and I don't want to lose it again. So when I hear that at the age when I was reading the most, kids today are struggling to finish books, it makes me so, so sad. The pandemic certainly did its damage, but I can't help but wonder if these kids' dads didn't read them storybooks before bed, or if their moms didn't read along with their silly self-insert fantasies, or if our schools are so unsympathetic with this new struggle that they're trying to strong-arm kids into reading above their level. Like you said multiple times, I'm not a parent or teacher, so maybe it's not at all like I imagine. But either way, it makes me sad.

[@shelfaddiction]

40-year-olds can like ACOTAR too. 😂😂

[@myocoree]

@@shelfaddiction well yes but my mom is not reading a book with majority white characters (which is why i mentioned she reads urban romances)

[@yersiniapestis5237]

@@myocoree that is weird and racist

[@jenm3577]

your cat 😭😭😭

[@myocoree]

@@jenm3577 i had to cut out how much i was yelling at her to stop 😭😭 she was trying to hide her food from my sisters cat

[@saadfadel924]

@@myocoree 😂😂😂😂😂

[@Heothbremel]

kitty purring sounds!!!!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@myocoree]

kitty asmr 😭😭

[@0730bcorm]

There was a fuzzy void at the beginning of this video and at 0:22 I heard thunder, I hope you’re okay

[@myocoree]

@@0730bcorm that was my cat purring into the camera 😭😭😭😭😕😕

[@Imperialscorpio]

My problem with booktok is why doesn’t anyone want to read to learn or grow? Everyone’s reading as a form escapism cause there’s no way all you read is badly written romance and fantasy books.. that’s anti intellectualism in itself. My surprise when going to booktok to find that nobody is reading Toni Morrison’s catalog.. like wtf are y’all reading? And there aren’t any staple writers of our generation because all that’s being consumed are trashy romance novels.. Like Coleen Hoover shouldn’t be the face of writing my gracious

[@CEMonaghanOfficial]

Also, escapism isn't abdicating on all the world's problems. That's something people really need to get through their heads imho.

[@NeptunesHorses5909]

Morrison is an amazing writer; I'm going to order several titles I hear mentioned frequently; we read "Jazz" for a course.

[@bespectacledheroine7292]

Or Octavia Butler or Maya Angelou or Gwendolyn Brooks....the canon isn't only white guys people. The problem as I see it is the escapism vs challenging yourself dichotomy in people's minds also firmly situate "fun" in the former designation. It's FUN to feel your mind expand and only when people realize this can they grow. Trashy romance is fine! But only reading the trashy romance you did in your teens is stupid.

[@sinestesianestesia9079]

Best video ive seen on this topic so far!!! I agree w u and there is so much in here I hadnt even thought about! Props 2 u

[@myocoree]

thank youuu 🥺

[@Ravraa]

The “ if you don’t like this book you don’t like me” ideology has me chuckling. American psycho is one my fav books of all time, if you don’t like that book, then you probably grew up in a good home and I can’t be mad at that. Slay.

[@EatWithBadlands]

I can understand not wanting your kid to read something that is too graphic/inappropriate for their age, but I don’t think we should be gatekeepers in terms of saying what is well written or what isn’t.

[@Multigrain-bagel]

“Bad art” is good for the soul. I only actually pursued art when i had the epiphany rhat its okay to make “bad art” cause its still good for the soul. I struggling to get into literature causw of this desire to make it academic/profitable. I think bad art is weirdly the most accessible kind of art

[@WhiteWolf-lm7gj]

Everyone has the right to make a truly awful piece of art. Like you said, it's good for the soul

[@hiba9797]

i know my adhd is a contribution to my struggle with reading but I find it so hard to get back into it :( my fav part ab my childhood was reading my favorite stories but I didn't read more than 5 books during highschool because I switched to online. i feel so ashamed but it's so difficult for me to work through the symbolism or motifs of books and I didn't realize I struggled with this until recently. does anyone have any tips to help me?

[@hiba9797]

loved the vid btwwww

[@Horrorbabe4]

Read some books you have already read, maybe? Then, you can be familiar with the themes and symbols so you don't have to pay attention to them as much.

[@gabrielamora6265]

Try reading poetry, preferably with some help in the form of a book or class that analyzes the work. Poetry contains a more condensed form of most of the literary devices employed in longer forms of literature.

[@Zapzel24]

This whole situation of anti-intellectualism reminds me of so many themes I read on Conan the Barbarian about the hypocrisy of civilization. How civilized people have become decadent and lazy, more interested in inflating thier own egos rather a united effort to grow, learn the truth, something that is becoming more relevant as times goes on. Weather it is debt-slavery, the complete indifference we have toward different viewpoints and the constant herd mentality and othering anyone and anything outside of that circle, we are anything but enlightened.

[@fallingawayfromthenorm]

I know some people really liked programs like Accelerated Reader (which was big when I was a kid, not sure if it still is) but for me it really felt like it penalized me for what I liked to read (books I liked often had lower point values) and for not understanding/remembering very fine details. And once I got discouraged about reading, it took many years for me to pick up a book when it wasn’t for the purpose of meeting quotas. To this day I still don’t read much, mostly fanfiction on AO3, but when I find a book I’m interested in and have time with no distractions (especially when I’m the passenger on a longer car drive) I have a hard time putting the book down.

[@adriana410]

A school only teaching from book excerpts is CRAAAAAZY! Such a disservice to the student in the long run.

[@sagekay]

You ATE this video up!!!! I feel like I finally watched a video about this that I agree with entirely!!!!

[@myocoree]

🫶🏾

[@acanbelina]

When I was in highschool 10 years ago, the books they assigned to us were done mostly in class. Every day all of us would either take turns reading paragraphs or read chapters silently. I wonder if they still do that?

[@debicnvs]

i also am hating romance right now, which sucks to say cuz it used to be my fave genre and mean sooooo much to me. pls do a vid ab it!!!!

[@blah914]

like u hate how it's become, or u just lost ur taste for it? bc preferences come and go 🤷‍♀️

[@debicnvs]

@@blah914 i hate how its become, i find a good one every once in a while and i miss reading romance. i feel like everything coming out rn is js not as good as what it used to be

[@blah914]

@debicnvs I think thrvmarketing has shifted, definitely. But Danielle Steele, best selling romance author in history, which I've oddly never seen on booktube, just renewed her contract for another 20 books 🥰 u might want to see if her stuff is something you'll like.

[@ravenblog7]

Same. That's why I went to back to reading classics again.

[@granny_ducc]

I’ve literally only annotated a book twice (House of Leaves and All Quiet on the Western Front) and it was just so much fun?? Like HoL is probably one of, if not my favorite books and the ending of All Quiet made me cry for like twenty minutes (I have never cried consuming media, especially books) and I think it’s because of how I wrote in the book. It physically took me longer to read it so I felt more attached, idk. I have a bad habit of starting a book and leaving it unread at like 85% because I lose steam and I feel like annotations feel like you’re texting a friend your thoughts so it helps w motivation lmao. those booktok girlies should let loose 💀

[@monkebrainiac]

you had explained my thoughts fr, thanks for this vid

[@sienna7241]

about kids not knowing how to read i strongly recommend the podcast “sold a story” which talks about how the way we teach reading is fundamentally flawed. it blew my mind.

[@sundaysareforreading]

I think you should def do a review about why ppl don’t like negative reviews about books they like!

[@FeliciaZezili]

I am a millennial raising children. I completely believe parenting is also a factor. Not exactly teaching the child to read but foster an environment that encourages reading. I was read to as a child and I participated in bookit, they took me to libraries and bookstores. I do that for my children. The parent has to foster and nurture the positive book environment. My husband and I are also listening to an audio book together and that offers my children an example of books being a couple activity.

[@squidneyyg]

as someone who really really loves a lot of the classics (my favorite book is actually frankenstein LOL) i really think a lot of it comes down to how they’re taught

[@MaxieMcMoon]

Its so interesting hearing people love certain classics but hated others. In my senior year of high school my class and I hated 1984 by George Orwell. We understood the message but we all despised it. When we finally shifted to Frankenstein, my whole class ADORED it and even the most uninterested book readers were in the analysis discussions we had in class and the teacher watched her students dissect it to the roots. It was funny thinking back

[@ragingdevi]

4:06 omgggg I think me and my sister used to do the reading for pizza hut thing too! I completely forgot about that, thanks for bringing up a good memory 😊

[@dwdillydally]

This is my introduction to your channel, and you made so many points that had me clapping. Thank you for being an unapologetic reader and critiquer. (Not sure if that's a word??) I subscribed and can't wait to dive into all your other takes.

[@Horrorbabe4]

Critiquer is French for "criticize", my dude. You're thinking of "critic"

[@homovalidvs1518]

I love the cat purring at the beginning!!!

[@Parker8752]

Forcing kids to read will make them only read when forced. Reading to your kids is good, and later giving them books that suit their interests is better. Kids typically like scary stories, so let them read scary books. Nothing too extreme, of course (I'm not suggesting they read Stephen King), but so long as there's the safety net of being able to talk to you about it, they should be fine (and if they turn out not to need that safety net, they might even feel like they're getting away with something by reading a book about something you'd never let them watch a movie about, which might get them to read more regularly thinking it's an act of rebellion). Speaking of which, if you can find the Animorphs series, I wouldn't recommend it for under 10s, but it's a really good kids' series and, better yet, the author isn't a terrible human being.

[@laurengaughan2433]

I had trouble reading in my early years. In fact, I couldn't read grade level in 8th grade. I loved to read to, but it was limited to poetry, and Shakespeare. I had trouble reading novels. It wasn't until sophomore year that I caught up and read above level. I really like some classics from around the 1920s. I like writing in notebook. We were not allowed to write in books, but my sophomore year we had to write a question and an observation. I recalled I was fixated on a cup that had no meaning to the story. That my teacher finally made a remark that the cup did not symbolize anything, but there was an object that was important.

[@leanna9290]

Not related to booktok but on the topic of intellectualism, I’ve found myself getting so annoyed with political discussion irl bc I feel like all anyone around me says is “this awful thing is happening and it’s unjust and morally wrong and I condemn it” but there’s no discussion of the historical context of American institutionalized inequality or how issues can actually be addressed, so especially in the white queer spaces I’m in, this moral condemnation just feels like virtue signaling. But at the same time I get that capitalism keeps us all so busy that we don’t have the time to educate ourselves as best as we could to maintain a high standard of intellectualism. Idk this is a half baked idea of a rant :/

[@vainpiers]

I always used to do the reading challenge at the library every summer, my mum bought me a kindle and put hundreds of books on it, i always fell asleep to audiobooks. I think i may have stopped reading when i was doing my higher education for a little bit.

[@vvitch-mist20]

How do you go to college and not know how to read?????

[@cookiejar.mp3]

I remember my school library stocking up on popular middle grade and ya, even adult books. I am so grateful to the access I had to develop my taste and pick good books. School wasn't just about boring books, I spent hours in the school library and loaned out popular books and new releases! This is important especially in school-age, so you can read safely (tiktok books are not always... good for getting young people reading u feel...) and develop your taste in a way that is not an echo-chamber. So much money needs to be injected into libraries and get people to go, it would save thousands. Let's go back to our roots, booktok irl you feel?

[@blueowl3474]

i'd love to hear your thoughts on the romance genre!! i like the way to approached this topic and i think that would also be rly interesting, esp since i've had mixed feelings on romance books since...honestly, since i started reading period. for me, it's always a hit or miss: if i pick up a romance book, ik i'm either going to love it or hate it.

[@Gtinker]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do the video on why you hate romance rn because me too😂 also fall is definitely the time for dark academia books and i need new recommendations. Im rereading some classics right now but something new would be appreciated!

[@AnisiaCanRead]

24:11 is me fighting for my LIFE when I tell people I enjoy Riley Sager books 😩😂

[@myocoree]

@@AnisiaCanRead REAL

[@zd4w9]

I think a lot of it is attention. When a song comes on, you can just skip to the next one. Same thing with videos. If you can’t figure something out when you’re playing a game, you can just find a walkthrough. I’m all for not wasting time, but when everything is so convenient and you can’t say no every time you want something moment to moment, that’s a kind of addiction.