BookTok and the Downfall of Modern Literature

Comments · 630

• MO

  @mother.earth.69 · 1 year ago · pinned

  My day was going well until you called me a peasant

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• ME

  @metalmechanic6664 · 1 year ago

  "But how spicy is it?" the booktok girl asks me while I am reading Dune.

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• EL

  @elemenoze · 1 year ago

  I am at least 70% sure that this is because fanfiction is being stripped of its place and monetized. Publishers and booktok reviewers/marketers found out that people like ff because the ao3 filter system makes it easy to read very specific types of stories, and started applying that to actual publishing. The "trope" keywords are literally just ff tags. It doesnt work because the premise of ff is that you ALREADY KNOW THE STORY. So slapping the characteristics of ff over a new story means you have tropes and an underdeveloped everything else. The horniness is also very on brand. The bookish spaces that were around before booktok crossed over with fandom spaces where people already knew how ff as a medium worked, and so it was ideal marketing. Its why a lot of these books are so indistinguishable now.

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• AN

  @antvsbabylon · 2 months ago

  Even though you had to censor it, I'm glad you are capable of saying serious words for serious concepts instead of saying "cornography" or anything equally dumb

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• EC

  @ec6565 · 1 year ago

  I’ve argued with someone who holds a PhD in Englis and wrote their thesis on a trope commonly seen in fanfiction. I told them I only got through half of the Maas’s first fairy p*rn book because it was written so poorly. This person defended it, accused me of internalized misogyny, and seemed to be under the impression that I was attacking them and their credentials. I don’t have a PhD and don’t intend to ever go for one, my point is that you don’t even have to be uneducated to be on the anti-intellectual side of this publishing trend.

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• JA

  @jacksont9455 · 1 year ago

  Im glad you mentioned how all they care about is the aesthetic of reading. They shame people who checkout books from the library, buy used books, or read off a kindle. All of these are far more sustainable than ordering books on Amazon, or purchasing them from Barnes and Noble, just so you have the most aesthetically pleasing version of the book to sit behind you on a shelf while you make videos. It’s very consumerist and shallow

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• JE

  @jennifersmith9841 · 1 year ago

  Thank you! I’m in my fifties and have been an avid reader most of my life. I have seen so many poorly written books get popular because of promotion on social media. I’m actually focusing on classics now because I find modern fiction disappointing. Literature is important. I hope publishers get back to looking for truly great novels.

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• AA

  @aavaron · 1 year ago

  Another thing about tropication of the books - tropes by themselves don&apos;t tell much about the book. By the enemies to lovers you can describe &quot;pride and prejudice&quot;, &quot;fourth wing&quot; and &quot;how to survive as a villain&quot; and fanfiction on wattpad about two Polish romanticism writers. I don&apos;t think I have to say how different each of those books are and reducing them to just a trope makes it actually harder for a reader to find something &nbsp;they like. <br>I even saw some people on tiktok picking up the Poppy war series because someone recommended it as enemies to lovers and later they were disappointed in the content of the book because &nbsp;it wasn&apos;t what they expected.

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• PH

  @Philzippo · 1 year ago

  i think the tropification of literature is also leading to the extinction of the blurb. i found a concerning amount of books in my local library where the whole back of the book was accolades and praise with comparisons to other books. TELL ME WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT!!

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• CO

  @CoffeeCrazzee2006 · 1 year ago

  Liking and commenting because this video is saying everything I wish I could scream at the top of my voice to all of the Internet. The way booktock has commodified reading and writing is so heartbreaking as a reader and writer. And when you say the readers obsession with spice have a po*n addiction is so accurate! I heard the story about the 16 year old getting sexually harassed and it DISGUISED me! Thank you for talking about this and I hope this video is able to reach millions, because it is incredibly important.

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• CO

  @colleenmitchell1995 · 1 year ago

  Thank you for calling this out in such a well-organized manner. I&apos;m a clean YA fantasy author and part of the reason I don&apos;t read as much in my genre as I want to is the inclusion of spice that does not belong there, and the difficulty in knowing ahead of time which books are &quot;safe&quot;.

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• BE

  @bewitchedbylena · 1 year ago

  YA is supposed to be for young adults yet it’s being tailored to the interests of grown people who want s*xual content. It’s perfectly fine for adults to read YA fantasy books, or stories about adventure, because those are nostalgic and wholesome to a lot of people. But there is this subset who are changing what YA (primarily romance) means and many teens &amp; parents aren’t getting the memo. Why are these adult books being marketed and written in such a YA style with no 18+ warning required???

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