We're halfway through 2023, and I thought I'd check in and ask if anyone has a favorite book they've read this year. Doesn't have to be released this year, just a book that wow'd you in 2023 up to this point.

My contribution I read this year is Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. Two boys with Cree upbringing find themselves enlisting in World War I. A hard book to read that doesn't pull punches, with descriptions that put you right there with them. Broke my heart several times.

How about you?

You always see a lot of threads around the best books of the year or of their favourite ever books, but how about the opposite - let’s have a thread of books you hated. There are so many books in the world to read, it can be handy to know which ones to avoid!

I’ll start in the comments! I’m not sure how to do spoiler tags (if that’s possible here?) so I suggest putting the title of the book in the first line so anyone who hasn’t read it can minimise the comment without seeing spoilers :)

Share what your failures were in 2022. Your regrets; where you came worse off at the end of the year than at the beginning. What will you do better next year?

Counterpart of the successes thread: https://tildes.net/~talk/13w4/your_successes_in_2022

What were your highlights for the year? What were the best things you read? What surprised you? What let you down?

Reflect back on the year and talk about anything and everything related to the books you read in 2022. You do NOT have to limit it to 2022 releases -- anything you read this year counts.

What were your highlights for the year? What were the best things you watched? What surprised you? What let you down?

Reflect back on the year and talk about anything and everything related to the television you watched in 2022. You do NOT have to limit it to 2022 releases -- anything you watched this year counts.

What were your highlights for the year? What were the best things you watched? What surprised you? What let you down?

Reflect back on the year and talk about anything and everything related to the movies you watched in 2022. You do NOT have to limit it to 2022 releases -- anything you watched this year counts.

What were your highlights for the year? What were the best things you played? What surprised you? What let you down?

Reflect back on the year and talk about anything and everything related to your gaming experiences in 2022. You do NOT have to limit it to 2022 releases -- anything you played this year counts.

Meta note: Yes, I know this is still a tad on the early side, but I'm trying to space these posts out between groups so that they don't step on each others' toes. I also plan to post this to ~books, ~movies, ~television. I'm not active in ~anime, so if someone wants to take up the mantle for that group (or any others you feel need a Year in Review post), go for it!

Spotify Wrapped and Apple Replay are out. Soon we'll start being deluged with annual Best Of lists like this one. It's that time of year!

What were your favorite listens this year? What new finds did you unexpectedly love? How did your tastes change/evolve (if at all)? What do you consider the best albums of the year? What did the critics get wrong?

Discuss any and all end-of-year music stuff here. Share your Wrapped/Replay/Last.fm/Listenbrainz summary if you'd like. Hype up that hidden gem you think deserves more attention. Anything goes!

I don’t know how many of you watch “nerd” movie channels, or ever did. But for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about stuff like ScreenJunkies, Collider and all their auxiliaries like SchmoesKnow.

These are the people that were made fun of by RedLetterMedia in their NerdCrew videos which funnily enough they don’t do anymore.

They were pillars of the YouTube film community. In fact, back when I was first getting into movies in the early 2010s, they were the majority of content. Until the video essay boom came into fruition circa 2015, and of which is now the primary style of video.

They would make dozens upon dozens of videos and podcasts talking about the latest trailer for a Marvel movie. They would speculate about what would happen in the next Star Wars movie. They would react to trailers and over-exaggerate. They would fully embrace all things that Funko Pop nerds embraced.

2019 was the height of all of this. The MCU’s Infinity Saga came to a close with Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the Star Wars Sequel trilogy wrapped up later in the year with The Rise of Skywalker. The hype for these movies were unbelievable, even if one of them disappointed and left everyone with a bitter after-taste.

Then the pandemic happened and all nerd movie news stopped. There was nothing to react to, there was nothing to hype. Wonder Woman 1984 came out, but nobody liked it.

The following year was a little bit better thanks to the hype machine surrounding Spider-Man: No Way Home. But still, the views that these nerd channels were getting dropped significantly. Check out the difference between the reviews on Fandom Entertainment's channel for Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home. The drop in audience is remarkable. And that’s for the big reviews. The day-to-day content that these channels posted are down significantly, and in the case of Fandom Entertainment (of ScreenJunkies), they have stopped producing daily videos. It’s a YouTube channel on life support.

Collider is an empty shell of itself, they canceled all of their nerd panels and only do generic press junket videos.

It’s simple really. These things ended. Interest in the MCU has dipped since Endgame (with the exception of Spider-Man). Star Wars has stopped making movies, and the TV shows have been of mixed quality. People moved on. These channels aren't needed anymore.

The era of the 2010s movie nerd YouTube channel is over. The only ones staying alive are ones that relied more on personality rather than farming content. I’m talking about JeremyJahns, Chris Stuckmann, and Mr. Sunday Movies. Their audience stayed around because their audience liked their personality.