Could have posted to ~books or ~life.style but thought ~life.women was more appropriate as a majority of the video is about girls and women on social media as well as female authors. She does get...
Could have posted to ~books or ~life.style but thought ~life.women was more appropriate as a majority of the video is about girls and women on social media as well as female authors. She does get into a lot of different things though, like how books are becoming fashionable accessories (a 1st century quote notes this has always been a thing*) to the point that there's a bit of a conspiracy that celebrities have "book stylists" to brand themselves a certain way and how regular people also set up pictures of a scene for their social media with a certain book to say "this is who I am".
She also goes into how the publishing business has changed with social media as authors are a lot more likely to get picked up if they already have a following on social media - thereby guaranteeing a certain amount of book sales - and how authors, especially female authors, have to market things for themselves and create their own brand instead of leaving it to the publisher.
There's also a bit about how the print business is actually doing really well which might go against the idea that ereaders were going to take over.
* Some Roman dude said "Many people without a school education use books not as tools for study but as decorations for the dining room"
A few years ago I was horrified to learn of the existence of Books by the Foot, but it makes a lot of sense. There has always been a lot of cultural weight attached to being (seemingly) well-read,...
A few years ago I was horrified to learn of the existence of Books by the Foot, but it makes a lot of sense. There has always been a lot of cultural weight attached to being (seemingly) well-read, and a distinct bias towards the medium. Books are commonly regarded as probably the most authoritative source of information, far more than most other kinds of written media (with the possible exception of scientific journals), and I was slightly surprised to learn that it's been the case for 2 millennia!
I wonder if the rise of booktok and the associated personal brand identity mess are in part a response to the ephemerality and brevity of social media content. I know that I personally would regard the phrase "I was reading a book which said..." as carrying significantly more informational value than "I saw a tiktok/reel/youtube short which said...". Maybe there is an element of booktokkers trying to develop an identity and image that goes beyond that of "short-form video creator" into the realm of "intellectual."
The fact that books never really had a community with a big impact on my life is probably one of the reasons why I enjoy books. I don't really care that people take pictures with books to look...
The fact that books never really had a community with a big impact on my life is probably one of the reasons why I enjoy books. I don't really care that people take pictures with books to look smarter or whatever, that is alien to me. However, as I got older, I realized that a lot of people accumulate books in excess because it's a form of decoration that says something about themselves. The books I actually read are largely on Kindle and my physical bookshelf is very small. I do review them on Goodreads, but no one I know is visiting my profile just to checkout how cool I am. Ultimately, the logocentric notion that books, literature, or even written words in general are essentially superior, refined, or inherently intelectual is probably due for an update. I expect newer generations to operate under a better "intelectual hierarchy", and I also expect more people to oppose the idea that an intelectual hierarchy is necessary at all.
The conclusion starts out with her saying, "In conclusion, I don't really know what this video was about," and that pretty much sums up my thoughts about it. I had no idea "dark academia" was like...
The conclusion starts out with her saying, "In conclusion, I don't really know what this video was about," and that pretty much sums up my thoughts about it. I had no idea "dark academia" was like an entire "thing" though, I thought it was just a genre of novel & a subset of fantasy at that (Vita Nostra, The Atlas Six, Blood over Bright Haven, Babel, debatably The Will of the Many, etc).
Also I thought the discussion of romance book covers was pretty interesting, there's been a huge shift in covers for fantasy novels since I started reading fantasy in the early 2000s (you never see shittily-drawn scenes involving 2-4 characters anymore), and UK & US covers are often very different aesthetics from each other. I pretty much never read fiction that isn't spec-fic though so I don't know the first thing about trends in other genres.
I didn't watch the whole video, because she didn't really state a point in the beginning and took her time getting there (if at all?). But this reminded me of the famous photo of Marylin Monroe...
I didn't watch the whole video, because she didn't really state a point in the beginning and took her time getting there (if at all?). But this reminded me of the famous photo of Marylin Monroe reading Ulysses. Which, according to the story, was not staged. Although I am amused by this part of the article:
“And I mean, why shouldn’t she have read it? On one level there’s a documentary fact with this image. If you see someone in a picture reading a book, then they are reading that book.”
Could have posted to ~books or ~life.style but thought ~life.women was more appropriate as a majority of the video is about girls and women on social media as well as female authors. She does get into a lot of different things though, like how books are becoming fashionable accessories (a 1st century quote notes this has always been a thing*) to the point that there's a bit of a conspiracy that celebrities have "book stylists" to brand themselves a certain way and how regular people also set up pictures of a scene for their social media with a certain book to say "this is who I am".
She also goes into how the publishing business has changed with social media as authors are a lot more likely to get picked up if they already have a following on social media - thereby guaranteeing a certain amount of book sales - and how authors, especially female authors, have to market things for themselves and create their own brand instead of leaving it to the publisher.
There's also a bit about how the print business is actually doing really well which might go against the idea that ereaders were going to take over.
* Some Roman dude said "Many people without a school education use books not as tools for study but as decorations for the dining room"
A few years ago I was horrified to learn of the existence of Books by the Foot, but it makes a lot of sense. There has always been a lot of cultural weight attached to being (seemingly) well-read, and a distinct bias towards the medium. Books are commonly regarded as probably the most authoritative source of information, far more than most other kinds of written media (with the possible exception of scientific journals), and I was slightly surprised to learn that it's been the case for 2 millennia!
I wonder if the rise of booktok and the associated personal brand identity mess are in part a response to the ephemerality and brevity of social media content. I know that I personally would regard the phrase "I was reading a book which said..." as carrying significantly more informational value than "I saw a tiktok/reel/youtube short which said...". Maybe there is an element of booktokkers trying to develop an identity and image that goes beyond that of "short-form video creator" into the realm of "intellectual."
The fact that books never really had a community with a big impact on my life is probably one of the reasons why I enjoy books. I don't really care that people take pictures with books to look smarter or whatever, that is alien to me. However, as I got older, I realized that a lot of people accumulate books in excess because it's a form of decoration that says something about themselves. The books I actually read are largely on Kindle and my physical bookshelf is very small. I do review them on Goodreads, but no one I know is visiting my profile just to checkout how cool I am. Ultimately, the logocentric notion that books, literature, or even written words in general are essentially superior, refined, or inherently intelectual is probably due for an update. I expect newer generations to operate under a better "intelectual hierarchy", and I also expect more people to oppose the idea that an intelectual hierarchy is necessary at all.
The conclusion starts out with her saying, "In conclusion, I don't really know what this video was about," and that pretty much sums up my thoughts about it. I had no idea "dark academia" was like an entire "thing" though, I thought it was just a genre of novel & a subset of fantasy at that (Vita Nostra, The Atlas Six, Blood over Bright Haven, Babel, debatably The Will of the Many, etc).
Also I thought the discussion of romance book covers was pretty interesting, there's been a huge shift in covers for fantasy novels since I started reading fantasy in the early 2000s (you never see shittily-drawn scenes involving 2-4 characters anymore), and UK & US covers are often very different aesthetics from each other. I pretty much never read fiction that isn't spec-fic though so I don't know the first thing about trends in other genres.
I didn't watch the whole video, because she didn't really state a point in the beginning and took her time getting there (if at all?). But this reminded me of the famous photo of Marylin Monroe reading Ulysses. Which, according to the story, was not staged. Although I am amused by this part of the article:
Yeah, no, that's not true... Like at all.