being a huge nerd means i care SO DEEPLY. about how people read books. but more importantly, i care about having access to those books. regardless of your stance on booktok books, you should be fighting against book bans. every day is an opportunity to think critically about literature, even now. especially now. analysis rocks! love u all!
Usually videos about whatever the hell “booktok” is are trash, but this one is pretty cool. The only thing I wonder about is, the average Amerikkkan has long had appalling taste in books, right? Big bestsellers have been popularly viewed as slop and yet hugely popular since probably like, the 1980s, right? This is not new, just the social platform? I hear about “the trope-ification of media” and I think back to ‘bodice rippers’ and stuff.
Easily the wildest application of the term “manufactured consent” I have ever seen however 
You must log in or register to comment.
Easily the wildest application of the term “manufactured consent” I have ever seen however
What, you mean how the publishers decide what books to publish?
Yeah and then justify it, which that’s not usually the context I think of the consent manufacturing machine in tbh.
You can tell the average amerikkkan’s taste in books is appalling because Stephen King is a bestselling author
Me trying to read It and being in the same scene 50 pages later
I thought had the book got some high moments it was definitely too long
Real as fuck, I thought to Dan Brown being a bestseller myself =)
Extremely valid. Dan Brown only has a handful of dogshit bestsellers unlike Stephen King’s dozens and dozens though, right?
Seven is a handful yeah
Stephen King’s success is a crime tbh
Big bestsellers have been popularly viewed as slop and yet hugely popular since probably like, the 1980s, right?
Skimming the wiki page for Pulp Magazine suggests it’s been a thing for at least a couple hundred years. People have always liked stories, and with increasing literacy and the growing capitalist tension to commodify everything, it makes sense that creativity would be homogenized, thrown on an assembly line, and sold as cheap entertainment. And we get to live in a culture where that process has been heightening and looping in on itself for over a century.
Tangentially, in the above article there’s a link to Newgate Novels (“novels published in England from the late 1820s until the 1840s that glamorised the lives of the criminals they portrayed”) with an interesting paragraph:
The 1840 murder of Lord William Russell by his valet, François Benjamin Courvoisier, proved so controversial that the Newgate novel came under severe criticism. Courvoisier was reported to have been inspired to the act by a dramatisation of Ainsworth’s story.
Nothing new under the sun
Thanks for the share, this video looks interesting. I’m gonna watch it instead of watching tiktok instead of sleeping.
Sounds about right, that’s sort-of the idea this video I linked tries to get at. Good comment!!
Lol lmao @ that murder incident and the Newgate novel. But this confirms my theory that while it’s now more concentrated and has an online platform, this sort of dumbing down of fiction has been dumbed for ages and ages. Just seen so much alarmist commentary about THE DEATH OF BOOKS and such.
Just finished, great vid.
Just seen so much alarmist commentary about THE DEATH OF BOOKS and such.
I feel that, I haven’t figured out how to have a stable/consistent conception of anything, really. Like when I’m consuming current events and media it feels like everything’s gonna fall apart, the world’s gonna end, whatever. But then reading history, it’s never not been like this. On a vibe level feels like things are simultaneously getting worse and have always been this way.
Like an illusion that implies some sort of trend or trajectory but never actually changes. Gonna come off as deeply unserious but kinda like this lol:
Ever heard of Sturgeon’s Law? Some journalist in the 50’s asked sf author Theodore Sturgeon why 90% of sf was crap and his response, coining the law, was that 90% of everything is crap.
I’ve seen several long form youtube videos about this Colleen Hoover and her breeding kink and its centrality to her books
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Her what
Fine, I will watch the Coho horse get beaten to a pulp.
I like that channel she also has a good vid about how Kirk/Spock is totally canon actually
Based!
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
