so many thoughts!!!! 1.) the internet really makes people act very straggly. re: that pea soup example. I see that all the time and it makes me want to scream. people are no longer satisfied with being the main character of their lives. they want to be the main character of your life too!
alsoooo everyone reading the same books, consuming the same media, going to the same places, getting recommended the same stuff. wanting to have the right taste. ofcourse people are thinking and talking and therefore writing the same things!
I enjoy reading and as someone who didn’t grow much with the habit I constantly judge myself about what I’m reading. I want to be someone smart and read smart books. But I like to consume trash here and there, trash show? Saw it. Trash book? On my tbr. Trash fyp? Don’t worry spent two hours in it. And it just kills me. I feel like I can’t consume anything without someone making it in some manner trendy? When I read your stuff (which really love) and see you mention all this trendy words (connecting one of your thoughts with Taylor swift) and I think, was it necessary? Do we need this trendy to back us up? To make it more relevant? But then I think about the soup, she isn’t writing for me, I shouldn’t judge her and just enjoy the small amount of joy it brings me every day. But at the end, I feel like I’m never critique worthy I’m just a person who want to be this lit girl and should instead grab a English class.
I was reading this with so many hats on (as a book lover - feeling a sudden surge of protectiveness for books and literature!) as a writer (asking myself if I have allowed my own writing to be influenced by trends) and as a teacher (why on earth is Hannah not using apital letters?!)
As all of those things, I love and loathe the lit girl/thought daughter 'aesthetic'. I have young girls who sign up to a-level literature, with 'English lit at uni' aspirations, thinking they can write their entire coursework thesis on Colleen Hoover, who are appalled when I ask them to explore other female writers that explore toxic romances ("Why not try The Doll's House" "Is that like Pretty Little Liars?" - a very real exchange I had with one student). I believe books should be ready and enjoyed and if that books is light froth then so be it. My 7 year old son loves Jamie Smart books and Dav Pilkey's Dogman books. They're a mix between prose and graphic novels; do I wish he was reading Michael Morpurgo books? Maybe sometimes. But he chooses to sit down and read his books in the afternoon and evening rather than playing on his Nintendo switch because he loves them. His reading age is great - the books are doing their job.
I think there is space for the froth and the space for the 'lit-literature'.
I have a sign in my classroom that says 'putting the lit in literature' and I have 'gen-z coded' descriptions of classics and canon books. (See if you can guess!)
"Crazy family drama - girl falls for her abusive adoptive brother who is totally obsessed with her. He could eat Ryle for breakfast. Expect Saltburn levels of grave ick-ery.'
I also run book competitions in my classes - students have to earn points by reading a RANGE of books - so there is space for the Colleen Hoovers and the Icebreakers (for my seniors!) but there is also The Old Man and the Sea, Shirley, The Wasp Factory, Carmilla, The GoldFinch... They love it and by the end of the year they've upped their reading game. It means that fewer students do actually opt in to studying lit at Uni but the ones that do are truly the 'lit girls (and boys)'. The ones who run to me at break time because they've JUST discovered Philip Larkin or hard-related to an angsty Emily Dickinson.
As for me, the reader and the writer - I like range. My reading journal this year includes Tessa Bailey's 'Make ME' and Victoria Gosling's Bliss and Blunder. Non- fiction book 'Eve' and Emily Henry's Beach Read. All are welcome. All feed me something.
As with nutrition - you need a well balanced diet of books.
I think there are some valid points here, and I appreciate your view on the 'all writing sounds the same' take, but regarding 'the brainrot of Booktok' I'd like to offer this perspective on the subject: Reading is a hobby. Hobbies are meant to be fun. Books are media, storytelling, entertainment. Not everyone who reads has to be doing deep dive literally analysis of all of the thickest classics. Furthermore, the tone of shame, which is not refrained to this article but present in many, towards individuals (the woman from the TikTok for example) regarding "anti-intellectualism" feels rather harsh? Who are we to judge what makes someone an intellectual and, even further, why does intellectualism gain higher morality than other traits? We live in a time where, in many countries, libraries are being burned by extremist groups, books are being banned en masse, and education funding is gutted. Intellectualism and time spent in seek of knowledge is not afforded to those worn thin simply trying to stay alive or to those in spheres where it is actively discouraged. Education is an extreme privilege.
Furthermore, this anger and frustration I have noticed towards one-dimensional media and lack of media literacy, I think, should not be aimed at girls who like flirty rom-com books with smutty scenes, but at a deeper-seeded, more pervasive structure in our societies which has /long/ (long before TikTok) encouraged women to engage with flat media that lacks positive social/romantic influence. The patriarchy benefits greatly from this, from girls who look up to Colleen Hoover-esque men with doe-eyed love, lacking critical analysis of their toxic behavior. So are these young women to blame when our societies, reliant on patriarchal beliefs from men and women both, will always, always, try push them towards this media, and inevitably some will succumb?
Finally, booktok is a wide and wonderful and multifaceted world that has many pockets where I have come across the recommendation and discussion of many excellent books, so the suggestion that this problem is booktok vs. "intellectuals" just feels a little unfair. It seems to me that the response to the woman's TikTok is to your 'pea soup' point. She is clearly expressing a faux-angry frustration towards her followers who recommended her the book, assuming that they would know her (they are her followers, after all, and engage with her content) and know that she seems to like books that are quicker reads with more dialogue (this is what she means by 'less words on the page', but everyone seems to be (deliberately?) misunderstanding her), so if you are not her follower who knows her and recommended the book, why are you so upset? Why are you engaging? Just continue swiping.
I felt like I was about to talk back to you throughout the piece. Like I had a million opinions and comments on it - it is so much fun and so interesting to read thought provoking pieces about ... well, the fear of the potential lack of those.
I am always in such a weird place when it comes to the internet, booktok, and the general media content/consumption cycle that comes with literature now. The push to complete reading goals even if that means reading 10 books you don't care about but will "complete your challenge".
Like yes, books have many words, like the girl said - but do they matter if we are just going to RUSH through them to show someone else how much we've read?. Did we really read?
It's the limbo between loving what the internet does for us (even right now, reading and commenting on this) but also making a showcase and almost a satire of things we like and love just for the sake of.. honestly? attention. And maybe money.
Thank you for sharing that reading list, can't wait to go through it :).
DID WE REALLY READ? Exactly! Can you tell me what happened in the story, who the characters are, what are their flaws, are there sub-plots? Can you tell me all of this a few weeks from now? Months? Years? If you can, by all means, keep going with whatever style books you like. But if not, maybe take a step back and think, why am I reading???? For who?
Soo many thoughtful points!! I find the conversation about the de-intellectualisation of BookTok so relevant especially when it comes to the publishing industry and the future of literature. It’s a direct result of the dopamine addicting nature of TikTok and can make the future seem so bleak. But when you mentioned how writers have always been grouped throughout history, I could see exactly what you were talking about :)
I appreciate the critical lens you took while remaining hopeful but also understanding the context that so many are creating/writing within. It’s so common to see people/other creatives bemoaning trends and terms without considering why they’re seeing an uptick in “insert trendy buzzword here”- type content. Funnily enough, the critics also become the people you mentioned early in the article who have seemingly forgotten how to scroll and not engage with that which they don’t agree with/don’t like. Loved this! And I can’t wait to get into the reading list at some point this week :)
Online world vs. reality is such a fascinating topic and one that is more important than ever. There used to be a time where there were no aesthetics that didn’t exist in real life, there were real subcultures of people, a real community that then had a certain aesthetic. But it always was attached to something real. I think I am a bit too old to fully understand the hold the online world has on some people, I still remember life without the internet and navigating by map! But the more essays that I read about this, the more I realize how difficult it must be for younger generations to find themselves in this world.
i love this hopeful take!! absolutely love the point on writers grouping together throughout history - this was so refreshing to read and i'll definitely be revisiting this <3
As someone who does not use TikTok (which is crazy, right? Especially knowing TikTok culture is so engrained into everything, it doesn’t even matter if you use it or not you can’t escape any of it) the entire phenomenon of sharing popular books and not actually reading them is…dumb. For those of us who actually enjoy reading, writing, and analyzing, I’m sure it’s a bit sad to watch, and if you want to world build and create novels worth reading (as I am doing, at a snails pace) you feel rushed, like you have to move with the tide.
On a different note, I think people really do want to read these large novels and struggle to because their attention span has become shorter due to fast-paced media, so short-form books with a easy digestible plot has become the norm. It takes time to read through Dostoevsky or Poe or Tolkien without taking breaks, coming back to it later, and really thinking about what you’re consuming. The pace doesn’t match the mainstream media. Of course, their are books in the middle, and I personally don’t read smut -.- but the conversation is worth having, possibly in person, with real people. Like Socratic seminars at a coffee shop or something.
yours is the first generation to grow up with social media and its only natural that everyone is struggling to find and articulate their place in this culture. Gen x and millennials did it too, just in different ways (mine included a digital camera and lots of photo dumps to Facebook). 🖤
Wow is all I can say. I am new to Substack, and I feel that I was fortunate that this is one of the first articles I read. I feel overwhelmed; I have never felt so understood by an author, which is confusing because you're writing about a subject that is so general to the internet. I just want you to know that you are insanely talented, and your writing skills are next level. Reading this felt like I was talking to myself, or with a very close friend, in a really!!!! good way! Thank you so much for sharing your work with the world.
i love the article but also the way you switch to capitals after acknowledging your use of lowercase - my jaw was on the floor - so good
Came here to say this. Loved that decision.
what i wanted to comment on! its such a statement just by itself
so many thoughts!!!! 1.) the internet really makes people act very straggly. re: that pea soup example. I see that all the time and it makes me want to scream. people are no longer satisfied with being the main character of their lives. they want to be the main character of your life too!
alsoooo everyone reading the same books, consuming the same media, going to the same places, getting recommended the same stuff. wanting to have the right taste. ofcourse people are thinking and talking and therefore writing the same things!
I enjoy reading and as someone who didn’t grow much with the habit I constantly judge myself about what I’m reading. I want to be someone smart and read smart books. But I like to consume trash here and there, trash show? Saw it. Trash book? On my tbr. Trash fyp? Don’t worry spent two hours in it. And it just kills me. I feel like I can’t consume anything without someone making it in some manner trendy? When I read your stuff (which really love) and see you mention all this trendy words (connecting one of your thoughts with Taylor swift) and I think, was it necessary? Do we need this trendy to back us up? To make it more relevant? But then I think about the soup, she isn’t writing for me, I shouldn’t judge her and just enjoy the small amount of joy it brings me every day. But at the end, I feel like I’m never critique worthy I’m just a person who want to be this lit girl and should instead grab a English class.
I was reading this with so many hats on (as a book lover - feeling a sudden surge of protectiveness for books and literature!) as a writer (asking myself if I have allowed my own writing to be influenced by trends) and as a teacher (why on earth is Hannah not using apital letters?!)
As all of those things, I love and loathe the lit girl/thought daughter 'aesthetic'. I have young girls who sign up to a-level literature, with 'English lit at uni' aspirations, thinking they can write their entire coursework thesis on Colleen Hoover, who are appalled when I ask them to explore other female writers that explore toxic romances ("Why not try The Doll's House" "Is that like Pretty Little Liars?" - a very real exchange I had with one student). I believe books should be ready and enjoyed and if that books is light froth then so be it. My 7 year old son loves Jamie Smart books and Dav Pilkey's Dogman books. They're a mix between prose and graphic novels; do I wish he was reading Michael Morpurgo books? Maybe sometimes. But he chooses to sit down and read his books in the afternoon and evening rather than playing on his Nintendo switch because he loves them. His reading age is great - the books are doing their job.
I think there is space for the froth and the space for the 'lit-literature'.
I have a sign in my classroom that says 'putting the lit in literature' and I have 'gen-z coded' descriptions of classics and canon books. (See if you can guess!)
"Crazy family drama - girl falls for her abusive adoptive brother who is totally obsessed with her. He could eat Ryle for breakfast. Expect Saltburn levels of grave ick-ery.'
I also run book competitions in my classes - students have to earn points by reading a RANGE of books - so there is space for the Colleen Hoovers and the Icebreakers (for my seniors!) but there is also The Old Man and the Sea, Shirley, The Wasp Factory, Carmilla, The GoldFinch... They love it and by the end of the year they've upped their reading game. It means that fewer students do actually opt in to studying lit at Uni but the ones that do are truly the 'lit girls (and boys)'. The ones who run to me at break time because they've JUST discovered Philip Larkin or hard-related to an angsty Emily Dickinson.
As for me, the reader and the writer - I like range. My reading journal this year includes Tessa Bailey's 'Make ME' and Victoria Gosling's Bliss and Blunder. Non- fiction book 'Eve' and Emily Henry's Beach Read. All are welcome. All feed me something.
As with nutrition - you need a well balanced diet of books.
Oh, I love your “book competitions” thing!! That’s an amazing idea! 💡
I think there are some valid points here, and I appreciate your view on the 'all writing sounds the same' take, but regarding 'the brainrot of Booktok' I'd like to offer this perspective on the subject: Reading is a hobby. Hobbies are meant to be fun. Books are media, storytelling, entertainment. Not everyone who reads has to be doing deep dive literally analysis of all of the thickest classics. Furthermore, the tone of shame, which is not refrained to this article but present in many, towards individuals (the woman from the TikTok for example) regarding "anti-intellectualism" feels rather harsh? Who are we to judge what makes someone an intellectual and, even further, why does intellectualism gain higher morality than other traits? We live in a time where, in many countries, libraries are being burned by extremist groups, books are being banned en masse, and education funding is gutted. Intellectualism and time spent in seek of knowledge is not afforded to those worn thin simply trying to stay alive or to those in spheres where it is actively discouraged. Education is an extreme privilege.
Furthermore, this anger and frustration I have noticed towards one-dimensional media and lack of media literacy, I think, should not be aimed at girls who like flirty rom-com books with smutty scenes, but at a deeper-seeded, more pervasive structure in our societies which has /long/ (long before TikTok) encouraged women to engage with flat media that lacks positive social/romantic influence. The patriarchy benefits greatly from this, from girls who look up to Colleen Hoover-esque men with doe-eyed love, lacking critical analysis of their toxic behavior. So are these young women to blame when our societies, reliant on patriarchal beliefs from men and women both, will always, always, try push them towards this media, and inevitably some will succumb?
Finally, booktok is a wide and wonderful and multifaceted world that has many pockets where I have come across the recommendation and discussion of many excellent books, so the suggestion that this problem is booktok vs. "intellectuals" just feels a little unfair. It seems to me that the response to the woman's TikTok is to your 'pea soup' point. She is clearly expressing a faux-angry frustration towards her followers who recommended her the book, assuming that they would know her (they are her followers, after all, and engage with her content) and know that she seems to like books that are quicker reads with more dialogue (this is what she means by 'less words on the page', but everyone seems to be (deliberately?) misunderstanding her), so if you are not her follower who knows her and recommended the book, why are you so upset? Why are you engaging? Just continue swiping.
So.many.thoughs.
I felt like I was about to talk back to you throughout the piece. Like I had a million opinions and comments on it - it is so much fun and so interesting to read thought provoking pieces about ... well, the fear of the potential lack of those.
I am always in such a weird place when it comes to the internet, booktok, and the general media content/consumption cycle that comes with literature now. The push to complete reading goals even if that means reading 10 books you don't care about but will "complete your challenge".
Like yes, books have many words, like the girl said - but do they matter if we are just going to RUSH through them to show someone else how much we've read?. Did we really read?
It's the limbo between loving what the internet does for us (even right now, reading and commenting on this) but also making a showcase and almost a satire of things we like and love just for the sake of.. honestly? attention. And maybe money.
Thank you for sharing that reading list, can't wait to go through it :).
DID WE REALLY READ? Exactly! Can you tell me what happened in the story, who the characters are, what are their flaws, are there sub-plots? Can you tell me all of this a few weeks from now? Months? Years? If you can, by all means, keep going with whatever style books you like. But if not, maybe take a step back and think, why am I reading???? For who?
Soo many thoughtful points!! I find the conversation about the de-intellectualisation of BookTok so relevant especially when it comes to the publishing industry and the future of literature. It’s a direct result of the dopamine addicting nature of TikTok and can make the future seem so bleak. But when you mentioned how writers have always been grouped throughout history, I could see exactly what you were talking about :)
I appreciate the critical lens you took while remaining hopeful but also understanding the context that so many are creating/writing within. It’s so common to see people/other creatives bemoaning trends and terms without considering why they’re seeing an uptick in “insert trendy buzzword here”- type content. Funnily enough, the critics also become the people you mentioned early in the article who have seemingly forgotten how to scroll and not engage with that which they don’t agree with/don’t like. Loved this! And I can’t wait to get into the reading list at some point this week :)
Online world vs. reality is such a fascinating topic and one that is more important than ever. There used to be a time where there were no aesthetics that didn’t exist in real life, there were real subcultures of people, a real community that then had a certain aesthetic. But it always was attached to something real. I think I am a bit too old to fully understand the hold the online world has on some people, I still remember life without the internet and navigating by map! But the more essays that I read about this, the more I realize how difficult it must be for younger generations to find themselves in this world.
i love this hopeful take!! absolutely love the point on writers grouping together throughout history - this was so refreshing to read and i'll definitely be revisiting this <3
As someone who does not use TikTok (which is crazy, right? Especially knowing TikTok culture is so engrained into everything, it doesn’t even matter if you use it or not you can’t escape any of it) the entire phenomenon of sharing popular books and not actually reading them is…dumb. For those of us who actually enjoy reading, writing, and analyzing, I’m sure it’s a bit sad to watch, and if you want to world build and create novels worth reading (as I am doing, at a snails pace) you feel rushed, like you have to move with the tide.
On a different note, I think people really do want to read these large novels and struggle to because their attention span has become shorter due to fast-paced media, so short-form books with a easy digestible plot has become the norm. It takes time to read through Dostoevsky or Poe or Tolkien without taking breaks, coming back to it later, and really thinking about what you’re consuming. The pace doesn’t match the mainstream media. Of course, their are books in the middle, and I personally don’t read smut -.- but the conversation is worth having, possibly in person, with real people. Like Socratic seminars at a coffee shop or something.
yours is the first generation to grow up with social media and its only natural that everyone is struggling to find and articulate their place in this culture. Gen x and millennials did it too, just in different ways (mine included a digital camera and lots of photo dumps to Facebook). 🖤
I devoured this piece ❤️
Im in awe with this text! I have so many new thoughts about this and feel so understood at the same time!!!
Wow is all I can say. I am new to Substack, and I feel that I was fortunate that this is one of the first articles I read. I feel overwhelmed; I have never felt so understood by an author, which is confusing because you're writing about a subject that is so general to the internet. I just want you to know that you are insanely talented, and your writing skills are next level. Reading this felt like I was talking to myself, or with a very close friend, in a really!!!! good way! Thank you so much for sharing your work with the world.
this was so beautiful and insightful <3