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Intro~
Before I get into the whole booktok thing, I want to inform you about thde book that I am currently writing! I've just begun with writing my idea down on paper TODAY, but I have an absolute hyperfixation on getting it done. You can check my progress on my Pinterest! Link: https://nl.pinterest.com/cloudymxchiis/Back in my days...
To understand what booktok really is, I'll give a brief summary on what booktok was in the first place. Booktok was a small community before it blew up around 2022-2023. Bookworms shared book reccomandations - which were sometimes oddly specific - to other bookworms, or people who just got into reading. Reading has always been seen as 'boring', literacy rates have been/are rapidly dropping, because of the ABSOLUTE SMART invention of short-form content.
For me personally, I always read books (Dork's Diary was peak). Every night before I went to sleep I read, not able to stop flipping pages, until my mom got mad and had to turn off my bedroom's lights by force. My friends looked at me as though I was crazy when I told them that I LOVED reading books. I was the smart kid of the class, so that was their explenation. But genuinely, if I was smart or not, I would've always loved reading.
So, for me discovering booktok was really comforting, since I realised alot of people shared the same amazing feeling with me about reading.
Now, let's get into the less fun stuff...
Smut, smut, smut
No, I am not a hater of a lil' bit of.. Spice, if you will. I mean in the Queen Of Nothing, I've been kicking my feet and giggling for hours. But the thing is with modern booktok, is that it's not just a little bit of spice, no, it's a FULL BLOWN MEXICAN MEAL!! I am not even kidding. If I hear the terms 'Good girl' and/or 'Daddy' ONE more time, I will eat my bed.
Usually I expect 85-90% of the book to be about the plot and a nice 10-15% smut, making out, etc. But with modern booktok the numbers are switched up. The plot is always about a mafia boss, stalker, assassin... Just insert any morally grey job.
I have no problems with dark romance, in fact I love it, but in booktok dark romance is just pure noncon smut. I am sick and tired seeing 30 year olds on my fyp talking about how an Italian mafia boss kidnapped the main character and made her do disgusting stuff.
The magic in books, romance or not, is that these stories leave you craving (not in the way these smut readers crave p*rn). I mean, I will be screaming and kicking my feet when the love interest and the main character only glance at eachother for a mere second.
Conclusion
Honestly, everyone does what they want to do. It's just difficult to find a fellow bookworm who actually reads BOOKS not smut. It's like you ask someone "Do you like movies?" And they answer with yes, but in reality all they watch is p*rn movies...
Should I go over biketok in the next blog? It'll only make sense, since the two are somehow really connected.
Well, I love you always, don't die, and I'll hopefully write another blog soon enough~!
Comments
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zennyisdone
"does it have spice?" girl this is a children's book
"does it have spice?" then it's a newspaper.
by Mxchii; ; Report
n!c01
idk why they buy those books when AO3 is free...yet again I don't know if I even want them to migrate there (・_・;) they're gonna be in the comments of my oc&oc sonic fic asking for the spice level T-T it's freezing cold, Brenda.
BAHAHAHAHA wait until they find out about character.ai... Don't even think about it.
by Mxchii; ; Report
ideksofxx
this is so realllll, how did we go from recommending "the 7 husbands of Evelyn Hugo" to promoting "books" about romanticized rape??? the fact people aren't even noticing, if anything they sort of worship them, it's extremely concerning. I feel like this phenomenon is also due to the fact books are no longer seen as a form of art and self expression (they still do but it's very rare especially today) but rather as products. So the mindset of many writers is more "whatever sells, i guess!", without a care of what kind of garbage the book actually contains.
Also, companies starting to exploit AI to write books in order to maximize their profit is def another sign of this huge consumerism wave.
Rape is WAY too normalized in these books, I find it so disgusting. What is even worse is that people LIKE it... I haven't heard of the AI thing though, I'll do some research on it!!
by Mxchii; ; Report
exactly!!! why are people into this stuff
by ideksofxx; ; Report
🍓Gutz🌈
I have a similar view on booktok even with me reading in the splatterpunk genre, but my issue isnt really the fact that the books are porn, its more so my issue with how poorly written it is and how its copy n pasted
alot of dark romance I see being recommended on booktok is mainly just badly made wannabe shock content, like who can make the most triggering book and still have it labeled as a dark romance.
It feels hypocritical of me to say all of this, esp when I do enjoy a decent handful of splatterpunk books, but I feel one of the differences between the two is one is direct about its shock and can be written well (or not tbh, not every book is for everyone, Ive dnf'd a few books in the catagory, it really depends on your tolerance level and if you like certain writing styles) and the other hides being a veil with the same exact plot as eachother, just with a few minor changes
another issue I have with booktok esp in recent years is how they have made how many books you read into a competition, sure if you can read 100 books in a year, thats great! more power to you, but when you try to work really hard to making that goal in a year, I find more often than not that they will not have much time to fully absorb the book and reflect, instead being more focused on reaching the goal of xyz amount of books a year. whenever I decide to open booktok, it makes me feel like im the weird one for being an INCREDIBLY slow reader and having a goal of reading 10-12 books in a year or so.
last issue, overconsumption (ik this has been a buzzword recently, but just hear yee hear yee), I see alot of content creators buying a mass amount of books from barnes n noble or amazon for their physical tbr, and then 90% of them go unread and stacked away on a bookshelf. No shame if you do buy books, I have alot of them also, but I feel like its falling behind if I spend all this money on books and barely even read and consume them. It tends to tie into the adrenaline rush that someone would get from buying a large cart full of whatever it may be (in this case, its books) rather than the adrenaline rush of actually sitting down and taking time to read the books.
my opinions may seem a bit shallow in a way, but those are my thoughts. Apologies in advance if this is WAYYY too long of a comment :')
Yes!! I was watching a video of a bookshelf tour of a girl, she had TONS of books in her shelf that she didn't even read!! Such a waste, honestly. Especially for someone like me, who really wants to buy so many books, yet cannot since they cost A HELLA LOT. I am also glad you called out the elephant in the room, since the amount of books one reads sn't relevant in my opinion. Reading is supposed to be a beautiful experience, not a race.
by Mxchii; ; Report
Tir3d.P4p3r
Why do so many smut books exist?
I thought that was supposed to be only for like, online stories that people write, and fanfics and stuff. Why would you need hundreds of pages with and abt smut TT
Honestly, I don't even know. These books that these booktokers recommend make the Wattpad stories I used to read, look like children stories!
by Mxchii; ; Report
New form of pornography just dropped
by Tir3d.P4p3r; ; Report
The scary thing is that people sometimes bring these books out in public! It's as if you take your phone just to watch NSFW shit. I find it so sad that they had to bring pornography into such a beautiful form of art. I want to make a rant blog about: "Why is everything SEXUAL nowadays?" I dunno if I am allowed to post such explicit language though.
by Mxchii; ; Report
Yeah Ik. Its weird af. I tried reading some ao3 stories in class or outside in general but I stopped bcs it feels so weird. It was unconfortable, stressful and felt a bit guilty. Idk how these people do it... Wouldn't it be normal to only read that at home? Bcs yk, makes you feel frisky. Why would you want to be frisky in public
by Tir3d.P4p3r; ; Report
Yes, of course. You're allowed to do whatever when you're home. Just... Keep it at home. Once I saw a woman reading a book on the metro, and I was so happy, since the cover looked aesthetically pleasing. So, I looked the title up and discovered that it was pure smut. Sigh.
by Mxchii; ; Report
The rise of goonettes :3
by Tir3d.P4p3r; ; Report
ConcertZombie
Omg booktok is so bad. You can still find good recs and stuff, but such a majority is "spicy" and "dark romance." I'm feeling inspired by this and might just write a blog later on booktok and how it and its consumers affected the book scene.
Yeah, a great booktoker is/ was Jade (aka sprinkle sprinkle girl), but she suddenly dissapeared. Even though she also talked about spicy parts of certain books, she also gave tons of book recs for fluff, fantasy, etc. I find it really sad that the underrated and actually have GOOD recommendations, but they're overshadowed by these 'spicy' booktokers. And I am glad that you feel inspired to write a blog about this! I'll make sure to read it.
by Mxchii; ; Report