Not a Fan of BookTok

 At least not currently. I use TikTok as a before-going-to-sleep thing, so I mainly just look at stuff that’s relevant to me as an internet consumer: Adam Driver stuff, Christian stuff, planners, drawing, creative writing stuff, and such. So I do a lot of ForYou page scrolling.

I don’t delve too deep into BookTok, because they read stuff I don’t really wanna read, too much contemporary fiction, which I mostly don’t like. I mostly like nonfiction, history, biographies of writers and other artists, actors, politicians and other famous people. Philosophy, feminism,  how to stuff.

I did manage to find one BookTok-er I like, Margo Harrison, who is an author and  vlogs about the old school YA from the 70s that I enjoyed as a kid–it seems like no one else is talking about that stuff, they’re all pimping stuff that just came out. Talk about making $$ for the publishing corporations, I’m sure they LOVE BookTok.

And there is apparently a deep dislike on BookTok for the classics, of course the old woke objections to Old Dead White Guys, but they overlook the fact that a lot of women and people of color were writing back in the day, a lot of gay people, and in so clinging to these objections they miss out on a lot of great stuff.

But there is a HUGE backlash against the classics on BookTok, to the point where anyone that suggests they read them is roundly attacked. What they’re getting wrong, in my opinion, is that clinging to current reads only can only serve the publishing industry,  which is a much bigger enemy to the rank and file reader than any other random BookTok-er will ever be.

I’ve been a fairly voracious reader since I learned how to read. When I was a child, I taught another child how to read, which was a great highlight of my childhood. I don’t have any college English credentials, but I was a professional bookseller for a few years.