Twitter has been in shambles since 💀

what does any of this mean 💀

Z-lib is shutting down?? WTF

Idk what's going on, I'm still able to use zlibrary? But rip, girlboss down

and the reason zlib shut down was bc of a coho fan on tt whos vid went viral

lol preachhhh

I guess?? Like seeing the same trope over and over again gets tiring. Like i deadass hate enemies to lovers just cuz of the people not shutting up abt it. Itd a good trope but eh

Surely if the authors are caring more about spicy scenes then it’s affecting the art they’re creating. I don’t know much about booktok but I hope authors aren’t actually being influenced to that extent.

@@killme5630 i love it but people get it wrong all the time, its supposed to be done in a way where nobody can see it coming yk

@@stargirlabi_111 i guess.

Depending on where you live, art that makes into galleries is also very superficial and thoughtless

Unfortunately, I might have to agree. Sometimes I feel like Tiktok ignores the content of the book.

agree, remember when running up that hill was playing behind prank videos? so weird

What do you mean by that? Like their own drawings or looking at older paintings? Also it’s probably where you’re at on tiktok. I’ve seen plenty of older pieces being discussed and plenty of pieces that people make currently have a lot of meaning behind them.

Everyone does that everywhere

fuck that’s so raw

So very much this.

It has always being that way for artists and their galleries, they produce and the gallery sells. Tik tok is like a gallery but jus another channel

Calling an artist a content creator just cheapens their hard work and disrespects their passions.

And have thousands of likes lol

Libby is my favourite app for reading ebooks from my library!

@Nadia M sameee

Definitely! I’m sad cuz I got the covs and I couldn’t return books and now I have like $41 in fees 😭

+1, libraries now help you read books on Kindle and borrow audiobooks!

@@mx_potatohead1326 if you call them and explain, they'll usually excuse it. Especially of you're not always late.although, the longer you wait, the less likely it'll work. Still, try it. But next time call sooner rather than later.

👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾

i had no idea any of his songs went viral, i would have been so confused at that show!

i agree (even tho i don’t know much about his art and deleted tiktok) but maybe they truly felt interested about his music after going to the concert! (still sucks for him bc no one sang along)

I literally haven’t even seen a for you page since March, (addiction) and babes this is scarrry why is tik tok so impactful to the fact a niche random author gets praised by 2B people. AND THE STEVE LACY SITUATION. AND BEING USED MORE THAN GOOGLE ??

I'm also trying to avoid short form content, also helps that creators like shanspeare are out here making all these ~half hour videos that I can watch

the canvacore covers yeah ://

And 50% of the books are colleen hoover… Its so irrationally frustrating to me! Every book there is the same

Same, and I'm from a third world country I didn't think booktok's influence would reach this far...

why is that sad

@@xorayne_ Not too mention these are the same stories labeled “spicy” but the sex is vanilla as hell. Slight choking isn’t spicy 😭. Also, bringing in a Hispanic or African American best friend/ coworker who convinces the main character to “speak up” to the main male character is barely diversity ☠️

THIS!! if you think about what trends were like 5 years ago… it’s crazy. trends now last about a week, while then, they’d last at most for a few months. tiktok changed the whole concept of trends and that’s not even an exaggeration.

fr im scared that we’re running out of ideas and just putting out anything we can without much thought and we move on to the next mediocre micro trend.. its unrealistic but I’m seriously freaked out by this

Fr its so scary how back then trends lasted a whole DECADE (y2k, 2010's, etc) but now there's a new trend/fashion style every 2 months... crazy how i can remember the bella swan aesthetic in september 2021, and since then we've had downtown girl, y2k, 2014 effy stonem tumblr girl, coquette and probably more than that. Pretty scary stuff

@@edgarallanpoe209 What's funny is that alot of these aesthetics are actually the same thing (e.g., bella swan aesthetic and downtown girl). It's like we're copying Hollywood's affinity for reboots but with our personalities/self-expression and on a much faster scale

@@edgarallanpoe209 it's so wild for me because I'll be 30 this year, and I remember when tumblr first became obsessed w Effy (and tumblr grunge as a whole). I still occasionally go on tumblr from time to time, and seeing all the "2014 tumblr" hashtags is... a weird feeling, to say the least. Same with seeing all the clothes I wore in high school now becoming some type of aesthetic described as something ending in the word core. Such a surreal and eerie thing to see

Or even gay men who want to find a book written by an actual gay man and not written by a straight woman (or even by a woman in general). And forget it if you're a trans person looking for a book with trans characters that isn't about just being trans.

Its like we haven't learned from our fanfiction days!!! straight women need to stop fetishizing cutesy gay men

People did this with killing stalking but instead of calling it a psychological thriller they called it a romance story. Alot of people sugar coat the series and young girls like 12-14 romanticize the relationship. It goes towards a certain demographic but people shy away from it.

@@himikotoga4270 THANK you for mentioning Killing Stalking

read she drives me crazy! forgot the author but there’s butch and poc lesbian rep

you got thiss

let’s go! all I have is KZfaq, snap(I need it since my team’s group chat is on it), and insta, because my school uses it. I’ve been intentionally avoiding tiktok because it just seems addictive, and twitter is a cesspool. join the club :D

i deleted tiktok right before the johnny depp and amber heard trial and the way my friends w/ tiktok were talking ab it compared the friends w/out tiktok were talking about it was insane. It’s a very specific example but tiktok (and basically any social media) makes you so blind to anything that happens outside of it. I’m so less stressed without it, and this sounds very dramatic but i feel like i have way more of an identity

omg same i deleted today bcus of a rude awakening nvr going bck

i deleted my twitter account, i love it it changed me life!! you are much less reactive after.

👌🏾👌🏾👌🏾👌🏾

75% of time is sending me 😭😭😭

the audacity to say that tiktok kids arent alright when the people saying it were superwholocked

Idk the degradation of late capitalism has been incredibly destructive the bite sized advertisement platform absolutely doesn’t help. Screens are accepted widely to literally stunt the development of young children’s brains.

No, not really. The kids are actually not doing alright. Spend more than an hour with kids these days (kids who are highly active on social media) and you will immediately see how not alright the kids are

yeah i feel like thats definitely the fault of the fast paced algorithm, of course you will never be able to post perfection and absolute greatness every day on there so it just gets swallowed

I think its a good thing, I think many people gave up creative endeavours because they felt they had to be exemplary. Hopefully the next generation will have a healthier relationship with creativity because of this.

It doesn’t always praise meritocracy. In fact their is the other end of tiktok where your mediocrity will turn you into an inescapable meme. like that girl who claimed she was in the wrong art class.

It doesn't so much praise mediocrity, as impose a content structure and recommendation algorithm that makes complexity and nuance effectively impossible. It did for art what Twitter did for social discourse.

@@EphemeralTao makes me wanna gatekeep my interests. It just feels weird.

She may have been here for 10 years but I’m still willing to campaign for her to win

I mean the Grammy nominees for Best New Artist are more often than not not actually that new...

you do WHAT 😭

@@Shanspeare it's fine. I have a food handlers license... plus, the hard exoskeleton of the corndog keeps bacteria at bay

@@RyanCoomer huh? What????

@@RyanCoomer hard????

Sam ‘n Ella

istg, like I have found some really good books that are very famous on booktok but I’ve found so many underrated books and I think more people should read them as well !!

tbh tho I'm glad booktok recommended me the song of achilles

@@MEOWMIX3DS i might be biased but even as a nonreader song of achilles has been a major rec since ive interacted with booktube but fr though im glad you found that book! never personally read it, but i have heard plenty of good stuff about it (made me curious to read it myself lmao) - btw if you liked soa maybe youll enjoy circe? its by the same author and has a lot of good reviews, you should totally give it a look

@@ephemeral999 ohhh nice! thanks for the rec! if you have any way to read soa, please do! it's the most beautiful book I've read and it's so... just wow..

ikr like colleen hoover or something like that? most videos are ALL her

Crap, it's NFTs all over again.

@@pizzapower3166 💥

Came to say this. This was happening before TikTok, it just boosted it if anything

Exactly

YES, you hit the nail on the coffin! there's so much now on the internet, I MEAN SO MUCH. more than books in the world (that's hyperbole) but really there's so much now, and it's all accessible! now!

Ikr like do the required listening, get your homework done. I went to a concert last week for one singular artist but I didn’t know the music, so I downloaded like 3 of the albums they were performing so I’d know what I was in for omegalul

personally i wouldn’t even go to a concert of an artist or a band if i hadn’t listened to them for at least a year. it just wouldn’t feel right to me. so all that with steve pissed me off too. i’m sure 70% of those who went to his tour, hadn’t even heard of him till he released bad habit.

I hope the money he got from it made it a little better at least

@@blond5361 that's so weird to me because where i'm from, people go to concerts of artists they have never heard of before simply because they are bored with nothing else to do, and they like listening to music and discovering new artists. so they just drop a visit at the concert and cheer for the musician and leave happy, knowing they discovered something wonderful

@@jiribb9300 where i live they do the same, and is really cool. but in this situation it feels like they just wanted to show they where in a steve lacy concert because his music is viral in the app.

I like to hand sculpt ceramics and people would constantly ask what I was making and then say "it doesn't look like a so-and-so." It drove me so crazy I just stopped telling people what I was making. They'd ask and I'd say "you'll find out when I'm finished." So long story short I totally understand why everyone feels the need to say trust the process. Otherwise people are so obnoxious and rude about it

@@rachel3760 but people can be rude and obnoxious all the time. They used to see me drawing and say "oh I don't have that talent" and I would be pissed because yeab, neither do I, ya dingus. I have drawn everyday since I was 10 years old, you'd draw like this too if you had done the same. Whenever I said I was cute, people would make sure to remind me that I wasn't and that there were people prettier than me. If I had let them make me stop saying how much I thought of myself as pretty, my self-esteem would be in the gutter right now. I love to educate people on that whenever I get the chance, because I love being more obnoxious than whoever is being obnoxious to me.

poetry

Actually I feel the opposite. I've been held back by perfectionism and the fear of messing up all my life and the phrase "trust the process" is really helpful in the early stage of a drawing/painting/logo/article layout. Repeating it inside my mind makes me not want to set the thing I'm making on fire, give up forever, get a new identity and run away to another country.

I think this comes off as a bit unhinged. If "trust the process" doesn't apply to you, then that's cool. that's chill. Some people feel insecure about something not looking perfect at first. And that's cool and chill too. Other people's feelings about their craft shouldn't affect you at all. Opp "I love being more obnoxious than whoever is being obnoxious to me" sums it up pretty well.

Yeah, it definitely sucks. When it comes to concerts like that, people going there should already know the music or at least be willing to appreciate all of it instead of just part of a song. In the alternative community, I have heard of people going to concerts of bands they don't know, but that type of behavior is quite different because these people are searching for new music and also supporting small artists at small venues. They're not just buying tickets that could have been bought by more experienced fans, and then not even appreciating the music they are hearing.

Hopefully at least some of them left with a greater appreciation for Lacy's work. I know it would never have been all of them, but like... I like to at least _pretend_ that folks care on some level about music they buy concert tickets to hear.

same things with BTS, saw vids of concerts where ppl were screaming their new songs but their older (and more iconic) songs ppl were silent asf whereas older fans would have screamed their lungs off

Can I ask if you have any published work out yet? I’ve been looking for a new fantasy book that’s not centered around romance and would love to check your work out💕

Yes yes yes!! I'm also a writer, and the publishing industry was terrifying enough without booktok. My book is literally an outpouring of my soul, my culture, and everything I've ever loved, but in the current booktokification of the industry, it's reduced to whatever tropes I can sift out of it. It's hard to write freely when the narrow parameters booktok has shoved us into to sell are always in the back of your mind. Not to sound like a capitalist harpy, but yeah, I want to make a living off my writing.

YA Fantasy literally made me give up on reading as a whole. I only read books recommended by Ted Ed(I highly recommend Fahrenheit 451, A Thousand Years of Longing, and The Handmaid's Tale) and with books like ACoTandR, Lightlark, and It Ends With Us I have decided. This is probably the most corporate thing I've seen since Disney realized they can resell their own films.

@@pizzapower3166 I have to agree and disagree. I love YA, and I think that, just like we all want representation, it's so incredibly wonderful that young people are able to see themselves through fiction. I really dislike this commonly toted idea that all YA is garbage, because it isn't-- writers like A.S. King, Christelle Dabos, Seanan McGuire and Markus Zusack are consistently churning out popular YA that has real literary merit. And there is more casually entertaining, high stakes fantasy YA that is intricately plotted and well written, too. But I think the issue is that we only see ACOTAR and Lightlark because of BookTok. That side of the industry is probably

@@isabelyoung1744 Yeah, I agree that they don't all suck. It's just the ones with the most publicity do. Somehow. What good YA books do you recommend?

I've seen people who are anti Nabokov because they think *_Lolita_* is endorsing the narrator's actions and contributes to the culture of overs/xualizing teen girls. They completely missed the point of the book and ignore the fact that Nabokov was a survivor himself

@@s29nv1sr1 yes, that’s exactly what i mean. it’s so frustrating when people misunderstand and mischaracterize the novel. i remember seeing a quote from nabokov himself saying that he didn’t want dolores on the cover because that would contradict what the story is about. i think a part of the misunderstanding of the novel is due to the 60’s film, but it’s also a lack of comprehension, and that saddens me.

this makes me wonder what side of booktok you’re on because I’ve seen a lot of pretty popular videos addressing the fact that Lolita isn’t something that should be romanticized, and that the author fully intended for Humbert to be a villain. If anything, I’d say that the whole “reading comprehension not being a thing” in relation to this book originated on tumblr about a decade ago. Attributing the misinterpretation of this book solely to tiktok feels wrong.

@@riley9703 i should clarify that it’s not booktok as a whole. there are plenty of people who are passionate about literature and analysis of novels. the problem is the “book girlies” who make reading colleen hoover (and other similar authors) their entire personality. those type of people are the ones who mischaracterize lolita and other similar novels because their minds are used to romance novels with no deeper meaning. sorry for the long message, i hope it makes sense.

It makes no sense that you would blame teens only reading romance and y/a to the reason why Lolita gets misinterpreted and sexualized. Romance and y/a are not less intelligent genres with no deeper meanings and people who read them don’t have bad reading comprehensions. The problem with Lolita has been happening way before TikTok with the movie and whatever Lana del Rey was doing. And I’ve actually seen more people on tiktok addressing the problem with Lolita then contributing to it.

true!!! i was so delighted when my friend who professed to hate books suddenly started reading because of booktok! while booktok has its evils, im glad more people are reading

I like people reading but when people only recommend me cringy romance books by like three authors it gets on my nerves

the bar has sunken into the floor

Right??? Read your shitty romance but at least you're reading

I initially started reading due to booktok promoting reading as being “aesthetic”. A few years later and I’m in love with reading! Even though booktok still gets onto my nerves sometimes, I think it can really get more people into reading.

I've also seen that on KZfaq as well and honestly it feels like that's the type of content pushed on booktube or is at least a large majority of the content. Also the glamorization of owning your own giant book collection when libraries are viable.

oooo yeah that’s a good point! And besides, even if they weren’t young adults, I think there’s still value in the genre-just like there is in romance. These are two widely disparaged genres (for reasons I’m sure we can all guess) but I personally love them!

It’s funny though because a lot that they recommend came out a decade ago- they just talk about the same ‘hot’ YA authors who started their series years ago 😂

Hello, young adult here....im exhausted. I tried looking for book recs and its all just YA romance. Can someone please recommend me some youtubers?

​@@cryforhelp7270 Jack Edwards? he is a pretty big booktuber but one of the few that doesn't do genre but is still engaging

@@cryforhelp7270 ShaelinWrites does occasional book review videos. They mostly read litfic (literary fiction).

i wanna add that in gideon the ninth the main characters are based off Māori people, but since it's in a sci-fi setting not on our world, that doesn't really come into play apart from physical descriptions. also, it's a very very trigger heavy book that explores abusive and age gap relationships, child death and imperialism! def would not read it if you're looking for a light fun WLW read, but if you are looking for lighter WLW scifi ill recommend This Is How You Lose The Time War

I want to add a underrated and very cute romance book. It’s not smutty which I prefer and the main characters bond over books and I think it’s very easy and fun to read so

I love blackout!

I LOVE HANI AND ISHUS GUIDE TO DATING

@@Baksvsf pls add it! i wanna get more good book recs

we're not on it, but we have no choice but to listen to it (bc nobody has a headphone jack lol)

same i delated tiktok 2 years ago since it became one big trigger for me and honestly i don’t miss it like i can’t even relate w anyone who use tiktok and knows all of thecurrent trends songs memes etc bc i have no f idea what they are talking about lol feel like i’m almost missing out on adolescence hbut still 🥴 not going back

I’m a younger gen z (17) and I’ve never had tik tok, and i very much relate. Seems like literally everything is happening there and especially since I’m not on any social media (besides yt if that counts) I’m completely unaware of most trends. I feel like it’s better that way though sometimes bc microtrends and all that. Seems like whatever the hot new thing is changes on the weekly, and everyone wants it right then and there. It’s also just kinda harrowing how attached a lot of people are to their phones now and i don’t want to go back to when i would spend most of my day bouncing between Instagram and discord and KZfaq without ever doing anything that made me happy

@@Alice-gr1kb Exactly! So much time spent being barely entertained just for the kick of dopamine, without actually doing anything that makes me feel fulfilled...

@@majalaja799 yeah as you should, I'm not even on "surface-Tok" like the stuff you see when you first get on, tiktok is a cesspool. I couldn't even count the amount of times I've seen people talk about Self harm, or yk Suidice. abuse, child abuse, CSA, SA, r@pe, depression, severe anxiety, Proshipping. (if yk yk) though from what i've heard it's basically toxic Tumblr 2. (I wasn't around for toxic tumblr, but on GOD THE STUFF YOU HEAR) which makes sense, as the young millennials grow up. the new Gen Z fill the niche yk? makes sense, but for you this is all new horrible cesspool stuff. when that's just how social media rolls for some reason. it's a cycle so far I've seen, you go from "fandom obsessed" to "mellowed out adult" in your teens, or whatever suits you. but it's really a cycle, and it all comes from bullying and then healing. so idk, that's my thoughts.

yeah lol the only time i really ever see anything abt coho is when she releases a new book and book fans freak out for like 3 days

yes and no. when u are just starting in booktok the majority of the recommendations are hoover or books that follow the same ‘formula’.

Totally! I literally never see coho on my fyp. All the drama and weird trends I hear about is from ppl on KZfaq talking about it. I guess I must be doing a good job of curating my page 🤷‍♀️

see, that is so disrespectful to the artist but also the real fans. i think, if anyone is going to a concert of an artist they recently got into, they should have the decency to learn the lyrics and songs, so they don’t collectively ruin a concert experience for other fans.

i just left a comment about how i feel about Ghost going Viral. I know going viral is good for the bands and it helps them reach out to new audiences, it just felt… really bad to me. being a metalhead in the bible belt isn’t a very fun experience. i’ve been bullied for liking Ghost specifically because of its satanic themes. Seeing people walk around with Seven Inches of Satanic Panic shirts after my dad burned all of my Ghost merchandise felt like a slap in the face.

It's also like...people in the punk movement are sometimes just slapping on the stereotypical outfit aesthetic and not even understanding the history or listening to the music. Just like..we're here for the jams, the anti-fascism, and the big queer and poc scene...right guys? Not just putting safety pins on a black skirt .

Well said

It already has

Thank you new bestie ❤️

@@Shanspeare oh lord have mercy I just noticed I misspelled your name!!! Sorry bestie I'm high as a kite

Thank you sm 😭😭❤️❤️

not me having 2 (couldn’t get past page five in ugly love and then I have verity, which was a roller coaster) 💀

sameee

agreed!

❤❤❤❤

Thank you endlessly ❤

Where’s ur music I’m also an artist who tryna collab more

Nooo! I'm 4th.

let’s gooooo!!!!

Yes omg! All the guys from her books are huge red flags and for me to see young girls and grown adults who skipped their wattpad phase wanting to have a relationship with guys like these is terrifying.

I think the issue here is that, the “teens” are actually adults, which makes this topic even more frustrating Because these adults, who should already at this point of their lives recognize that marginalized groups and various backgrounds have contributed fantastic works in our world, and has created ways to help it reach to everyone(or at the very least recognize they have the ability to provide these sources) just ignore all of that

I think the other thing is that a lot of these takes are made by privileged people that don’t actually have trouble accessing to these stories And it takes away focus of others that really do have trouble accessing to the material

So here's the thing I feel about the elitist vs anti-intellectualism debate- while on every side of it you're going to have large amounts of people essentially throwing around buzzwords to defend an emotional reaction they have to feeling called out (same in all internety debates) the idea that theres some great divide between the institutional intellectuals and the ordinary, un-prentious folk is built on a lot of fallacies. Art and education about art is more wildly accessible and easier to create than any other time in history. If you're online having debates about art under a video talking about art, you're already proving that you're in a position to begin to engage in critical readings and criticism of art. The key word is begin- comprehension and criticism are skills. Like any skill, you need to work on them. That does NOT mean paroting established critics - and I'm not just talking about some college professors or snobby article, I'm also talking about twitter hot takes and you tube videos- both can be equally good or bad. It means practising, like any other skill- reading a lot, engaging a lot, and often stopping yourself from making knee jerk reactions. If you like something or dislike something you have to understand why. If other people like or dislike something, you have to try to understand why. It's not about studying one text in isolation, it's about context- within the works medium, genre, cultural and temporal origin, and outside it, and also with real life. If you're legitimately intrested in this stuff, theres not a whole lot stopping you assuming you have any free time and an internet connection- yes obviously free time is often a luxury but plenty of people have a wealth of free time (and a wealth of everything else) and still manage to be anti-intellectual. If you're NOT intrested in it enough to bother, that's also fine. No ones obliged to, or can, take part in any hobby or career or learn every skill because that's not how life works. But you cant pretend you're as good or better at a skill that you havnt practised as someone who has- your personal emotional response and opinions are valid, but that's all they are- personal opinions.

Not really. The music industry has been going down since 2015. However, a lot of things factor into this such as: streaming, getting rid of the training system, companies wanting to make quick money and the public culture of consuming music has changed just to name a few. TikTok is just another thing adding to another an ongoing problem.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. As someone raised in the same generation with internet always available, these are problems that a lot of us struggle with. And the way to fight that shrinking attention span is to do things like you are saying, to watch long form videos, to listen to entire albums. It is something that I do attempt to do as someone who appreciates art as a whole, and especially music, and it is a struggle sometimes but it's worth it.

TRUE

Period

you can appreciate haiku poetry and not be a weird weeb

@@nicoleonlysometimes824 idk sounds like something a weird weeb would say

@@emilyonizuka4698 I can assure you that a weird weeb most likely doesn't even know what haiku is lol.

@@m00nl1ghtj3w3l they literally teach it to you in second grade but ok

@@emilyonizuka4698 idk where you live but I've never learned abt it in school, but ok.

would it be pretentious to say it’s underrated? Lol I loved it so much when I was younger!!! 😭❤️

@@Shanspeare Younger?! Didn’t it come out five years ago (says the 40+ year old Auntie)? Lol But yes, I would agree it’s underrated.

@@janella9215 tldr: a colleen hoover fan posted a tiktok, the site(and video) became viral, because of the virality, the site was shutdown by the usa government

They WHAT???

@@candy-ninja one of her fans posted how to get her books for free. Someone send it to colleen hoover and she alerted the fbi and they took it down

I hope so, too! Thank you ❤