#and I had to be like

[moonlitlex]

a really strange side effect of this post has been every once in a while i get an anon or something where someone is explaining the way they annotate to me in grave detail. and it's exactly the kind of thing i'm criticizing in this post. and then they end it with "but does that make sense? :)" i'm not sure what exactly the objective is with these asks but i have two hypotheses

you think you can sell me on the merits of braindead annotation by explaining why you think it's a good idea to underline entire pages of text and have 0 insights. this is not going to happen. i'm a literature graduate and i don't see the value in annotating a book unless it's specifically helping you further analysis. i'm not going to change my mind on this just because you wrote an explanation for why YOU do it and sent it to me. because i disagree with you about the fundamental purpose of annotation.

you think you can get my approval on your annotations if you make your case well enough. i get it's kind of pompous of me to assume random internet weirdos want my approval on what they do with their books, but the tone of these messages is very much attempting to be persuasive and it would also not be the first time someone i've never spoken to before personally contacts me to take issue with something i said that doesn't have to affect them at all. if this is what your objective is, you are wasting your fucking time AND mine. i'm not stopping you from doing dumb shit to your own books. you can do whatever you want. if you have a spine, a complete stranger's opinion on annotation should not affect you at all. like not even a little bit.

and like. i made this post because i think this booktok annotation style is stupid and a waste of time and an attempt to posture as intellectual without actually engaging with the text deeper than surface level. and i still think that.

when i see these (don't find and go after any of these people obviously):

i see no attempt to actually engage with the book. the focus is on aesthetics, on colours, on tabbing, on putting little doodles in the book. this is not annotation. this is "drawing in a book". and that's fine, if you want to do that. but it's not actually forcing you to engage with the text and think about it if all you're doing is taking out your pen or assortment of highlighters and underlining every few lines.

i'm not going to go as far as to say this is anti-intellectualism, because there are at least some people who do this is who understand this is an aesthetic pursuit, not an intellectual one (and again, this is fine, i love when things look pretty too). the thing is, it's a lot of people who don't think that way as well. i got these examples off of google but every time i've had the misfortune of getting onto booktok or bookstagram or book-youtube shorts, i've seen dozens if not hundreds of people doing this and unironically thinking they've done some great analysis of a book. i have literally run into someone who annotated like this in my actual literature classes in my actual university before (and yes, having a discussion with her was as headache inducing as you imagine). i was personally friends with someone like this. there are people who think this bland aesthetic bullshit and first-reaction slop is real annotation.

and what bothers me so much about it is they are genuinely missing out on the benefits that proper annotation brings to your reading experience and overall development of critical thinking skills. there are several books i read for fun (99% of the time i don't annotate when i read recreationally) that i later read for class and had to annotate. that first read-through alone completely changed the way i saw those books. there are a few books i read for multiple classes, multiple years apart. and i have multiple copies of them that are annotated at different points in time. and both times i had very different understandings of the book. i could read my high school copy of the handmaid's tale and and see where my juvenile understanding of social issues was leading to a juvenile reading of the book. by using this aesthetic-based style of annotation, you are robbing yourself of the benefits of annotation. you could actually form a deeper understanding of the text. you could ACTUALLY come out of that book understanding tiny, innocuous word choices. you could actually come out of it with a better understanding of literature, of the author, of the genre as a whole, of the craft of writing. but you're too busy writing "wow!" in the margins to do any of the thinking annotation is designed to help you do.

also some of you just want to be scrapbookers just start a scrapbook you don't need to do this in a novel

i'm not like. an annotation style elitist. but genuinely the way some of these booktokers annotate their videos confounds me.

you'll see someone with extremely detailed annotations with like 500 sticky tabs in the whole book and it makes you think wow there's so much going on here. and then the annotations are just OMG! and they've highlighted 90% of the book and they've underlined everything. everything they write are just various reactions like omg! cute! wow! i gasped! hot! etc.

it just screams "i want my book to look like a serious reader owns it" but they straight up just don't understand the purpose of annotating. i don't even understand the use case for this type of annotation because like... are you really not going to know it was a cute scene on a reread unless you highlight the entire 5 pages? is this something you need to draw attention to?

it's just like. wild. to see these books with every single free space covered in annotations. the way someone writing a thesis about that book would do. but then you look at the content of the annotations and it is confusingly just someone's immediate reactions to what they've read.

which is like. it's good. that's definitely a part of annotating. but annotation is a tool to understand and analyze a text. and this is not what is going on.

and what is MORE confounding is when people who annotate like this SELL THEIR ANNOTATED BOOKS???? FOR MONEY??? THAT PEOPLE BUY ON PURPOSE????

GIRL LISTEN TO ME YOU DO NOT NEED SOME OTHER RANDOM BITCH SCRIBBLING HER FIRST REACTION ALL OVER A BOOK WHY DO PEOPLE BUY THESE WHAT THE FUCK

[arianaderalte]

Told a student 'I don't know everything' in the context of why he can explain things to me in his paper and he was like. "I don't know. You seem to know everything. Sometimes someone brings up a topic and I'm like surely she won't know this and then you do or you read a book on it for fun."

And I kinda launched into the history of Dracula the other day without any prep and I really did read a book on syphilis for fun so I guess that's on me 😅

[spookytunes]

“omg wow you’ve never dated someone? wow you must really be focusing on yourself and -” NO. NO I AM ACTIVELY LOSING IT. IM GOING TO GO BACK TO CRYING ABOUT HUMAN CONNECTION BUT THANK YOU FOR THAT.

[unashamedly-enthusiastic]

Tried to get a photo of my daughter in her world book day costume, but it was just as the Bluey space episode was finishing and she turned round to me like

[ponyoinbankstown]

I love when I get visitors at work, it’s like the ultimate crossover. My sister-in-law and her nephew came in and I fucking loved it, my coworkers were absolutely baffled as to why I was suddenly so chatty and why I kept giving this random toddler marshmallows.

[siflshonen]

The thing about watching Frieren is that instead of reflecting and thinking to myself about the folks in my life I took for granted until it was too late and aspiring to change, I realize that, unfortunately, I may have been taken for granted by a whole bunch of immature and self-centered moe elves.

[erigold13261]

Hanami my beloved, become the girlfriend to an idiot robot and girlfriend-in-law to a smoke filled bassist whose style has barely changed in 10 years!

(just one more robot in the trio to draw with a partner! (either life partner or romantic partner, I don't know yet lol)

[revenantghost]

[soloh]

I hate when I say things like "oh I want an ipod classic but with bluetooth so I can use wireless headphones" and some peanut comes in and replies with "so a smartphone with spotify?" No. I want a 160GB+ rectangular monstrosity where I can download every version of every song I want to it and it does nothing except play music and I don't need a data connection and don't have to pay a subscription to not have ads and don't have popups suggesting terrible AI playlists all over the menus.

Gimme the clicky wheel and song titles like "My Chemical Romance- The Black Parade- Blood (Bonus Track)- secret track- album rip- high quality"

[wacklemons]

lets scream with mama

TERFS STOP INTERACTING WITH THIS POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DONT LIKE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF YOU DONT RESPECT TRANS WOMEN GET OFF MY BLOG!!!!!! PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!!

[darklight-owl]

Uh oh! You are now a were-animal! This means you become a human-sized animal hybrid with uncontrollable bloodlust every night!

Spin this wheel to get your species

[sadgirlautumn]

“kids spend too much time on their devices” well what else are they supposed to do? there’s no corner shops with pinball machines in them on every corner anymore. there’s no malls or stores in small towns for teens to hang out in without being suspected of shoplifting or kicked out for loitering. sidewalks are too broken for them to ride their bikes and there’s no bike lane in the street to make it safe for them. i just don’t understand where they expect these kids to go when they keep taking places away from them. and yes having no safe public places for them is what leads a lot of teens into addiction if they end up at a place where people aren’t truly looking out for them.

[beholdthemem]

My fellow bitches under 5'5. Whatever the money, do not take a job working at a middle school. A fellow adult tried to put me in detention last month and would NOT give up until I showed her my badge proving Yes, The School Hired Me To Work Here. It's not meant for people our height.

[veliseraptor]

the weird schrödinger's emotion that is "that character death was narratively satisfying and emotionally impactful and ultimately the best way to handle their character arc" simultaneously with "noooo but I wanted them to live :( :( :("

[tawnysoup]

Found my fav Slay the Princess route recently. Dragon my beloved. Your horrifying beak mouth was an impossible-to-refuse lip syncing challenge 💖

Shoutouts to @blacktabbygames for making such a cool game!