#booktok buffoonery

[timetravellingkitty]

Thought you'd like this

💀💀

[chutzpahhooplah]

A British woman writing a Dark Romance about a Texas Klan """""""prince"""""""" and a Mexican """cartel princess""" falling in love wasn't on my 2023 booktok buffoonery bingo card, but I'm absolutely unsurprised by the insanely tonedeaf defenses her stans are dropping 😑😑 "Why can't you triggered poc be more like Candice Owens" coupled with them refusing to engage with how fucked up it is to use an actual hate group in their mediocre smut books tells me all I need to know

Cindy was right-- there IS a white supremacy problem in the romance genre

[takeshitakyuuto]

i keep talking about booktok despite not even having a tioktok because i hang around bookish sides of the internet but i think most of the pushback regarding booktok really just boils down to romance, with the main issue being that booktok has started treating books from every genre as if they were romances. i dont even mean that in a shipping way, i mean take tropes for example. it makes sense to market a romance book by tropes because there are certain things that people like and want to see in their romances. after all, the reader knows for the most part what they're getting into without a synopsis. two characters meet, fall in love, third act breakup, happy ending. it's variations on a theme, so it makes sense to know just what kind of tropes are in there to see how well it plays to your tastes.

if you gave a science fiction book that kind of treatment, however, that's ridiculous. absolute buffoonery. there's a plot that needs to be moved along and intrigue outside of the relationship between two characters. of course a scifi type book can have tropes just as they can have romances but that's probably not the main reason why a reader is picking up that book, so it's not as important to market the tropes being used and frankly just feels silly.

now, whether this is actually true or not, the pushback regarding booktok relies on the assumption that booktok is treating all books, regardless of interior content and regardless of actual genre, as one would with a romance. the plot is less important, it's all about the tropes, it's all about the buzzwords because it's fast engagement for people who want to read but wait an actual plot summary is too many words. short form content doesn't do well with plot summaries, it's easier to just list things it has in common with other pieces of media rather than what sets it apart and makes it distinct

[timetravellingkitty]

hi i need to scar someone else

you are a menace to society who should not be let out of the house lest you assail yet another poor innocent soul

[timetravellingkitty]

bookstagram only promotes real literature

Why am I here just to suffer

[timetravellingkitty]

hi reva hru

hi adrienne how are you I'm having sindhi curry for lunch today and I could not be happier really nothing could ruin my appetite whatsoever