One thing about me is that I have been obsessed with books for a while now. Not just as in reading books, but collecting them, spending endless time at bookstores, and speaking about books. Therefore, it was inevitable for me not to fall into the “book(in)stagram/book(Tik)tok/book(you)tube” side of social media. When I first started using Instagram around 2016-2017 my feed was filled with those contents and I was obsessively looking at bookstagrams and making reading lists from their recommendations. Back then there was no reels and the posts were solely based on their quality so when someone wrote a long caption that even continued in the comments, I ended up reading them. Those posts were not in the form of easily consumable content, and are a having hard time surviving in this age of media because no one has the time to read those never-ending captions anymore and rather prefers to see short videos. My obsession with bookstagram accounts took a turn when I decided to open one myself and give people book recommendations just like those accounts who were helping me find my next favourite read. This decision of mine changed my whole reading habit and the way I perceived reading.
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When you start spending time on bookstagram, it is inevitable for you not to start using Goodreads as well which is an app to track your readings, create “shelves” to categorize books you want to read according to genre, and write/read book reviews. Every year, it also gives you the option to set a reading goal for yourself. Every year most of the bookstagrammers share their reading goals on their stories which most of the time varies from 10-200. Yes, 200 books in a year. At first, it seemed like a fun challenge to read more, but over time it kind of started to become an insecurity. Some people were reading hundreds of books in a year, and I was there with a 10. Surely, I had to do something and read more. The quality did not matter the quantity was the important part. It is the same situation with being a social media user. It does not matter if you spend quality time on social media, you just consume endless content. When we talk about insecurities that social media brings and unachievable goals, we usually just think of body images and the Jenners-Kardashians, but this venom is spread to every part of social media.
Bookstagrams are heavily curated accounts and almost everyone owns pretty covers and book-related merch. Soon I started to realize that there was also pressure in that aspect. Taking photos with shiny brand-new hardbacks looked obviously prettier, but was it really necessary? Did I need to buy that special edition cover of a book I have read before? I feel like over time this pressure got less, but it was still kind of there. As you see pretty privilege is a thing among books as well. Apparently, they also radiate some sort of aesthetics and are usually categorized. There are also so many rules on how to read. To some annotating is a crime and one should not write on books, to others annotating and drawing on books is an aesthetic. Then there is the whole argument of “to break the spine, or not to break the spine?” As if the reading goals were not enough pressure, you are also faced with judgment on your reading habits.
When I said “I do not enjoy reading anymore” it was not true because I still do, but I cannot deny that I feel the pressure of not reading enough, or not reading enough books from a genre. People have pretty bookshelves. I do not. People read 10 books a month. I do not. All these affects the way I read and put on these insecurities of not being enough when the whole topic is just about something that should be enjoyed. Everyone has different lifestyles, reading habits, pace and it feels ridiculous comparing them to a subjective thing such as reading. The scary thing is that if we even have this constant comparison in reading, will this cycle in media ever end?
I feel like the online space was meant to create community and solidarity for people with similar interests, but now often just creates competition and a feeling of comparison. It seems as if everything except the content of the books themselves are important: their covers, quantities and how social-media worthy they are. I use GoodReads but really just to see what my friends might be reading and remember what I read once the year is up.
I understand so well what you are saying. Reading books was a nice offline activity for me for quite some time, but then I stumbled upon those book accounts (mostly bookstagram for me) and ended up looking at brightly colored fast videos about books more time than actually reading a book. I almost have this theory that everything that every activity that is brought to a social medium becomes qualitatively worse than it was before.
I really enjoyed this blog as I heavily relate to the pressure of having to read all the new and popular books/authors. In fact, I am currently in a 3-month reading slump because every time I begin a new book, I only think about all the other books I could (or should) be reading, which inevitably makes me not want to read. However, at the same time, I owe a lot to the online book communities because otherwise, I would’ve never branched out of my 13-year-old genre taste, and I would’ve never found the ambition to read from authors all over the world. I still trying to find a solution to this problem, maybe I should stop buying more books before I finish what I already have.